improve your Converse I. Often meet for fasting and prayer to lament our former and later sin and to pray for the Church of Christ and for all men for the King and all in Authority that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and honesty II. Set up constant regular Disputations not about trifles nor with litigious licenciousness But about the grounds of our Religion especially the differences between us and the Socinians and Papists And this with School order under Moderation Because 1. Too many of us are young and unstudyed in these matters and little fit to deal with the Philistins Goliahs and have great need to increase in holy defensive skill 2. It will by the bounds of order prevent all contentions and wranglings and medling with Rulers or other mens matters and all loss of time by impertinent discourse III. Counsel and Concord about Church practice must take up the rest of your time And these three seasonably used Prayer Disputation and Counsel will conduce much to your growth and strength But see that Ministerial Meetings turn not from Counsel and Agreement to Formality and Vsurpation of a Ruling power over one another and so degenerate not into Synodical Church-tyranny much less usurpe the Magistrates right For Synods ill managed have bin the Fevers and Pleurisies of the Churches 19. Therefore be sure to keep out both the Tyranny of Major Votes and of the proud Magisterial self-arrogations of any individuals that think all others must stoop to them 1. When it is once thought that the Major Vote must carry it an Ithacian Synod will tyrannize and every weak self-conceited man that hath nothing of sence to say against you will charge nine Learned judicious grave Divines with Insolency if they will not be governed by ten that are unlearned or injudicious self-esteemers Voteing is not for government but for Concord And not to be used lest it seem an appearance or introduction of usurpation except in cases where meer Concord is your work 2. But nothing hath more plagued the Church than the Pride and Arrogancy of some of the Pastors that think they are wronged if they may not Rule Think not that this Spirit is only in Papists or Diocesans Pride is the heart of the old man and born in all And doleful experience telleth how it surviveth in too many Antiprelatical Ministers of humbling principles and unhumbled souls Do we not know that the Pride of some among our selves that must be All and do all till they have undone all is the very thing that hath silenced so many Ministers and brought us to the state that we are now in There are some men that must only be heard in all debates and seldom hear who are angry if they be gainsaid who think that nimble Tongues or popular Interest or grey hairs must pass for uncontrolled reason And they study to make parties and set up their own Dictates by passion or indirect contrivances They can seldom debate a cause but their spleen swelleth against those that say not as they say but contradict them and they secretly back-bite them to blast their names They note those that follow them and those that oppose them and make two parties of them And all cometh from the common sin of man-kind An unhumbled overconfident understanding These men must first be meekly desired to be quiet and to let you be quiet and to remember that Non-conformists are not for self-obtruding Prelacy And that they are Brethren and not Lords If that will not do try by Prayer to prevail with God for more of humility and peace in his Ministers If that will not do silently bear their importunity with neglect If that do not Meet without them 3. And yet there is as great a mischief as any of these to be avoided also Which is the self-conceitedness and Pride of the younger and the more injudicious Sort of Ministers hindering them from following the Counsels of wiser experienced men For though we must have no arrogant Lordly Usurpers among us yet all that know any thing must confess that in all professions wise and eximious men are few It is but to few Divines that God giveth clear and accurate judgments And undoubtedly there is a three-fold Superiority and submission of divine obligation 1. Of Subjects to men in Office over them 2. Of the younger to the Elder 3. Of them that have less knowledge to them that have more For Office and Seniority are but formalities did they not suppose an eximious fitness by Superior knowledge If therefore God endow here and there one man with extraordinary judgement it is the wisdom and happiness of the times to know him and to kindle their Torches at his fire So did one Luther one Melanchthon one Calvin one Erasmus one Jewel Whitakers Reignolds Davenant c. profit many You may go a hundred miles amongst the less judicious sort and miss of that light which one Amesiusâ—ne â—ne Camero one Strangius one le Blanch c. could shew the world And it is the Plague of corrupted nature that Ignorance keepeth men from knowing it self and not one of a multitude even of Religious men who are injudicious will believe that they are injudicious but every man is so much the more confident that he is in the right and others erre by how much the more he erreth himself so that few ignorant Ministers are teachable but think that they are too wise to learn because by office they undertake to teach But through Gods mercy my own converse hath bin with an humble sort of Ministers which was the occasion of our unity and peace And London and the Countrey have many such who I hope will be able to resist the dividing attempts of the self ignorant and self-conceited 20. Lastly Spend this little time as in the way to speedy sufferings and death Your present Winters day is short Work hard Live wisely Suppose your tryal were the next year Behave your selves as men that stand in prospect of the Grave It is not likely that God will pass over twenty years wilfull divisions wantonness proud contention self-distraction scandals and great sins so little repented of that men cannot endure to hear them named with so short or small a suffering as we have undergone And the same Spirit yet blinding the guilty and keeping some of the separating party in Impenitence and working still by unlawful means to their unlawful ends is the fearful Prognostick that more of the old effects are to be produced by the old uncured cause O be not partakers in the guilt and blindness lest you partake of the destruction and dementation be the sure prognostick of perdition But O Lord spare thy people and bless thine Inheritance and let not the weakness or willfulness of the Pastors or people deliver it up as a prey to the Destroyer And though our folly and scandal have made us a scorn let it not turn to the extirpation of true
Church and the Souls of other men than the benefit to us and others is like to countervail That cannot be done lawfully which cannot be done without doing more hurt than good and destroying the end Obj. We must do that which God bids us and leave it to him what shall be the success Ans True But you must prove then that God bids you do it for we will not take your word Aâ—â—â—â—matives bind not to all times No duty is at all times a duty Nay out of season it is a sin He that saith Pray continually would not have you pray when you should preach or hear or be quenching a Fire in the Town He that commanded Sacrifice set some to learn the meaning of these words I will have mercy and not sacrifice There is few of you but would forbear a Sermon or Prayer to save your own or others Lives And you receive the Sacrament but once a moneth at most which the Primitive Churches used every Lords Day 3. The same practice than in one place where it will do more good than hurt is a duty which in another place where it will do more hurt than good is a sin 4. The Case is now of so great moment that no Minister should rashly determine it for himself nor upon the desires of some of the people only but should consult with wise and sober men that are impartial 5. The benefits to be expected and compared are these 1. The pleasing of God when we know it is his will and the profit of mens Souls by the most regular manner of Discipline and Worship 2. The setting up an imitable example of right Discipline and Worship to other Churches but then woe to them that set up a worse 3. The satisfying the Consciences of some honest mistaking people who think erroneously that a Conforming Minister may not be Communicated with or at least not in the use of the Liturgie or in a Parish Church or that the Sacrament may not be received kneeling 6. The evils to be feared and compared with the benefits are these 1. The exasperating of the minds of persons for number or quality considerable and so alienating them from their brethren and hindring their good 2. And thereby weakening the Protestant interest in a time which requireth our greatest Concord 3. And the setting of parties against parties and Churches against Churches and turning Religion into contentions and mutual oppositions 4. And the countenancing of unlawful separations which will all shelter themselves under such examples and the dividers will not see the different principles on which we go while our practice seemeth to be the same 5. And so it may be injurious to future Ages by seeming to give them presidents for unlawful separations 6. And it is not the least evil consequent that we shall cherish not only the Error of those that think worse of the Parish-Worship Assemblies than there is cause but we shall also accidentally nourish their pride who will think themselves a holier people because they Erroniously over-censure the persons and practices of others 7. The prime great obligation for the cure of all this doth Ile upon some of the conforming side It were easie for them not to silence Christs Ministers that are as wise and good as themselves It were easie for them not to punish a godly person so heavily as an Excommunication comes to for the weakness of scrupling a Sacrament-gesture and not to punish their Children with being unchristened or themselves with Excommunication who think the dedicating Image of the Cross unlawful or think it their own duty to enter their own Children into the Covenant of God rather than Godfathers that have no propriety in them and they are sure never intend to take them for their own or use them as they covenant to do 8. If on such occasions true godly Christians are cast out of their Parish-Churches whether they err or not all Ministers are neither obliged nor allowed to desert them and so to add cruelty and affliction to the afflicted 9. They that think they answer all by saying that these peoples scruples are but Errours do but 1. Shew their self-esteem who can call that Errour which they have said so little to prove to be so in some of their instances 2. And he talketh neither like a Pastor nor a Christian nor a Man that thinketh all that err should be cast out of the Church 10. To discern whether in this case a distinct Church is to be gathered or not is a work of meer Christian prudence and must be determined by comparing the good and evil consequences together and discerning truly which preponderateth And he that through Imprudence misjudgeth either way doth sinne 11. Therefore it is folly and sin for Ministers Conformable or Nonconformable to expect that in this all should go the same way and to censure those that differ from their Opinion when they may be under different circumstances 12. They that live in London where it hath ever been usual to go to Neighbour Parish-Churches from their own and where custome and abundance of accidents make the inconveniencies less have not so much against their different Church-meetings as those in Countrey Towns and Parishes have 13. Those that live where the Nonconformists are the main body of the people and the rest are such for number and quality whose displeasure is of less publick consequence have the less against their distinct Church-meetings 14. Those who live where the Nonconformists are few and the Conformists for number and quality most considerable and are like to be greatly exasperated by distinct Churches must deny their own personal conveniencies rather than hinder a greater good and may not do that which others may do 15. When the publick good forbids it the tolerated Ministers must not gather distinct Church-Assemblies but joyn with the publick Churches and help the people by their instructions at other times 16. When the publick good forbids it not the tolerated Ministers must hold distinct Assemblies for assistance in Doctrine Worship and Discipline as near as they can to the will of God But so as to further and not disgrace nor hinder the honest Parish-Ministers living with them in Unity Love and Peace and whether de nomine their Assemblies shall be called distinct Churches is a case of no great moment though I think that it is fittest to take them for distinct Churches secundum quid and not simpliciter as many Chappels be Seeing though in the Assemblies they distinctly worship God c. yet they hold personal Communion in a godly conversation with the rest of the Christians in the Parish and should sometimes also assemble with them And so much for my own opinion in this case 27. If Christians would but give over the censoriousness contentions and abuse of others which different Assemblies in the same Town are usually employed in I see not what great hurt it would do any for Anabaptists Separatists c.
Answ 1. Such confidence upon such insignificant reasonings is a great dishonour to the wit and humility of the Author He that no better knoweth their judgments can tell you what all the light of the Presbyterian conscience is 2. He can prove that our Ministery is needless sinful c. because he can call the exercise of it separation As if the paucity of ignorant and ungodly Souls and the sufficient number ability zeal and diligence of the Conformists made us and our Labours needless indeed Alas what thoughts have these men of souls of sin of holiness of repentance and of their own sufficiency and labours But Sir who made you a fitter Judge of the need of souls than themselves and all others Next perswade us that Tutors are needless because all in England are born learned I have much ado to get servants in my own Family that have tolerable knowledge and piety And can our Conformists alone sufficiently teach many hundred Families and prove that other mens help is needless Try first whether you can perswade men that you alone are sufficient to teach all the Children in your Parishes to speak and to dress them and feed them and that all other persons help is needless Get them to fast all till you seed them your selves and make them believe they need no other meat We that have conferred with all the people of our Parishes when we were permitted found that multitudes were almost as ignorant as Heathens And yet our excellent successours that do no such thing as to any two of them that ever I knew or heard of but see their faces in the Church can prove all our Teaching needless to these poor ignorant souls Is this humility and Ministerial fidelity It s sin in us to preach and duty to the Conformists I am glad they take it yet for a duty to any 3. But is it not as easie for us to say That you have needlesly and sinfully and scandalously taken our places I mean as to the Church-Relation not as to the Temples and Tythes and drawn some of the people to separation from those that were before true Churches We say not so but put not your selves on the hard task of disproving it if you are wise 4. But our necessity Sir hath visible Causes 1. God and our own consent at our Ordination made our necessity of exercising our Ministry We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ nor that it was our choice But God hath laid this necessity on us and wo be unto us if we preach not the Gospel as we have opportunity 2. The Bishops to some of us and senior Pastors to others by Ministerial Investiture imposed this necessity on us 3. The great necessity of multitudes of fouls which nothing but gross ignorance de facto Infidelity or Impudency can deny concurreth to cause this necessity 4. The Law imposeth a necessity on us not to preach among you in the Temples If then God say Preach and the Law say Preach not in the Temples we may conclude we must preach out of the Temples if we have but as much wit as King James's Hounds had that at a double way if they find the Hare hath not gone one way will take it for granted he is gone the other Here is then but two makers of our necessity the Imposer and the Restrainer Reproach neither of them if you will take our council Sect. 10. He addeth In vain do you think to help your selves and to satisfie the World by pleading the moderation of your Principles and that you do believe our Parochial Congregations are true Churches which the other Sectaries deny For besides that many of the Independents acknowledge the same this is the great aggravation of your Schism For why then do you seperate from us Ans 1. We are glad that you confess the Independents themselves are so moderato towards you 2. We perswade none to separate from you 3. Do you silence us and depose us from the Ministry and forbid Baptism and the Lords Supper to all that have not as wide a swallow as your selves and then ask Why separate you from us 4. Do you draw Churches to your selves out of our true Churches that were before you and then charge your act on us 5. Why come not you to the private Churches among you that have all this while been kept up e. g. In London why may not Dr. Manton Dr. Annesley Dr. Jacomb and abundance of such as fairly charge those that go only to the Temples for separating from them They say They are as true Chuches as you If their not hearing you is separation why is not your not hearing of them so Big words when men are got into the Saddle make not their Cause good 6. But it seemeth that acknowledging you true Churches will not satisfie you without what actual hearing you But doth not every Chappel and every neighbor Parish then and all the World besides your Auditory sinfully separate from you Some men can triumph in such reasonings for themselves as would make another sick to read them CHAP. VII Of the inconvenience from our Brethrens sence of Toleration Sect. 1. HIs next Section pag. 21 c. is as meer delusion as any of the rest First he argueth from the Presbyterians being always against a Toleration Reader all sober Divines that ever I met with use here to distinguish between Tolerable and Intolerable things and persons and to conclude that the Tolerable must be Tolerated and the other not though they all agree not how much is Tolerable Now what doth this man but talk confusedly as if they had been against all Toleration Look up man without blushing and tell the World Whether ever the Presbyterians maintained it a sin to Tolerate Presbyterians Alas for those poor people that cannot try sence from nonsence with what stuff will such men carry them away If you talk of the Toleration of any that are Intolerable what have we to do with it any more than you Sect. 2. Any more than you did I say Sir vilifie not the wits of those Clergy men that chiefly contributed to our so as to imagine that they did not know what they did and foresee this day Honour their understandings more than to take them for so ignorant especially being lowdly foretold it as not to foreknow 1. What number and sort of men would be laid by 2. How the people would judge of them and their Cause 3. How both they and the people would go through their sufferings 4. How wise sensible and merciful His Majesty would be when he saw all this stir and dissatisfaction of his people 5. And that the preaching of silenced Ministers in private would encourage all other Sects 6. And when ever the door was opened for their Liberty all others would endeavour to thrust in with them Who then I pray you hath done more for Toleration you or we Sect. 3. But his next hath no bounds and
of it if it ever be done Come and impartially debate the case with us Who have bin the great causes of Protestants divisions Conformists or Non-Conformists But I am ashamed to say that it needeth a debate But O that you would yet repent of what is past instead of reproaching those that you have afflicted And for the time to come if we havâ— not unity and peace for my own part I can say it shall be your doing and wilful doing to refuse it CHAP. XI Counsel to the Non-Conformists Ministers and People BRethren you hear by this Author that the Conformists are greatly afraid of Popery and that the danger by some will he said to be from you but who ever taketh you for the Papists friends the Papists themselves will never so esteem you You see that some Comformists are desirous of peace and concord with you for the common end the Churches strength against all adversaries God forbid that you should not be as forward to love and peace as they I have these following counsels to give you before I go out of the World expecting to have you ere long in a condition which will require more wisdom holiness and fortitude than I fear the most are yet possessed of 1. Resolve by the grace of God against all temptations and through all difficulties faithfully to ply your Ministerial work You see how much Satan is against it and how he tryeth every way to hinder it sometimes by force and fears sometimes by flatteries sometimes as that old Prophet seduced the other by coming as in Christs name as an Angel of Light and by Ministers of Righteousness He maketh not light of your Ministry else he would not do so much against it O do not you make light of it Our Ordination Vow and Covenant is Holy If Ananias and Sapphira dyed for alienating consecrated money by a lye what shall we expect if we alienate consecrated persons by a lye Souls are precious sin is strong Satan is subtile the World is deceitful the flesh is unreasonable deceivers have great advantage time is short O therefore work while it is day for the night cometh when none can work Our own floath and sin is the most dangerous silence How many souls feed or famish live or die as we do our duty or neglect it Can you spare your flesh or labour when you think what impenitent souls must feel for ever and what the Sanctified shall enjoy Would you not shine your selves as Stars in the Firmament Would you not be found by Christ so doing Would you not convert Sinners from the errour of their way when it is the saving of a soul from death and covering a multitude of sins What ever Word of God deceivers may abuse to stop your mouths be sure that holy Covenants must be kept that Sacrilege is a sin that nature it self tells you no man hath power to nullifie your Obligation to Charity it self in the work of mens Salvation that the love of God dwelleth not in you if you see your Brother have need and shut up the bowels of your compassion from him Men may regulate your charity for good but not destroy it If the poor were famishing about you no Law can disoblige you from relieving them Be sure that necessity is laid on all the Ministers of Christ though not by the same way as it was laid on the Apostles and woe be unto them if they preach not the Gospel Fear none of those things that you shall suffer they are the prognosticks of your Crown You shall judge the world that judgeth you It will be joyful to hear These are they that came out of great Tribulation c. Even Dr. Th. Jackson notably concludeth that the reason why Martyrdom among Christians now is rarer than among Unbelievers heretofore and that more suffer not as John Baptist did of Herod is not because Great ones among Christians are not ready to do as Herod did but because Ministers more omit their duty The dearest duty is the most gainful 2. I beseech you Study harder that you may now so preach as that you may convince men practically that you are really useful needful to the World and that your silence is a real loss They that now take your labours to be needless are tempted to it by the weakness of too many They can scarce find in their hearts to say so of any Eminent judicious Men If when you have so long made the World believe that silencing you is a most heynous sin you shal now preach so rawly so incongruously so injudiciously unskilfully or coldly as to confute your selves harden those that were for your silence how great will your shame be If you will be thought more useful than others think you preach better now than others do I really fear lest meer Non-conformity have brought some into reputation as consciencious who by weak preaching will lose the reputation of being judicious more than their silence lost it What now will you do better and more than others to prove that the Nation cannot spare you I expect not great Judgement Learning in all the younger sort nor those that in these times have bin kept from study by labouring to get their children Bread but verily the injudiciousness of too many among you is for a lamentation But the grand calamity is that the most injudicious are usually the most confident and self-conceited and none so commonly give way to their ignorant zeal to censure back bite and reproach others as those that know not what they talk of I impute not this to you as Non-Conformists but as sons of Adam for experience hath convinced me that PRIDE OF UNDERSTANDING when men have little to be proud of or confidence of all mens own apprehensions is the vice of Men Women and Children when they are past eighteen years of age which seemeth to be most desperately uncurable Few sorts so silly but are always in the right and others erroneous in comparison of them as Bedlams pitty the ignorance of their Keepers So that I fear not the prevalency of scepticism in the world though I fear infidelity Self-conceitedness I warrant you will keep it under Such ancient as Ephrem Syrus Macarius Martin c. who were of little Learning but holy and humble and presumed not above their knowledge were honoured in the Churches but when the Egyptian Holy Monks would shew their humble pride and ignorance by tumults and zealous madness to seek the blood of the Bishops that believed not that God had Hands and Feet like Men and to destroy those as ungodly that were not as foolish as themselves what could have bin more scandalous against the honour of Godliness and Christianity 3. Over value not your own Preaching and under value not other mans because they are Conformists The number and necessities of the ignorant and ungodly indeed do make your labours necessary were you less fit than many of the Conformists
upon him the form of a Servant and yet this way got a name above every name As sure as you live contending for honour is one of the readiest ways to loose it and giving it to others and contemning it your selves is one of the surest ways to get it It is its motto Quod sequitur fugio quod fugit ipse sequor Self-esteem and Pride is odious in all but in a Minister of Christ more odious than in any man but never so odious as when it riseth to such malignity as to envy or hinder the work of God because another more esteemed doth it It is a sin that I am readyer to tremble to think of than further to reprove And remember what work it hath made in the Churches of Christ already Read but what Eusebius Socrates Sozomen Evagrius Nicephorus c. say of the fewds of the old Bishops Read but the Acts of the Councils at Ephes 1 2. of Chalcedon at Ariminum at Sirmium at Nice 2d c. and if horrour and shame do not overwhelm you to think what Christian Bishops did and that so early in the face of the Heathens you are not men Read but how Nazianzene was used at Constantinople by a Synod of Orthodox Bishops when he had overcome the Arrians Read the Controversies between Basil and Anthymius and others Read the doleful story of Theophilus Alexandrinus and the Egyptian Monks and of the same Theophilus his manner of dealing against the Origenists and of his double Letters and Present which he sent by Ifidore a Priest to the Emperour and Maximus to be given to him that got the better Read the odious story of the said Theophilus and Epiphanius his proceedings against Chrysostome and his ejection by a Councel of Bishops Read the proceedings of Ithacius and Idacius and their Synods in Sulp. Severus There is no end of instances Read but the destruction of the many hundred Brittish Monks at Bangor and the great suspicions that Augustine caused it Look but on the face of the Greek and Latine Churches to this day from the begining and cause of their divisions And see what the Lutherans have done oft times against the Calvinists in Saxony and other parts of Germany as in Gasp Peucers sufferings for one And see what the Roman Papacy and Clergy have done in the world by Lordly Pride and selfishness And lastly See what hath bin done by it in this Land and at last learn by experience and judge of Church-mens Pride by the effects Brethren what harm will it do to you if a Non-Conformist preach by you if many follow him If some prefer him before you Do not others prefer you before him What if his followers think Conformity to be sin Do not you and yours think so of our Non-Conformity It is not your selves that you preach for but the peoples Souls And why may not Christs Gospel profit them from another as well as from you Nature teacheth men to relish their own food and partly to feel what doth them good Clemens Alexand Strom. 1. giveth it as the reason why the Church then not now left it to every Communicant at the Sacrament to Take their own part Because man having free will shall be the chooser or refuser of his own good If they choose a worse Teacher than you it is not you but they that are the loosers If they choose a better you have your end if you are Christians If you preach not so well as another you are not fit to be Ministers of Christ if you be not glad that another doth better and is a blessing to the Flock If you preach better it s two to one but goodness will have an insuparable attraction Or if mistake make them more capable of good from another than from you should you not desire that they might have it Will you say It is their partial humour I have heard many Ministers say so that had reason to have said It is my unskilfulness or dulness But suppose it be so A Physician will let his patient take his Medicine from one mans hand if he refuse it from another The Father will not let the Infant famish if he will take no meat from him but from the Mother If the people had no faults or weaknesses what need were there of you or other Ministers I am as apt to speak sharply against the humours and weakness of Religious people as most that are not envious and malignant But I must give them this Testimony that though many of them cannot well judge of judiciousness in their Teachers yet most of them love a serious Preacher and a Godly Liver And few of them distast either Prelates or Conformists if they preach seriously and live Holily But when in all the Countreys they see such Preachers and Livers chosen out for silencing all the world cannot keep them from disliking such Bishops as shall do thus I am most confident for those of my old acquaintance that if they had seen Bishops after their long disacquaintance with them to have Preached and Prayed in a sound and serious Holy manner and set themselves to promote the labours of Godly Preachers and to encourage piety in the people and repress iniquity they would generally have loved and honoured them without respect to Presbytery or Independency It is Godliness that Godly people care for But since I and abundance about us were ejected and since many of themselves have bin laid in Goals it is no more in my power to make them love such Bishops than to make them love the Goal it self Yea further Brethren what if the Non-Conformable Minister do give the Sacrament to some as you do to others What if they think their way best as you think yours What if they call themselves a Church and exercise Discipline which without need I would not have them do What harm will this do to you or others If it do them harm let them thank themselves But to you it can do none unless the unchristian sin of pride and envy cause it or unless by reproaches and contentiousness they hinder the success of your labours which is another thing I confess I have ever bin jealous of such Arbitrary Churches where there is room for all in one Church lest they should turn Anti-Churches and Theatres of emulation and contention which I charge all conscionable persons to abhor But all this may be avoided at cheaper rates than silencing so many laborious Ministers or excommunicating all the people that are Non-conformists III. Joyn lovingly with your Brethren as Servants of one Lord to promote one work Look not strange at them if they desire your friendship Yea if any of them prove censorious and pievish if you are the more patient condescending and forward to love and unity and to further the peoples good I shall take you for better men than them And so will all that judge by the fruits of the Spirit Try this way instead of wrath and I
but also before our Livelihoods Liberties and Lives Woe to the Hypocrite that hath no better a reward And why should we do it Were we not as capable of the more Noble and General applause as you if we could have taken your way As we are none of your Judges then Be you none of ours but let us with Resolved unity though not uniformity serve that one God whom we are all devoted to Remember that to Preach Love is your Ministerial work And to practice it is your Christian work Resolve as much to maintain Christian Love as inviolate even to Martyrdom as the Martyrs did to maintain the Christian Faith Remember Ridley and Hooper You may come to Ridley's Confessions ere you die We purpose not to Unminister you so much aâ— Gildas did his Brittains nor to separate from you so much as Martin did to the death from all the Neighbour Synods and Bishops for a far lesser cause than the silencing of eighteen hundred Ministers We take not you whom I now write to to be consenting to this work Though your silence and non-resistance hath bred such thoughts of you in people as we would fain have you cure by the contrary means We are for peace Be not you against it But we cannot buy it by deserting the Ministry to which we were consecrated and devoted nor by neglecting so many thousand miserable souls Bring things in England once to that pass that really our labour may be unnecessary in the judgement of those that are not Infidels Ignorants or Malignant enemies of a holy life and we will presently gratifie all that desire our silence or our banishment and will not trouble men with needless work Thus Brethren you see I have presumed no higher than to Petition you And that not to your cost or detriment nor for our preferment wealth or ease We aske you not for food or rayment We crave from you none of your Dignities nor Estates Though when I find this Author disswading us from our Ministry because the people are poor I think that reason might almost as aptly have served to perswade us to live no longer because the world is too poor to keep us We do but eat if we preach and so we must if we do not And I think it had savoured of no excess of Charity and Ministerial ingenuity if he had rather said Brethren you must perform your undertaken Ministry and we and the peoples souls have need of all your help And the maintenance is given for the work Therefore you that work with us shall have part of the Church maintenance with us at least a fifth part as was allowed to the ejected by the Parliament because the people cannot maintain you and it is hard to serve God without anxiety while your families are in want This had better beseemed our Brethren but we crave and expect no such thing from you but only patiently to suffer us to live and labour by you and let God provide for us as he please And if we had expected that heretofore you had Petitioned our Rulers for the liberty of our Ministry it had bin no unreasonable expectation All knew that our own Petitions had no hope Ministers should of all men have bin most sensible of the Churches breaches loss and danger and most compassionate of the peoples souls If you had but humbly acquainted our Rulers That all our labours conjoyned are too little that you needed our help and the ignorant our teaching That your own judgement was that our Ministry was more necessary than our personal Conformity 1. You know not but you might have bin heard For no doubt our Rulers thought they did that which the Reverend Church-men did advise or think best I hope you do not think that our civil Rulers would have done all that they have done against us if it had bin against the Bishops and conformable Clergies judgment and advise Civil Governours are never so cruel in matters of Religion as the Ruling and exasperated Clergy are as the Histories of all ages testifie 2. Or at least you might have had the greater peace of Conscience in all the confusions that have followed and said It is not long of us And you would have acquitted your selves in the judgement of all your hearers and they would have bin the less prejudiced against your Ministry Had you Petitioned and prevailed but for these two things you had healed all our breaches First That the door of enterance might not have bin barred by any other subscriptions professions or Oaths than what were used in the Churches of Christ till the exaltation of the Papacy for 600 years besides the Oaths of Allegeance and supremacy and the subscribing the Doctrine of the Church of England in the 39. Articles according to the 13th of Queen Elizabeth Secondly That those so subscribing who dare not use the Liturgy and Ceremonies might have leave to preach in the Churches which use them under Laws which shall restrain them from all unpeaceable opposition to what they dare not use or to the Government of the Church And having mentioned this What if I added yet this clause to my present Petition to you V. That you will yet Petition for us or rather for the Church of Christ that upon the foresaid terms we may be if possible taken in to the established Ministry If not yet tolerated as Lecturers under you in such Churches where the Ministers desire us not taking any of their maintenance from them but trusting God for our daily bread By this means you shall have no need to fear our injuring of your wealth or reputation Nor the strengthening of the Papists by the weakening of Protestants through our-own divisions Onely let not the people who scruple Conformity be therefore denyed Church-Communion and Sacraments And now as God will judge so let the world judge let posterity judge whether we are unworthy in comparison of the present Ministers of England to be permitted to preach Christs Gospel on these self-denying and self-abasing terms And whether they that cry out of the danger of Popery Infidelity Profaneness and Heresies and yet had rather let them in all than give us leave to exercise that Ministry to which we were consecrated in poverty and subjection and while they cry out of Divisions will not lay by the Dividing-engines should rather accuse us or themselves if the evils overwhelm us which they seem to fear It is not pleasure profit or worldly preferments that we contend for We would do no man hurt or wrong If our lovers of Church-power do think us intolerable because we obey them not as fully as they desire we profess before God and Man that it is not because we would not be subject and obedient to any as far as will stand with our obedience to God but only because we dare not we will not do that which we believe that God forbideth us And if we erre it is not for want of studying perhaps as hard and impartially as they to know the truth And to him that thinketh he doth evil it is sin It is sin and no small or tolerable sin which our consciences fear in our forbearing subscriptions and Conformity If they also take it to be a sin to suffer us to preach the Gospel and a greater sin than to suffer the inundation of Infidelity Popery and the rest which they say is ready to break in upon us And if they think our not Subscribing Swearing c. to be in us so great a sin that the punishment laid on Swearers Drunkards or Fornicators will not serve turn to avenge it on our selves nor any other of our personal sufferings unless the souls of many thousands and the Protestant Religion and our Posterity also suffer for it the Judgments of God must be endured But remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our Fore-fathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins Spare us good Lord Spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood and be not angry with us for ever And hasten O Lord Jesus thy more Righteous Judgement FINIS ERRATA P. 13. l. â—â— the thing p. 19. l. â— del 〈◊〉 p. 28. l. 21 r. you p. 45. l. 15. del 4 p. 65. l. 6. r. work p. 67. l. â—8 r. by not only p. 70. l. 3. for r. p. 89. l. â— r. intolerable p. 9â— l. â— r. make your p. 108. l. 21. r. and renounce all