praecipientis the Commanders Act The instances before mentioned tell you that this may be obeyed for the Penalty sake when yet the evil of the Command or Law is sinful and so worse than the Penalty or Obedience which are not sin Forgive me for telling you that you should have distinguished the preceptive part of the Law from the matter Commanded by it and the evil of the Law and Law-maker from the evil of the Obeyer and then only have concluded that he that obeyeth a Precept only to avoid the Penalty professeth the Penalty to be worse then his Act of Obedience But he doth not make it worse then the Law or the Law-makers sin If a Law did Command me to appear before a Lay-Civilian who useth the Keys of the Church and this on pain of Death or Imprisonment I may be moved both by Precept and Penalty to appear as being better then either refusal or penalty and yet not think that the Law or Precept is a less evil in itself or its ends to the Law-maker or the publick Whether this thought be right or wrong is nothing to our question so if I were by Law commanded to joyn in the Lyturgy on pain of Death or Imprisonment or being deprived of all other Church Worship I may think this Law worse than my sufferings and yet think my Obedience to it my Duty Yea if a Law bid me play with Childrens Bubbles or any such trisling on pain of Death the Case would be the same And if any should take occasion by your confident judgment to refuse to obey wherever he may not justify the preceptive part of the Law the effect would be worse then of my naming Dr. O. SECT 4. I Told you I have no leisure to write Books for my self now Thus far I have written for Truth and Love and Unity As to all your Charges against my self I say again I will not justify my self My naming Dr. Owen which is so heinously taken I have told you the occasion of To which I truly add 1. I did it as a distinctive note that the Readers might know what it was that I answered 2. And I that use to put my Name to my Writing never dreamt that it would have been taken any worse to name him than to confute a Writing that by common uncontrolled supposition bore his Name Had I thought it would have been taken so ill while the Super-Conformists bear far more it 's two to one but I had forborn it And now it 's done I am yet but little wiser when I think of the publick Cause fore-described I am ready to think it should weigh down all your contrary reasons When I feel in my self an inward averseness to strive with any by ungrateful words and hear from you how ill it 's taken then I dislike it And my own selfish lothness to be the object of the hard thoughts and talk of so many of you is some byass to my judgment I wholly follow the Rule you mention to choose that which doth most good and least hurt And truly the reverence of your own and some others judgment telling me that it doth more hurt than good doth turn the Scales and make me repent that I named the Doctor And I leave your Charges against me to their best advantage to the Reader though my inclination is much to open the mistakes I may give a brief touch to your self for your information which I expect not should affect the Reader suppose your Book to lie open before you Pag. 1. 1. If you thought them not good enough to be his nor intended for publick view why did you wrong him so much and the people much more as to divnlge them with his Name Pag. 2. Do good men take it for a priviledge to hurt the Church uncontradicted 2. The more are displeased with Truth the greater is the disease that needeth it 3. To be zealous for Love against Hatred and its Causes is not so bad as to need to be quenched It is zeal for a Sect against Unity which corrupt nature is for 4. I doubted not but guilt would be impatient 5. It was your Party that wronged his Name by divulging that which you now take for his disgrace Pag. 3. It 's wisely done not to own the Cause I oppose and yet not let men know whether it be for fear of the Law or because you are against it O that I could have fore-known that I might have confuted his Arguments without his Name and displeased no body I thought you had taken them for his Honour and not his Disgrace when so many value them Pag. 4. 1. If they are true they are his Honour If false why should I suffer them to do mischief 2. I named not Mr. Ralphson till all said he openly owned his Books in Prison Had you rather all that Worship God in Parish Churches were persuaded that it is Idolatry than Mr. Ralphson should be confuted by name I hope you have better reasons for concealing your own Name to do mischief un-named is not worth pleading for Pag. 5. If the work be faulty why do you not joyn with me to save men from it And why did your private Letter own it his conjunct with Fame And not one Man yet that I hear of denyeth it 2. I offered you to stop it 3. Is it disingenuity in me to tell you of twenty untruths in your private Letter and many notorious and ingenuity in you to be offended for being told of them rather than for writing them This is to comply with the World that taketh the detecter only for the sinner 4. Is a defensive confutation of Errour dealing severely 5. Agreeing Copies confute you To confute Errour is not worse then to own or defend it Pag. 6. If it be so heinous to confute it why did you divulge it Pag. 7. My Reasons for Love and Concord were long before considered 2. I had heard of them long in many hands though till then I never saw them And you say you saw it a year before 2. It 's strange so knowing a man should think that bad Arguments with a valued Name are not dangerous Yes even against common sense as those for Transubstantiation To confute your self you add that on all sides peoples Opinions are mostly and most strongly mastered by affections and it 's beyond all our power to cure the disorder And yet is there no danger from Names Pag. 8. Must all appearance of Enmity and bitterness be laid aside and Love used c. And yet must we let Men Excommunicate one another and call all to mutual avoidance without contradiction Let Churches and Christians be taught to damn each others Persons and Worship causelesly and take each other for Idolaters for fear of breaking Love and Peace 2. Do you believe that Dr. Owens Name was not known with them before 3. Mr. Warners came out since which I compared with Mr. Ralphsons 4. Can you tell why I was to
we serve You say When men pray they bid us pray in extempore prayer both are required to what is good True And I may joyn with the good in an extempore prayer without owning any evil in it Indeed you say p. 28. The Mass is not more twisted in all the parts of it by Law than the Lyturgy nor left less to our power to pick and choose If this Union do render the far greater pollutions the Idolatry and Heresy of the Mass infectious to the whole Worship who can prove that the pollutions of other Worship when we are likewise commanded not to distinguish or divide doth not in their kind and degree diffuse the taint alike Ans. God is the Master of his Worship I do what he bids me tho man contradict it If God bid me hear and believe the Scripture and man say hear also and believe the Apocrypha I will openly profess I obey God and you no further than you contradict not God Rather than not hear the Scripture I will hear also the Apocrypha but not believe it to be Gods Word But if they bid me also hear the Alcoran I will withdraw 2. It is not the Conjunction but the kind of the thing joyned that maketh it unlawful An honest weak man an Antinomian an Anabaptist a Presbyterian or whoever you dissent from in tolerable cases may mix his Opinion and faulty expressions and methods with his Prayer and Sermon as intimately as evil is mixt in the Mass and yet you will not refuse Communion with him It is lawful to drink beer that hath bad water mixt rather than none but not to drink that which hath poyson equally mixt To p. 29. I think if a Turk pray against Idolatry Murder c. that Prayer is materially good But as to Goodness from a Holy Principle no Hypocrites is good The insufficiency of my answer you no way manifest till you prove that I must joyn with all that is in publick Worship or with none 6. Pag. 32. You say Doth he say a word of owning Parish Churches and Worship Ans. If you or he say nothing against these we shall leave the Diocesan case to others But if you be the man that I have lately privately written to I doubt not but I have proved to you that Parish Churches that have good Ministers are true particular Churches and those Ministers true Pastors and that any Bishops holding the contrary doth not disprove it 7. When you recite my words describing the Cause I plead viz. I have written over and over that I persuade no man either to or from a publick Church till I know his Circumstances And that I doubt not but it is one mans duty and another mans sin You add I believe dear Sir that though this concession may displease those who may best bear it it may reconcile you to most of those that are called Dissenters If so those Dissenters it seems by you do not much differ from me But I think ten to one of the people accounted commonly Dissenters through England are of my mind and are for Parish-Worship rather than either none or worse But by Dissenters I suppose you mean those of the Doctors mind or your own And if so I thank you for your own Charity and Reconciliation But if you did not know them better than I I should doubt that your said Friends are not altogether so reconcileable Sir You add p. 39. And if as you allow the practical determination depends on the circumstances of the Persons you reduce the Controversy to a far narrower room than was by most supposed And every one being best capable of understanding his own circumstances it will not bear great heat or importunity from another But whence came those wrong Suppositions of the most If after 20 years Communion in the Parish Churches I venture on the Censorious so far as to give my Reasons for my own Practice and defend those Reasons and that Practice against contrary Writings and such wise Men as you are so reconcilable and see how narrow the Controversy is whence comes it that most think it to be what it is not against such frequent plain expressions You and I may conjecture at the Cause Your Conclusion is a pious Profession of that Love and the main Principles of that Concord for which I write 10. You wisely leave the Vindication of the Doctors words when it cometh to the case which I oppose him in As That neither God nor good men will allow of judging our Profession and Practice by any reserves of our own when I have proved that our reserves against owning mixtures of evil are necessary in all Communion 11. You vindicate not his words that He that joyns in the Worship of the Common-Prayer doth by his Practice make Profession that it is wholly agreeable to Gods mind and will And that to do it with other reserves is Hypocrisy and worse than the thing itself without them 12. You vindicate not his grand Argument Religious Worship not Divinely Instituted and Appointed is false Worship without excepting any secondary sort of Worship 13. You defend not his saying That there is nothing accidental in the Worship of God and that every thing that belongs to it is part of it or of its subsistence 13. You defend not that Because outward Rites and Modes of Worship Divinely Instituted and determined do become necessary parts of Divine Worship therefore such as are Humanly Instituted and Determined are thereby made parts of false Worship What work would this Argument make If all outward Modes are false Worship when determined by Men if Divine Determination would make them necessary 14. You do not vindicate that All Prayers and Praise in Church-Assemblies meerly as such are prohibited by the Lyturgy unless you do it by denying Parish-Churches 15. You do not defend That the Lyturgick Worship was in its first Contrivance and is in its continuance an Invention or Engine to defeat or render useless the promise of Christ to his Church of sending the Spirit in all Ages to enable it to the due discharge and performance of all Divine Worship in its Assemblies and therefore unlawful to be complyed with That the very being and continuance of the Church without which it is but a dead Machine lyeth on this Doth this speak only of the English Lyturgy which is not 200 years old think you When next he tells us that It 's the way of Worship by a prescribed Lyturgy and that it was insensibly brought in when in several Ages the Church had lived without it and that to render the promise of Christ and the work of the Holy Ghost in the Administration of gifts useless 16. You defend not that Hence followed a total neglect of all the Spirits Gifts in the said Administration Nor that This produced all the Enmity of the said work of the Spirit which the world is now filled withal that it ariseth from hence alone Nor that the Worship Treated
about consists wholly in the Institutions and on the Authority of Men and therefore is false Worship and to renounce the Kingly Office of Christ in the Church Nor that It belongs to the faithfulness of Christ to appoint and command all things in the Church that belong to the Worship of God in the Forms and Modes of them Doth this speak only of the English Lyturgy Nor that liberty to use gifts in Prayer and Preaching is ridiculously pretended they are excluded in all the solemn Worship of the Church 17. You defend not that This Practice joyning in the Lyturgy condemns the suffering Saints of the present Age renders them false Witnesses of God and the only blameable cause of their own sufferings And if all the Nonconformists that 1660. gave their Testimony for a Reformed Lyturgy were not Saints at least they have been Sufferers And doth not this as much make them false Witnesses And if both you and we were mistaken I am confident you will not justify all that we suffer by and say we are the only blameable Cause As if every such mistake were worthy of all the punishment undergone Nor will you think that every good Mans Opinion must be justifyed which he suffereth for lest he be made the only Cause 18. You defend not that All the Promises Aids of the Holy Spirit with respect to the Prayer of the Church whether as to the matter of them or ability or the manner are rejected and excluded by this Form of Worship 19. You defend not I hope that your Church Covenant is to observe nothing but what Christ commandeth in the Worship of God 20. Nor that The Practice inquired into contains a vertual renunciation of our Church State and of the lawfulness of our Ministry and Ordinances therein If you do it is no renunciation of ours I thank you that you defend none of all these For truly they be not things Indifferent but if they be not true they are of confounding dividing unpeaceable Consequence SECT 2. III. AS to the third thing which taketh up most room viz. your blaming me 1. For using the Doctors name 2. For the manner of my Confutation I say distinctly 1. I confess I think that the name of Christ and Religion and its Honour is to be preferred before all mens And I had many years ago heard a Conformable Preacher before a very honourable and learned Auditory charge the Nonconformists with holding that A thing lawful in itself in Gods Worship becometh unlawful if it be commanded by the Magistrate And that Forms and Liturgies were unlawful because they be not made in Scripture by Christ. And I have read too many such Charges And I always answered that we were slandered 2. I quickly heard that the Manuscript was commonly spread and he that brought it me said he believed a thousand were confirmed by it against going to the Parish Churches and Lyturgy 3. Several of my Friends and Acquaintance had got it and told me they thought it unanswerable And all named the Doctor as the Author 4. I was suddenly told of a very able Conformist that was going to answer it and I feared he would lay it on us all 5. I made no doubt but Pulpits and Press would loudly say these are the Nonconformists Principles and if I denyed it would cite the Doctors Paper and Name 6. I knew divers of his Printed Books have the same Opinion of the unlawfulness of Imposed Forms what now should I say against such reporters of the Nonconformists Opinions Must we all bear the Accusation of so many Errours and be published with Scorn and Contempt to be such to make us odious to all rather than one Man should be Confuted I purposed at first to conceal his Name till I saw that all took notice of it and none denyed it and after I conjecture it is your self that in the Letter to me affirmed it I know that multitudes of Men of Name Learning and Power scorn us as they do the Quakers as believing them that say We make all this noise and Schism as a distinct Party and suffer silencing and Imprisonment because we will not Communicate with the Lyturgy which the Martyrs owned I dare not suffer the Innocent to lie under such a slander for one or many Mans Name we gave them our publick Testimony to the contrary 1660. and 1661. If a few that would not come in then and be seen among them that pleaded the Cause of the old Nonconformists have now by our distempers got so many of their mind as that we must be thought intolerably to wrong them if we necessarily give our reasons against them and shall pass their Excommunicating Sentence against the Cause of the old Non-Conformists and yours I cannot be one that shall betray the Truth and Cause of Catholick Communion by silence at such a time when the Erroneous expect that their Opinion should be so necessary to our Union that none must contradict it Therefore your saying that you have met with none that approveth my writing if it were for the Cause as well as my faultiness will make me see the greater necessity of bearing my Testimony against them Epidemical diseases most need Physicians if not to cure the sick yet to preserve the sound Paul wanted not Love nor Prudence to Peter when he not only reproved his Temporizing Separation to his Face but left it with his Name on Record to all Generations when they were both dead Christ had immediately before abundantly honoured and praised Peter who yet for his miscarriage speaketh to him as he did to the Devil Get thee behind me Satan c. Mat. 16. And yet the miscarriage was done in Love to Christ by a prime and dear Disciple and his name must be thus left under this most sharp reproof to be read from Age to Age by all Iames and Iohn were choice Disciples and yet their Ambition and their Uncharitable Zeal for Christ must be recorded with their Names as men that desired they knew not what and knew not what manner of Spirit they were of We are not so much better than they as the Passions of some Applauders intimate Christ will not be more tender of our Names than of his Cause and the good of Souls If David will cause Gods Enemies to blaspheme his sin shall be punished in the sight of the Sun though the sharpest part of the punishment be pardoned But as for my naming the Dr. and your intimation that it 's long of me that he is named as the Author of those Arguments I further say 1. Is not a Man named openly till his Name be Printed Was not the uncontradicted report still continued a publication Was there no publication of Names till 224 years ago when Printing was invented 2. All that I yet desire is to be able to deny it to be his that the next Man that hits the Non-Conformists in the Teeth with it as the Doctors may but be told
it is not his If you can and will but tell me that you believe it not to be his that I may have but so much to say I will thank you and make it publickly known Either the Cause and Arguments are true or false If true defend them If false are they not dangerous in so great a Cause and at such a time when they tend to drive hundred thousands from all Church Worship and Communion and to persuade Men into scandalous suffering for ill doing I think it laudable in you to honour the Doctor and if you be the Man I conjecture you are I think it 's specially incumbent on you As to your hints of suspicion of my sense of old differences if I know my heart I forgave and fully put up all Personal Quarrel long ago But the National Concerns made so deep a wound in my heart as never will be fully healed in this world But this leads me to the second part of your reproof II. I do but tell you my reasons for naming the Doctor but I undertake not to justify either that or the manner of my writing from mistake imprudence or other such faultiness I suppose you to be a Man whom I take from my heart to be far wiser and better than my self And therefore as I thank you for your gentle friendly reprehension so I profess that my very esteem and reverence of your judgment maketh me suspect that I have done amiss when I see it not in the Cause itself That I could have defended the Cause of Love and Communion against those Arguments without taking notice of the Author and without wronging the Non-conformists who will be charged by his name I did and do wish but I thought it could not well be done If in this I mistook I ask pardon of God and Man for so I must do for my sins known and unknown And as to the manner of my writing again I say I am convinced that all that I do is faulty and cannot but have some favour of the ignorance and imprudence and forgetfulness and other faults of the Author I read over your Animadversions and 1. I see at present some words of my own that I much more blame my self for writing than you for blaming 2. What I yet see not to be faulty your Authority shall make me yet suspect and further consider 3. I see very many passages where I am confident the mistake is yours sometimes mistaking the matter and sometime my words What good will it do the Reader or you or me to give the world an account of all these and to drown the Cause in abundance of self-defending words Indeed I have neither time nor mind to write a Book now for my self-defence The greatest Affliction I have by this Controversy as Personal is this diverting of my thoughts so near my last hours from things more agreeable to my Case And far be it from me to be confident in justifying my faulty writings when I am going to the Judge that will take that for an aggravation of my sin But I durst never forsake publick Communion nor my own work because I cannot have one and do the other without fault I am suspicious there may be more faults in me and my writings than either I discern or you or any such have told me of And if I could prove that your mistakes are the ground of your Accusation I see by your noting my numbring the mistakes in matter of Fact in the private Letter to me how you would take it Therefore instead of writing for my self I will give the Reader this concession and advice Readers I think it is little of thy concern to know whether I be wise or unwise good or bad or whether I did well or ill in naming Dr. O. or whether the manner of my writing be much or little to be blamed On condition you will agree with me in the cause of Love and Concord that I defend Lonly then intreat you that what imprudence unskil fulness rashness or other faults you find in me or my writings you will the more carefully your selves avoid them and do better And if you judge me to do ill when I do my duty and think very hardly of me for being against your way I unfeignedly forgive you and if you forgive not me I can bear that I was aware that I should be ill spoken of by many whom I love And I am not Ambitious to be ill spoken of If Folly make me exercise self-denyal it is for somewhat that I thought had been better then all the Love and Praises which I deny I flatter no Party and I look to gain by none I have gathered no Church to depend on for kindness nor is the fear of displeasing them a by as to my judgment And if it be otherwise with any I think were they like to have need of men in this world as short a time as I they would make as little of mens good or ill thoughts and words as I do except for the sake of other men Therefore Reader think of all the rest what you see cause so you will but agree in the Cause that I am defending That is I. That GOD IS LOVE and he that dwelleth in LOVE dwelleth in GOD and GOD in him 1 Joh. 4. II. It is the Prayer of Christ that all who shall believe may be one that the world may thereby be brought to believe that the Father sent him Jo. 17. 21 22 23. And that they must love one another even as he hath loved them by which it is that all must know that they are his Disciples Jo. 13. 34 35. III. This Love must extend to all that are of one Body one Spirit one Hope one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all And this Unity of the Spirit must be kept in the bond of Peace Eph. 4. 3. And if it be possible as much as in us lyeth we must live peaceably with all men Rom. 12. 18. IV. Christians must love one another with a pure heart fervently 1 Pet. 1. 22. with a Love which suffereth long and is kind envieth not is not easily provoked thinketh no evil beareth all things believeth hopeth endureth all things Rom. 13. V. Yet must they not be so tender of each others Honour as of Gods nor justify the sin of any nor make mens names a snare to draw the weak to sin nor think that Love and Peace can be justly vindicated without gain-saying the Errours which oppose them nor that Christ broke the Law of Love by his sharp rebuke of Peter that tempted him to forbear the work of Love nor by rebuking the hurtful zeal of James and John nor by being angry with those that forbad little Children to come to him nor Paul by withstanding Peter in his Separation VI. Christian Love must extend to those that differ from us though faultily in Cases of tolerable infirmity so as not to judge or
shew what the Church professeth to own if the Minister should blutter out any Errour or Undecency and yet not restrain Ministers from the due use of free speech XVIII It is a great sin out of a fond Conceit of the excellency of either way above it 's due value to think speak with unjust vilifying of the other way when God hath tied us to neither alone It is contrary to knowledge love peace and concord out of a self-conceitedness peevishness or false prejudice received from others to think and speak worse of other mens words in Prayer than they deserve and to frighten the ignorant from lawful Communion by calling that sin or false Worship that is not so XIX Not medling with Ministers Subscribing Declaring Swearing nor with the Discipline By-offices Baptizing as by our sort of Godfathers Covenanting without the Parents Crossing and undue application of words at Burial and such like I know nothing in the common Lords-day Worship spoken in the name of the Church which a godly Christian may not joyn in with the exercise of the Spirit of Prayer with faith and comfort if prejudice and false apprehensions of it affright him not or put not his Soul out of relish with it As on the other side prejudice distasteth many too much with the faulty methods and words of many mens extemporate Prayers XX. There are so few Churches on Earth that Worship God without all set Lyturgies or Forms as are next to none And there are very few in all the World so good as the English Lyturgy and that have so few faults Which Martyrs composed and joyfully used And it is unchristian to renounce Communion with any one Church for a reason that is common to all or almost all It being contrary to the Communion of Saints in one body and far worse than to slander any single man XXI It is great self-condemnation in them that cannot bear to be censured nor scarce be contradicted yet thus to censure almost all the Church XXII They that think that Conforming Ministers are guilty of great Sin must consider what diversity of Education Company and Interest may do even on men of Conscience and that we have all our sins And it 's sinful uncharitableness to think and speak worse of them than they deserve and to talk against all for the faults of some XXIII So great is Gods mercy to this Land in yet giving many Godly able Ministers to the publick Churches that it is sinful ingratitude to overlook or deny it though many others be never so bad XXIV The Religion that keepeth possession of the Parish Churches will be the National Religion Mourn therefore before God that ever any men professing Godliness should either labour to get all sound Protestants to desert the Parish Churches or that any such have been against the restoring of Nonconformists by that called a Comprehension which was but the withdrawing of such Impositions as these very men thought sinful and all this lest it should diminish the number and strength of the private Churches By this we see what we are doing against our selves if God save us not XXV They that say Conformists Convert no Souls take on them to know that of thousands which they know not and forget that before 1640. there were few but Conformists to Convert them in the land and that all the Westminster Assembly save eight were such And that the Parliament kept near 7000 in the Ministry that all Conformed on Aug. 24. 1662. XXVI In most Counties of England many hundred Persons to one must have Church Communion in the Parish Churches or have none at all And to renounce all Church Worship and Communion rather than joyn in the Parish Churches and with the Lyturgy and to persuade all to do so is almost to draw the Land to live like Atheists And is so pernicious to Souls that no good Christian should favour it And it is a-gross breach of the Covenant which renounceth Prophaneness Schism and all that is contrary to godliness XXVII So much are Papists angry at Protestant Ministers that keep them out of the Parish Churches reviling them as Trimmers supposing that Conventicles can do them less harm that all that love the Protestant Religion should do their best to encourage all such Orthodox Men and to strengthen the Protestant interest in the Parish Churches and not joyn against them with the Papists however it be with other intents and minds XXVIII So great is the peace and comfort of many Parishes where the publick Ministers and all the Religious People live together in Love and Amity that it loudly tells us how much better that is than to study to render each other odious or vile and excommunicable XXIX Such use of godly publick Ministers may well stand with the best improvement we can make of the private help of others XXX If we would win any that we think worst of yea or ease our selves it must be by love to them and not by condemning them on controvertible accounts or by causeless singularities XXXI It is lawful to have transient Communion with an occasional Assembly of Christians that are no fixed Church nor the Minister the fixed Pastor of any particular Church XXXII It is lawful to have transient Communion with a Church of Strangers or Neighbours without taking an account of the calling of their Pastors or of their Discipline XXXIII When we have right to Gods Ordinances if many intrude that have no right when we cannot hinder it we must not therefore forsake our right or Gods Worship XXXIV Though we must prefer better before worse that worse may be best to us at that time and place when we cannot have better without more hurt than benefit to the publick or our selves Among many Ministers weak and strong all cannot hear the best nor must renounce the weaker To live under the countenance of Government under an honest Minister of mean Parts in Peace and Concord though he use the Lyturgy is more to the common advantage of Religion and to the profit of most particular Souls than to hear an abler Man with the distraction of Disturbers and to be Fined and lie in Prison on no better a Cause XXXV It is not only the Law of Man that maketh the foresaid Parish Communion a Duty but it is Gods Law of Love Concord Peace and Universal Communion if there were no constraining Law of Man XXXVI They that constantly refuse Communion in the publick Churches while it is commanded and while many write to prove it sinful and many are in Prison and ruined for refusing it are justly to be interpreted to hold it to be unlawful unless they openly profess the contrary and give some better reason for their forbearance XXXVII To hold that any Congregations are such whose Worship is faulty but such as God forgiveth and accepteth but that it is unlawful for us to joyn with them lest it make us guilty of their sin this though it should be