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cause_n	good_a	great_a	king_n	5,512	5	3.6764	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65556	The Protestant peace-maker, or, A seasonable persuasive to all serious Christians who call themselves Protestants that laying aside calumnies, and all exasperating disputes, they would pursue charity, peace, and union, as the only means (now left us) of safety and reformation of the publick manners : with a postscript, or notes on Mr. Baxter's and some others late writings for peace / by Edward, Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1682 (1682)	Wing W1513; ESTC R38252	74,674	136

The Protestant Peace-Maker OR A SEASONABLE PERSUASIVE To all Serious CHRISTIANS Who call themselves PROTESTANTS That laying aside Calumnies and all exasperating Disputes they would pursue Charity Peace and Union As the only Means now left us of Safety and Reformation of the Publick Manners With a POSTSCRIPT or NOTES on Mr. Baxter's and some Others late Writings for Peace BY EDWARD Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland London Printed for Robert Clavell at the Peacock in St. Paul's Church-yard 1682. An Advertisement THE Papers following came lately to my Hands and finding them contain many things very extraordinary and highly seasonable at this Juncture and writ with exceeding good and peaceable Design and with great Temper and no less sense of Piety I thought fit to make 'em Publick R. W. Febr. 14. 1681. ERRATA Pag. 24. line 22. for lightest read highest p. 98. l. r. r. all he l. 13. r. methodos p. 99. l. ult r. his Prayer p. 100. l. 22. dele it p. 107. l. 22. r. my consent l. 31. r have refused to do p. 110. l. 25. r. my Ministry l. 28. r. as these p. 111. l. 5 9. r. Celeusma l. 27. r. wildly out The Text. II SAM XV. 11. And with Absalom went Two hundred men out of Jerusalem that were called and they went in their simplicity and they knew not any thing IN the present state of things he that would design the greatest publick Service will perhaps upon due consideration scarce find any thing more worthy his fixing on than to endeavour to sweeten the Minds of men of one Faction towards those of another to take off and abate those bitter apprehensions and conceits those Heats and Furies with which they mutually stand enraged My purpose is at present to do what in an hours time I can thereto And that I may succeed therein the better I will desire that while I open my Text you will be pleased to suspend your Censures of any other design which you may imagine I have not to think I had in the choice thereof any Eye at the present Plot or any Great ones supposed to be concerned therein for by the sequel of my Discourse it will appear I had not I only intend to make such Observations upon the Text as shall most naturally conduce to the End I propounded The Words are a small passage in the History of Absalom's Conspiracy In Chap. 14 33. we find Absalom restored to the Kings favour and the first use he makes of it is with more security and facility to lay a wicked design against his Crown and Life First he endeavours to make himself considerable he Attracts the Peoples Eyes by a Princely Grandure and Retinue He prepared himself Chariots and Horses and Fifty men to run before him ver 1. and then their Hearts by crafty Insinuations He calumniates but with a seeming tenderness and modesty his Fathers Government condoles the Peoples Grievances shews a Zeal for their redress and all this with the most obliging Condescensions and the fairest Speeches imaginable He rises up early and stands by the way of the Gate where People past to the Court for Justice and if any came nigh him to do him obeysanee he put forth his hand and took him and kissed him And when any man that had a Controversie came to the King for Judgment see saith he thy matters are good and right but there is no man deputed of the King to hear thee Oh! that I were Judge in the Land I would do you Justice From v. 2 to 6. In a word no Art by which he might fix Negligence or Male-administration on his Father or recommend himself as a sweet diligent and hopeful Prince is omitted And by this means had he stole the Hearts of the men of Israel After Forty years the Business is ripe and an Hyprocritical pretence of Religion gives it Birth Absalom said unto the King I pray thee let me go and pay my Vow which I have vowed unto the Lord in Hebron for thy Servant vowed a Vow while I abode at Geshur in Syria saying If the Lord shall bring me again indeed to Jerusalem then will I serve the Lord ver 7 8. And having obtained and taken his leave at Court away he goes for Hebron But now not a word more of Religion for what have men of aspiring and Treasonable designs to do with it any further than the Pretence of it serves their Interest no Vow shall you hear of perform'd except perhaps by a Mental reservation his Vow were to do all that might be to take off the King The Crown was the God he served and to make his access thereto the King was to be the Sacrifice He therefore strengthens his Party all he can sends Spies throughout all the Tribes of Israel that they might be ready upon the first Voice of his being Proclaimed and at the same time sets forward himself And with Absalom went Two hundred Men out of Jerusalem that were called and they went in c. Now upon this last Verse it is that I am to make my Observations having nothing to do with nor any applications to make of any thing else in the story And they shall be only two of those upon the Character of these Two hundred of Absalom's Followers and upon their Cause the one of which namely their Character seems really good and the other was stark naught I observe then First Men of a right honest Intention may be easily drawn into the Society of the vilest Cause They went in their simplicity The Original is a little more emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They went in their Integrity Integrity is more than Simplicity They went only to bring the Heir apparent and the Kings Darling out of the Town or to accompany him to his Devotions and knew no more of the Design though in the mean while their Company gives encouragement and furtherance to one of the vilest Causes in the World the most ungrateful and unnatural Treason the Sun ever saw I add Secondly Such mens honest Intentions will not justifie their Engagements and Practices in the Society of a Wicked party These two Propositions I shall apply meerely towards the pacifying or allaying Religious Dissentions at least towards the uniting honest mens hearts and affections nor shall I meddle one word with the cross interests or fewds of State from which Good Lord deliver us First then Men of honest Intentions may be drawn into fellowship of very wicked Factions and sometimes more easily perhaps than others To assert this I shall only desire you to reflect on the Ordinary Methods of inveigling or drawing in men of Religion into Parties and together upon the Natural Infelicities of such mens Tempers The great Art of Religious bewitching men into Parties lies in the dextrous applicat on of fine Promises and Pretences By good words and fair Rom. xvi 18. Speeches these Artisans deceive the hearts of the simple or

Matter of fact be most Obligatory or of the Divinest and most Excellent nature in the World yet if the Affectation of Applause or of the popular Eye and Vogue interpose in its performance it unhallows the Action and deprives us of the Reward This our Lord teacheth as to Alms and Liberality Matth. VI. 2. As to Prayer and Devotion ver 5. As to Fasting and Humiliation ver 16. And by parity of reason 't is true of any other otherwise good works 2. That Liberties or things free be ever used without scandal By Scandal I mean with the Scripture generally the Drawing or Encouraging others to do what they are not in Conscience convinced they may do Which notion we shall do well to take notice of as well for the satisfying and confirming our Consciences against unreasonable scruples and fears as for the guiding our Practice For this being admitted to be the nature of Scandal it is not then every one which is capable of administring matter of Scandal by the use of his Liberty but only such Personages by whose examples others are apt to frame their lives Nor again is it every one that is apt to be scandalized or receive scandal but only the Weak People who understand not duly the rule of life or are not able to distinguish betwixt Duty Liberty and Sin But if it so come to pass that any of us being persons of reputed prudence and piety and so of authority and considerable remark in the world use such freedom in words or deeds before unskilful Judges of things that they clearly are drawn in or likely to be drawn in to do what they doubt lawful or believe unlawful be the matter of fact on our sides never so just or innocent and our hearts never so sincere therein yet we by becoming thus a stumbling-block to others are not only sinners against them but also against their Lord and ours Christ himself For 1 Cor. VIII 12. When ye sin against the Brethren and wound their weak Conscience ye sin against Christ Upon the whole then that any Action be good and warrantable we see it is necessary That the Matter be Right or Lawful That our Intention be truly Honest and both these points to us distinctly known to be so That lastly in our management such Integrity or Harmlesness of Circumstances do concur as that by or in none of them we violate any Law of God And particularly Duties must be performed without Ostentation Liberties used without Scandal And now to sum up our Evidence If good Intention change not the Nature of things but Impiety be impiety still injustice Injustice still and so as to all Acts of Uncharitableness Intemperance Impurity and whatsoever is of like nature none of them all are sanctified by a good intent however real not pretended If to constitute any Cause or Action there be diverse other Material points requisite besides the sincerity of our Intentions any one of which points failing the Cause or Action good according to the nature of the failure partakes of true and proper guilt and all these things are abundantly proved then is it evident that no mans good intention will warrant or justifie either his engaging or proceeding in a bad cause Nay if we will be just to our own Sense and Reason it is further ex abundanti and beyond what we in the beginning propounded conclusible from what has been evinced That good Intentions will not warrant mens ingaging and proceeding even in a good Cause it self under any undue Circumstances It remains now that I bring all home to bear upon the design I laid down in the beginning and that I press upon all sorts practice suitable to the Truths I have asserted I shall only have time for a double Exhortation 1. And the first of them shall be That we all of us again and again consider every Cause which tempts our espousal before we engage our selves or if already without due consideration engaged before we further proceed therein It is not enough that our Intentions in the General be good We have heard they may be generally good when they want maturity of praevious thought and consideration to make them distinctly such Besides there are other points of great moment to be looked after I will not be troublesome in recapitulations I will only put the Case in short to all our Consciences We are haply most of us zealous in our ways and for our own Party But have we to full resolution and satisfaction of Conscience weighed the present state and interest of the Common Christianity Have we stated the Causes upon which we mutually Separate Are they such which we judge in good earnest will bear us out And then do we withdraw from one another no farther nor affect or maintain any greater distance than these Causes will warrant Finally in the whole have we no by and sinister ends no design but sincerely of Conscience and such which we dare carry to and own before God's Tribunal Happy were it for the Christian World would our Divisions endure this Test or had Christian men generally considered or would yet consider these things as they ought But alas even in Religion it self the far greatest part walk at a meer peradventure At least they are carried along with that Current into which their Interest Condition or Genius happens to cast them And being once engaged Vestigia nulla retrorsum almost as few return from their respective Zealotry as from the Grave They rather rush on like the Horse into the Battle and the Similitude holds also farther than it were to be wisht they are rid too often even to their own destruction My Brethren if we have any of us been unhappy in rash and inconsiderate Divisions or in addicting our selves to any so divided Parties yet let us not perpetuate and as far as in us lies eternise our own and the Churches miseries If either our Reason or our Christianity or our own or the Common safety be significant to us Let us gird up the loins of our mind and be sober Let us recollect and summon together our considerative powers and endeavour to judge like Men and Christians Where we are and how we stand And if upon the whole all be clear and Conscience fully satisfied yet let us remember we owe somewhat to the World and the least that can be will be by all honest means to endeavour its quiet And verily he is unworthy of his own quiet at least will not long enjoy it who is not content a little to deny himself of his own fancies for others and the Publick satisfaction To bring this Exhortation a little nearer to our present Circumstances and Condition Let us remember we here are not Law-givers nor are therefore to consider what is our own will and pleasure what we would have Enacted nay not perhaps what is in our judgment fit to be injoyned but what actually is already injoyned and what it is lawful for us

designs to make Beasts of one another much less deliberately do they drink to intoxicate their own Heads and forfeit their Reason yet if they beyond their intention do either the one or the other can we excuse them from Drunkenness or according to their Quality from having given scandal because we cannot conceive them to have been designedly drunk Genes XI 21 c. Noah's case was a singular one far I mean from admitting any of the ordinary circumstances of Excessive drinking yet who will acquit it either from Sin or Scandal Upon the whole then Sin is Sin notwithstanding our Ignorance or Honest intentions But for fuller and more satisfactory proof hereof I will set down what Particulars are necessary to make an Action truly and Christianly Good or warrantable and if when I have so done it shall appear that Honesty of Intention is but One of the Points requisite to the constituting any Action such I will then demand It ma● be acknowledged that mens Honest intentions do n●● justifie their engaging or proceeding in a bad C●use For otherwise where many conditions are required one should be all that is more than One. And the due stating this Question besides the Evidence which it will give to the Proposition in hand will further satisfie an important doubt which may arise upon the whole proof thus If my upright and Honest heart be not enough to justifie me in my engag●ments or in the course that I take What then further am I to look after that I may throughly approve my self to God and Man This case many a Conscientious person would be apt to put when the Truth contended for were demonstrated beyond all doubt and therefore I shall trust none will judge me extravagant if I make the Resolution hereof a second Proof of the Observation I made Now in Answer hereto I say First That any Action may be truly good or warrantable there is requisite an Intrinsecal Rectitude or Lawfulness in the Nature of the thing I take Rectitude here in a very large sense so as to exclude only all Obliquity or swerving from the Precept Now such Rectitude I affirm necessary and indeed the Matter needs not for it scarce admits any proof it approving it self to our very Reason Who can conceive that what the Eternal Laws of God have made unlawful any created or derivative Power can hallow or authorize Nothing hinders but in a Moral sense we may apply hereto that of the Royal Preacher Consider the work of God Who can make that straight which he hath made crooked Eccles VII 13. And such Rectitude there is 1. In all points which are matter of Command and made our Duties by the Law of God or Nature 2. In all points of Christian Liberty or such matters which being no wise forbidden unto us are left to our discretion or prudential choice And divers such Cases there are in humane life whatever some men pretend to the contrary in which what part soever we take we sin not To persons under certain circumstances says the Apostle even touching so weighty a concern as Marriage Let them do what they will marry or marry not in either they sin not 1 Cor. VII 36. Again in case of distinction of Meats under such and such circumstances Meat commendeth us not to God For neither if we eat are we the better or if we eat not are we the worse 1 Cor. VIII 8. Of one of these two sorts must the thing to be done be in case the Action be good or warrantable Secondly Though Honest intention do not justifie an evil Act or Cause yet can no Act or cause in which any man is engaged be truly just without such intention And great care ought to be used herein for that men are apt to flatter themselves and think better both of themselves and their Intentions than truly they deserve It is requisite therefore that we consider Honest intention may sometimes be such only Confusedly and in the General in which case it is much akin to the nature of Negative Righteousness when meerly we propound no Evil to our selves Such seems the Honest intention of these Two hundred men in the Text now this kind is too inform and immature to wear the Character of Virtuous Praise-worthy or truly good much less will it make our Actions such Intention truly good must be more distinct particular and positive And to that purpose it is necessary 1. That we be fully satisfied of the Right and Lawfulness both of our Cause and particular Actions which we go about 2. That we engage in them with a design to please God or to attain some considerable good in the getting or enjoying of which good we have no suspicion at all we shall displease him If it be otherwise with us Whatsoever is not of faith that is from a Conscience fully satisfied touc●ing the goodness or lawfulness of the means used or ends designed whatsoever I say is not thus of Faith is Sin It will therefore become every man in matters of moment not to trust too much an Extemporary good intention as I may so call it but to examine all and to be careful that as there is no evil in his Intentions so there be due and particular good Thirdly I must add To constitute any Action just or warrantable is requisite the Integrity at least harmlessness of the Circumstances as of Person Place Time Manner and the like For not only may that be lawful to one man but also in great strictness his Duty which in another would be gross Sin To take an instance familiar at such seasons as this namely the Executing nay even the impleading and arraigning Malefactors To give evidence against them to accuse and charge them is the Duty of Witnesses and of particular Officers but in other Persons that is in the generality of the People present who know nothing or little of their cases or are not by their place called to intermeddle it would be sin and an Exceed●ng their Calling at best all would judge it abominable impertinence Again To execute them when condemned at least to see they be executed is the duty of Sheriffs and such Legal Officers but if a Private person or other by Law not authorized should presently upon their having received Sentence kill them in the place he could next come at them I know not how he could acquit himself of Blood-guiltiness And then even those very Officers to whom it belongs are bound not only by Law but Conscience to observe as near as may be done Manner Place Time and like Circumstances Otherwise the very Execution of what they think Justice may prove unjust But more particularly to our present Business As to the Manner of Doing such things which in themselves are Good or Lawful there are two considerable Points which the frequency perhaps of Good mens miscarriages makes necessary to be pressed 1. That all Duties be performed without Ostentation and vain glory Though the

to obey As to those of us who have obeyed the Laws we desire only thus much charity from Dissenters which we will surely repay good measure pressed down shaken together and running over we desire I say only thus much charity that we may not all of us be thought to have acted blindfold or upon corrupt inducements There is a multitude of us can in the fear of God profess we have again and again considered the Ecclesiastical Laws and according to our duty as we believe we have been and are obedient not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake Conscience we can say not meerly our own but others of whom we are and must be tender And we doubt not but in this our obedience we please God and are not unserviceable unto Men. We hope further we are able to approve our selves to the Great Judge of all in the several fore-mentioned Particulars at least according to that equitable allowance which our gracious God through Jesus Christ gives to humane infirmities and which the best of us all must crave even in our best Actions Now as to those who withdraw from us We call not into question the sincerity of their intentions we neither are nor desire to be Judges thereof We profess we generally judge the best and where we cannot so judge we suspend our judgment But we desire them to resume and reiterate the consideration of the Rectitude of their Cause For we must acknowledge and avow we neither could see nor have been shewen any warrant which makes it lawful to any much less their duty as many pretend to separate from that Church which neither urges nor receives any Article of Faith but what must be confessed pure which worships God by no Office more or less than what is of his own institution and the forms thereof not dissonant to his word whose Government if the sense of Christendom in all Ages till within this hundred and few more years and of the Generality of it still interpreting Holy Scriptures may be heard is truly Apostolical and in fine whose Discipline though forced in some things to truckle under the iniquity of times suffers few or none to be so bad as they would and encourages all to be as good as they can If it be lawful to separate from such a Church where shall we find that from which we may not separate And where then will be an end of Divisions In the Church of Corinth where were sundry greater Disorders and Corruptions tolerated than can be pretended amongst us that we know of the Apostle does not tolerate but severely reprove their Divisions and both censure the Authors of them as Persons to be avoided and the Abettors as Carnal Then lastly as to the Management of this departure we passionately beseech and in the Lord conjure all who are guilty of withdrawing that they will consider whether the Circumstances either of making or maintaining it be warrantable or indeed well excusable Particularly and briefly Suppose things stood so that Separation were their Duty yet is Theirs without Ostentation as all Duties ought to be Do not they publickly value themselves thereupon and despise others Are not they in their own Language The Saints and the rest of the Nation Those who are without the People of the World not to take up more odious Names Again admit Separation from us were lawful yet is theirs without scandal Without scandal to the weak of their own Church without scandal to the weak of Ours Without scandal to Papists or scandal even to Jews Without scandal to men of all Religions or scandal to men of None The good God be merciful unto us and deliver Christian men from Partiality and Self-flattery But I must Contract 2. My Second Exhortation shall be That being satisfied in Conscience touching the Right or Lawfulness of our own engaging in all points of our Cause or as some had rather speak touching the Excellency and Superlativeness of the way we are in we would not spoil a good Cause by our ill Management That the Religious amongst us are Divided at present there is none who sees not Nor that all the Petty Divisions are reducible to these three Grand ones Papists Regular Protestants and Non-Conforming Protestants The Cause or way of the First I do declare I judge no Power on Earth no nor with all reverence be it spoken of Heaven it self can make just For God cannot Ly that is contradict himself The Doctrine they teach profess and if we will credit them believe is against express Scripture the Analogy of Faith and the Consent of the Ancient and true present Catholick Church And indeed in divers Points also against Sense and Reason the common Principles of Mankind And too much of their Morals is no better The Cause or Way of the Second is just if any under Heaven I need not speak my mind again I do not say there is nothing amongst us defective nor that there is nothing which may be amended nor again that there is no mismenagement or no evil People amongst us I do not believe there is or will be ever such a Church on Earth That accusation to the end of the world will justly ly against the Purest Church I have a few things against thee Revel II. 4. 14 20. But I must avow I know not that Church which would take the Mote out of our Eye that has not a Beam in her own The Cause of the Third must be acknowledg'd by all indifferent and considerative men at least doubtful For he is void of reason who shall deny that disputes with the lightest Probabilities are manag'd against it and such which with the most rational persons turn the Scales Possibly to some of them who have espoused it it may not seem doubtful But whatever my Charity may induce me to think it in any of them were I my self a mainteiner of it I could not judge it in my self any thing less than Formal as well as Material Schism But for the present we 'll not dispute the Point Admit it to be lawful I only move that it be not mismanaged that Good men would not prosecute a lawful Cause in an unlawful manner or by undue means and so intangle themselves and Cause in Injustice and Iniquity Having then concluded the Cause of the Regular Protestants good and excellent and for the present admitted though not granted that of the Nonconformists to be lawful there is chiefly a double mismenagement which I must tax at present and that on both sides for I would not be partial and which the Exhortation in hand proceeds against 1. The former of which is Overcharging one another This besides that it renders us guilty of sin and makes still our matters worse does further expose us Both to our Common Enemies and create to them sweet Sport and to our selves Scorn and Contempt The Nonconformists charge us most unjustly with Popery Give me leave to beseech these our Accusers

that they will consider what they say If we had no Conscience which they would be very uncharitable should they conclude of us if it were all one to us in point of Faith what Religion were establisht or went up yet except they will also think us mand and that we have renounced our worldly Interests together with our Consciences they cannot think we are any Friends to Popery or would make any Advances towards it Can they perswade themselves we are so sottish or our Memories so short as that we have forgotten the Marian days Do not we know that if ever Popery get up again we of the Ministry and especially those of us who are in the highest Order must first go to Stake As to the People they may scape These Sheep what have they done But their hands will surely be upon the Shepherds Or if we should by flight or any other base way save our lives which as the world goes we could scarce expect if we should as Job expresses it Job XIX 20. come off with the skin of our Teeth yet is that such a mercy or boon which any can judge men in our present conditions fond of Are our Families or Liberties our Honours our Preferments nothing to us Sometimes these men think and say we love the World well enough Is there any Vicar Parson or Bishop in the Kingdom that sees not or knows not of the Priest of his Parish or the Titular of his See in present being Do we not daily behold them walk the Streets or know their Confinements Are we ignorant of their Claims or that they look upon us only as Vsurpers and themselves the true Proprietours and that they now have a long time looked for the blessed hour You cry out of us I say sometimes that we are worldly carnal men that we only mind the Fleece not the Flock If we do even that we cannot be Popishly affected There is nothing so destructive of our worldly interest as Popery That has already left no Benesices or Livings vacant for us and if it prevails will soon not leave us Air to breath For shame then interpret some mens Actions otherwise than you do and if in all humane probability they act against their own Secular interest in the things which they cannot but see and do see as well as you impute not those actions to Popish affection but good Conscience They dare not do evil that good may come or be unjust for their own preservation Thus as to one Party Now I will not deny but some of our men are quit with these false Accusers and pay them home in their own Coyn. God forgive both Hence so many bitter Invectives instead of Sermons so much raking into old forgiven and it were to be wisht forgotten Crimes charging the Villanies of the Absaloms upon every Individual of those who went in the simplicity of their heart and knew not any thing Hence in common Discourse so many upbraidings of men with those which were the sins of their ignorance youth and education rather than of the men such care to stigmatize some persons with the miscarriages which they have long ago repented of and if occasion should serve would expiate with their lives such aggravating some Peoples innocent expressions and drawing those Conclusions from them which the poor men abhor but never intended with a world of like practices familiar amongst all Partisans Certainly my Brethren these things are very iniquitous If my brother has repented of a sin God has taken it away from him and the meaning he never had was never his I may not therefore impute either such sin or such meaning to him or upbraid him therewith We would think they gave us more than our due who should deal thus with us Let us therefore our selves unlearn such vile and pitiful Arts. I confess 't is much another case where men retain their sins still and will not without such remembrances be brought to acknowledgment or sense of them But even herein also care is to be had and much prudence used for we may b● injurious to our Cause by too much exposing our Adversary An uninteressed stander by will call such discourses Recriminations not Defences and will say the Case needs them because the Advocate uses them And as to the Persons or Parties concerned this kind of treatment can only tend to mutual exasperation upon which no good because no divine blessing can be expected If therefore we will be just to our selves or our own beloved Cause let us on both sides forbear immoderate Charges as being infallibly derogatory to whatsoever there is of true Justice either in our Cause or Defences thereof 2. Men may spoil a good Cause by too much Stiffness and Tenaciousness of their own Sense and by this means keeping open such Breaches which might happily be closed There is such a thing in Solomon's ●udgment as Being righteous overmuch and making our selves over-wise Eccles VII 16. by which he suggests there men may destroy themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 become desolate even to the admiration and amazement of the Beholders or else stand single and by themselves as the Marks of Common fury If contending Parties may be ever guilty of this Evil it is certainly in such cases wherein the Differences betwixt them being but small neither will recede the least from their own Sentiments or which is with such the same for their own apprehensions are too often herein made the measures from their own Right as if nothing could be more Righteous than each of their Causes nothing more infallible than each of their Judgments And if ever men may expect such punishment of issue it is when such Differences are perpetuated upon such mutual heights Wherefore A sectâ infallibili libera Ecclesiam tuam Domine I confess there are some who publish such Principles and Positions of late as infer Vnity in the Church not to be necessary These make the breach irreconcileable and therefore are not to be heard There 's an Argument now for Vnity amongst us in this Kingdom I speak to those who call themselves Protestants which must be heard and is uncontrolable We must unite or be destroy'd At all times Christian duty obliges us thereto now Necessity and Self-preservation Two or more parties may ballance One when any single Other cannot I speak plain enough Now if we must Unite the only question will be Upon what terms Must we of the establisht Church come over to you who Dissent or You come over unto us We declare we cannot without Schism but are ready to sacrifice all we can otherwise to the Publick Peace and Safety And this Pretence is real You who dissent are very far from being all of a piece Besides those Elder and less Anomalous Factions of Presbyterians and Independents there are Antinomians Millenaries Anabaptists Quakers and Sects which know not what they are nor we what to call All the world must allow there are Schisms