agree in the means 2. Unity and that Scripture 3. Uniformity that every thing be done according to Scripture decency and order that we be one of one way and of one mind and walk by the same Rule 4. Order none stirring out of his place all studying to be quiet and to follow their own business peaceably and obediently knowing them that rule over them 5. The power of Grace and Religion which is a wisdome from above first pure then peaceable and the power of Religion makes for peace 1. By subduing lusts whence come worse 2. By working that love that beareth all things c. 1 Cor. 13. 3. By enlightening the mind difference come from ignorance if we have grace to practise what we know God will reveal other things in due time and we shall all agree 4. By subduing that covetousness ambition pride envy c. that disturb the world 5. The power of Grace in us will convince all men that God is in us of a truth and so will pacifie the world The 6th thing that makes for peace a great care of weak and wilful ignorance which is lazy and will not search for truth bashful and is ashamed to do it sullen and will not understand 7. Take care of interest private or publick keep up a frame of spirit that looks rather what is just necessary and true then what is expedient and useful 8. Be humble and teachable neither proud nor self-conceited pertinacy nor think seriously on this obvious truth a man may erre put on meekness and long-suffering 9. Take care of respect of persons and of prejudice 10. Be deliberate and sober proving all things 11. Have a zeal always guided by knowledge 12. Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory 13. Prudently suspend your judgement and practise and if you have faith have it to thy self 14. All lawful condiscention and forbearance one with another forbearing and receiving one another and bearing one anothers burden 15. Wait by prayer on the God of peace for your selves for your Ministers for your Magistrates 16. Mark them that cause divisions and avoid them 17. Give up your selves to your faithful Ministers whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation 18. Be wise unto sobriety and rather believe then dispute avoiding all unnecessary questions 19. Take care of an Innovating Spirit stand in the way ask which is the good way and walk therein and you will find rest for your Souls 20. Consider one another so as to provoke one another to love and to good works 21. Let the spirits of the Prophets be subject to the Prophets 22. Correct and keep down the rising of our knowledge with humility in our selves and charity towards others 23. So long as there is sound agreement in fundamental truths and in the simplicity of the Gospel silence all disputes in matters meerly notional and curious which have no necessary influence into faith and godly living 24. Let there be a joynt obedience to the truths wherein all agree and pursuance of the end which all profess whereunto we have already attained let us walk by the same Rule let us mind the same things Phil. 3. 26. 25. Out of a serious and single-hearted love of truth let us address our selves to the search of holy Scriptures 26. A mutual and brotherly love which is a very great means to work upon the judgements of one another and to take off all impediments as usually arise from personal prejudice in disquisition of truth 27. Keep your selves to the Analogy of faith the form of sound words 28. Labour against the inward grounds of contention as pride self-love envy malice and covetousness and endeavour after a meek charitable yielding and submissive disposition of heart and frame of spirit that may let fall private interest for the publick 29. Meet and converse together for a mutual good understanding of one another 30. Wait upon God for further illumination in all truth 31. Let the grounds of Religion be laid by Catechising 32. Suppress the beginning of religious debates by a fair and amicable communication among your selves Thus we have given a sincere account of our selves which we beseech the Lord to bless to confirm the weak to direct the doubtful to convince gain-sayers and to gain peaceable and sober men favour with God and men A SOLEMN VOW That we have taken VVE the Ministers of the Gospel in the Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland living under one King and being of one Reformed Religion having before our eyes the glory of God and the advancement of the Kingdome of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the honour and happiness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity and the true publick liberty safety and peace of the Kingdomes wherein every ones private condition is included and calling to mind the treacherous and bloudy Plots Conspiracies Attempts and practises of the Enemies of God against the true Religion and Professors thereof in all places especially in these three Kingdomes ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their rage power and presumption are of late and at this time encreased and exercised whereof the deplorable estate of the Church and Kingdome of Ireland the distressed estate of the Church and Kingdome of England and the dangerous estate of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland are present and publick Testimonies We have now at last after other means of supplication Remonstrance Protestations and sufferings for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter ruine and destruction according to the commendable practise of these Kingdomes in former times and the example of Gods People in other Nations after mature deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn League and Covenant wherein we all subscribe and each one of us for himself with our hands lifted up to the most High God do swear And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocatious against God and his Son Jesus Christ as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers the fruits thereof We profess and declare before God and the world our unfained desire to be humbled for our own sins and for the sins of these Kingdomes especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts nor to walk worthy of him in our lives which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us And our true and unfained purpose desire and endeavour for our selves and all others under our power and charge both in publick and in private in all duties we owe to God and Man to amend our lives and each one to go before another in the example of a real Reformation that the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in truth and peace And this
up every relation conscionably and faithfully according to the Rule and as men that desire to approve our selves to God and men as 1. to our calling we desire to be faithful neither suppressing nor corrupting the truth to take heed to our selves and to all the flock of God over which the holy Ghost hath made us overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood We desire to speak from the heart to the heart to feel in our selves what we speak to others that we may serve God with our spirit in the Gospel of his Son that we may save our selves and those that hear us that we may walk from love to God to the glory of God and the salvation of our souls as able faithful resolute industrious in preparing for and exercising of our Ministry and as compassionate of souls preaching the Word purely plainly prudeâ—tly powerfully and sincerely administring the Sacraments carefully instructing our Flocks advising admonishing and comforting them as we see occasion being good examples to Believers in words in conversation in charity in spirit in faith in purity and waiting upon God for success We desire to be neither too austere in our retiredness nor too cheap in our sociablenesse but carrying so even a hand that our discreet affableness may be free from contempt and that we may win our people with a loving conversation as secondly to our Relation first to our Familier we desire to be the mouth of our people to God by constant prayers and the mouth of God to our people by wholsome Instructions and holy Admonitions loving tender and careful of our nearest Relations devoting them to Gods service and committing them to his care providing yet for them honest things in the sight of men and going before them in good examples of piety and holy conversation and so over-looking them as they that have more then meer bodies committed to our charge We desire to be familiar meek humble and courteous towards all and helpful one way or other to our neighbour as they that think our selves born to do good maintaining peace and love at home and abroad 25. We think we have fully informed our selves in all the necessary points of Religion and we are so firmly grounded in those fundamental and saving truths that we will not be carried about with every wind of doctrine as for circumstances we neither neglect them nor yet too eagerly pursue after them we receive nothing in Religion upon trust nor dare we absolutely follow any guide but such as we are sure cannot erre we have some hours for speculation but our Life is to reduce knowledge to practice and so much we think we know as we can live where we are convinced we we can submit where we must dissent we can be silent and where we dissent from the Church we desire to examine throughly whether we are deceived we keep close to those truths which do most promote the glory and grace of God the reformation of men and the salvation of souls Whosoever therefore by pride or faction or schisme or ambition or novel fancies and arrogance or ignorance or sedition or popularity or vain-glory or envy or discontent or corrospondence or any other carnal reason shall cause divisions or offences by teaching any other doctrine then what we have received we look not upon him as the Servant of Christ 26. We desire we may not be judged for our austere conversation and strict life for we desire so to speak and so to do as they that shall be judged by the Law of Liberty We would our discourse were grave discreet pertinent free from vanity free from offence We allow our selves no corrupt or unsavoury communication in worldly affairs we desire nothing may fall from us but what is seasonable and well advised in spiritual such as may minister grace to the hearers and such as is sparing and charitable allowing neither detraction nor censure not meddling with any matters of State but keeping our selves within compasse only desiring to understand the times that we might know what Israel ought to do In word and actions we desire to walk circumspectly to avoid all appearance of evil to walk as in sincerity as in truth and as in the sight of God exercising our selves to a good Conscience void of offence towards God and towards men willing in all things to live honestly and endeavouring to live without rebuke in the middest of a crooked and perverse generation and if we are more earnest and serious then ordinarily you must know that we are sensible how short time is what eternity is and what are our immortal souls and what that God is with whom we have to do Our recreation we desire may be safe inoffensive and moderate in time and measure such as may refresh a tired body and mind and not effeminate or debauch them we would indeed rejoyce as if we rejoyced not We allow our selves so far creature-enjoyments as nature requires and grace moderates and our God blesseth we redeem our time considering it is not our own improving it to our best advantage we know a day or a night well spent makes way for Eternity We desire to be very observant of our outward conversation but we look chiefly at our inward frame we live by the precepts we live upon the promises we affect not singularity we aim at sincerity our Habits commend us not to God yet by our Habits we would not give offence unto men our devotion we desire may be with fear and reverence on the one hand and with Faith and sincerity on the other we watch unto prayer and we watch after prayer and indeed we desire always to watch and be sober fearing in adversity and rejoycing in tribulation knowing that tribulation provoketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed 27. Our indeavours to keep a good understanding at Court by our Friends and Brethren is loaded by our enemies for so some would be still notwithstanding his Majesties endeavours for pacification with all the obloquies and exasperations imaginable and looked upon by some indifferent men with jealousies and fears but these men know not the just motives and pregnant grounds with which we think our selves furnished for those undertakings God knows it is not any interest or party we desire to serve there but we pursue the peace and good of the Kingdome and endeavour to prevent future dangers which we may foresee will in all likelihood follow some mens activity if not restrained by a moderate Interest not as if we would stop the course of Law or weaken Authority but that we desire heartily as many honourable Persons do with his Majesty and his Father of blessed memory That no Party or Interest be exasperated and the multitude are easier exasperated then appeased by crossnesse and asperity of some mens passions humours or private opinions grounded only upon differences in lesser matters which are
little separations and divisions and resolvedly knit our selves together in an entire affection one to another that by this all men may know that we are Christs Disciples because we love one another and are ready to shew all mutual respects of Christian love and observance to each other upon all occasion loving as Brethren As likewise we shall in all meekness of spirit lovingly converse with and kindly affectionate to and respectful towards all our Fathers and Brethren in their places living without offence and blameless 14. We mourn but not as men without hope that our gracious God will find out a way to have mercy upon us and to chear up his countenance towards all his Chosen Ones wiping as that holy Bishop said all tears from their eyes and all spots from their faces and answering the holy desires of their hearts in shewing them Sion in perfect beauty and that not by overturning any part of the Government but by opening our hearts to see our errours and close one with another by turning the heart of the Father towards the Child and of the Child towards the Father least God come and smite the earth with dicurse 15. In the mean time we possess our Souls in patience and we keep silence before God waiting upon him that hideth his face from Jacob for his Spirit of love unity peace and concord resolving to continue thus doing till we receive an answer from heaven 16. It s true there are many of us whose bodies will not bear that austerity of fasting and humiliation which our cause may require yet they that cannot fast do pray and they that cannot spare a day in seven can spare an hour in twelve and make up the rest in frequent and servent ejaculations 17. Whereas some have pretended that we set up a Government within a Government and that we have an Authority among our selves we must let the world know we are all equal and we have no formality or Ceremony among us but a free and voluntary entrance left open for all comers into this strict course of Christian Austerity without any noyse without the required notice of any but God and their own conscience that all may well know and see that here is no design than meerly Spiritual aiming at nothing but Religious Transactions between God and our own Souls and consisting in the performance of the unquestionable exercises of Piety and holy Devotion 18. Since we have been uncapable of speaking to the people the things that are of everlasting concernment we have recommended to them the writings of good men pious and peaceable who being dead yet speak and poor men we know may read a good book when they cannot hear a good man and we our selves teach them from house to house with tears day and night as the Apostles did leaving with them such books as Mr. Baxters Call his Now or Never his Directions for Peace of Conscience his Saints Everlasting Rest Mr Bolton Dr. Sibbs Mr. Perkins Mr. Dod and Dr. Preston 19. We settle mens judgements upon most firm and solid principles leading to peace and holiness leading them through that safe and middle way that is equally distant from all the extremes men have run into in their hearts about some points of Religion as particularly in the points now in difference among us we teach our people that though we cannot conform to the Church without sin yet they cannot separate from it without sin we cannot administer according to the prescribed form but we and they can hear according to it we must joyn with the Church in our duties though we are not guilty of her infirmities we teach them that it is one thing to hold communion with a Church that is under some miscarriages and another thing to act those miscarriages what we chiefly insist on are things much comporting and agreeing with the spirit of the Scriptures and things that are most proper to build men up in their most holy Faith and to promote the power of godliness in their hearts and lives 20. It s true we desire to settle our peoples hearts upon all occasions but always offering them such things as tend to peace and quietness and godliness of living dealing as faithfully with them as those who must give an account and if therefore we have any interest with them we improve for God our Soveraign and the Church of Christ for whose distressed members we sometimes solicit them with success and find them willing above their strength and ability and we hope the Lord will not forget their work and labour of love and yet we desire not to wrong any Minister in his place for indeed we stated the point of Ministers maintenance upon such grounds that we are perswaded no sober Christian with whom we have any interest will withdraw any thing that is due from any man that labours in the Word and Doctrine and watches for their Souls And though we are otherwise represented yet our great endeavour is by a discreet interposition to allay and fix the people to a due temperament gently guiding some mens well-meaning zeal by such rules of moderation as are best to restore and preserve the health and peace of this Church and Kingdome much pleasing our selves in that good and firm understanding which would thence grow between his most Excellent Majesty and his good people all jealousies being laid aside our own and our Posterities Interest lay before us many strong obligations to seek and preserve the peace and welfare of the Land of our Nativity the offence which some mens dangerous medling and over-busie interpositions have contracted upon our profession we have resolved to expiate by such moderations for the future as might not only check the excesses of our practise but of our Opinions too no men having a greater kindness for peace and settlement preserved in truth unity and order then our selves whom it most concerns whether we consider our consciences callings or interests as knowing that nothing undermines to much in our Authority and Calling as those dangerous dissentions wherein the people learn to shake off both 21. It is true we cannot own that Episcopacy now established so as to undertake it our selves yet we would submit to it as to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether to the King as Supreme or to those who are sent by him whose great charges and care is like enough to betray them to some errours and many enemies whereof they canno but contract good store while so eminent and so active they provoke that envy which improved to a popular odium is able to overcast the highest Merit and Integrity wherefore the Bishops have our prayers pity and assistance and although we cannot in our judgement approve all that they do driven it may be rather by the temper of the people and unhappiness of this age then 〈◊〉 their own disposition to any height and rigour of action yet we allow not that their persons