An account of all the proceedings of the commissioners of both persuasions appointedAn accompt of all the proceedings of the commissioners of both persvvasions appointed

Repl. The mischiefs which you pretend,¹ are inconveniences attending humane imperfection, which you would cure with a mischief. Your Argument from the Abuse, against the Use, is a palpable fallacy, which cast out Physicians in some Countries, and rooted up Vines in others, and condemneth the reading of the Scriptures in a known tongue among the Papists. If the Apostles (that complained then so much of divisions, and Preaching false doctrine, and in envy, and strife) had thought the way of cure had been in sending Ministers about the world with a Prayer-book or Sermon book, and to have tied them only to read, either one or both of these, no doubt but they would have been so regardful of the Church, as ⟨p. 52⟩to have composed such a Prayer-book or Sermon book themselves, and not left us to the uncertainties of an Authority not infallible, nor to the divisions that follow the impositions of a questionable Power, or that which unquestionably is not universal, and therefore can procure no universal Concord. If one man among you draw up a Form of Prayer, it is his single conception; and why a man as learned and able, may not be trusted to conceive a Prayer for the use of a single Congregation, without the dangers mentioned by you, as one man to conceive a Prayer for all the Churches in a Diocese, or a Nation, we know not. These words [that the mischief is greater than the pretended good] seem to express an unjust accusation of ordinary conceived Prayer, and a great undervaluing of the benefits: If you would intimate that the Crimes expressed by you are ordinarily found in Ministers Prayers, we that hear such much more frequently than you, must profess we have not found it so (allowing men their different measures of exactness, as you have even in writing.) Nay, to the praise of God we must say, that multitudes of private men can ordinarily pray, without any such imperfection as should nauseate a sober person; and with such seriousness and aptness of expression, as is greatly to the benefit and comfort of our selves when we join with them. And if such general accusations may serve in a matter of public and common fact, there is no way for the justification of the Innocent:

Repl. The mischiefs which you pretend,¹ are inconveniences attending humane imperfeotion, which you would cure with a mischief. Your Argument from the Abuse, against the Use, is a palpable fallacy, which cast out Physitians in some Countries, and rooted up Vines in others, and condemneth the reading of the Scriptures in a known tongue among the Papists. If the Apostles (that complained then so much of divisions, and Preaching false doctrine, and in envy, and strife) had thought the way of cure had been in sending Ministers about the world with a Prayer-book or Sermon book, and to have tyed them only to read, either one or both of these, no doubt but they would have been so regardful of the Church, as