complaining roundly Two Thousand This I must conclude to be done knowingly for somtimes he only mentions One Thousand Eight Hundred p. 151 c. Ans I am persuaded that it is not knowingly that you speak so much besides the truth but for want of knowing what and whom you talk of I never medled with gathering the number Mr. Calamy did and shewed us a List of 1800 upon which I long mentioned no more and seldom saw him afterward But Mr. Ennis who was more with him assuring me that they had after an account of at least 200 more who were omitted I sometime to speak the least mention the 1800 and sometime say about 2000 and by his last account that was the least Yet with a Lord Bishop that knoweth nothing of all this I knowingly over reckon But if God be pleased with their silencing why do you take this ill § 20. The next and great Accusation is my extenuating the Bishops Clemency and aggravating our Sufferings and that against my Conscience I impute to the Bishops that bloodiness which they never intended but abhor And he will not believe what I say of the death of any by Imprisonment or want Ans The good Lady that pittied the Beggars when she came in out of the Frost and Snow when she had warmed her self chid them away and said it was warm enough I could name you those in London that travelled out of the North in great want and took up with such cold Lodgings here in great want of all things that they were past cure before their misery was known How many poor Quakers have dyed in Prison many know It 's like you never heard of the death of Mr. Field a worthy Minister in the Gate-house nor of Mr. Thompson in the noisome Prison at Bristol nor of Reverend Mr. Hughes of Plimouth's Death caused by his Prison sickness perhaps you never read the Life Sufferings and Death of excellent Joseph Allen of Taunton I will not be the gatherer of a larger Catalogue But I believe some others will But these you know not of § 21. The words in my Book which I speak argumentatively shewing clearly whither their cause will lead them if they trust to bring us to Unity by force you unworthily feign that I speak as accusing the Bishops Inclinations My Argument was If you think by violence to effect your ends it must be either by changing mens judgments or by forcing them as Hypocrites to go against their judgments or else by utter destroying them till there are no Dissenters But none of these three ways will do it Ergo Violence will not do it 1. I prove that force will not change their Judgments 2. I prove they are such men as will rather suffer death than sin against their Consciences and so less Sufferings which cure not do but exasperate the Disease 3. I prove that if when less doth no good you would destroy them that would not do your work but cross it And doth this signifie that I charge the Bishops with bloody purposes They openly tell us that it 's punishing us that must bring us to Concord I tell them Lesser will not do it and greater will but hurt themselves A man would think that I hereby rather infer that Bishops will not be bloody than that they will when I argue ab incommodo Truly Sir I see nothing in your Book which tempted me to lament that I mist the happiness of your Academical Education or Disputes Nor do I envy those that now enjoy it God save his Church from the worser part of them § 21. You say P. 79. You must needs look on my aggravating my own and the Dissenters Sufferings beyond Truth you are sure beyond Probability to have proceeded from want of temper As for saying that some have lived on brown Bread and Water Ans I find still that our difference lieth in matter of Fact done in the open sight of the World And if it were whether we are English-men I have no hope of ending it O what is History My own Sufferings by them are very small save the hindering of my Labour Leave to work is all the Preferment that ever I desired of them What I have had hath been against their Wills who have called out for my greater restraint God hath enabled me by the Charity of others to send some small relief to a few of those whose Case he will not believe Some of them have Seven or Eight Children and nothing at all of their own to maintain them and live in Countries where scarce two Gentlemen of Estates within their reach do befriend them and the People are generally poor and many of these have none to preach to being not permitted And when they attempted to meet with some few secretly to fast and pray in some case of need have had their few Goods carryed away by Distress Good Alderman Ashhurst now with Christ took care of many and hath shewed me Letters and Certificates of undoubted credit in the very words which I named One is now near us that was put to get his Living by Spinning Mr. Chadwick was the last of whom I read those words in a just certificate that he and his Children had long lived on meer brown Rye Bread and Water It is now above a dozen Years since Dr. Vermuxden told me that Mr. Matthew Hill was his Patient with Hydropical swell'd Legs with drinking Water and using answerable Food through meer Poverty But God turned it to good for necessity drove him when a little strengthened to Mary-Land where he hath been almost the only able Minister they have We that know them our selves and beg Money to relieve them are supposed to be Lyars for telling that which all their Neighbours know Through Gods Mercy few in London suffer so much though divers are in great streights But great numbers in the Countrys who live among the poor had not some of them now and then a little Relief from London were like to beg for Bread or fall into mortal Diseases by Food unfit for Nature Even in London they that knew Mr. Farnworth Mr. Spinage and some others and how they lived and dyed understand me I 'le name Mr. Martin formerly of Weedon very poor in London to tell you of your impartiality though he lost one Arm in the Kings Army he had not a day abated him in Warwick Gaol for preaching § 22. As to his repeating all my mention of their dealings and my blaming the Bishops at the Savoy for our present divisions and my aggravating the evils which Violence will produce if they trust to that way I judge it all necessary to be spoken Unknown sin will not be repented of nor forborn nor unknown danger prevented nor the unknown needs of the Peoples Souls relieved He asketh Is this the way to be at Peace with us I answer There is no other way What Peace can we have with them that think they are bound to silence
Clara's Leander's c. But towards such as I am you have been as firm to that Principle as any one of our Enemies could wish In 1660 1661. it was most effectually improved and you have attained much of the fruits then foretold and ever since have been unmoveably and prevailingly true to it 3. But this maketh some men the Distracters of the Church if not the greatest which truly I have better thoughts of Such as Junius Paraeus Amyraldus Le Blanke Davenant Ward Usher Holdsworth Morton Hall c. And lately when we were preparing for the Kings Return Bp. Brownrig and after his death Dr. Gawden Dr. Gulston Dr. Allen Dr. Bernard and diverse such did offer themselves to a Treaty for Moderation And since then Dr. Wilkins Dr. Burton Dr. Tillotson and in diebus illis Dr. Stilling fleet have been guilty of this crime of distracting the Church by projects of Moderation But I can name the Bps. that were not guilty of it To abate or forsake the necessary points of Faith and Practice on pretence of Moderation is to destroy Christianity on pretence of Humanity or Peace But to make Laws that men shall preach with Horns on their Heads to signifie the Victory of Truth and to ruine all that will not keep these Laws much more if men should command worse and to say a Project for Moderation would distract the Church would be as far from Wisdom as it is from Moderation And some Prelates have done as bad as this § 9. He confesseth p. 296. that by force and Fraud the whole World in a manner was turned Arian And did I ever say worse of the Bishops than this § 10. He maketh Aerius to speak against Bishops because he could not be a Bishop so that he was of a Prelatical Judgment and Spirit and calleth him The Cartwright of the times by which if he mean that Cartwright would have been a Bishop it doth but tell us that he deserveth little belief in his History § 11. He is a most singular Historian p. 303. in telling us that after the Monothelites in following Ages of the Church the Devil started up but few Heresies till these Ages Swenk feldians Anabaptists c. By this I perceive he believeth neither Papists nor Protestants For the Papists name many Heresies since and the Protestants say that Popery is but a Composition of many Heresies and name us many that concur'd thereto § 12. He there giveth me this serious Admonition It is a much greater wonder that any man that makes Conscience of what he saith should against all truth of History and against his own knowledge charge the Bishops with all the Heresies in the World that a person that seems so sensible of approaching Judgment as frequently to put himself in mind of it should yet advance so malicious and groundless an Accusation There is no dallying with the all-seeing God What Plea shall be made for whole Books full of Calumny and Detraction c. Ans This is not the least acceptable passage to me in his Book I love the man the better for seeming serious in the belief of Judgment and I hope his Warning shall make me search my Heart with some more jealousie and care He seems here to believe himself but being my self far more concerned than he is to know how far I am guilty of what I am accused as far as I can know my Heart and Writings I 'le tell the Reader what to judge of his words and me 1. That I charge the Bishops with all the Heresies in the World never was in my mind nor can I find it in any of my Writings Yet this he very oft repeateth And should a man so often write a falshood about a thing visible and never cite the place where I say it and this while he is thus seriously mentioning Calumny and Judgment 2. Can he make men believe at once that I do persuade men that Bishops or Diocesanes came not up till about 150 years after Christ and yet that I make them the Authors of the Heresies that were in those times Non entis non est actio Could Bishops be Hereticks when there were no Bishops 3. If I had charged the Bishops with all the Heresies it followeth not that I had charged no one else with them and made the Bishops the sole Authors and acquit People Priests and Princes why then doth he name many Monks and Priests that were Hereticks Or Emperours that promoted them as if this crossed what I say Did he think that I excluded the Army if I blame the General or the Prelatical Priests when I blame the Prelates If I took the Bishops of England to be the chief cause of our Church-Schisms and Calamities doth it follow that I acquit such as you and all the Clergy like you 4. That I have done this against all Truth of History which I transcribed out of the Councils and Historians most partial for the highest Prelacie is either a great untruth and unproved by him or I know not what I read or write 5. That I do this against my own Knowledge I am certain is an untruth 6. That my Accusations are malicious I am certain is untruth as being able to say that I speak in pitty to the Church and to save Souls from deceit and malice no man but pray with the Liturgy that God will forgive our Enemies Persecutors and Slanderers and turn their Hearts 7. That I have brought any Groundless Accusation I must take for an untruth till my Grounds produced are better confuted 8. Much more that I write whole Books full of Calumny and Detraction All these and more untruths being heapt up with the mention of Death and Judgment tells us whither Faction and Prepossession may carry men 2. But what is the truth I shall again briefly tell the Reader 1. About 2000 of such Ministers as I confidently take for the most spiritual and conscionable and devoted to God and the good of Souls are silenced and in Law imprisoned and ruined and all the People of their mind are ipso facto if they confess it excommunicated besides their other penalties I accuse not the Law but mention only the matter of Fact which the K. once commissioned Bps. to have prevented 2. The Kingdom is dolefully divided and alas the sad consequents are not to be named 3. Besides all our Penalties the Bishops accuse us as the causes of all and as wilful Schismaticks and call for the Execution of the Laws against us 4. We say we dare not do that which when ever they will give us leave we are ready to give our reasons why we take it for heinous sin against God and tending to the ruine of the Church nor dare we forsake our Ministry while the Churches necessities are to us past doubt 5. We beg of them but to abate us some needless Oaths and Covenants and Professions and a few things called indifferent by the Imposers that we may all live
by the Laws or Canons on Ministers and People here II. Whether it was well done by the Bishops and other Clergy-Men to do what they did to cause those Laws which silenced the whole Ministry of England unless they would conform to all things so imposed in the Act of Uniformity and actually silenced about 2000 and made those other Laws against their Preaching to more than Four and against coming within Five Miles of Corporations and such others as adjudge Nonconformists to Gaols and Ruine and whether the Clergy do well still to urge the Execution of those Laws and are guiltless of the doleful Divisions of this Land and danger of its Relapse to Popery III. Whether it be unpeaceable for a Nonconformist after 17 years silent suffering to tell his Superiors why he dare not conform when he is by them importuned to it And to write a Confutation of a multitude of Volumns of false Accusations brought to justifie the Executions § 4. If you think you have proved all those Impositions sinless which I have mentioned in my first Plea for Peace I think you might as well have shortly said We Bishops are of so much Wisdom and Authority that you must hold them lawful because we say so And must all be ruined that would not be so convinced But if any of those Impositions prove to be sin and so great sin as we cannot chuse but think they are is it a greater fault to name them when importuned than to impose them And a greater fault to feel and say we feel than to strike or wound men If we had taken it to be our Duty to have called those Clergy-Men to Repentance which we think are ignorantly undoing themselves and the Land how should we do it without naming their Sin Yea and the greatness of it And if we think it our Duty to deprecate our Destruction and beg of you to spare our Lives or Consciences how can we do it without telling what we suffer If it be well done of you and be no persecution but your Duty for the Churches good as no doubt the Executioners think the History is your praise and you need not extenuate the Fact Valiant Souldiers glory in the multitudes they kill Had you silenced the other 7000 that conformed when you silenced but 2000 your Victory had been the more famous Some think those that are here against your ways are not half the Land were it murdering of one man that another is judged for it were not unpeaceableness to say that he deserveth to be hanged But the judge deserveth praise if he condemn an hundred such But when those men who should be the tenderest Peace-makers and skilfullest therein shall be the men that bring such a Land as this into the Case that we are in and will not be intreated nor by any Experience be persuaded to consent to its Relief I know not how to shew mercy to the Land or them but by persuading them to repent And if all sin were made a matter of Controversie and many learned men were for it this would not alter the Case with me If I may compare great things with small who sinned more The Irish for murdering 200000 or Sir John Temple Dr. Henry Jones the E. of Orery for recording and reporting what they did Was it the sin of the Savoyards and others to kill and ruine the Protestants in Piedmont Or of Perrin and Sir Sam. Mooreland to write the story Did Thuanus Davilah c. sin in recording the French Massacre Or the French in doing it Is it the French Protestants now that are criminal for describing and complaining of their Sufferings Was John Foxe the Malefactor for writing the Sufferings of the Protestants under a lawful Queen This day came out Mar. 10. a Narrative from Bristol how they are crowded in the Gaol on the cold ground c. Is the Report the Crime Do you find a Justification in humane nature of such terms as these You shall suffer whatever we will inflict on you but shall not tell any that you are hurt or who did it or why § 5. I have told the World so often over and over that it is not all the Conformists no nor all the Bishops that I impute our Sufferings to that I must suppose you to understand it specially when the Prefatory Epistle of the Book which you fall upon tells it you of many Bishops by name Therefore when p. 68. you say I apply to you more than once 1 Thes 2. 15. They please not God c. and add I believe in my Conscience he is mistaken Either by to us you mean all the Conformists or Bishops and that is not true as the words tell you Or you mean Us that procured or own and execute the aforesaid silencing afflicting Acts which your words seem to mean And then I do but say Oh! What may temptation bring even good mens Judgment to Is the silencing of 2000 the afflicting of many times more of the Laity the Jealousies Distractions and Dangers of this Land so small a matter or so good that God is not displeased with it And can you in your Conscience own what the Bishops did towards it No wonder then if Ceremonies be called things Indifferent Certainly this cannot be Indifferent It is a most meritorious or excellent work or else a heinous Crime It is either such a Cure as the cutting off a Cancerous Breast or else if it be a sin it must be as great as contributing to the endangering of as many score Thousand Souls as 2000 Ministers were likely to have helpt to save and to the corrupting of the Church and the Introduction of Popery And few Christians think that Nathan sinned by unpeaceableness more than David by Murder and Adultery though but once or Samuel more than Saul or the Prophet that reproved him more than Jeroboam or Christ Matth. 23. more than the Pharisees yea or than Peter Mat. 16. when he said Get behind me Satan thou savourest not the things that be of God or Paul more than Peter Gal 2. or than the Jewish Teachers whom he called the Concision Dogs or John than Diotrephes c. Guilt is tender and they that think God is of their Mind when he is silent Psal 50. 21. will think men should be so too And man dare not bid defiance to God and openly proclaim a War against him and therefore hath no way to sin in peace but by a conceited bringing the Mind and Law of God to his What sin is there that Learned Men father not on God And then they must be praised and not reproved and then it 's worse than unpeaceable to aggravate that which they say God owneth such men as I would think it scarce credible that the Spanish Inquisition the French Massacre the Powder-Plot the Murder of 200000 in Ireland the Perjuring of a Nation the silencing of Thousands of faithful Ministers should have one word of Justification ever spoken for
it But we are mistaken No doubt men can write learned Volumes to defend any of these and if one do but say They please not God men may be found that can say I believe in my Conscience that you are mistaken and speak unpeaceably God is pleased with it all Sure the day of Judgment will be much to justifie God himself who is thus slandered as the Friend of every mans Sin What wonder is it if there be numerous Religions in the World when every selfish man maketh a God and a Religion of his own fitted to his Interest and Mind But when all men center onely in one God and bring their Minds to his and not conceitedly his to theirs we may yet be One. And if we could make men know that God is not for them and accepteth not of a Sacrifice of Innocent Blood however men think that they do him good Service yet they would not have this known It 's long since unhumbled Sinners turned Church-Confession into Auricular If Saul do say at last I have sinned he would yet be honoured before the People But the time is near when those that honour God he will honour and those that despise him shall be lightly esteemed Few men living can easier bear with others for different forms and Ceremonies than I but I take not the silencing and ruining of 2000 Ministers for Ceremonies were that the worst of it to be a Ceremony § 6. Pag. 69. You say We are not all of one mind yet A sad word from a Bishop Do you think that any two Men on Earth are of one mind in all things Were those agreed whom Paul persuadeth Rom. 14. to receive each other but not to doubtful Disputations and not to judge or despise each other much less to silence imprison and destroy We are agreed in all that is constitutive of Christianity and agreed that all Christians should love others as themselves and do as they would be done by I confess if you have such eminent Self-denial as to be willing if ever you differ from the publick Impositions about the lawfulness of any one thing to be not only cast out of your Lordship and Bishoprick but to be silenced imprisoned and destroyed I cannot accuse you of Partiality but of Errour I have known too many Conformists who needed no Bishop to silence them they never preached But that will not justifie their desires that others be silenced I have oft enough told you in how many things the Conformists are disagreed I now say the Bishops themselves are not agreed of the very Species of the Church of England To say nothing of their disagreement of the Constitutive national Head or Governour they are not agreed whether it be only a part of an universal humane political Church subject to an universal humane supream Power who hath the right of Legislation and judgment over them or whether it be a compleat national Church of it self a part only of the universal as Headed by Christ but not as by Man or as humane Politie having no foreign Governour Monarchical or Aristocratical Pope or Council Overdoing is illdoing and undoing He that would make such a Law of Concord as that none shall live out of Prison who are not of the same Age Complexion Appetite and Opinion would depose the King by leaving him no Subjects The Inquisition is set up in Love of Unity But we know that we shall differ while we know but in part Only the perfect World hath perfect Concord I greatly rejoice in that Concord which is among all that truly love God They love one another and agree in all that is necessary to Salvation The Church of the Conformists is all agreed for Crossing and the Surplice and for the Imposed Oaths Professions and Covenants Oh that all our Parishioners who plead for the Church were agreed that the Gospel is true and that Christ is not a Deceiver and that Man dyeth not as Dogs but hath a Life of future Retribution § 7. P. 69. Asking Were not almost all the Westminster Assembly Episcopal Conformable men when they came thither He can say No not in their hearts as appeared by their fruits And he cites some words of the sense of the Parliament Jun. 12. 1643. Ans 1. See here a Bishop that knew the hearts of hundreds of men whom he never saw to be contrary to their Profession and constant Practice 2. And he can prove by their reporting the Parliaments words what was these Ministers own Judgment 3. And he can prove by those words in Jun. 1643. what was their Judgment a Year or two before and is sure that the Scots Arguments did not change them 4. And he can prove that those are no Episcopal Conformists who are for the ancient Episcopacy only described by Bishop Usher and take the English frame to be only lawful but not unalterable or best And if really he do take him to be no Episcopal Conformist who is for enduring any way but their own it is he and not I that gave them so bad a Character It is he and not I that intimateth that those moderate Conformists who had rather Church-Government were reformed than such Confusion made by silencing and hunting Christians are at the Heart no Episcopal Conformists Their Hearts I confess much differ from the Silencers and Hunters § 8. He maketh me a false Historian for fixing the War on the Erastian Party in Parliament Ans Did I lay it only on the Erastians Have I not undeniably proved that the War here began between two Episcopal Parties Of which one part were of A. Bp. Abbots Mr. Hookers and the generality of the Bishops and Parliaments mind and the other of Bp. Lauds Sibthorps Maynwarings Heylins A. Bp. Bromhalls c. mind And the first sort some of them thought Episcopacy Jure Divino but the English Frame not unreformable And the other sort thought it was but Jure humano and these were called by some Erastians Let him give me leave to produce my Historical proofs even to single men by name that the English War began between these two Parties and I defie all his false Contradiction Only supposing 1. That I speak not of the King nor of the War in Ireland or Scotland 2. That I grant that the Nonconformists were most for the Parliament and the Papists most against them But when I have said so much to Mr. Hinkley already to prove this did this Lord Bishop think to be believed without confuting it § 9. But it transcendeth all bounds of Historical credibility that he answereth this by saying He and all his Abettors must know the Catalogues of that Parliament and that Assembly are still in our hands the Copies of their Speeches and Journals of their Votes c. Ans They are so to the Shame of such Historians You have many of them in Whitlocks Memorials I knew so great a number my self of the Parliament Assembly and Army as makes me pitty the
Ignorant World which is abused by such Historians as you and yours § 10. As for your assuring me that you look one day to answer for all you say it minds me of the words of your Dr. Ashâ—ton Chaplain to the Duke of Ormond who as going to the Bar of God undertakes to prove that it is through Pride and Covetousness that we conform not The Inquisitors also believe a day of Judgment And what is it that some men do not confidently ascribe to the most holy God § 11. Your praises of me are above my desert I am worse than you are aware of But mens sins against Christs Church and Servants in England Scotland and Ireland are never the less for that § 12. You shew us that you are deceived before you deceive You do but lead others into the way of falshood which you were led into your self when you say I am said to have asserted that a man might live without any actual Sin A Lord Bishop Morley p. 13. told it you and you a Lord Bishop tell it others and thus the poor World hath been long used so that of such Historians men at last may grow to take it for a valid Consequence It is written by them Ergo it is incredible I tell you first in general that I have seen few Books in all my Life which in so few Sheets have so many Falshoods in matters of Fact done before many as that Letter of Bishop Morley's which upon your Provocation I would manifest by Printing my Answer to him were it not for the charges of the Press 2. And as to your Instance the case was this Dr. Lany impertinently talkt of our being justified only by the Act of Faith and not the Habit I askt him whether we are unjustified in our sleep which led us further and occasioned me to say to some Objection of his that men were not always doing moral Acts good or evil and thence that a man is not always actually sinning viz. In a mans sleep he may live sometimes and not actually sin as also in an Apoplexy and other loss of Reason Hence the credible Bishop Morley printed that I said A man may live without any actual Sin Yea and such other Reasons are given for his forbidding me to preach the Gospel And now another pious L. Bp. going to answer it at Judgment publisheth it as from him O what a World is this and by what hands are we cast down Is my Assertion false or doubtful Dr. Bates and Dr. Jacombe who were present are yet both living By such men and means is the Church as it is Arise O Lord and save it from them § 13. You tell me as Bp. Morley of being the top of a faction of my own making neither Episcopal Presbyterian Independent or Erastian Ans So to be against all Faction is to be the top of a Faction I am neither an Arian nor a Sabellian nor an Apollinarian nor a Macedonian nor a Nestorian or Eutychian or Monothelite or a Papist c. Conclude ergo I am the top of a new Heresie and silence and imprison me for it and your Diocesane Conformity will be past all suspicion even at the heart But you will one day know that to be against all Faction and yet to bear with the Infirmities of the weak and love all Christians as such is a way that had a better Author § 14. P. 73 74. As to your extolled Friend a Nonconformist who you say told you that I am not able to bear being gainsaid in any thing for want of Academick Disputes c. Ans 1. Was your great Friend so excellent a man and was it a good work to silence him with which in your Conscience you think God is pleased 2. Now you name him not he cannot contradict you Mr. Bagshaw said somthing like it of Mr. Herle Prolocutor of the Assemblie which his Acquaintance contradict 3. I justifie not my Patience it is too little But verily if you had silenced me alone and Gods Church and Thousands of Souls had been spared I think you had never heard me twice complain Judge you whether I can endure to be gainsaid when I think there are Forty Books written against me by Infidels Socinians Papists Prelatists Quakers Seekers Antinomians Anabaptists Sabbatarians Separatists and some Presbyterians Independents Erastians Politicians c. which for the far greatest part I never answered though some of them written by Prelatists and Papists have spoken fire and Sword Nor to my Remembrance did any or all these Books by troubling me ever break one hour of my sleep nor ever grieve me so much as my own sin and pain which yet was never extream have grieved me one day Alas Sir How light a thing is the contradiction or reproach of man who is speaking and dying almost at once § 15. P. 75. As to my Political Aphorisms I have oft told you I wish they had never been written But all in them is not wrong which Bishops are against The first passage challenged by your Bishop Morley is My calling a pretence to unlimited Monarchy by the name of Tyranny adding my reason because they are limited by God who is over all Ministers were never under Turks thought worthy of punishment for such an Assertion But Bishop Morley is no Turk If Monarchs be not limited by God they may command all their Subjects to deny God or blaspheme him to take Perjury Murder and Adultery for Duties and they are unwise if ever they will be sick die or come to Judgment § 16. You say I was told by a Reverend Prelate that at the Conference at the Savoy Mr. Baxter being demanded what would satisfie him replied All or Nothing On this I reflected on what that gave Divine told me Ans Alas good man if for all other your historical notices you are faln into such hands what a mass of Untruths is in your Brain But why will you dishonour Reverend Prelates so much as to father them on such I never heard the question put What will satisfie you nor any such answer as All or Nothing When the King commissioned us to treat of such Alterations as were necessary to tender Consciences the Bishops 1. Would not treat till we would give them in writing all that we blamed in the Liturgy and all the Alterations we would have and all the additional Forms we desired 2. When thus constrained we offered these on supposition that on Debate much of it would be denied us or altered but they would not vouchsafe us any Debate on what we offered nor a word against our additional Forms Reply or Petition for Peace 3. To the last hour they maintained that No alteration at all was necessary to tender Consciences And so they ended and the Convocation doubled and trebled our Burden and the Bishops in Parliament together Once Bishop Cousins desired us to lay by Inconveniences and name only what we took for downright Sin I gave him a