Church concord

God gave our People (in many Parishes) willing Minds, and encouraged us by unexpected great success: The most laborious Ministers took the hint, and seconded us in many Counties: First and chiefly in Westmorland and Cumberland, and then in Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Essex, (and Dr. Winter, and others in Ireland)▪ The terms of our Association, the Reader may see Printed at large 1653. But theirs of Westmorland and Cumberland more large, and worthy the Consideration of the present tolerated Churches. I pray you read them.

God gave our People (in many Parishes) willing Minds, and encouraged us by unexpected great success: The most laborious Ministers took the hint, and seconded us in many Counties: First and chiefly in Westmorland and Cumberland, and then in Dorsetshire, Wil•shire, Hampshire and Essex, (and Dr. Winter, and others in Ireland)▪ The terms of our Association, the Reader may see Printed at large 1653. But theirs of Westmorland and Cumberland more large, and worthy the Consideration of the present tolerated Churches. I pray you read them.

§ 3. But when it came to closest Practice, As the Foreigners, (Prelatists) and Popular called Brownists kept off, so but few of the rigid Presbyterians or Independents joined with us; (And indeed Worcestershire and the adjoining Counties had but few of either sort,) But the main Body of our Association were men that thought the Episcopal, Presbyterians and Independents, had each of them some good in which they excelled the other two Parties, and each of them some mistakes: And that to select out of all three the best part, and leave the worst, was the most desirable (and ancient) Form of Government. But that so much as might Unite them in the Comfortable Service of Christ was common to them all: The most of our Ministers were Young men bred at the Universities during the Wars, and engaged in no Faction, nor studied much in such kind of Controversies; but of solid Judgment and zealous Preachers, and eminently Prudent, Pious and Peaceable: And with them there joined many that had Conformed, and thought both the Common-Prayer and the Directory, Episcopacy and Presbytery tolerable: And these in 1660. did Conform; but most of the rest were ejected and silenced. Though of near Ten Thousand that the Parliament left in possession, there were but Two Thousand cast out by the Prelates, we strongly conjectured before hand who those would be: Satan desired to have Power to sift us, as wheat, And the chaff and the bran stayed in, and made that which some called the best in the World: And indeed much of the bran is honoured by us as very useful: But the simila was too fine and precise for the palates of the Great Churchmen, and was cast out in the sifting: And the Sifters did but call the [Similago] Simulatio] and such other names, and out it went with Scorns and Devastation: And the hatred of it is propagated as the natural Progeny of revived true simulation and revenge. But though fur-fur be a name of no honourable sound (or sense, as it looks to Brethren and the Church) yet for my part I do with thanks for England, and with lamentation for other Lands, consent with them that say, Few Churches are so well fed: God can use this for the cleansing and drying up the Hydropical tympanite of this Land: