should be confuted as he that denies a God or snow to be white Argumento baculino non Aristotelico It would be too tedious for me to traverse the whole matter from the beginning I shall therefore give you but one example for all the proceedings being all alike I pray what was the reason that the reverend Prelare John Williams Lord Bishop of Lincoln with as many Bishops as durst joyn with him at least twelve in number drew up a Solemn Protestation against the Violence that was offered to those eminent Clergy-men that were called by His Majesties Writ to serve in the Upper-House who durst not come thither for fear of being murthered by popular tumults raised against them He saith The Doctor was not chosen What right Doctor Gauden had to sit there by Election I am not able to say but this I may say that he and such well-affected persons to the Government of the Church of England had more right to sit there than many that did who sate onely to stir up Contentions in Church and State to uphold Factions and overthrow the best Governments formerly setled by the Laws of the Land such as no other part of the world is able to parallel had he not reason then taking the Denomination synechdochically from the greater and not the better part who were but few in number in respect of the other to call it a Sequatious Assembly A grand Inquest c. as you say And had he not cause enough to desire to sit there that he might by his judicious advice help those that were too few to stop the fury of the Presbyterians against the Bishops He quarrels with him about being Parson of the Deanery of Bocking in Essex worth 4 or 500 pound per Annùm who to his shame and little honor to those employed him is non resident from it and preacheth at the Temple If his Parsonage had been better worth though I can hardly believe you that it is worth so much it is like he well deserved it for those who preach at the Temple must be men of more then ordinary gifts it is not fit for such who have but mean parts to attempt to teach the learned Judges and Lawyers of the Land who know as much as most men can instruct them But for Essex was chosen Mr. Stephen Marshal of Finchingfield I have heard that Finchingfield is a great Benefice and I cannot tell whether it be not as good as Bocking But why might not Doctor Gauden as well be non-resident as Mr. Stephen Marshal and preach in London and was so long absent from his Parish that they petitioned the Parliament against him that he might either live there with them or leave them to choose another But they could get no other answer from the Parliament but they had left him to his choice and had the times continued he would have stayed upon that choice for ought I know until the day of his death What you say of D. B. his second Edition of the Tract of Sacriledge which you think cannot be answered I say it is not my business now to reply to it but I believe that if Doctor Gauden hath promised to confute it he will be no worse than his word 2. Others having right to sit were not admitted by Popular Faction c. Is a most gross and malicious untruth For amongst those were chosen and summoned to fit in that Assembly what say you to Dr. Richard Love nay what say you to Mr. Christopher Love I think he sat in the Assembly too who suffered him to be beheaded at Tower Hill for endeavoring to return to his Loyalty Dr. Ralph Browning Bishop of Exeter Dr. Samuel Ward Dr. John Harris Dr. Robert Saunderson Mr. Robert Cross James Arch-Bishop of Armagh Dr. Matthias Styles Dr. Featley Dr. Christopher Pashly Dr. John Hacket Dr. Thomas Westfield Bishop of Bristol Dr. Henry Hammon Dr. Richard Oldsworth and many more I suppose you named almost all that were worth naming to give a handsom lustre to the Assembly and indeed there is scarce one of those recorded here but was worth your whole Assembly besides I would you had set down a Catalogue of the rest I think you are ashamed of it but you had enough to out-vote them and they were meetly brought thither to serve your turns or else they should have been laid aside as they were soon after Yet he makes a confusion in setting down their names as if there were no priority and order to be taken notice of then he demands Where can you pick out three Bishops more excellent for learning and piety or other Episcopal Divines more able He is such a Sophister in this way of Questions that no man can give any certain Answer he saith those fourteen were chosen and summoned but whether they all sate there he saith not and for their learning piety and abilities his words seem to imploy something compared amongst themselves but yet relating to the Presbyterial Divines they were not to be compared with them Now he hath another frolick to save himself that he be not taken in a lye For of 121 Divines chosen to sit twenty four never appeared And were none of those you speak of before to be reckoned amongst those twenty four it is certain if some of them did appear they durst not appear often there were enough of them in the first Catalogue to have defended Episcopacy if they might have had liberty against all the Presbyterians in the world It should seem their Arguments wrought so estectually with Mr. Herbert Palmer that he protested against Extirpation of primitive Episcopacy and Doctor Burges was suspended from sitting there by the House of Commons for declaring and protesting against the first Draught of the Covenant brought into the Assembly for that amongst other things there was required an Extirpation of Prelacy without limitation I would fain know to what end men late there in the Assembly was it to do drudgery for the House of Commons that they must not vote freely according to their conscience but they must be suspended for sitting there According to this rule so many carved images might have made up an Assembly of able Divines if Albertus Magnus might have sitted them to be in a possibility to Vote as the Parliament would have them but I doubt you have injured the House of Commons to charge them with such an absurdity and if it be true as you say you might have done well to conceal it now for both your reputations As for these that came not who excluded or deter'd them they were all summoned as appears by the Books of the Assembly who hindred them was it not either because they liked not the Election or the persons chosen to sit with them or that being for the late King durst not sit either for fear of molestation by the Parlinment or displeasure of the King Who can desire more than this man granteth magna est veritas pravalebit
have plaid the wily Foxes as much as ever the Gibeonites did and by pressing their example you seem to commend their policy and cheat they put upon the Israelites You are yet as free as any men amongst us and were so before you entred into your Covenant but I would wish you to take heed that you be not the cause of your own slavery and receive the same reward as the Gibeonites did of their cheating covenant But you still go on If God were so severe for the breach of such a deceitful Covenant between man and man when they that procured it were so base and false as the Doctor would make the late Covenanters how sinful and dangerous must it needs be for men upon any pretence whatsoever c. willfully to break any Covenant with God himself I cannot acquit you for your fraud in contriving the Covenant and as to the performing of it since you say you made it with God whose counsel I believe you never asked you ought to have kept it better for I have shewed already that you have falsified your Vow in every Article of it except in that which was not fawful for you to make or keep to extirpate the best Form in the world of Church-Government What you say farther of Zedekah's breach of covenant with the King of Babylon is against you as is also the Text you cite Eccles 8.2 I counsel thee to keep the Kings Commandment and that in regard of the Oath of God for you had the Kings Commandment and your former Oathes to the King against it so then you have more cause to repent and ask God forgiveness for the great sin you have committed than to go forward in it adding pe severance to your impiety which if you do surely God will never suffer you to pass unpunished neither in this world nor in the world to come Nor will the imposing or not the imposing of it by supream Authority alter the Case for it is observable that in all such National Vows and Covenants neither the supream Magistrates imposition or so much as consant is at all recorded in Scripture or mentioned which shews there is no necessity of either Surely a lye will never choke you you have eaten shame and drank after it See Genes 35.2 Jacob makes a Vow and all that were with him to put away stra ge Gods See King Josiah's Covenant 2 Chron. 34.31 32. And the King made a Covenant and caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Beniamin to stand to it Be assured that all those instances you pick out of the Covenant of Israel in the wilderness Num. 21.2 or of Judah 2 Chr. 15. do either tacitely insinuate or openly express the consent of the supream Magistrate as Moses was visibly employed in the first Covenant as King or Supream I will not cavil about Titles as you do with the Doctor but there was nothing done of publick concernment without him although his Command is not alwayes set down for that were needless If Moses was not Supream I pray who was were they without a Chief Commander He was their General and what can be done in an Army but by the Generals Commission shall the Soldiers covenant to do what they will without him As for your second Example of the Covenant made by Judah 2 Chron. 15.8 9. to that I refer the Reader and as he findes you to deal there so let him trust you another time Nor can any one instance be given throughout the whole Word of God that any Oath or Covenant to which the King or Supream Magistrate would not or did not consent was upon that reason or ground made null and void c. You are still importunate and will not be beaten off I thought enough had been said your high animosity and proud spirit proceeds from Baal-zebub the god of flies for let slies be driven away never so oft they will return to be nibling I know you cannot finde it in Scripture and I think in no History that Subjects did attempt to make a Covenant unless they went to rebel without the Princes consent you are the first example that ever I read of It is no other but blaspheming the Gods to term the late Parliament Bungling Reformers All is blasphemy with you that is not for your Covenant Anathema Maranatha but the late long Parliament were surely no such perfect work-men to destroy one Government that was good and yet never be able to set up any thing but confusion in the place of it and therefore I cannot think it any blasphemy to call your Gods Bungling Reformers Farliaments indeed may advise and consult with whom they think sit in matters of Religion and Ecclesiastical Affaires and vote and pass them before they offer them to the King did not they so in this and did not his then Majesty take them into consideration and condescend to so much as they gave him time to consider of It is wisely spoken They gave him but short time it appears to condescend if he would not do it presently they would afford him no longer time to consider But without declaring against the rest but onely suspending consent till his conscience might be better satisfied And did you ever satisfie his conscience in it you never stayed for that and had he deolared against the rest as it is palpable that he did all that he declared stood for nothing in your account Parliaments indeed may and do well to advise and consult vote and pass things before they offer them to the King but what is that unless it be consirmed by his Royal Consent with Le Roy veult What he did condescend to is lawfully Enacted but all the rest is of no force for it is the Kings Prerogative to consider of it Le Roy sâ—advisera What the King opposed not may imply his tacite consent but if there were then violence or fear upon him as at that time that he must do it velens nolens as King Charles the II. condescended to your Covenant when He was crowned in Scotland I know not how the Laws do interpret Oathes of that nature that are forced but I believe no Deeds or Obligations made by men in prison when they cannot help themselves can he pleaded in any Court of Judicature The Protestation May 5. 1641. which was never offered to His Majesty at all being no way contrary or contradictory to the Oathes of Supremacy and Allegiance was never opposed or contradicted by him c. Good you do as much as grant that the Covenants that followed were both contrary and contradictory and contradicted by him but you cared not for that And what ails the man to make such a noise about the imposing the Solemn League and Covenant without the then King who was then absent c. You allow that he was then King but he was then absent How absent was he was he gone out of his Dominious and who was the cause of his
A REPLY TO THE ANSWER of ANONYMVS TO Doctor Gauden's ANALYSIS of the Sense of the Covenant And under that to a later TRACT OF ONE Mr Zach. Crofton Of the same Fraternity with him By John Rowland Oxoniensis CCC Rector of Footscray in Kent Ficta in natura suam redeunt LONDON Printed for T. J. and are to be sold at Westminster-Hall and the Royal Exchange 1660. A REPLY to Anonymus his ANSWER to Dr. Gaudens Analysis Of the Sense of the Covenant I Met by accident with a Pamphlet against Doctor Gauden's Analysis of the true sense of the Covenant and I know there are enough abler than my self to reply to it if the Learned Doctor wanted any help here as he doth not and I am unwilling the Truth should suffer any prejudice by my defects yet I think my self something concerned in it as a Clergy-man and Lover of the Truth wherefore craving leave of the Reverend Doctor and the candid interpretation of the Reader I begin with the Title which runs thus The Anatomy of Doctor Gauden's idolized Non-sense and Blasphemy in his pretended Analysis c. of that sacred Covenant c. I have examined the Doctors words as I finde them upon this mans credit as he lays them down for I have no other Bookes before me than his I undertook to Answer and I can finde nothing of the Doctors but solid Reason good Authority and sound Divinity neither Non-sense nor Blasphemy unless he will falsly charge that upon the Doctor which may more truly be imputed to himself idolizing a Covenant which many wise and godly men call a cursed Covenant and the word will beat it with a sacred Epithite The Libeller must pass for Anonymus because he hath not vouchsafed to subscribe his Name I wish he were ashamed of his Cause but I think rather it is the old Presbyterian trick to make men believe he is afraid of persecution But mark his words The Reader must know that the late Long-Parliament I mean both the Honorable Houses drew up took and Ordered others to take two several Covenants in one year A fruitful Year of Covenants when you name the Long-Parliament you do well to say you mean the two Honorable Houses for all the world knows the two Honorable Houses will not own all things done by a prevailing Faction in the late long Parliament How many of the two Houses took both those Covenants I cannot tell I am perswaded a great part of them never took them both but to free themselves left their places in Parliament and of those that did take them hundreds its likely have repented for it since and were it to be done again they would never take them because something contained in them was unlawful and besides that they wanted the Kings confirmation Two several Covenants I have not opportunity to compare them together how several or differing they were it may be they were contrary or rather contradictory one to the other for such Contrivers seldom continue long in the same mind knowing not well what they would have Two in one year the first June 1643. the second September 11 the same year Count the moneths and it is not much above a quarter of a year they grew apace and things that are good seldom grow so fast which made men shrewdly to suspect the goodness of them Now you must take notice that it is only the last the far better of the two which this Master of words hath opposed c. His idle Jests against the learned Doctor are not worth taking notice of and therefore I let them pass But for his Covenants I believe the first was not very good being like the point of the weapon that makes the entrance or the sting of a serpent by which the poison is first conveyed yet if there were any barrel better herring I think that was the best because it was the first for mischief still increaseth from bad to worse nemo repente fit turpissimus The first Covenant was pressed upon the people with as much violence as might be that who ever would not take it should bear no Office in Church or Commonweal by reason of the second tayl that was to follow it Or rather the two Covenants may be compared to the Serpent Amphisbaenae with two heads What was the meaning of that they can best interpret that gave it forth by menacing those that refused it For when King Charls the I desired the Earl of Straffords life to be spared and he should bear no Office in Church nor State they replyed He that was not fit for some Office was not fit to live and for this and some other reasons I thank God I had the grace to refuse them all Next he quibbles about the Doctors calling his Analysis The loosing of St. Peters bonds Because he doth not finde St. Peters name in the Text quoted Acts 16.25 but Acts the 12. A most ridiculous Cavil as if a man might not lawfully quote two places of Scripture to the same purpose the one to fortifie and expound the other but it must be presently Non-sense and Blasphemy as this Libeller will have it to be he keeps a fearful clutter about it because he cannot finde out the reason of this Inscription The loosing of St. Peters bonds but to put him out of his passion and to serve him with my best conjecture The learned Doctor hath qualified the harshness of the Covenant by giving to it the softest and most sober sense that it is capable of and it is possible that the Doctor himself through humane frailty in that sober sense he expoundeth it took it so but finding it for all this smoothing of it over to be too hard of digestion he doth in my judgement very well to follow the Command of our blessed Saviour to Saint Peter Luke 22.23 And thou being converted strengthen thy brethren and therefore he calls his Analysis The loosing of St. Peters bonds He is very angry because the Doctor will not be one of the rigid Presbyters that will hold communion with none but such as are of their own opinion and therefore accuseth him falsly for upholding communion with Popery by reason of these words he alledgeth that the Doctor saith He desireth to hold not onely all inward but all actual communion in all Doctrines and Duties of Faith and Worship to the Word of God with the Church of Rome If this be not well spoken I wonder what one can say to please him He had little cause to fear the Doctor would turn Roman Catholick who was so much offended with some enormities he had formerly taken notice of in Episcopal Government and being as it appears by his Analysis a charitable man and of a tender conscience was willing to comply with all Christians in Worship agreeable to the Word of God And this Anonymus deserves for his uncharitable censure and so frequently scoffing at the Doctors sighs and tears to be severely censured himself
Government and back what they say by Scripture good Authority by Reason and Examples and we shall draw the parallel against Presbytery and then let every man be judge which of the two hath most cause to be covenanted against and if they please to enumerate the Benefits of their Presbyterial Government we shall do the like for Bishops the work would be large and worth the while to be undertaken to reconcile the Differences in Church Discipline and to give better satisfaction to the Christian world I shall now to avoid prolixtry speak a word or two only of the benefits of Episcopacy for the faults it is obnoxious to are not essential to the Government but meerly accidental First then it is more orderly regular and uniform and by consequence more free from schisms sects heresies and whatsoever mischief may gather to a head for want of good order 2. It is more decent graceful and more consistent with Monarchy a poor creeping Clergy is not comely in Christian Princes Courts who will seem always to upbraid them to their faces as if they were not willing to be at any cost for the preaching of the Gospel whereas the best Kings and Emperors as Constantine Theodosius and others sought still how with rich endowments to beautifie and adorn them Moses and Aaron must be together the King and the Priest the Crown and the Miter the Princes Scepter and the Bishops Crosier or else the Scepter will be soon made to stoop to the Presbyterian Ferula 3. It is greater encouragement to Learning and Religion Take away the reward of Vertue and you do what you can to take away Goodness itself Pramia si tollas tollitur virtus but I must not let my pen run to a volumn 4. Consider that many Reformed Churches are in misery and ready to be swallowed up continually by Popish and cruel Adversaries what can the Presbyterian party do to afford them any help surely little or none whereas when our Church flourishen under the Bishops the Protestants abroad in all places lived in more repose and quiet and found continual assistance from them insomuch that their foes did hardly dare to make any head against them and I doubt not but they will conress how sensible they have been since these troubles of the great loss they have of Prelacy in England by whose wariness and continual care of them as well as of their charge at home they were always fostered and preserved since the Reformation What horrid persecutions have fallen upon them since the expelling of our Bishops here let the Waldenses and the Albigenses and the poor Protestants living about the Valleys of Piedmont whom the Duke of Savoy and others endeavored with all their might to take away from the earth speak The like cruelties were used lately upon the Reformed Cantons in Switzerland also in Poland and Germany and the French Protestants fearing daily to be rooted out and what remedy could they sinde with you I will not speak too bad of the great Collections made by you here for them and how they were employed for their relief Also of the monstrous blasphemies damned heresies shameful adulteries and many other villanies which have sprung up since Presbytery bore the sway the names whereof were scarcely known when Episcopacy ruled Let some more able pen proceed And however some Churches of Christ expelling Popery in heat of zeal have thereby laid lawful Episcopacy aside that is have not had since the opportunity to restore it to its primitive Institution yet many of them desire to conform to the plat-form of the Church of England which they suppose to come the nearest of any to the Apostolick form His next quarrel is If the Covenant abjure all Episcopacy it runs upon a rock of novelty and schism and dasheth us in opinion and practice against the judgement and custom of the Catholick Church in all Ages and places till of latter years from the Apostles days You call this a Magisterial and traditional way Surely such traditions as these are not to be under-valued the Histories and Monuments of the Church are a great light to us in many things especially such as are circumstancial and without them we should wander in the dark But once prove that your abol shed Episcopacy was of so ancient and universal observation Abolished we praise God you cannot say but that you did your best to abolish it the antiquity of it hath been often proved to your shame Whoever shall read the Judgement of Dr. John Reynolds concerning Episcopacy expressed in a Letter to Sir Francis Knolls and Dr. Ushers Reduction will finde this mans bold assertion c. I have not means nor opportunity to see that Letter nor any of his Quotations but I remember when I was a Scholar in Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford whereof some years before Doctor John Reynolds had been President I was told he was once much given to be a Roman Catholick and that his brother a Protestant converted him whom I knew in Glocester-Hall but he fell shortly after himself to the Church of Rome wherein he died now though Doctor Reynolds was a very learned and pious man who by a kinde of Antiperistasis because of his brothers fall might be more violent against the Discipline of our Church than perhaps otherwise he would have been yet he met with as pious and learned men as himself at the Conference at Hampton Court 2 King James that maintained it and carried it against him and all that were of his judgement The same cause that provoked Dr. Reynolds may be prevailed with an eminent person in this Land to favour your Covenanters so much at first because his brother was revolted to Popery But this was not the Bishops fault it had been more honorable for them both to have followed the example of their Reverend Uncle James Lord Bishop of Winchester Prelate of the Garter and my most honored Patron during my minority who knew better how to direct in Church affairs than they ever did but for want of his Compass they ran a great hazard to fall upon those two dangerous Rocks that lay on either hand of Popery and Presbytery As for Dr. Ushers Reduction if that be the meaning of it we grant it is not held fit that the Bishops should keep too great a distance and estrange themselves too much from their brethren it is acknowledged to have been a fault in some of them and it is proper it should be amended But pray give me leave to referre you to Dr. Downhams Defence of Episcopacy and when you can answer him I shall say that you have answered the Doctor Under colour of propounding the loy land religious sense of it he dasheth it with unlawfulness to be taken at all because not imposed by due Authority This hath been so often repeated that it is crambe saepius cocta and needs no answer Dr. The Jews sometimes solemnly renewed their Covenant with God c. which God
the Romish party and Jesuits c. who were thought to be if not the Sires of it yet the Sibs You say it is so full of rayling that no wise man will hold it otherwise than folly to bestow a line in answering to it If this be not blasphemy I know not what is It is in vain for you to attempt to answer it for you never can who call that which is the manifest Truth and you know it well enough Blasphemy having indeed nothing to say against it you are galled and kick and fling terribly and are forced to shuffle off the business again to Dr. Burges whose Book you say making it out that it is no sacriledge to buy such Lands still lies unanswered but you say further Dr. G. hath promised it and then you may not doubt but it will be answered But did any of you buy them of the Bishops that had bin some qualification to your sacriledge but you took them by force from them and then sold them to one another and would have men believe it is so far from sacriledge that you will not admit that it is any sin at all But whereas the Doctor saith This Age is the first Parent of that Prodigy wherein Orthodox and reformed Christians either Presbyters or people did persecute Godly Bishops c. yea and Episcopacy it self You deny that any Orthodox and reformed Christians c. did persecute any Godly Bishops of this age That many of our Bishops were Godly you cannot deny for you say afterwards that no doubt but some of those Bishops which he commendeth were learned and pious And all know that they were severely prosecuted plundered and imprisoned by you and many of them persecuted unto death for the troubles they endured doubtless shortned their days I would I had by me a perfect Catalogue of them to set down that the Reader might be his own Judge but it is yet so fresh in memory that every man almost will say you speak a great untruth to deny it yet I believe you they were no Orthodox and reformed Christians did it but rather Jews Turks Infidels and yet it is possible such would have shew'd them more mercy You grant it is true that some Orthodox and reformed Christians did exhibit and prosecute Archbishop Laud Bishop Wren and Bishop Pierce two if not all of them being charged with no less than high Treason the first whereof being found guilty was executed Jan. 10. 1644. Were they Orthodox and reformed Christians that did exhibit and prosecute how do you prove that and as for your high Treason you made any thing high Treason that you pleased to call so in your High Courts of Injustice you know it is not the charging any man that makes him guilty to say nothing of many eminent loyal subjects that suffered in the same cause Was not his sacred Majesty Charles the I. of blessed memory charged prosecuted condemned and executed for that you call High Treason by the same power that ruled was He therefore guilty what say you As for the Archbishop because there are others better able to write in his defence than I am I shall pass it by leaving him and his prosecutors and Judges to the most righteous Judge of heaven and earth But the other two never answered the Articles exhibited against them to this day I pray whose fault was that was not the reverend Lord Bishop Wren kept in prison by you 14 or 15 years and never suffered to come to his Answer which is argument sufficient to prove him not guilty and your selves to be cruel and barbarous and unchristian contrary to law reason or conscience had not then Dr. Gauden cause to plead as an Advocate in his behalf since doubtless he hath been exceedingly injured by you who endured it with much Christian patience being not brought to his Trial but kept prisoner that upon any emergent occasion when you knew not how to go on you might bring him forth to sacrifice him to appease the fury of the people how would you have cried out at persecution if the Bishops had served any of you so but they are of a nobler minde and abhor such cruelty You say again When Dr. Gauden ' s hand was in he bestowes a Vindication or Apology upon a known Papist the late Bishop of Glocester Dr. Goodman I have not seen that Apologie but I am perswaded Dr. Gauden is a Gentleman of that wisdom and integrity that he will give you or any man else a good account of what he hath said of him But he could finde nothing to say for Dr. Pierce who so devontly thanked God he had put down all the Locturers in his Diocess If I may believe your report for your tongue is no slander the Doctor could have found enough to say for him for it is well known Lord Bishop Pierce who was Vice-chancellor of Oxford in my time was held to be as Orthodox and able a Preacher as most in the University and if he did give God thanks for putting down Lecturers in his Diocess I presume it was because the people grew so head-strong and disorderly that they brought in Lecturers not so much to hear them preach the word of God as to oppose their Parsons and to raise schisms and factions in their Parishes but no sober and quiet Orthodox Minister was or would have been hindred by him or any of the other Bishops from following his calling and from preaching the Gospel yet if any were hindred it was not the Bishops fault that they suffered but to make use of your words it was the other ruffling violent Ringleaders that were the cause of it who were adored by the vulgar as the Barbarians did St. Paul and were ready almost to say of them that they were Gods sacrificing all they had in feasting them until many families were undone by them you are not ashamed to deride our learned Bishops reverend for their age by the name of Old Episcopalians what were your Lecturers many of them but young beardless Boys of 16 or 17 years old more fit to have been whipt at school or to be priests to Jupiter or Bacchus then Teachers of the people Let him name one of those Bishops unless it were such as were trapan'd by Williams and other caprisious Pragmaticks to have their hands in that high and un-Parlamentary Petition and Prorestation to the late King and House of Peers 1641. that were in the least persecuted and not rather savoured if indeed learned and godly by Orthodox and reformed Christians either Presbyters or people If any of those suffered with the rest they may thank those ruffling ceremonious c. and not blame others who could not help it nor longer endure the slavery and persecution those Amaziah like Priests and Tyrants had exereised over them That they were under persecution all the time your Power lasted is most certain witness that famous Divine the Reverend Doctor Featley and others of great