A Plea for Tolleration OF OPINIONS and PERSWASIONS IN Matters of Religion Differing from the CHURCH of ENGLAND Grounded upon good Authority of Scripture and the Practice of the Primitive Times Shewing the unreasonablenesse of Prescribing to other mens Faith and the evil of persecuting differing Opinions Humbly Presented to the Kings most Excellent Majesty by Iohn Sturgion a Member of the Baptized People Acts 5. 38,39 And now I say unto you Refrain from these men and let them alone for if this Counsel or this work be of men it will come to naught but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it lest haply ye be found even to fight against God LONDON Printed by S. Dover for Francis Smith at the Elephant and Castle near Temple-Bar 1661. A Plea for Tolleration of Opinions and Perswasions in Matters of Religion differing from the Church of England May it please your Majesty I Have had strong impulses upon my mind for some dayes to present this Paper to your Majesty and I humbly hope it will not be made to suffer much under an evil Resentment upon its presentation to your hand because it bears a Testimony about it of the Authors good affections to your Royal Self for my witness is on High that I did not write this Paper because I love you not because I honour you not because I own you not in your Royal capacitie of Magistracy and Civil Power God knoweth that you have not any Subject more Christianly real or cordial unto you and I humbly beg that your Majesty would be pleased so far to deny your self as to read it with patience and to judge of it as you shall see cause I beseech your Majestie to Consider That it is one of the Soveraign and high Concernments of your Soul to understand and to be acquainted with the Counsels and mind of God and to find time to search throughly into those worthy Mysteries which the blessed Angels those great Princes of Heaven judge it no wayes beneath them to pry into and when they who are Gods by institution shall narrowly and with delight contemplate the Real Excellency of his Glory who is a God by nature they must needs be transformed into his likeness according to that most observable Passage of the great Apostle But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image and when the gods on Earth shall be changed into the same Image with the God of Heaven not doubt but blessedness is coming on a pace upon the world Now if your Majesty be pleased to look into the excellent proceedings of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords towards men he doth not take away his favour or withdraw his grace from all men because some abuse it render themselves so fearfully wicked as not onely to sin against the Law of Commandments but against that glorious Gospel of grace sealed and confirmed by the blood of ever blessed Jesus nor will he punish the Innocent for the guilty but the soul that sins shall die the Father shall not answer for the Son nor the Son for the Father but every soul shall bear the burthen of his own sin O that your Princely Mind might be Eluminated or enlightned by this heavenly instance that your Majesties Actions to all your Subjects from the Peere to the poorest may be guided by that Rule which God himself hath been pleased to lay before you I shall humbly take leave to mind your Majesty of the Liberty of tender Consciences which your Majesty declared to indulge in your Declaration from Breda for which many thousands did in all humility blesse the most High God who put it into your Majesties heart to declare your Resolution to provide in that particular That such as did uot disturb the Peace of the Kingdom might Worship God according to their Light and that no man should be molested or disquieted for differing Opinions in matters of Religion who could not joyn in the Publick service of worship Yet in regard of some Rebellious persons in the City of London who pretended to the like Liberty of worshipping God apart from the Parochial Assembly who made Insurrections and committed Murder under groundless pretences of fighting for the Kingdom of Christ whereupon your Majesty by Proclamation hath forbid all Meetings whatsoever in private houses or houses built or purchased for the use of Prayer and other Ordinances of Gods Worship whereby the Innocent suffer for the Guilty and many of your Majesties Loyal and obedient Subjects are questioned and publickly suspected to their great prejudice in their reputations the consequence whereof is very mischievous to them and their Families I cannot imagine how your Majesty can be unsatisfied as to the Innocency of the Baptized People and others who have not onely disclaimed the wicked Rebellion of the said persons but they have pressed their Innocency from the very thought or Imagination of any such wickedness If your Majesty please to consider that in case three or four of your Domestick servants should have committed or done fome unworthy Act whereby they had incurred your just displeasure upon which your Majesty should have discharged all your servants from any further attendance in your Royal Court although they never had any thing to do with the Offenders or their wayes It may be supposed that the Innocent would have thought this a very severe Act I shall Humbly leave Your Majesty to make the Application But if it be said the Law is against that Indulgence formerly granted unto us by your Majesty as was hinted in the Answer to the Petition of the Congregations in London given at your Majesties most Honourable Privy Council to the said Petitioners and therefore no longer to be continued unto us unless the next Parliament to whom we are referred provide for the same Upon which Answer some make this Observation That seeing the discontinuance of Your Majesties Gracious Indulgence proceedeth from the Aspect of some Old Law then we should have felt the influence thereof although Venner and his disciples had never been born Moreover if there be any such Law it was in being before Your Majesty sent that Dove with the Olive-Branch of Liberty of Conscience viz. Your Declaration that granted us Toleration for no Law was made against our Meetings by that Parliament which Your Majesty tearmed the Healing and Blessed Parliament Now if Your Majesty saw Reason to suspend the Execution of those Laws they being hurtful and pernitious to men of Tender Consciences then there is the same Reason for Your Majesty to suspend them still out of Tendernesse to all such as have in no wise abused Your Clemency and Grace to them vouchsafed in that Particular And whoever have or shall move Your Majesty to continue Your Proclamation against Meetings to worship God or to take occasion by those Laws to Grieve and Afflict poor Men and Women who have