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B06542	A brief, and plain apology written by John Wheelwright: wherein he doth vindicate himself, from al [sic] those errors, heresies, and flagitious crimes, layed to his charge by Mr. Thomas Weld, in his short story, and further fastened upon him, by Mr. Samuel Rutherford in his survey of antinomianisme. Wherein free grace is maintained in three propositions, and four thesis [sic] ...	Wheelwright, John, 1594-1679.	1658 (1658)	Wing W1604; ESTC R186427	40,565	36

the truth and shall assure our hearts before him doth thus Comment Semper autem me minerimus non habere nos ex charitate notitiam quam dicit Apostolus quasi inde petenda sit salutis certitude certe non aliunde cognoscimus nos esse filios Dei nisi quia gratuitam suam Adoptionem cordibus nostris per spiritum suum obsignat Et nos certum ejus pignus in christo oblatum fide amplectimur This is the question here determined by Mr. Calvin How we come first to know that we are the Children of God and by the like reason justified He denies that it is by any argument taken from our love How then By the inward witness of the Spirit perswading us of our Adoption What use then are we to make of our love to the Brethren in point of evidencing It under props saith he and strengthens our perswasion These are his words Est igitur charitas accessio vel adminiculum inferius al sidei fulturam non fundamentum quo nititur Zanchie upon Ephes 5.1 draws this as an inference from that text Sciamus ergo pro fundamento christianae Pietatis teneamus hoc primum principium fidem i. certissimam perswasionem de remissione peccatorum ex solâ paterna clementia condonatorum causam esse omnium virtutum omnium bonorum operum omnisque verae obedientiae They who stand for the first evidencing of Works overthrow this fundamental principle The Answer which Mr. Cotton gives to this Question Whether some saving qualification may be a first evidence of Justification is thus set down by himself in terminis A man may have an Argument from thence yea I doubt not a firm and strong Argument but not a first evidence In his Answer to Mr. Baylie Object 1. Keeping Gods Commandments and love to the Brethren are brought in by the Apostle John as first evidences of Justification 1 John 2.3 3.14 Answ These and the like Scriptures strongly argue That works of Sanctification are cerrain evidences of a good estate which is a truth so clearly held forth in Gods Word as if it were written with a beam of the Sun But can it be concluded from hence That John and the Christians to whom he wrote amongst which they of the lowest rank did know the Father had received an unction from the holy One and knew all things had no former evidence of their justification Did they never hear the inward witness of the Spirit nor see their Falth by which they did receive this witness Did they conclude a good estate by reflecting upon their keeping Gods Commandments and love to the Brethren without any immediate discerning of their inward Call or their act or acts of believing as precedent in order to their works Whether was this keeping Gods Commandments and love to the Brethren the procreant cause of their knowing and believing the love of God to them or the contrary The Apostle puts it out of doubt 1 Joh. 4.16.20 We know and believe the love that God hath to us What effect doth this produce We love him because he first loved us It is our knowing and believing that God loved us first even from eternity that makes us love him This is then the Apostles meaning We who have received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father we who are believers are confirmed in our Faith because it is operative and works causing us to keep Gods Commandments and this special Commandment of loving the Brethren What is the keeping of Gods Commandments but charity out of a pure heart and Faith unfeined 1 Tim. 1.5 Faith whereby we are truly perswaded of Gods mercy towards us in Christ is the mother of a good Conscience and charity What is love to the Brethren but an holy affection wrought in us by the Holy Ghost whereby upon the apprehension of Gods love to us in Christ we do from our very hearts wish well unto them and study to do them all the good we can 1 Joh. 4.16.19 20. Truly we should neither love God nor the Brethren nor his Commandments did he not first make known his love in Christ to us Mr. Calvin upon these words 1 Joh. 2.3 And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his Commandments writes thus Notandus est hic orde quum dicit nos cognoscere quod noverimus Significat Dei obedientiam sic conjunct am esse scientiae ut tamen haes ordine fit prior ●cuti necesse est causam effectu suo esse priorem Object 2. An Effect argues the Cause as well as the Cause doth its Effect Why may we not begin with keeping Gods Commandments and love to the Brethren to evidence a good estate and make them our first evidences We can know by fruit that there is a tree upon which it did grow and by streams that there is a fountain from which they did flow though we never see the tree or the spring Answ The tree doth naturally bring forth its fruits and the fountain sends out its streams without any act of ours whether we see them or not But Justification which is a gracious act of God acquitting of us from our sins and accepting us as just for the righteousness sake of Christ received by Faith doth not cause us to bring forth works of Righteousness and true holiness by a meer Physical force but as apprehended by Faith which works by love Gal. 5.6 The perswasion that Mary Magdalene had of the pardon of her many sins made her love much Luk. 7.46 If a tree did not bring forth fruit nor a fountain send out water but by our looking on them as the instrumental cause surely we should see the tree as going before the fruit and the spring-head before the streams Good works are such effects as are caused by our apprehension of Gods mercy towards us in Christ Object 3. No man can limit God to what evidence he shall first bring into the Conscience of a justified estate Answ True yet can God limit himself He can do more by his absolute power than he doth by that which is actual If the Lord wil have all works of sanctification to be done in Faith out of love without a slavish fear as so many acts of gratitude for our Redemption through Christ they who deny sanctification to be the first evidence do not limit God but are limitted by God The Gospel is as immutable in the order as in the substance of its parts being an everlasting Gospel Rev. 14.6 Object 4. Many of Gods Children can evidence to themselves a good estate by their love to God his children and commandments who never were perswaded of Gods love to them by any argument taken either from the inward testimony of the holy Ghost or their act or acts of beleeving Answ This is asserted gratis but not proved How did those Children of God come unto Christ Surely they were taught of God and heard the spirits inward call He

Grace it cannot be shewed out of Gods Word That any promise runs thus If you be thus or thus prepared for Christ then he belongs unto you ye have performed the condition and the benefit conditioned is yours I do acknowledge that the formal object of an efficacious Call are Elect persons prepared by the Law being sick lost dead sinners to their own apprehensions to the end that sin may abound and grace abound and that to their sense and feeling Rom 5.20 But there ate no preparations wrought either by Law or Gospel which so qualifie the Soul as a man may conclude from thence That God cals with a purpose to save Mr. Culverwel in his Treatise of Faith much bewailes the cordition of such who build their Faith upon the change of their lives affirming That they can never have sound and stedfast Faith but an unconstant and staggering opinion at the best This grounding of Faith upon gracious qualifications before union is much oppugned by Mr. Coltan in his New Covenant and by Mr. Norton in his Orth. Evang. Surely this is a doctrine which hath too much affinity with that of the Jesuites and Arminians who imagine that God makes a promise that he will give super-natural Grace to men upon condition they will use well their common grace PROPOSITION II. That the first evidence of our Justification is not any work of Sanctification 1. All good works are to be done in Faith Heb. 11.4 Rom. 14.23 Heb. 11.8 We must as ●●rsinus saith be perswaded that both our persons and our actions are accepted in and through Christ If this perswasion be the cause of good Works there must be a ground of this perswasion precedent to our Works Good Works are the effects of a former evidence therefore not our first evidences 2. All Moral Duties are comprehended under this general Precept of Love by which Faith works Gal. 5.6 as being either the elicite or imperate acts of Love but we cannot truly love God or our neighbor before we know and believe the love that God hath to us 1 Joh. 4.16 17 18 19 20 21. Who is righteous saith Bernard but he that requiteth the love of God with love again Which is never done except the Holy Ghost reveal unto a man by Faith Gods eternal purpose concerning his future Salvation Epist 107. If all our acts of evangelical love flow from the apprehension of Gods love to us they cānot be procreant causes of this apprehension nor our first evidences 3. All that the Gospel requires of us is to believe and repent We cannot evangelically repent before we perceive in some measure that God is reconciled unto us in Christ Zach. 12.10 Ezek. 16.63 Wherefore it is not our repentance nor any work of Sanctification which is our first evidence A man cannot earnestly apply himself to Repentance unless he know himself to be of God Cato Inot 3.3.2 4. All Works of Sanctification are so many acts of gratitude which hath ever relation to some former known benefit and especially our Redemption through Christ 1 Cor. 6.20 This benefit must be known by some Argument precedent to our works Therefore Sanctification is not our first evidence ursinus makes Gratitude the third part of his Catechism and placeth it after mans misery and freedom through Christ 5. All good works must be done in the name of Christ our Mediator Col. 3.17 in obedience to God our Father Then are we to know Christ to be our Mediator and God our Father and so by consequence our justification by some Argument antecedaneous to our works 6. The appearing of Gods grace which brings Salvation and of the kindness and love of God our Saviour justifying of us by his grace is the cause of all our good works Tit. 2 3. If the appearing of Justification and Salvation to the eye of Faith be the cause of all our Sanctification then is not Sanctification our first evidence 7. All good works from the first to the last are to be done without a servil fear Luk. 1.74 This sear is never removed but by a precedent sight of our deliverance from our spiritual enemies wherefore our Redemption and Justification is made known unto us by some other means which goes in order before all works of Sanctification 8. To begin to evidence a good estate from works is opposite to the method prescribed by the Apostle Peter He did write to Christians who knew and believed their justification for believing they rejoyced in joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 He exhorts them to add unto their Faith Vertue c. 2. Pet. 1.5 This Faith was existent out of its causes not to be grounded upon works but only confirmed by them He doth not say Add unto your works faith of assurance but add unto your faith works Therefore this Faith of assurance is not founded upon sanctification as a first evidence 9. We have two distinct witnesses of our good estate which in order do precede our sanctification 1 Our inward call of the spirit 2 Our act of believing on the Son of God The spirits inward call accompanying the outward begets this act of Faith 1 Joh 5.10 1 Thess 1.5 This act of Faith brings forth works of Sanctification Gal. 5.6 Sanctification is in order the last of the three witnesses of a good estate as being the effect of the two former wherefore it is not our first evidence Hoc est initium salutis nostrae quod in nobis sentimus efficax interna vocatio Dei fides nostra assentiens Zanchie De Certâ salute Ecclesiae Mr. Calvin with other learned and godly Divines living in that age wherein the light of the Gospel did abundantly break forth defined justifying Faith not only by an act of the Will whereby we receive Christ and his benefits but also by an act of the Mind by which we are certainly perswaded of Gods love to us in Christ and he doth constantly deny sanctification to be our first evidence and in his Commentaries upon Peter and John calls Works after-proofs Faiths props Both he and Zanchie do acknowledge with all sound Divines and the whole Church that good works evidence but with this caution There must be a former evidence Mr. Calvin thus expresseth himself But forasmuch as of the fruits of Regeneration the Saints gather an Argument of the Holy Ghosts dwelling in them they do thereby not slenderly strengthen themselves to look for the help of God in their necessities when by experience they find him their Father in so great a matter And even this also they cannot do unless first they have conceived the goodness of God sealed with no other assuredness than that of the promise for if they begin to weigh it by good works nothing shall be more uncertain or more weak Inst 3.14.19 Zanchie doth declare his judgement in the same expressions Loco 11. De Justificatione Calvin upon this text 1 Joh. 3.19 And hereby we know that we are of

a special Faith or order of evidencing were under a covenant of Works I was not so censorious I doubt not but many of your judgment who are truly gracious having an internal principle of true faith byassing their spirits another way than they discern The persons so judged by me were such as walked and only walked according to that judgement which I condemend not only Theoretically but Practically But seeing by this Doctrine you understand that Heretical Blasphemous Doctrine contained in the three former parts of your Accusation which you have fathered upon me fallaciously without any just cause it is a double injury and this member of your charge must needs vanish away with the rest of your devised calumnies putting a corrupt sense upon certain expressions in the Notes of my Sermon contrary to all rules of interpretation divine and humane This ground-work being thus secretly laid in the conclusion I am censured by the major-part of the Court to banishment as guilty of those two crimes Contempt of Authority and Sedition That I was justly condemned and censured by the court is that which you in your short story endeavour to prove but by what evidence of reason and force of arguments falls now into consideration to be examined and discussed 1. First You go about to prove that I was guilty of Contempt of Authority because say you I did not study Truth and Peace which Authority required Contempt is an act of the mind whereby we little or not at all regard a thing Contempt of Authority is when a man doth willingly refuse to submit to the promulgated just Laws or lawful known commands of Magistrates as such and hereupon proceeds to do something contrary to those laws and commands I know no law or command prohibiting me to Preach what I delivered Neither do I see how any such law could be just and it will be a difficult thing for you to prove That I acted from obstinacy of Will and such a defect of the Mind I have already proved the truth of my Doctrine and that I endeavoured to bring my Heaters to consent to that Doctrine cannot be denied so that herein I studied truth and peace Peradventure some Magistrates and Elders intended that I should not Preach against gracious qualifications before union and the first evidencing of Works but rather to have cryed down the contrary Doctrine as Antinomianisme and Familism and because I did not Preach according to their Minds this is looked at as contempt of Authority If to preach true Doctrine and unite men in the truth contrary to the intent of some Magistrates and Elders be contempt of Authority surely the Prophets Christ and his Apostles were notorious delinquents and guilty of this crime You speak of other contemptuous carriages but instance in no particulars I came one day tardy to the Court of which you tell all the world but that was from mis-information not out of any contempt I used some expressions of an acquitting glorying conscience when I suffered such shame in your Assemblies and did dispise that shame and so did he who was free enough from contempt of Authority endure the Cross despising the shame 2. In the second place you undertake to make it good That I was guilty of Sedition by these Arguments 1. First say you I inflamed the minds of men one against another caused divisions made breaches All this was accidental The word of God is a fire a sword and hammer to inflame divide break in pieces If simply to make divisions were Sedition it would more strongly conclude against Christ than Barrabas Your Arguments taken from Ethnick partial descriptions of Sedition are of no force against Christians Sedition is a dividing civil Societies as they are combin'd together in an unity of justice and common utility My Division was not Civil but Spiritual I did not go about to divide in that which was just and profitable but in that Errour of gracious Qualifications before Union and Works first Evidencing Paul was accused by Tertullus the Orator for a pestilent fellow and a mover of Sedition upon the like ground 2. Secondly You Object That I laid most of the Magistrates and Elders under a Covenant of Works To lay men under a covenant of Works simply in it self is not any transgression Political Moral or Evangelical The Syllogisme which concluded the Elders under that covenant was this They who walk in that way described by me to be a Covenant of Works are under that Covenant But the Elders Walk in that way described by me to be a Covenant of Works Therefore the Elders are under that Covenant Upon much questioning in the Court the major was made by me upon a question put by the Court to the Elders the minor was brought into Court in writing by them The Conclusion was made by the Court My Proposition was conditional or equipollent thereunto and conditionalis prepositio nihil ponit in esse seu nihil certe affirmat The Elders assumption made it absolute The Argument by which I described a man under a covenant of Works were the internal motions of his spirit known only to God and his own conscience and the Argument sub unâ utrâque is not à pari In a word I did not so much as in my thoughts conclude the Magistrates and Elders or any one of them or any other person absolutely to be under that covenant This conclusion The Magistrate and Elders are under a covenant of Works cannot be deduced from any thing delivered by me without the Elders Assumption in which I had no hand This was the Courts frequent and main Objection against me That I laid them and the Elders under a Covenant of Works I desired to know of them in what line or page protesting that I neither expressed nor intended any such thing Far be it from me to take Gods Office out of his hand who is the searcher of the heart and the tryer of the reins of all men If the Elders Assumption and the Courts Conclusion be removed there remains nothing for me to suffer for but only my Proposition which it seems did pungere and cut deep If it cannot be proved out of my Sermon that I said the Magistrates Elders and most of the Country were under a Covenant of Works c. I am innocent 3. Thirdly You Reason from the Seditious Effects of my Sermon I do not know any following Seditious practises But if there were any such they are not to be called Effects but Events That is put for a cause which is no cause I do not see any innate force in my Sermon to produce any Effects but these 1. To draw the Hearers from your Tenants about Faiths grounds both in judgement and practise 2. To Unite them in that judgement and practise which I apprehended to be evangelical 3. To contend by Arguments and sufferings with such as did profess themselves to be legal persecuting them for the Truth herein in case

any such should arise Might not all this have been done without Sedition Tertullian reports That the Gentiles used to fall upon Christians in time of publick Calamity If Tiber and Nilus did not over-flow if the heavens restrained their influence if there were Earthquakes Wars Famine Pestilence as the cause of all those evils whenas indeed the cause was in themselves 4. You make a great matter of certain typical allegorical expressions which I used to set forth our spiritual combate taken from bodily fightings which you would have to be understood in their literal proper sense as if I should stir up to a bodily fight You confess that I did otherwise express my meaning why wil not you take my meaning as I did express it Why might not I use scripture expressions in a scripture sense To cut off all your Arguments at once all this while you dispute ex non concessis You have grounded the Courts sentence Censure all your reasons to maintain the justice of the Court upon the matter contained in that secret Accusation before mentioned which did never shew its face openly but acted in tenebris Brother Weld you would have your Hearers to take it for granted That I delivered that which you charged upon me in your Accusation to which you relate all your defence of the Courts justice You lay this as a ground-work as will appear by sundry passages in that which you call a short story but especially in your Preface to it These are your words Now you might hear one of them Preach a most dangerous Sermon in a great Assembly when he divided the whole Country into two rancks some that were of his opinion under a Covenant of Grace those were friends to Christ Others under a Covenant of Works whom they might know by this if they did evidence their good estate by sanctification These were said he Enemies to Christ Herods Pilates Scribes Pharisees yea Antichrists I confess if this were true I had deservedly suffered But I pray you Mr. Weld let me come a little closer unto you With what good conscience can you report these things First That which you relate is not contained in the Notes of my Sermon which I suppose are upon record in the Court of the Massachusets in New England neither immediately nor in their principles Secondly After your Accusation before mentioned came to my hands I sent an Answer to you Elders which you received shewing my self much grieved with that your clandestine unparalled practise disclaiming these Errours which you charged upon me as erronious and wicked shewing that you had no ground to father them upon me Thirdly I was questioned in the Court about these particulars First They asked me Whether Faith and Repentance were any Conditions of the Gospel I Answered They were Conditions consequent but not antecedent that is they followed Christs giving of himself unto us in a free promise but went not before Secondly They demanded of me Whether Sanctification was any Evidence of a good Estate Yes said I it is secondary evidence but not the first Thirdly The Court put this Question to me Whom I meant of by those under a Covenant of Works To which I Replyed I intend it of none absolutely but conditionally if they walk in that way which I describe to be legal I did openly in the Court and I doubt not in your hearing plainly express my sense and meaning Fourthly Reverend Mr. Cotton who constantly in the Court stood by me with me in a speech which he made bears this witness to the Doctrine I taught I do conceive and profess That our Brother Whelewrights Doctrine is according to God in the Points controverted and wholly and altogether and nothing did I hear alleaged against the Doctrine proved by the Word of God Would that learned judicious holy man of God give such testimony to that Doctrine delivered by me or would you have suffered it in him if it had been according to your Report Certainly he would have abhorred it and born as much witness against it as you Miserable is that cause which cannot be justified without such feigned Accusations against so much light Will these their Fictions justifie the Courts acts To set a fairer colour upon your cause and make it more probable that I was justly condemned and censured by the Court you do in your short story take this course 1. First You put upon me many odious and reproachful Names I am stiled by you an Antinomian Familist Libertine Seducer My conscience bears me witness That I do not hold so far as I know any opinion of Sectaries as such nor any Doctrine condemned in any approved Council or Synod but such as is maintained by some Orthodox Divines not disconsonant from the Harmony of Churches Confessions though I do not build my Faith upon the Dictates of men but only upon the written Word of God I am not through Gods infinite mercy an Antinomian Familist Libertine or any other Sectary but a Christian I do with Mr. Calvin prefer the Papists before them Mr. Weld would drown me in that Pit of Heresies which was privily digged for me The Points of Doctrine which I held wherein I did really differ from my Reverend Brethren in matters of greatest concernment were so far as I know only these Five following Positions 1. That to conclude that Christ belongs unto us from Qualifications precedent to Union is legal and no conclusion of Faith 2. That to conclude a good estate from Works as first evidences of our union is legal and no conclusion of Faith 3. That the Faith of Gods Elect by which they do believe on Christ is grounded upon an absolute promise of grace 4. That the first evidence of Gods grace and mercy in giving of us Christ is the inward witness of the spirit in an absolute promise of Grace 5. That in our passive conversion we are justified by a passive reception of Christ precedently in order of nature to our act of beleeving If I may justly be branded for an Antinomian Libertine Familist Seducer by reason of the Assertions or such as are dependent upon them I cannot justifie my self yet let me be convinced that they or any of them are erronious I shall by Gods grace retract Errare possum Haereticus esse nolo 2. Secondly You would make your Reader beleeve page 25. That in the Synod I disputed and maintained these Points contained in your Charge which you call the ground-work of my imagined Sedition You know very well Brother Weld that long before the Synod in my Answer to the Elders I disowned them as wicked Errours shewing that they were your groundless Inferences and is it likely I should defend them in the Synod There was no such matter The Positions which I brought into the Synod to my best knowledge were these ensuing which I shall explicate and confirm THESIS I. That Assurance of Justification from Works of Sanctification is not our

represent me to the world the Lord himself would have Stigmatized me with a witness If should out of Gods judgment grow worse and worse deceiving and being deceived my folly and madness would have been made manifest unto al men I should have been filthy and unjust stil the Lord who gave Jezabel a time to repent and she repented not cast her into a bed killed her children with death would discover my heresy and wickedness though I laboured never so cunningly to palliate the same and al the Churches should have known that God is he who searcheth the Reines and hearts Rev. 2.21.22.23 You have set upon me al the fearful works of reprobation God takes them off by his word and acts of providence Is not the witness of God alone more to be credited then the witness of you al Indeed Mr. Rutherford glories much in one of his witnesses whom he supposeth to be the Author of the short Story Let it then be taken for granted that Mr. Rutherford is my lawful judg yet he hath no witness so far as I know but the Author of the short story who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conceales his name against natures light and hath born notable false witness against me in that he did accuse me of seducing a man and leading of him into many wicked errors upon such a weak ground as I have shewed and his other witness is Mr. Thomas Weld both of them being parties in the cause Will he now condemne me upon this account before he heare what I can plead for my self Is this righteous judgment Admit there be more witnesses and Mr. Rutherford stand up as an other witness for so he is in this case it is not the multitude nor Godliness of the witnesses that makes their testimony true but the conformity which is between the testimony and the thing testifyed Is Mr. Rutherford certain that what he reports is true He knows very wel that mendacio annumeratur asseveratio rei incertae pro certa quamvis putamus esse veram Mr. Rutherford stands as it were upon the shoulders of the short Story-writers takes his bloody pen as he cals it into his hand draws blood of many sound men in judgment the deare Saints and servants of God whose blood in the sight of God is precious and what they report he reports and more too with much passion and in most reproachful language where I leave him to stand or fal with them To conclude this is the sum of my answer to Mr. Thomas Weld and Mr. S. Rutherford The true real cause of my sufferings in my Estate Liberty Name Ministry in my Self Wife Children Family under the name of heresy contempt of Authority and sedition was that doctrine contained in my first three propositions wherein I differed from some of my brethren about the grounds of a special faith and the order of evidencing a good estate It was of late attempted to bring me under new sufferings for delivering the same doctrine in a Sermon which I preached at Boston at the Court of Election and it was objected that I raked up the old matter This true cause is silenced by them both Certain of my brethren the Elders devised a cause against me as I have shewed and can prove differing from this in substance which they presented to the Court yet never brought it to publick view but makes use of it amongst themselves prejudicing the Court and their freinds against me This false fained cause is published by the short Story writers and Mr. Rutherford follows them I commit the further clearing up of these things unto the Lord who wil bring every work to judgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil To God only wise be prayse through Jesus Christ for ever Amen A Postscript 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What credit is to be given to the wittness borne against me by Mr. Weld and Mr. Rutherford wil more evidently appeare by these opposite Testimonies which I do here annex Mr. Cotton in his answer to Mr. Baly Pag. 60. 61. Makes this report Neither the Church nor my selfe did ever look at Mr. Wheelwright either as an Antinomian or Familist Many of us knew that he had taken good pains against both and in that very place where he was wont to preach insomuch that one of his hearers who since joyned to Mr. Gortons society openly contested against his doctrine as false and Antichristian And when Mr. Wheelwright was put out of this Country though he be since restored ye if he had cleaved to the errors the companys fel into he would never have refused their earnest invitation and cal of him to Minister unto them They sent to him and urged him much to come to them to a far richer soyl and richer company then where he lived yet he constantly refused and upon that very ground because of the Corruption of their judgments Professing often while they pleaded for the Covenant of grace they tooke away the grace of the Covenant To The Honoured general Court now assembled at Boston the Petition of the Church and Town of Hampton 26. 2. 1654. Humbly Sheweth THat whereas our Reverend Pastor M. John Wheelwright doth deeply Suffer in his name as an heretical criminous person especially by two printed books the one written by Mr. Thomas Weld the other by Mr. Samuel Rutherford Which hath and wil have a sad influence upon his person Ministry Family Wife Children and posterity for ever and they seem to us cheifly to ground their charge upon this Honoured Courts proceedings against him who censured him to Banishment for Contempt of Authority and sedition and condemned him in a Court order for seducing many of the people of New-England into dangerous errors by his opinions and Revelations So that it was feared that they would make some sudden irruption against them of contrary judgment as they did in Germany Our humble request therefore unto this Honored Court is that they would be pleased to take into their consideration their several acts concerning him and if it appeare that he suffered further then cause required through any mistake that some course might be taken for the healing and reparation of his name Otherwise we do conceive that we are not long like to enjoy his ministry and presence amongst us whom to our best discerning we have ever found orthodox and sound in judgment upright and blameless in life and conversation Whose departure from us wil tend to our great detriment both to our inward and outward man if not destructive to our peace and welfare We leave our request in the hands of your worships for whose good guidance by Gods gracious presence we pray At a general Court held at Boston 24. August 1654. THis Court taking into consideration the good service and great use which Mr. John Wheelwright hath been and is of in the Towns of Hampton and adjacent places and the earnest endeavours which that Town hath used