The defence of the nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of the matter…

XII. It is a dreadful aggravation to do all this (not by sudden Surprise, but) upon Deliberation, and to make a Covenant against Duty and for Sin, and to say I ought to do it, and never to Repent; yea, and by justifying it to harden multitudes against Repentance: Especially if it tend to ⟨p. 134⟩corrupt the public state of the Church, and Worship.

XII. It is a dreadful aggravation to do all this (not by sudden Surprize, but) upon Deliberation, and to make a Covenant against Duty and for Sin, and to say I ought to do it, and never to Repent; yea, and by justifying it to harden multitudes against Repentance: Especially if it tend to ⟨p. 134⟩corrupt the publick state of the Church, and Worship.

For these Reasons I cannot use Violence with imposed Oaths, Covenants, or Professions; but must expound them in the common sense of Men of that Profession, till the Law-makers themselves shall declare that they mean otherwise.

And all this I speak but as the Reasons of our own Practice, and not at all to accuse any Conformists: Yea, I so far excuse them against the Non-conforming Conformist, that I do take the chief Men of them whom I have known, to mean plainly as they speak: I suppose they really Assent and Consent to all things contained and prescribed in the Books; and really mean contrary to your stretching Expositions of Infants Salvation, of Baptism, Communion, Burial, and the rest. And by Dr. William Smith's Books, and such others, I believe they take such Conforming Non-conformists to be (as the late Westminster Assembly proved) the most dangerous underminers of their Church.