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

Right Reverend Lords! though we are your Petitioners for the sake of poor Souls, and of the Church and Gospel, and for the sake of Christian Love and Peace, and for the sake of Christ who valueth these; yet are we not your flatterers. Had we not seen in history and experience, especially in the numerous Roman Clergy, how far interest and self-love can blind men, and bring both Learning, Reason and pretences of Religion into their service, it would be a wonder to us, that humane nature could be guilty of your course, and that in the face of such dreadful judgments as have lately been upon us! That when Gods displeasure had afflicted your selves (or some of you) for many years, you should come out of the fire so unrefined, as to use the Gospel and Ministers of Christ much worse than your Predecessors did before you! and show that you have learnt so little by all Gods judgments on you, and on the land, as to forget what God did, and what your selves did, while you remember only what the Instruments of his wrath did! Nay under pretence of remembering your afflicters, your wrath burneth implacably against the innocent, that never hurt you, nor had the hundredth part so great a hand in your afflictions as you had your selves. Wonderful! that in the very time while the Plague was devouring, and souls crowding out of time into eternity, and each man a terror to another, and about a hundred thousand dead in one City, you should be a terror to your surviving brethren, and study how to stop the mouths of those that would but help to prepare poor souls for so great a change! That ⟨p. 235⟩when such dreadful flames have followed such Wars and wasting Plagues, yet nothing moveth you to see so great and grievous sins▪ as the silencing so many hundred Ministers, and the starving so many hundred thousand souls, that never deserved evil at your hands! That the instances of the obduration of Pharaoh, and the Pharisees, with the consequents, make you not afraid, lest the wrath should come upon you to the uttermost, while you please not God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding Christs labourers to gather in his harvest, and to preach to the ignorant and impenitent that they might be saved! 1 Thess. 2. 15. That you are no more sensible of the foretold tenor of Christs final doom on them that did not feed, clothe and visit the least of his servants;