An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II.…

And if they will fly from us, and refuse our Communion, or will put unlawful terms on us, and drive us from them, we shall have no accusation for this by our consciences, or any wise man. He is the Schismatic that maketh communion impossible by his Additions or Impositions, or runs away from those that will not receive all his Supernumeraries. Usurpation is the peace breaker in the Church of God. Christs sheep know his voice and follow him; but they will not be so obedient to an unknown voice. Why cannot a man be content to be a Lord Bishop, and to have many hundred or thousand pound a year, for promoting the preaching and practice of Christianity, and for punishing Heretics, rebels, drunkards, sensualists, &c. and serve God himself with what garb, or forms, or ceremonies he please, as well as to have the same wealth and honour, to prosecute much wiser and better men than himself, with a burning zeal, for not swearing obedience to him, or for not subscribing that his Books are faultless, or for not wearing a Surplice, or signing Children with the transient Image of the Cross.

And if they will fly from us, and refuse our Communion, or will put unlawful terms on us, and drive us from them, we shall have no accusation for this by our consciences, or any wise man. He is the Schismatick that maketh communion impossible by his Additions or Impositions, or runs away from those that will not receive all his Supernumeraries. Usurpation is the peace breaker in the Church of God. Christs sheep know his voice and follow him; but they will not be so obedient to an unknown voice. Why cannot a man be content to be a Lord Bishop, and to have many hundred or thousand pound a year, for promoting the preaching and practice of Christianity, and for punishing Hereticks, rebels, drunkards, sensualists, &c. and serve God himself with what garb, or forms, or ceremonies he please, as well as to have the same wealth and honour, to prosecute much wiser and better men than himself, with a burning zeal, for not swearing obedience to him, or for not subscribing that his Books are faultless, or for not wearing a Surplice, or signing Children with the transient Image of the Cross.

But we must suppose that we cannot make Papists to be Protestants; If they will not turn Protestants, and we will not turn Papists, the contrivance or supposition of a turn, or half-turn, is but a vain imagination, not the way to unity and peace. We must take them as they are, and they must take us as we are, and we must take all the Christian Churches as they are, in our design for concord, if we will do any good in it. The question is not how, or how far we shall change one another's minds, or be changed, but how we shall maintain so much love and peace as is due to one another in the capacity that we are in; and how far we shall endure the different opinions and practices of another to such an end. And such a Conciliator with Rome I would be my self, and magnify the design as much as Heylin doth, and be as zealous in it as Grotius, Laud or Forbes were in theirs. For it is but the service of Love and Peace, and that is certainly the service of God. I would treat with any Papists on such a design. If peevish or suspicious Protestants should try out on me, and defame me for such a design, (as some have done) I would no more regard it than the crying of a child. If