out against their future Governours as they themselves have done against his present Majesty and his Father and by this means are entailing miseries and confusions upon the Nation Alas I at this rate the Church of England will never want its Enemies and a Generation of Vipers will be at hand upon all occasions to sting her if possible to death and if this be suffered and our Governours lie asleep whilest the Enemy thus sowes Tares why then the Lord have mercy upon us we cannot sooner or later escape a ruine and 't is impossible but either Popery or Enthusiasm should like a Deluge overflow us both of which we know make mens Spirits turbulent and unquiet and aiming at nothing less than the enthroning of themselves though it be by pulling down with the hands of violence and rudeness any thing that stands in their way This is a Mine made to blow us up withal the very thoughts of which is enough to provoke the Patience and raise the Passions of any man though mortified in never so considerable a degree And if the Youth of the Nation must be suffered to suck in with their Mothers Milk the Fathers Antipathy against the Church of England we may premise our selves if we please Halcyon-days when this generation is wrought off but alas we shall find them like the Hydra's Head one springing up in the room of the other And though I know these Reflections upon these new Schools will seem very grievous and that I must incur a very severe Ceusure for it yet I profess I cannot help it for my sense of it is so sad and according to that foresight I have it seems to me so very ruinous to the future Peace and Quietness of the Nation that I am afraid the Children unborn will rise up and call them cursed who were the first Promoters and Undertakers of it and though I would be charitable yet methinks it looks too like a Design to entail that Revenge they cannot act themselves upon their Children to act for them in succeeding Times which is a spirit as directly opposite to the Meekness of an honest Christian as Light is to Darkness Oh if some of the old Puritans who heedlesly vented some of those Principles from which our present Nonconformity took its Original and Rise were but alive for some few days and had a just Relation of their Successors actings methinks I see with what indignation they would declare against these practices and how easily they would be perswaded to quit those Opinions they now find by sad experience make men so busie and so restless What! cannot these men be content to break Laws themselves and be winked at but they must plant Schools of Sedition and dissatisfaction in the several parts both of City and Countrey Oh all you that have any regard to Religion and zeal for the propagating the Graces of the Gospel in the hearts of men divulge not this in every company for 't is enough to encrease that Atheistical Spirit that is now too rise amongst us and to force less considering men whether they will or no to look upon Religion as a politick Engine fitted for any Design mens Lusts and Passions mens Interest and Advantage shall suggest unto them To see men deliberately training up Youth in a direct opposition to those Laws in the preservation of which the safety both of King and Kingdom are concerned 't is an unaccountable piece of confidence to see men expressing no other Resentments of his Majesties Clemency and Forbearance than what consists in weakning the hands of Government and multiplying parties to withstand and fight against its Laws 't is an Ingratitude not easily to be parallel'd From this bold Contrivance we may justly expect if not timely discouraged the inevitable Ruine both of Church and State and therefore from the thing it self and its miserable Effects let us all say Good Lord deliver us 4. This excellent Church receives very considerable damage from those idle tales that are carried up and down against the Reverend Bishops and their Regular Clergy whereby they are rendred either impious or ridiculous A thing which hath been all along used by our Adversaries although its being so I am sure is not for their credit And if they can but get any thing by the end whereby the may disparage the prudence or blot the Temperance and Sobriety of their Minister why presently one hot-headed fellow or other posts from one company to another and with all the ridicuculous circumstances in the World tells his pleasant story And Oh how do the zealots hug themselves at such an advantage to advance their cause again and with what seeming pleasure do the tatling Gossips spread this news abroad at the next meeting of the Sisterhood where the poor priest one while is laughed at and another while with deep fetch'd sighs pittyed and lamented as a poor carnal wretch and where at the same time from him they presume to take their measures of all the rest of the same profession and every one that is canonical must presently be arraigned and then condemned as a person wholly ignorant of the Mysteries of the Gospel And that such idle Stories may not want their full advantage the Members of this Church must at the same time be bewailed as lost men as persons given over by God to a vile and reprobate sense otherwise according to the profound judgment of these wise ones it is impossible they should sit so contentedly under the Ministery of such blind Guides and submit to such beggerly elements which are so abhorred by all who are acquainted with those new lights that in these latter days have sprung up in the World And though upon the supposal that any of these idle stories are true yet if the same thing befall any of their own gang who we know are not without their faults why presently shifts and excuses are made and either God sees no Fault in Israel or else the Flesh was weak though the Spirit was strong but for a a member of the Church to fall into any errour is presently an argument of a Reprobate mind of a soul forsaken by God and he must not be admitted to any possibility of Reconciliation with Heaven unless he renounce his former obligations to Authority and Laws and herd himself amongst these refined and spiritualized persons And now by this artifice the Church sinks in the esteem of many unwary persons and they stand ready upon such sinister representations of her Members to do or say any thing whereby they may soil her beauty or eclipse her glory But is this fair dealing is it like the Spirit of the Gospel which thinketh no evil much less with a tickling pleasure speaketh evil of others Is this any argument that they are better and more experienced Christians than their Neighbours Can they upon this account vindicate and challenge to themselves the right of being God's Children and do they entail their Saintship
A MODEST PLEA FOR THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND By Richard Hollingworth A. M. and Vicar of West-Ham near London Confusion in Religion will as certainly follow every mans turning Priest or Preacher as it will in the State where every one affects to rule as King King Charles the First his Life and Meditations Octavo page 275. LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-corner 1676. TO The Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON My Lord IT is observed that the Enemies of our Church notwithstanding in the memory of many now alive they acted such things as were impious and diabolical and but some few years ago were beholden to an act of Pardon to secure to them their Lives and Estates yet are so fond of themselves and their Opinions still that they lift up their heads with their former confidence and print and preach themselves the only People of God in opposition to that great Body of men who do orderly comply with the Kingdoms Laws And withal are at this time using all artifices whatsoever to pull us up both root and branch once again So very thankful are they for all his Majesties gracious condescensions to them But seeing they are so resolved and nothing can oblige them I think every true Son of the Church ought to use the Talent God hath given him to obviate their designs and to discover those wily methods by which they pursue the Churches ruine which I am sure is a more justifiable undertaking than theirs let their pretences be never so specious and taking amongst the more rash and inconsiderate part of Mankind And from this Principle of Love and Honour to the Churches peace and safety does this little Book make bold to appear abroad and particularly to fly into your Lordships Arms as the most proper Sanctuary for protection and defence from all those rude assaults which our Adversaries are too well acquainted with the practice of which if your Lordship will be pleased to condescend to it shall everlastingly be acknowledged as one of the greatest Honours done to Your Lordships Faithful and Obedient Servant Richard Hollingworth Imprimatur Tho. Tomkyns Ex Ed. Lambethan Jan. 15. 1674. THE PREFACE TO THE READER Reader I Am not ignorant by what slights and methods such honest and well designed Books as this are answered it is but telling the credulous vulgar that the man that writ it is unacquainted with the power of Godliness that the seed of Cain will be envying the seed of Seth and the Children of the bond-woman insulting over those of the free and the work is done and the book laid aside as not good enough for waste paper That I may therefore prevent this give me leave to aver thus much in mine own behalf that the Christian Religion is a thing so admirably wise in its contrivance so great an Instance of Divine Power in its production and so amply demonstrative of a never to be parallel'd love and goodness it is so every way fitted to the needs and necessities nay to the delight and entertainment of the minds of men and accommodates it self to them so fully in every condition that should a thought at any time crowd and thrust it self into my soul that invites me to any neglect or contempt of it I must either forsake my Principles or else I must throw it out with all becoming wrath and indignation And I pray God I may no longer make any abode in this house of clay than I may one way or other be instrumental to recommend it to the choice and liking of all men within my knowledge and acquaintance And though I dare not confidently boast of my self yet so fully am I satisfyed of the truth and Divinity of its Author of the excellency of its Doctrines and Principles of the advantages that naturally as well as those by promise flow from a severe and honest from an impartial and universal practice of its Rules and Methods that I think I could for its Honour and its further obtaining in the World part with all that is near and dear to me And therefore should I think that any thing in this small Treatise did tend in the least to lessen its esteem and to expose so excellent a Systeme to the scorn and laughter or to the contempt and disdain of any person I would by my own hands revenge my self upon it for being guilty of so bainous a piece of wickedness and out of a just resentment of its unworthiness to appear in the world either sacrifice it to the flames or bury it among the filth and ordure of an unsavoury dunghill No so lovely a thing is this excellent Religion in my eyes and I assure you this loveliness does not appear to me from bare sensible impressions or warm touches upon my fancy but from rational convictions of mind and understanding that I cannot forbear admiring and honouring any person upon whose soul I see any stroaks or lines of Religion drawn and who by his carriage and behaviour evidences himself devoted to its Interest and Service Yea though these persons differ from me in Judgment or any particular opinion yet if the difference issues merely from the weakness of their minds or the necessary impositions of their first education and there appears no mixture of the stubbornness and obstinacy of a resolved will which gives the formality to sin I do declare that I can cohabit with them as Brethren treat them as Intimates and Familiars and serve them with the affection of a real and uninterested Friend And those men whom God hath received and no otherways can I judge of such whom I find in a Zealous pursuit of essential holiness and goodness and more cool and careless in promoting remote opinions and needless theories and speculations I dare not judge but hope to meet them at the last day and with them to enter into a possession of those Glories which Christ is gone to prepare for all his Faithful Followers And therefore if any person enquire how it comes to pass that I have exposed a Book to publick view wherein so many whom it may be they greatly esteem for holiness and strict walking are so much concerned and so severely reprehended I reply 'T is none of their holiness I reprove God forbid but those ungodly practices and unseasonable divisions which many of them themselves once eagerly complained and petitioned against and which I am confident will in the end be bitter to them And further I do aver that it is no particular man I exercise my zeal in the following discourse against but formed bodies and united Factions of men who in companies and numbers flock together and publickly break those Laws the preservation of the honour of which is so necessary to us in all our capacities and circumstances whatsoever And when the same Authority that hath bound and reined them in shall think good by Laws to let
a Deportment whilest they are there significative of that Veneration they have for the Ordinance did they all in general lay restraints upon themselves and afterwards punish others for their usual and yet horrid Oaths and Curses were their Houses Schools of Discipline and good order did they speak of Religion as persons having a sense of it upon their Minds and as persons abhorring the new odious way of drolling upon it Oh! methinks then I see Faction and Sedition dread the Common Streets and Publick Houses and with shame creeping into holes and corners methinks I see this Church so fitted to all the Purposes of Religion lifting up its head above the Waters and no more heard complaining of her coarse and homely usage from those Children that were brought up under her Wings and Government And that this may prevail with the Gentry of the Kingdom to leave off any course of Life whereby this Church is prejudiced I will end this Head with this bold Assertion That so far as they have any hand either by their vitious Examples or any other way to the pulling down of this Church so far they lend their assistance to the ruine of their Posterity especially if their children prove but honest and conscientiously obedient to the established Laws And if any man will offer to gainsay me in this Particular I will only refer him to the account of the Compositions and Sequestrations which the Loyal Gentry of the Kingdom were forced to submit unto and the irrecoverable Entanglements of their Estates thereby after the sinking of the Royal Cause by the late Wars and if that will not convince him I will trouble myself with no other Methods of satisfaction but leave him as a Person pertinaciously resolved against the clearest Evidence 2. These men that are entrusted with Places of Authority are false Friends to the Church by neglecting the just Execution of those Laws that by the Wisdom of the Nation are framed on purpose to keep up the Honour and preserve the Safety of the Church For if there was a Reason for enacting those Laws and they were designed to fence the Church and to keep it from the rude assaults of every pragmatical and conceited Person who will be pleased with nothing but what is shaped and fashioned according to some raw Fancy of his own why then I think they ought not to be laid aside as Almanacks out of Date And if there be no such thing as a Reason for them why then in Gods Name let them be repealed though I think 't is a sign of a very bold and busie Spirit to declare them so before the wise Sages who upon great advice did make them adjudge them so and signifie their Opinion to us by as solemn and plain a Declaration as the Act it self was by which these things were commanded For if Laws and Constitutions which were made for the Good of the Body Politick must submit to every private Man's shallow Understanding and the Obligation of them cease or take place according to their Opinion of them Government will quickly lose its force and Princes will be in a worse Condition and have less Authority than Masters of the smallest Families And from disputes and Questions about the Rights of Princes in ordering Church affairs they will proceed to judge of those Laws that are made either for the Preservation of their Persons or supplying their necessary Charges with Revenues suitable to that state such a Trust does call for And though that the Execution of these Laws seems very grievous and full of cruelty to many men especially to those who are settled in their Commands over the Separating Bands yet when I consider that either it must be so provided the Laws continue as they are or else that a whole order and Body of men must be destroyed and brought under the Power of those whose Mercies we know by sad experience are Cruelties and who by a misguided Zeal fancy they do God good service in stripping us of all the Laws give us a Right unto I would appeal to any man whether the whole should suffer out of a womanish pity to a few and solid Constitutions truckle to groundless Passions and resolute discontents I am sure according to those Observations I have made I have always found that wise Governours in all Ages have made private Conveniencies or Advantages submit and lye prostrate before a publick good And accordingly we find the Late King that incomparable Person in his Letter of Advice to his present Majesty gives his sense of this in these words That he could not yet learn that Lesson nor he hoped ever would his Son That it is safe for a King to gratifie any Faction with the perturbation of the Laws in which is wrapt up the publick Interest and the Good of the Community And therefore it being so I would desire the Subordinate Magistrates of the Kingdom for to these only I make this Address with whom his Majesty hath entrusted the Execution of his Laws to consider whether they do not give away the Safety as well as the Reputation of the Church by suffering men before their doors as it were openly and with all the seeming Circumstances of a defying Confidence to break the Laws and violate these sacred Constitutions And though I know what some men put in by way of answer to all this yet when men can find out a Plea for Perjury I will return upon them and not till then only I dare assure them that it would be better for such men to decline the Publick Service than to take an Oath to do it and yet neglect it And though I have said more now upon this Head than I know many will con me thanks for yet let me conclude with this Protestation That I have not argued this out of any desire of other mens suffering either in their Liberties or Estates for I thank God my Natural Temper as well as my Religion obliges me to greater Moderation and it is not particular men I advise this against but mad Factions and embodyed Numbers whose Principles stand in a direct opposition to the present Settlement of the Church and the grand Reason why I conceive Laws ought to be executed is from a full satisfaction I have That no Kingdom can live in Peace and Honour where solemn Acts made for the regulating mens Lives and restraining their violent passions give way to private and more particular Interests And if all our several Adversaries would not say the same were any of the Governments and Disciplines they are so fond of as well established as ours is I will be their Bonds-man And therefore I hope no man will impeach me upon this account of a bitter and persecuting Spirit 2. As this our Church loses its Reputation and Esteem by false Friends consider'd in a Civil and Political sence so it loses very much and I wish there were no cause to say it by false Friends considered as
they grow vext and impatient and straightways their thoughts are fixt upon revenge and from a quarrel with those who sit at the Helm they fall out with the Government it self and all their parts are bent upon finding out plausible Arguments and pretences to sink its reputation amongst the people and no stone is left unturned to carry on this wicked purpose and resolution It is an easie matter to make this assertion out from the accounts of every age of Christianity Heresies Schisms seditions and publick disturbances have most of them crept in at this back door and whosoever will give himself the leave to take a just account of the Apostasie of many from our Church some few years after the Reformation and ever since he will not be long before he find this its original and spring which thing though not altogether yet very much had been prevented if all the Spiritual allotments for Ministers had been comfortable and such as would have afforded wise men for I undertake not to be an advocate for Fools and Prodigals a convenient and creditable maintenance AND now having said thus much in the vindication of this excellent Church and withal given the Reasons of those many disparagements she hath in these late years met withal I cannot draw off my pen from paper till by it I have made my humble address to the Nobility and Gentry and all others who are concerned by vertue either of their Principles or Estates in the preservation of the Kingdoms peace and Nations welfare and are very unwilling to be sad spectators of those ruines and desolations that not many years ago many of them to their own as well as the Nations sorrow were too sadly acquainted withal till I say I have made my humble address to them and implored them by all that is near and dear to them to use that power God and the King hath entrusted them withal in stifling those Opinions in suppressing those dangerous Principles and Maxims in preventing those practises which have had so bad an influence upon the Body Politick and in using all methods by which they may be kept from the Common People whom we find by sad experience easily leavened and as easily afterwards wrought upon to enter into any Evil action whereby the peace and happiness of the Kingdom may be endangered And though it may be this address may be looked upon as the product of a malicions and revengeful spirit yet God that knows the hearts of men knows it flows from no such bitter Fountain but so far as I am in a capacity to serve any of these persons against whom I now complain in their personal capacity no man can I am sure be more ready and more forward Let them but live agreeable to the Laws under which they live and that but as far as their own avowed Principles will give them leave which I think is a very reasonable request and they shall not want that just esteem from my self and so I am sure from all men of my Principles that they do deserve Which if they will not do but continue resolute in widening our differences making our breaches greater forming men into parties and numbers in opposition to the injunction of all those prudent Laws that are enacted by the great Authority of the Nation and thereby strengthning and encouraging that deplorable Schism that is amongst us why truly I think he wants the Spirit and Courage of a Man who holds his tongue and by his silence gives the least spirit to such undertakings For alas what can we imagine all this will centre and bottom in and who will be the chief gainers by these divisions That certainly is no hard matter to determine And truly in my apprehension 't is very sad that the revenge of our Nonconforming Brethren should be so great against the Church of England that rather than she shall continue in any glory and be vested with any Authority they will use their utmost endeavours to pull her down though it be to the destruction of the Protestant Cause both at home and abroad and to the Introduction of Popery it self A good sign indeed of a Gospel Spirit and of that tenderness of Conscience these men profess upon all occasions when pressed to any necessary complyance with the Laws of the Kingdom And therefore seeing it is so that these men will play any game rather than that in which the safety of the Church as well as State is concerned truly I think all the true Patriots of the Countrey ought to look upon them accordingly and give them such fare as by those Oaths they take when they are admitted to their office they are obliged to And seeing they are resolved we shall fall though they know it must needs be accompanied with so great a ruine to that Cause and Interest which was purchased with the bloud of the Martyrs which hath been a Sanctuary to distressed and banished Foreigners and which indeed as it is here maintained by so many prudent Laws is the only stay and support of all the Protestant Churches abroad seeing I say they are resolved to have their wills of this Church notwithstanding these sad and too much to be feared effects and consequences of it I do declare I think all true hearted Magistrates in whose hands the execution of the Laws does lie ought to let them know that they owe more Regard to the present Government of the Kingdom and that if they will continue fixt in their Resolves to bear down all that stands in their way to the undermining the Churches safety and reputation so on the other hand they the Magistrates are as well resolved to hinder by all legal and worthy means so great and so unseasonable a violence to those Laws wherein mens Estates and Liberties mens Religion and consequently their Souls are so much concerned And I am certain nothing is a greater argument among the present Magistrates either of Cowardize or else of Ignorance and Non-observation than to suffer such assaults upon Government without a suitable resentment of them and to connive at such practises as are apparently tending to shuffle in a Religion once again amongst us by which the Prince loses half his Government and the people all their Reason and Sense together And therefore Worthy Sirs I beg of you to consider what is incumbent upon you at present do not you let Justice sleep while covetousness and ambition while Faction and discontent is devouring and eating up all those sober principles whereby your Estates as well as any thing else is secured to you and your Posterity after you Let not a Church that teaches all her Members to live contentedly in all those subordinations the Providence of God hath placed them and up to all those Duties which belong to those several places I say let not this Church be scorned and trampled under feet by rude and revengeful persons And if you think them people of meek and peaceable
spirits in whose publick Liberty there is no danger pray enquire after the treatments those Worthies whose Consciences obliged them to follow the Fortunes of that late incomparable King of blessed memory met withal from them and that will save me the labour of giving an account of the temper of a great part of them 'T is true were they all of that nature and disposition of that Learning and wisdome some of them are there might be some apology made for them but alas the common Followers I and many of their Teachers too are violent and headstrong quickly enflamed and over-heated and then for want of knowledge and due consideration of things with great difficulty managed and kept within any proper and allowed bounds a thing which some of their very Preachers have complained of to my self and others And therefore why you who are the Instruments of Justice out of pity to some few whose parts and piety may possibly recommend them to the esteem and love of all good men should suffer herds of men whose zeal outstrips their knowledge whose Passions surmount their Prudence whose Religion many times is more the result of the temper of the Body than the rational conviction of the soul why you I say should suffer the Laws to be violated when no other end can be proposed than shewing a compassion to some few who deserve a name among the wise and truly learned I profess I cannot tell Especially when at the same time the Honour of the Laws by a neglect of Justice is exposed to the contempt and scorn of such Numbers who must if we would follow those Maxims of Policy which all wise Governours ever since Communities of men were agreed upon have observed who must I say be kept in with bit and bridle And having thus addressed my self to the Ministers of Publick Justice I cannot obtain a Writ of Ease from my self until I have said something to those very persons whose designs I have in the foregoing Treatise exposed and whose Methods of ruine to the Church and Kingdom I have discovered And here I am not afraid to tell them that many of them are my Acquaintance in whose civil conversation I have and do take pleasure and to whom upon some scores I have stood engaged the piety and strictness of many of their Lives I admire and love these with some other things would reconcile me to them did not my zeal for the Nations happiness my duty to a Church by whom I and all the World may be sufficiently instructed in all things necessary to be believed and practised Further did not my Fears and God knows those too well grounded of the return of a Religion amongst us and that caused chiefly by these mens stubbornness the agreement with which must at the same time be to fall out with all those Faculties whereby we are in capacities to discern things that differ Did not these things with many others thus dispose of and command me I say I could wish these men all the happiness in this World that upon good Grounds they could desires And therefore pray Sirs let me entreat you to consider what you are a doing whilst so resolvedly you continue to separate from our Church why truly pardon me if I err I think I do not I cannot say you are doing the business of Religion for that I am sure may be as well nay all things considered better done by those under the Discipline and Government of our Church as I have shewed in the beginning of this Treatise In which I am the more satisfyed from the observations I have made of many of your admired Followers whose Lives as far as I can discern are spent most upon pitying Publick Magistrates and Ministers and shaking their heads at the times with many other popular and usual artifices of misrepresenting things or persons not just according to their Minds Again I cannot say you are doing the Business of your Governours setling the People in the notions of obedience and submission begetting in them venerable thoughts of those who are Gods Trustees on Earth no for we find no sooner do men wheel off from our Church and list themselves under your Banners but presently they grow jealous of the Powers of the Nation and are always furnished with idle tales and groundless whispers to lessen their Reputation among the Common People Nay further I cannot say you are doing your own business for alas throw us but once down and you know by old experience that you are all together by the ears and scarce ten of you can agree together upon any thing that may be the Foundation of a future settlement but all are striving to be the Greatest and every man hath such a fond opinion of his own way as to think nay to proclaim it deserving to be the Nations Standard yea and to pronounce bitter Curses against all those who will not concur in Judgment with him And truly for the satisfaction of a great many well meaning persons who at present are imposed upon I could wish were it but lawful to permit it and consistent with the Kingdoms and Churches safety that the Ball might lie at your feet for a few days methinks I see what animosities and heats what strifes and contentions would presently be in the midst of you and how quickly all you who now combine together against our poor despised Church would fall into a thousand parties and what variety of Churches we presently should have formed and the best of it is every one of them vogued to be according to the pattern in the Mount And therefore Brethren for Gods sake recollect your selves and do not sacrifice the Protestant Religion to your own lusts and passions comply with the Laws in imitation of the old Puritans as far as you can and then I do not doubt but our Governours will find out some way or other to let you understand their Resentments of your orderly complyance and certainly 't is better to build our hopes of future kindness from our Prince upon publick manifestations of peaceableness of Spirit than upon threats and menaces than upon bold and daring actions whereby we intimate unto him that if he will not give us according to our Wills and Pleasure we will snatch it from him and that by force too whether he will or no. One word more and I have done I beseech you do not say that this intimation of Popery in and through your disobedience to the Churches Laws is a popular plea invented on purpose to make you odious among the People I profess as it is mentioned here by me 't is no such thing but the result of a full satisfaction I have that nothing can make way for that Religion but the ruine of the Church of England And truly I am so far from rendring you odious that if you could agree among your selves upon any thing consistent with the Churches Peace and Safety I would give my Prayers and all honest endeavours whatsoever to contribute towards your contentment But till then pray give us leave to secure our selves from such desolations as will end in your destruction as well as ours by all agreeable ways and means whatsoever And now after all this if you will suffer your selves to be so provoked as one while to pity me and then again revile me I have no more to say but that I am fully satisfied in my own Conscience in what I have done and that for a requital I am resolved to make you the objects of my hearty pity and the subjects of my Prayers but not mine anger and revenge for that is not to follow our Masters command To love our enemies to bless them that curse to to do good to them that hate us to pray for them which despitefully use us and persecute us which may be done with Tongues as well as Hands which good and excellent advice I am resolved through the assistance of Gods Gracious Spirit to pursue and follow and therefore let those against whom this little Treatise is chiefly levelled deal with my person or good name as they please I am prepared for it THE END Lately Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Amen-Corner THE Estate of the EMPIRE or an Abridgment of the Laws and Government of Germany farther shewing what Condition the EMPIRE was in when the Peace was concluded at Munster Also the several Fights Battels and Desolation of Cities during the War in that EMPIRE And also of the GOLDEN BVLL In Octavo The Sycillian Tyrant Or The Life and Death of AGATHOCLES With some Reflections on our Modern Usurpers Octavo The ROYAL MARTYR and the Dutiful Subject In two Sermons By Gilbert Burnet In Quarto The Generosity of Christian Love Delivered in a Sermon by William Gould Quarto The Witnesses to Christanity By Sy. Patrick D. D. Octavo Ductor Dubitantium Or Bishop Taylors Cases of Conscience The Fourth Edition Folio The Life and Death of K. CHARLES the First By R. Perenchief D. D. Octavo