little separations and divisions and resolvedly knit our selves together in an entire affection one to another that by this all men may know that we are Christs Disciples because we love one another and are ready to shew all mutual respects of Christian love and observance to each other upon all occasion loving as Brethren As likewise we shall in all meekness of spirit lovingly converse with and kindly affectionate to and respectful towards all our Fathers and Brethren in their places living without offence and blameless 14. We mourn but not as men without hope that our gracious God will find out a way to have mercy upon us and to chear up his countenance towards all his Chosen Ones wiping as that holy Bishop said all tears from their eyes and all spots from their faces and answering the holy desires of their hearts in shewing them Sion in perfect beauty and that not by overturning any part of the Government but by opening our hearts to see our errours and close one with another by turning the heart of the Father towards the Child and of the Child towards the Father least God come and smite the earth with dicurse 15. In the mean time we possess our Souls in patience and we keep silence before God waiting upon him that hideth his face from Jacob for his Spirit of love unity peace and concord resolving to continue thus doing till we receive an answer from heaven 16. It s true there are many of us whose bodies will not bear that austerity of fasting and humiliation which our cause may require yet they that cannot fast do pray and they that cannot spare a day in seven can spare an hour in twelve and make up the rest in frequent and servent ejaculations 17. Whereas some have pretended that we set up a Government within a Government and that we have an Authority among our selves we must let the world know we are all equal and we have no formality or Ceremony among us but a free and voluntary entrance left open for all comers into this strict course of Christian Austerity without any noyse without the required notice of any but God and their own conscience that all may well know and see that here is no design than meerly Spiritual aiming at nothing but Religious Transactions between God and our own Souls and consisting in the performance of the unquestionable exercises of Piety and holy Devotion 18. Since we have been uncapable of speaking to the people the things that are of everlasting concernment we have recommended to them the writings of good men pious and peaceable who being dead yet speak and poor men we know may read a good book when they cannot hear a good man and we our selves teach them from house to house with tears day and night as the Apostles did leaving with them such books as Mr. Baxters Call his Now or Never his Directions for Peace of Conscience his Saints Everlasting Rest Mr Bolton Dr. Sibbs Mr. Perkins Mr. Dod and Dr. Preston 19. We settle mens judgements upon most firm and solid principles leading to peace and holiness leading them through that safe and middle way that is equally distant from all the extremes men have run into in their hearts about some points of Religion as particularly in the points now in difference among us we teach our people that though we cannot conform to the Church without sin yet they cannot separate from it without sin we cannot administer according to the prescribed form but we and they can hear according to it we must joyn with the Church in our duties though we are not guilty of her infirmities we teach them that it is one thing to hold communion with a Church that is under some miscarriages and another thing to act those miscarriages what we chiefly insist on are things much comporting and agreeing with the spirit of the Scriptures and things that are most proper to build men up in their most holy Faith and to promote the power of godliness in their hearts and lives 20. It s true we desire to settle our peoples hearts upon all occasions but always offering them such things as tend to peace and quietness and godliness of living dealing as faithfully with them as those who must give an account and if therefore we have any interest with them we improve for God our Soveraign and the Church of Christ for whose distressed members we sometimes solicit them with success and find them willing above their strength and ability and we hope the Lord will not forget their work and labour of love and yet we desire not to wrong any Minister in his place for indeed we stated the point of Ministers maintenance upon such grounds that we are perswaded no sober Christian with whom we have any interest will withdraw any thing that is due from any man that labours in the Word and Doctrine and watches for their Souls And though we are otherwise represented yet our great endeavour is by a discreet interposition to allay and fix the people to a due temperament gently guiding some mens well-meaning zeal by such rules of moderation as are best to restore and preserve the health and peace of this Church and Kingdome much pleasing our selves in that good and firm understanding which would thence grow between his most Excellent Majesty and his good people all jealousies being laid aside our own and our Posterities Interest lay before us many strong obligations to seek and preserve the peace and welfare of the Land of our Nativity the offence which some mens dangerous medling and over-busie interpositions have contracted upon our profession we have resolved to expiate by such moderations for the future as might not only check the excesses of our practise but of our Opinions too no men having a greater kindness for peace and settlement preserved in truth unity and order then our selves whom it most concerns whether we consider our consciences callings or interests as knowing that nothing undermines to much in our Authority and Calling as those dangerous dissentions wherein the people learn to shake off both 21. It is true we cannot own that Episcopacy now established so as to undertake it our selves yet we would submit to it as to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether to the King as Supreme or to those who are sent by him whose great charges and care is like enough to betray them to some errours and many enemies whereof they canno but contract good store while so eminent and so active they provoke that envy which improved to a popular odium is able to overcast the highest Merit and Integrity wherefore the Bishops have our prayers pity and assistance and although we cannot in our judgement approve all that they do driven it may be rather by the temper of the people and unhappiness of this age then 〈◊〉 their own disposition to any height and rigour of action yet we allow not that their persons
or Government should be exposed to the malapartness of the loose and irreverent multitude who take a bold liberty to despise Dominions and to speak evil of Dignities whereas we have always taught that men should cheerfully submit to the Authority when they cannot in Conscience allow all the practises of those that are over them in the Lord Indeed we never met with a more perplexed conjuncture of affairs then the late business of Bishops when between our unsatisfiedness in Conscience under that Government and the woful necessity if we shaked off that of being under none we run head long to that which we thought then expedient rather then we should suffer some inconvenience under that which well regulated we must always approve as just preferring the humour of some particular men before the reason of the Christian World Well experience hath taught us that we had better live where nothing is lawful then where all things are so that Anarchy is the greatest oppression licentiousness the greatest grievance and an unbounded liberty the greatest slavery 22. Indeed we allow it for weaker Christians who have not their hearts enlarged with an ability to express their own wants and desires both lawful and convenient to help themselves in prayer the use of a prescribed form wherein they may have their own case and condition more pithily and affectionately then they are able to express it themselves and if the use of such a form do prove a means to warm the affections and enkindle their grace we looking not upon it as any quenching of the Spirit it being not in our apprehension essential to the nature of prayer that it be either read or rehearsed by memory or by immediate suggestion but rather that it be delivered out of the book or out of the heart with understanding and suitable affections with humility and confidence and an inward sense of our condition nor is there any great difference betwixt repeating by memory and reading out of a book the memory being but a kind of invisible book for the register of our thoughts though in this case it should be especially remembred that in the use of such prescript forms to which a man hath been accustomed he ought to be narrowly watchful over his own heart for fear of that lip-service and formality which in such cases we are more especially exposed unto but yet for any one so to fit and satisfie himself with his Prayer-book as to go no further this were still to remain in his Infancy and never grow in grace or gifts and withall it s very hard for a man to find a prescribed form that may suit with our several emergencies and therefore indeed we do not tye our selves so precisely to any particular form of words though of our own composing and fitted to our condition but that we may either add or alter according as our emergent occasion or some new affection suggested shall require Sometimes we feel our hearts more warm our desires more vigorous and our expressions more copious and ready And in this case we suffer not our selves to be streightened or confined to any form but take our liberty to expatiate more freely according as we find our inward inâ—argements 23. Amongst all the stratagems of Satan whereby he would undermine Religion and pervert the souls of men though there cannot be any more unreasonable yet there was never any more unhappily successful then the raising and cherishing fears and jealousies in the world that Religion in the height and exaltation of it is an Enemy to Government and that to be a through-paced a sincere and zealous Christian is to be dangerous to the State We therefore as Ministers of this Religion are bold in the evidence truth of the Gospel to say that whatever the men of the world judge of us we profess Christian Religion in so harmless and innocent a way that we have studied and endeavoured to state the Rights of Civil Government upon the clearest and firmest principles to secure them by the most powerful obligation and to urge them upon men by the most efficacious motives of rewards and punishments in the world And we profess sincerely that we look upon our late miscarriages as most unhappy scandals to our Religion and those ingaged in them so for us to persist still as Enemies to the Cross of Christ and men born to bring our holy Christian profession into jealousie suspition and disgrace with the powers of the earth and to stir up the Kings of the earth to stand up and the Rulers to take counsel together against the Lord and against his Christ that they should break their bonds in sunder and cast their cords from them We are so sensible of the original and institution of Government of the end and use of it in respect of good and evil men and thereof the necessity of subjection for Conscience sake and of the sin and danger of resisting an Ordinance of God considering that they who resist privately or openly by word or deed resist to their own damnation that we cannot allow any person upon any pretence whatsoever in any manner whatsoever to vilifie despise murmure against disparage undermine or oppose lawful Authority that is set over him we say upon any pretence whatsoever either 1. In respect of the person governing as Errour Heresie Idolatry harsh Administration or the like in which cases the servants of God in all Ages had no other remedy but patience and prayer and crying mightily to the Lord 1 Sam 8. 9 11 12 18. as they did under Tiberius Caligula Claudius and Nero those Monsters of mankind Or 2. In respect of the persons governed be they never so holy seeing best of men yea God and Man in this case obeyed unto the death 3. In respect of any causes whatsoever though it be Religion whereof we conceive the Magistrate ought to have the greatest care so that we are perswaded in our Consciences that to them who have imbraced Christianity in the true and genuine spirit of it as we hope we have all done and to those who without vile affections and carnal interests shall apply themselves to know the mind of God delivered in Scripture As we hope we do with peaceable submission and patience is a clear duty under any Government so that though the Spirit of the Ruler be stirred against them yet they cannot stir out of their place 24. And as we are thus justly affected to Soveraignty as knowing by whom the powers are ordained as we dare not curse the King in our heart or revile the Ruler of the people much lesse slander the footsteps of Gods Anointed as we submit for conscience sake to every Ordinance of God yea to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake not daring to disobey in regard of the Oath of God and pay custome where custome and tribute where tribute So indeed whatever apprehensions men have of us abroad in the world we desire to fill
much as any men and so wish withall that we did close so unanimously in one common subjection that there were no note of distinction left and no quarrel remain but this one viz. who should be most Loyal and faithful we would have our fellow Subjects live as strictly and as warily as we do and they will see the very money that is spent upon their vanities would procure them places as well as ours does us and as for such of them as the iniquity of the times or their own faults have made poor our very excesses would support them and what we throw away idly would relieve them we are ready to joyn in any expedient that may accommodate all grievances that if it be possible we may have no more complaining in our streets In a word those that are well inclined on all sides are ready to agree but that there are some crafty and subtle men on both sides that would keep our distances and animosities to serve their private ends which they propose sometimes to themselves out of the publick ruine aggravating all things with the most odious circumstances and endeavouring to inflame the vulgar to a temper uncapable of restraint or Government that now we are at such a distance we look upon it as no lesse a providence that God keeps the people within the bound of Law and the reverence of Authority then that he keeps the Sea within its channel and the waters within their banks And thus indeed since our seclusion have we endeavoured to approve our selves Gods faithful Children and Servants by honour and dishonour by evil report and good report as deceivers and yet true 29. The great discourse of the Nation at this time is their Taxations from which some would perswade the world we under our present discontent make some advantage in reference to which our sense hath been always this 1. That all our payments are our advantage we allow his Majesty a part of our Estate to secure the whole we support his Government he protects our lives and estates from that rage and rapine which in a few daies may destroy the industry of many years we teach men constantly not to be so impertinent as to complain of any common charge or burthen which seems necessary to the present policy under which we may have leave to live peaceable and quiet lives in all godliness and honesty no safety to us without the restraint of other mens lust and violence and no restraint without a Government that is able to raise a constant guard to every man that would live securely under his own Vine and under his own Fig-tree We know that there are four pillars of Government and Order 1. Religion that setleth the heart of men 2. Justice that ordereth their lives 3. Counsel that may apply the Rules of Justice and Religion to particular occasions 4. Treasure which last is so necessary that without it Officers will be corrupted Counsels betrayed Armies ill paid and disciplined Trade obstructed and a poor Nation will lye open to the dangerous attempts of an untoward people at home and the unneighbourly encroachments of potent Princes abroad 2. All payments are of our own imposing by our consent in Parliament 3. Our late miscarriages occasion our present grievances 4. Yet we are not now under the eighth part of former payments We tell our people that our King affords us Christian protection and therefore we may very well allow him dutiful assistance by our lives estates and prayers 30. Here we thought to have concluded but that there remains two particulars more whereof we think fit to give an account and then we shall set a period to this importunity The first is this viz. Why we have been so importunate both a little before the 24 of August and ever since against Popery Ans It s true that we had verily thought Popery had rendred it self justly odious by its own abominations in doctrine worship and bloudy slaughters and that in these daies of light and knowledge to imagine a possibility of its return upon the Protestant Churches which yet hath been the Opinion of divers eminent for Learning and Godliness among us was groundless fear where no fear was yet really considering 1. The vast numbers of Popish Emissaries Priests and Jesuites that swarm among us English Colledges as we are certified being much emptied by the reason of multitudes sent hither whose ways are subtil and close whose industry is indefatigable whose influence and efficacy upon all sorts of persons is powerful whose support from abroad is past finding out 2. The printing and vending so many English Popish books which considering the Apostasie of some the indifference of others distracted by our unhappy divisions cannot speak less then a great inclination to a revolt to Popery 3. The toleration of Popery publickly by them pleaded for 4. The Jesuites designs and models of reducing England to Romes obedience followed and promoted by many deluded Protestants 5. The union of forreign Popish power which how soon the Court of Rome being ever vigilant to improve such occasions for the propagation of its own greatness may make use of for the extirpation of the Protestant Religion we need not divine 6. The whole body of Popery published by Sectaries especially Quakers upon these considerations we were awakened to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints having not the least thought of any dangerous intimations to the people as if our Governours or Government both which we think in our consciences clear in that matter had any inclinations for or were to give any countenance to that Mystery of Iniquity And it was therefore that we recommend to our beloved Congregations 1. The love of the truth in sincerity 2. Serious endeavours to heal the sad breaches and divisions which are among us 3. To read good books 4. To make Conscience of all Family duties 5. To attend on publick Ordinances 6. To be well grounded in the principles of Religion and to watch over their hearts 2. It was given out that we the dissembling Party had made an accommodation among our selves the naked truth whereof is this indeed we have endeavoured to follow the things that make for peace which we have reduced to these heads following 1. Peace with God if our ways please the Lord our Enemies will be at peace with us 1. Of Nature in one common grace wrought in us by one Spirit if we had all one new Nature we should have all one mind 2. Of Judgement 1. In principles of Doctrine which we draw up which are 1. Few 2. Plain 3. Weighty 4. Clear 5. Subservient to godliness 6. Universally professed 2. Principles of obedience of Worship of government contained in the ten Commandments the Lords Prayer the Belief and the Scripture 3. Of affections one heart where there cannot be one mind kindly affectionate one to another loving as Brethren 4. Of ends they that agree in the end will in time