moveth us is that it greatly frustrateth the use of the Keys or Church Discipline by obscuring the use and efficacy of them For who can tell whether they do any thing or nothing to that mans seeming Repentance who must lye in Goal and be undone unless he will say that he repeneth Though the Church must take up with outward Professions as not knowing the heart yet must they be voluntary and credible Professions 6. And thus how unavoidably must the Church be corrupted when its Communicants are such as chuse rather to be in the Church than in the Goal and all those are thought worthy of its Priviledges who had rather say we repent than be made Beggars Whenas in the ancient Churches none had its Communion that did not desire it and beg for it though it cost them dear in the world 7. And thus Christs great and precious Gifts seem exposed to contempt while they are forced upon the Refusers by ways of violence If the Church be made a Prison and men be driven into it and lockt up the Place will hardly prove them Christians 8. And we fear it will misrepresent Christs Laws and Covenant-terms to the world while Christ saith that none can be his Disciples that do not by consent and resolution take up the Cross and forsake all and follow him in hope of a reward in Heaven Luke 14. 26. 29 30. 33 34. And this course seemeth to tell men that if they had but rather be in the Church than among Rogues and Beggars in the Goal they shall have Christ pardon and life eternal given and sealed up to them particularly in the holy Sacrament As if Christ were the Cross-maker and the Cross to be born by his Enemies only and not Christ but sin were served by forsaking temporal felicity 9. And we fear lest it tend to deceive mens Souls by giving them all the sealed Grant of forgiveness and salvation who can but rather endure to take the Sacrament and say I repent than be undone We doubt not but there is a time for just punishment of sinners But we read not that Christ sent men to preach Repentance by any such motives nor to offer his Blood and Mercy on terms so low nor to any but desirous Volunteers And with what confidence or comfort can a Minister deliver the Sacrament to such All which considered we are so far from desiring to subdue Kings and Rulers to be the Executioners of the Clergy and the Servants of their worldly Interest Pride or Passions that we heartily wish that Church Discipline might be left to operate alone valeat quantum val 〈◊〉 re potest and that Church Priviledges might be given to none but desirers and voluntary accepters and none might be cram'd or drencht with the Body and Blood of Christ but all earnestly invited and by loving importunity compelled to come in And that Magistrates may judge and punish Vice in their proper court and proper way X. We hold it not unlawful to take Oaths and make Covenants Subscriptions or Declarations of things lawful when Authority commandeth us yea we hold Oaths of Fidelity to the Soveraign to be needful and are the loather to swear Allegiance to any inferior Officers or to swear never to endeavour any alteration of them lest we seem to make them equally necessary and fixed as the King and to give them any of his Prerogatives when they are his Officers whom he hath power to alter XI We readily subscribe the Doctrine of Faith and Sacraments contained in the 39 Articles and differ not therein from the Church of England that we know of Though our Religion is only objectively Gods Word as to the Essentials the Sacramental Covenant expounded in the Creed the Lords Prayer and Decalogue and integrally the sacred Scriptures and therefore if there be any fault in the 39 Articles it is no fault in our Religion which is confessed to be all true by Papists themselves yet as our Writings and Sermons and Speeches are the expressions of our subjective Religion so the Confessions of Churches are eminently such being useful to satisfie other Churches of our sincerity and to regulate or limit the Teachers that by weakness or errour are apt to deliver their mistakes or to oppose the Truth And though there be some expressions in the Articles the Liturgy yea in the Creed called Athanasius's which we think not accurate but lyable to an ill interpretation yet when our Consciences tell us that it was truth which was intended and words are not natural immutable but arbitrary signs of the Speakers mind we are far from affecting to be peevishly or unreasonably quarrelsome or scrupulous but are willing to overlook infirmity and unfitness of expression when we see that we are not to own Untruths XII We much approve of the Method of the Church Catechism as it first openeth the Essentials of Christianity in the Baptismal Covenant and then the Exposition of it in the Creed Decalogue and Lords Prayer and then the use of the confirming Sacrament the Lords Supper Though we are perswaded that it needeth more explication and some correction XIII We are taught by Christ and his Apostles using of the Septuagint that it is lawful when the Peoples usage and acquaintance with it doth render it most edifying to them to use a defective faulty Translation of Gods own Word and to call this Gods Word as long as it sufficently expresseth the Doctrine which is the matter and main sense And that we may hold Communion with Churches that publickly and privately use such Translations and that have many other faults in their Doctrine Discipline and Worship though we cannot justifie the least of them by our professed Assent and Consent nor make a Covenant that we will never endeavour to alter or amend them We are apt enough to let sin alone and not to amend any thing amiss in our selves and others so far as sin remaineth in us it being a self-de 〈◊〉 ending evil and therefore are unwilling to adde to our badness nor do we need a Law to bind us never to repent or amend or never to help others in such a case to do it XIV We have in a peculiar Explication of our judgment not only disclaimed but sufficiently depressed that unruly Opinion falsly charged on us by some viz. That Things Lawful or Indifferent become Unlawful when commanded by Lawful Authority Though we hold it unlawful to encourage and strengthen Traytors and Usurpers against Christ or the King by voluntary Swearing or performing such Obedience to them even in licitis honestis as seemeth to own their Usurpation XV. How far we think the Magistrates Laws bind us to things Scandalous or Evil and Hurtful by Accident yea by the Weakness of others we are prepared to open in a distinct Profession by it self XVI We are far from condemning all Forms of Prayer and Publick Liturgies as unlawful of which we have His Majesties Testimony in his Declaration about
is such by Nature or Accident they cannot make Evil and forbid what God commandeth on pretense of judging They have Power to judge that all the Articles of our Faith are true but not that any of them are false They are Judges that the Commands of God must be all kept but have no power to judge the contrary In what Cases we may be bound to obey them when they erre we have opened in another Paper and may partly be discerned from what is here said Pr. 61. The Bishops or Pastors of the Church are above others obliged to exercise paternal tender love to all the Peoples Souls If they are peevish and humorous and quarrelsome and proud and have other vitious Principles it is their Office and Work under Christ to cure them and to use all that gentleness and forbearance which is needful to their cure and to become all things lawful to all men to win and edifie them not doing greater hurt by injuring others or the Publick Good for the sake of those that are few or less considerable If therefore they should either scandalize them and hinder their salvation by things unnecessary or whose good will not countervail the hurt or if they should say we are not bound to forsake our own Liberty no not in a trifle for the sake of such as are inclined to offence by their vitious Principles they seem to us much to forget or renounce their proper Callings as well as Humane Charity to Souls as if a Physician should say I am not bound to medicate any that are sick but only those that are in health And if all that have vitious Principles be so far from under the Ministers 〈◊〉 are we see no Reason why the Kingdom should maintain so needless a Ministry at so dear a rate nor why they should be had in so much honour and why we should not all be silenced at once Pr. 62. The sin of tyrannical abuse of Power is so contrary to the Nature of all Good Rulers and so contrary to their own true interest peace and comfort and final justification before God and so contrary to the welfare of all Mankind and doth at this day so much mischief in the world by serving Satan maintaining Idolatry Mahometanism Popery and Prophaneness and keeping out the Gospel from the most of the whole world that the Flatterers that would for their own ends and carnal interests promote it and make all odious to Rulers that dislike it will one day be known to be the great Enemies of Princes and People of Church and State of Jesus Christ and God the Soveraign Lord of all Pr. 63. And Confusion Anarchy Popular Rage Faction and Sedition dishonouring our Rulers and all Rebellions and Schisms must be odious to all men of Interest Wisdom and true Religion as being ultimately against the God of Order and the Glory of his Wisdom and Soveraignty in Government who is to be honoured and obeyed in Kings in Pastors and Parents and all that are under him authorized to Govern us Pr. 64. Perjury justifying thousands in perjury deliberate lying covenanting against great and known Duty corrupting Gods Worship and Church Government cruel denying christendom and salvation to the Infants of thousands of godly Christians and casting out godly Christians from the Churches Communion causelesly for a gesture pronouncing all Atheists Infidels Adulterers and other wicked Persons saved so be it they be not unbaptized excommunicate or make away themselves none of these nor any such other in our judgment will ever be made lawful by any Command or Accident nor will ever be lawfully commanded nor shall we ever number them with Things Indifferent nor revile or persecute any as humorous obstinate disobedient Schismaticks or seditious for refusing them FINIS What Meer Non-Conformity is not THE PROFESSION OF SEVERAL WHOM THESE TIMES Have made and called NON-CONFORMISTS Printed in the Year 1676. What Meer Non-conformity is not THat we may not after near fourteen Years suffering and silence yet tell the World what our Non-conformity is without offending our Superiours and incurring all the censures and farther sufferings which we have reason to expect is more grievous to some of us than all the corporal pressures by Ejections Deprivation of Maintenance Prosecutions Fines and Imprisonment which we have undergone when we consider not only that the little remnant of our opportunities for Ministerial Work the preservation whereof hath done much to restrain us is by the Odium cast upon us made less profitable to Mens Souls but especially how many Thousands do defile their hearts with false uncharitable Conceptions of their Brethren and their tongues with false Reproaches if not their hands with cruel Prosecutions because they are falsly informed of our Cause When we think how Satan is served by this how odious sins are multiplied through the Land how Christian Love is killed and divisions made among all Ranks of Men and in all places When we think how God is hereby provoked the Land dishonoured and endangered and how fast the guilty post one after another into another World where such work will cost them dear with many a heart-tearing groan some of us have long said Must we be silent and see all this In a Christian state must we be condemned imprisoned driven about as Rogues and seditious Persons and our Ministry vilified and that by Clergy-men who think that it is their right to be believed and not have leave once to speak for our selves so far as to tell men what it is that we take for sin and why must we see so many Thousands going in such guilt into another World and distracting a Kingdom that hath been too long distracted and weakening both the Protestant and the Christian Interest and by building and keeping up a Wall of separation serving the great Enemy of both and must we not in compassion speak for peace but only say as Christ Father forgive them for they know not what they do If God forgive Men he turneth their hearts and giveth them Repentance And we are commanded to pray Forgive our enemies persecutors and slanderers and turn their hearts And must we pray and not endeavour At least now at last we shall endeavor to stop them by this short Profession from believing those Tongues or Pens which tell them that we make a Schisme for things which our selves confess Indifferent and that our Non-conformity consisteth in what it doth not If we must not tell them what it is that we think men command and God forbids we may tell them what it is not For this may be some service to themselves But we must premise that if any that are called by other names denoting other Opinions besides Meer Non-conformity or any Persons else whosoever do hold any thing unlawful which we here allow it is none of our meaning to declare their judgements which they are fittest to declare themselves We profess but our own and such as by familiarity we have
though we conform not so far as to declare our Assent and Consent to the use of the Calendar Prescript or Directory which requireth them to be read in the Mornings from Septemb. 27. and 28. till Novemb. 24. even Bell and the Dragon Susanna Tobit when as the Vulgar understand not the word Apocrypha sufficiently to distinguish them from the sacred Scriptures when they are equally called the Lessons and read in the same order And we are confirmed in this part of our Non-conformity by the Articles of Religion which discard the Apocrypha and by the Learned Treatise of the late Bishop Cousins who hath fully proved that the ancient Churches received not those Books into the Canon and by many Doctors of the Church of England that charge them with Untruths Some of us have seen the Writing as on good reason is supposed of a present Learned worthy Bishop who sheweth that the words of the Angel in Tobit are a Lye who said that he was the Son of Ananie of the Tribe of Naphtali And that so is his saying that the smoke of a Fishes heart will drive away all Devils that they shall never return when Christ tells us of some that go not out but by Prayer and Fasting XXXVI We are far from designing any abasement of the Clergy nor do we deny or draw others to deny any due Reverence and Obedience to them And though we know that the bare Title and Office will never preserve sufficient respect for the honour of the Clergy and the success of their work without competent qualifications and labours of the persons yet would we rather hide than open or reproach the faults of such as are tolerable in that sacred Office and would do our best for their work sake to promote the esteem even of those that differ from us and of some that persecute us We know that the People are exhorted to know those that labour among them and are over them in the Lord and to esteem them highly in love for their work sake 1 Thess 5. 12 13. And to obey them that have the Rule or Guidance of them and to submit themselves Heb. 13. 17. 24. And that the Elders that Rule well are worthy of double honour especially they that labour in the Word and Doctrine 1 Tim. 5. 17. We that take it for our Duty to honour all men and submit our selves to one another would not deny any due honour to any of the Clergie that have any preeminence either in age grace gifts or by the Magistrates appointment as his Officers as aforesaid or any way given them by Christ We take it not for a Priviledge to be from under Government XXXVII Our Non-conformity consisteth not in denying a National Provincial or other Church Form of mans invention and institution On these Suppositions 1. So it be presupposed that there is somewhat of Divine Institution predetermined by Christ and his Spirit in the Apostles that is 1. That there be such Doctrine worship and Discipline as he hath commanded 2. That there be such Pastors to exercise them whose Office he hath described 3. That there be such stated Congregations or Societies in which they shall be used even Neighbour Christians associated for Personal Communion therein 4. That all these Churches enjoy the Priviledges granted them by Christ and live in love peace and concord and hold such just correspondence as is necessary thereto and to the Common End and Good All this is of Divine appointment 2. So that these Divine Institutions be not violated by Humane or by the power of man 3. So that Humane Churches be not made equal and co-ordinate to the Divine much less superior and superordinate as if they were to Christs instituted Churches what a Kingdom is to a City or a Regiment to a Troop and Christs Churches were but similar parts of the Humane Churches that must rule them But as the King is Episcopus exterior or the Governour of the Churches so far as the Sword is to be used so circa sacra we have before said that he may make his own Officers and consequently Provinces for them and Orders of their exercise And the Churches in his Dominions may be so called one National Church as he is the exterior Civil Governour of them all by the Sword which indeed is but to be a Religious or Christian Kingdom as also ab accidente as these many Churches are under one Christian yea were he an Infidel King and as hereby they have the advantage of fraternal association and correspondency for concord But proper Denominations are from the Essential Form XXXVIII It is no part of our Non-conformity to be against the due Use or Authority of Councils or Synods of the Clergy We hold that when one is cast out of one Church for a cause belonging to the Cognisance of many many may have occasion to take Cognisance of it And the edification of each other the satisfactory Debate of Difficulties the preservation of mutual Love Peace and Concord may make Synods to be useful But yet we hold that the major Vote of Bishops in a Council are not thereby the proper Governours of the minor dissenting part nor of the absent Bishops but that Councils are for Counsel and Concord and not for direct Regiment of each other though together and asunder the Pastors are all Governours of the Flock And some of us have long ago publickly proved that Councils were called General at first but with respect to the Dominions or Empire of one Prince and not as if they were Universal as to all the Christian World and that absolutely Universal Councils never were or ought or can or ever will be called and that to pretend that a Papal or Imperial General Council is the Universal Law-giver of the World and that they have a promise of Infallibility in what ever they determine and that we receive our Faith in Christ upon their Infallibility given by him and so we must know that Christ maketh them Infallible before we can believe that he is Christ These and such other nonsense cheats which some are now agitating are fit to delude none but the grosly ignorant that are prepared for deceit XXXIX Yet we deny not but that God having first bound us to Unity and Concord as far as we can â—ttain with loving forbearance in the rest when a lawful Synod or Council hath determined of a way of Concord on lawful Terms in matters under their Power there is an Obligation on all the particular Members to forbear breaking that Union and violating those lawful Terms of Concord For where there is not a Governing Law there may be an Obliging Contract or Consent And whereas even the Papists now usually teach that even a Councils Decrees bind not the Churches at least those that had no Delegates till by actual reception they consent be it known to the World that on these Terms the Non-conformists in London seem to have some excuse if it
had been only Indifferent things that the late Convocation had imposed on them For when the Clergy met to chuse Clarks for the Convocation for London at Sion-Colledge the major Vote chose Mr. Calamy and Mr. Baxter whom the Bishop of London according to his Power did reject so that the City of London neither hath nor ever had one Clark of their own chusing in this Convocation which altered the Liturgy but the Dignitaries and the two Clarks chosen by the exterior parts of the Country were the only Persons hence accepted that ever we heard of or could learn And surely our after-consent will hardly be alledged And London is no inconsiderable part of England XL. We refuse not the Renunciation of the solemn Vow and Covenant as if we thought it bound us unto any disloyalty Sedition or other sin For we are ready to profess that it so obligeth no Man It cannot make a Sin to be a Duty or no Sin nor a Duty to our Superiours to be no Duty nor disoblige us from any part of our due Obedience to the King Nay we judge that we must not make our selves a Religion or Law by our own Vows or bind our selves to any thing but what we are bound to antecedently by God and so our Vows must be but secondary Obligations And these being our own thoughts we must needs hold accordingly that this solemn Vow doth bind as to nothing but what God doth bind us to antecedently himself and what would be our Duty had we never taken it And therefore should we renounce this Vow we should still take our selves bound by God himself to do all the good that in it was Vowed Whether the Vow of a thing indifferent bind or not we are not determining but as we hold that no such thing should be Vowed so we declare that it is none of our present case as is aforesaid XLI We are so far from refusing the Oxford Oath or the Subscription upon any disloyal or rebellious Principles that we shall hereafter adjoin such a Profession of this Subject as shall suffice with all Men of common humanity and impartiality to justifie our Principles of Loyalty against Malice it self And if yet Malice will go on to keep open our Divisions and keep us under Odium and unjust Suspensions and provoke men to forbid us to preach Christ's Gospel by talking of the late Wars and charging all on the Non-conformists we shall now only crave their just Answer to these few Questions following Q. 1. Are they willing that so many of the English Non-conformists shall have leave to preach Christ's Gospel freely as never had any hand in the Wars If they will procure us this we are confident that the rest that medled with the Wars are so few and so self-denying that they will thankfully accept of this liberty for their Brethren though they be silenced or banished themselves Q. 2. Was it for matter of War that near two Thousand Ministers were ejected or silenced 1662 or for something else Was this the cause that Mr. Martin of Weeden that lost an Arm in the King's Army and War could not have a day abated him in the Common Goal at Warwick when he preached as a Non-conformist And many other Instances we may give Q. 3. Did ever any of us that now address our selves to you go farther in our Principles than Bishop Bilson did even in his excellent Book of Christian subjection we detested all that went beyond him in his Doctrine of Resistance Or did any of us ever go near so far as your famous R. Hooker in his first and his eighth Book of Eccles Politie published long ago and again by Bishop Gauden and Dedicated to the King whose over Popular Principles one of us long ago at large confuted And were they silenced for this Q. 4. We humbly crave them that remember and knew the Persons to bethink them whether 1. Most of of the Parliament when the War began 2. Most of the Westminster Assembly when they met 3. Most of the Earl of Essex's Collonels and chief Officers 4. Most of the Lord Lieutenants of the Militia 5. Most of the Parliaments Major Generals in the Earl of Essex's time 6. Most of the Sea Captains in the Earl of Warwick's time We say Whether most of these we think ten to one and in some Instances twenty to one were not Conformists As sure as Archbishop Abbots was and all the Bishops save six in his days on whom Doctor Heyling layeth the cause of our Divisions Q. 5. And is it just that all the Conformists be therefore made odious and all the Conformable Ministers silenced for these Conformists sakes even such as never had a hand in the business Q. 6. If the War had been raised only by Non-conformists yet why should a thousand or 1400 Ministers now that were never proved guilty of any Wars be silenced and ruined for other mens Actions any more than the Conformists for the Archbishop of York's who was a Commander for the Parliament Q. 7. Why should no other penalty serve in this case but silencing us to the loss or hazard of the innocent people Is silencing us our suffering most or the Peoples If half the Bakers Brewers and Country Farmers had been in those Wars is there no way to punish them but to put down their Trade and forbidding them to bring Provision to the Markets Would not punishing the innocent as Drunkards or Whoremongers are punished satisfie you Nor any thing but keeping them from preaching the Doctrine of Salvation And that when the Fire consumed the Churches and when in many Parishes the tenth part of the People have no Church to go to Q. 8. Do you think that the Devil and the Papists had rather we were silenced or not Are they pleased with well-doing and with that which promoteth the Protestant interest and mans salvation And hath the Protestant Religion been secured and advantaged by our usage Q. 9. If it be that we Preach worse than others or Preach Sedition or unsound Doctrine why are not we accused of it and judged upon proof And why are we not suffered rather to Preach publickly where witness may be had than driven into corners where Sedition or Heresie may be hid by those that Preach it Q. 10. If you say that our preaching is needless Is not your own then as needless if you preach the same Gospel And must you have Lordships great maintenance reverence honour and obedience for needless preaching And when some Parishes have ten thousand some twenty thousand some thirty thousand some it is thought fourscore thousand Souls when three thousand cannot come to hear in the Church why is Preaching any more needful to those three thousand than to all the rest or to four persons in a Village than to thousands in Cities When our Preaching and other Ministration ceaseth to be notoriously needful we profess our selves joyfully willing to cease Our Flesh had rather have ease and a
gainfuller Trade of life than spending-labour with poverty reviling scorn and imprisonments XLII To conclude As far as we are able to understand the most learned sober judicious Conformists by their own words to us and their Writings they differ not at all from us about the matter it self which we deny Conformity to but confess it to be unlawful as to the hardest points of the imposed Subscriptions Oaths and Declarations and Covenants but they only take the words in such a sense in which we our selves could take them were we perswaded that it were indeed the true meaning of them And do they that are as much as we against that sense which we disown and agree with us in the matter deserve liberty honour and preferment for otherwise interpreting the words of the Law which the Law-givers themselves will not interpret And doth our supposition that the Law-makers mean properly as they speak deserve scorn silencing and Goals from them that will not expound them to us The righteous God will be Judge between us For instance 1. By Assent in the Declaration required we understand Believing it to be true But the Conformists that we speak of understand only a Belief that I may use it 2. By all and every thing contained in the Book we suppose is meant all and every thing indeed But they say only the Forms to be used are meant and many other things in the Book not meant We find after named Unfeigned Assent and Consent unto and Approbation of the said Book and to the use of all the Prayers Rites and Ceremonies Forms and Orders therein contained and prescribed we think here Approbation and Assent are more than Consent to use and we think that the use of all the Orders is more than the use of the Forms We think that no Word in the Book was intended to be useless and that the Doctrines Calendars even that untrue one to find out Easter-day Rubricks and Directories have each their proper use We suppose that the foregoing words of the Use are the End and the Form of the Declaration is the Means to secure that Use as the End and that the Means hath more in than the End 3. Some of them suppose that denying Christendom to Christians Children for want of Crossing or Godfathers and denying Communion to true Christians that receive not kneeling are none of the Orders to be used But we think otherwise 4. Some of them think that Admitting none to the holy Communion till they be Confirmed or desirous to be Confirmed though it be the very words is none of the Orders which they Consent to use and we never knew any use it by any tryal of mens desires But we think that nothing in the Book is intelligible if such plain passages are not 5. Some of them by the words at Burial that thank God for taking to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother out of the miseries c. understand not his Salvation but his going out of this World But we think otherwise 6. When only the unbaptized self murderers and excommunicate are there excepted some say all others are meant that ought to be excommunicate and so every Priest is made the Judge who should be Excommunicate But we think that Exceptio particularis firmat regulam in non exceptis 7. They think that the Words in the Canon that Nothing in the three Books is contrary to the Word of God are meant with exceptions as to Nothing or to Contrariety But we take Nothing for Nothing and Contrary for Contrary 8. Some of them say that the Church being the Maker of these Impositions we are to take them in the Churches sense which the Bishops may signifie But we think that we must take them in the sense of the King and Parliament as the Law-makers and that no Church or Bishops can alter our Religion or Articles or Subscriptions by an Expository Power 9. Some of them think that the words on any pretense whatsoever in the Subscription have exceptions But we know not how any words can be more exclusive of exceptions 10. Some of them think that by any Commissioned is meant only Lawfully Commissioned and so Subjects are left to judge of the Lawfulness We find there no such Limitation or Exposition 11. Some of them say that by the Government of the Church not to be altered is not meant the Lay-Chancellors use of the Keys But we think that their actual Government is the Government actually 12. Some of them say that by no change or alteration is meant only of the Essence of Episcopacy We take no alteration for no alteration 13. Some of them say that by not endeavouring is meant only not seditiously or by ill means We think That ubi DEX non distinguit non est distinguendum 14. Some of them think that no Law or words imposed must be expounded contrary to Gods Law or any former Law or to the King 's or Peoples rights But 1. That is to suppose that men cannot contradict themselves or God or do unjustly 2. And then whatever Oaths men put on us we may take them were the words never so false or impious because the meaning must still be judged good 15. Some say that we must put the best sense on imposed Oaths and Covenants and Subscriptions that the words can be subdued to We think that they must be taken in the sense of the Law-makers which is to be judged of by the usual meaning of their words unless themselves do otherwise expound them And so in many other Instances the Conformists say that they would not Conform themselves if they understood the words as we do Seeing then that all these worthy Conformists before mentioned do confess that if the words of the Laws be properly to be understood and not with their limitations then the Conformists are in the wrong and the Non-conformists in the right we conclude with these few Questions Q. 1. Whether we owe not that honour to our Law-makers as to suppose that they are able and willing to speak intelligibly Q. 2. Whether they would have men left as to the Oath of Allegiance and all other Oaths and Laws to subdue the Law-makers words to any sense that the Subject thinks lawful and to make themselves Judges of the sense by departing from the common use of the words without proof that the Law-makers meant otherwise Q. 3. Whether there be need of much Learning Conscience or Honesty to stretch the words from their ordinary sense more than to do otherwise And whether so to do would deserve honour and preferment and to do otherwise be a Crime that deserveth silencing and ruine Q. 4. Whether their way of Exposition or ours tend more to promote Perjury and Equivocation and which more secureth Truth and Honesty Q. 5. If once the Conscience of Oaths and Covenants be relaxed by stretching words to the takers interest are not the Lives of Princes left in danger and the Bonds of common Converse loosened Q. 6. If this must be the cause of our sufferings and silence is it not justice so to tell the World and write it on our Cross that we are silenced and laid in Goals because we dare not take Oaths and Covenants imposed in Terms excluding limitations and exceptions in a limited excepting sense without the Explication of the Law-makers Q. 7. And if we must be so used whether any in the whole World be more unfit to silence imprison fine reproach and ruine us for mis-understanding the words which we are to Subscribe or Promise or Covenant in viz. for taking none to mean none nothing to mean nothing not any to mean not any contrary to mean contrary all to mean all than those that while they are set to ruine us will by no intreaties after our almost fourteen Years sufferings and expectations be prevailed with to procure us an Exposition of the sense of any of these so much controverted words We are more confident that the Law-makers can more certainly and infallibly expound their own words than the Pope or Council can expound Theological difficulties And if our Accusers will not once endeavour to procure them so to do nor be intreated to consent it when Conformists and Non-conformists are chiefly disagreed about the Interpretation of them and when our preaching or silence honour or reproach maintenance or poverty liberty or imprisonment yea and much duty or sin in the Body of the Nation lyeth upon the resolution of this Controversie what is the Law-makers meaning we will still refer all to him that judgeth righteously who will shortly finally end the Controversie praying to God though Men will not hear us to open our Lips that our Mouths may shâ—w forth his praise that he will make speed to save us and make hasâ—e to help us that he whose service is perfect freedom will defend us his humbled servants in all assaults of our Enemies that we surely trusting in his defence may not fear the power of any Adversaries and that these evils which the craft and subtilty of the Devil or Man worketh against us be brought to nought and by the providence of his goodness they may be dispersed that we his Servants being hurt by no persecution may evermore give him thanks in his holy Church that in all our troubles we may put our whole trust and confidence in his mercy and evermore serve him in holiness and pureness of living that he will forgive our Enemies Persecutors and Slanderers and turn their hearts especially that he will save our Posterity from their Curse who say The Blood be on us and on our Children For we are not against such a Liturgy as this POSTSCRIPT Reader IT was intended that a short Account of the Nonconformists Judgement about the Power of Kings and the Obedience of Subjects should have been added but by reason of some Mens aptness to be offended at all such Publications and because of the present dispersion of the Collectors it is pretermitted with this Profession That they shall at all times be ready to give such Account of their Judgements when Authority shall call them or allow it as shall satisfie all impartial Men that they are haters of Disloyalty Sedition Rebellion and Schisme FINIS