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

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 ⟨p. 131⟩Christian Princes would make such a Treaty their business by their Ambassadors, that Love and Liberty might be regulated by the just rules of Equality, and not be pretended only by a faction for their own ends, even by them that will seek Liberty but will not give it, I would bless God for such Princes, and for so good a work. And I would be (and am) ready to manifest to all wise impartial men, whose Religion is Love and not Malice under the name of Zeal, that in many Doctrines that we are by some supposed to differ in Fundamentals, ignorance hath feigned the difference to be doubly greater than it is. And I think many of Forbes and Spalato's Arguments (in his very Learned Books de Republ. Eccles.) to be worthy the serious study of every Learned man. I know Luther took the Doctrine of uncertainty of Salvation alone, to be cause enough of our unreconcileableness with Rome; and yet I know as well, that it is not one godly person of many, yea very many of them that are farthest from the Papists, who do say that they are certain of their own Salvation.

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 anothers 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 magnifie 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 suspious 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