A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and…

Quest. 7. Shall we not hereby countenance the Prelates in Church-Tyranny and Usurpation? and invite them to go further, and to make more burdens of Forms and Ceremonies to lay upon the Churches?

Quest. 7. SHall we not hereby countenance the Prelates in Church-Tyranny and Usurpation? and invite them to go further, and to make more burdens of Forms and Ceremonies to lay upon the Churches?

Answ. Without meddling now with the question, what guilt it is that lieth on any Prelates in the points here mentioned, I answer, on your own supposition; 1. That it is the King and his Laws which we obey herein, and not the Diocesans.

Answ. Without medling now with the question, what guilt it is that lyeth on any Prelates in the points here mentioned, I answer, on your own supposition; 1. That it is the King and his Laws which we obey herein, and not the Diocesans.

2. How openly and fully have we declared our utter dissent from the things which you suppose that we shall countenance them in? Our Writings are yet visible: Our Conferences were notorious. And is not the loss of our Ministry, and the loss of all Ecclesiastical Maintenance, and the pinching wants of many poor Ministers, and their numerous families, and our suffering Volumes of reproach, confinements, &c. a signification of our dissent? The case is somewhat hard with abundance of godly faithful Ministers? Few that never felt it themselves, can ⟨p. 95⟩judge aright, what it is to want a house to dwell in, a bed to lye on, to have Wives that are weak natured, to keep in yearly patience under all such necessities, which the Husband can bear himself; to have Children crying in hunger and rags, and to have a Landlord calling for his Rent, and Butchers, and Brewers, and Bakers, and Drapers, and Tailors, and Shoo-makers calling for money, when there is none to pay them (there being no fifth part of Church-maintenance now allowed them): in the Frost and Snow to have no fire, nor money to but it! And yet all this is little in comparison of their restraint from preaching the Gospel of Salvation; and the displeasure of their Governors against them if they preach. And is not all this yet an open signification of their Dissent from the things which they so far deny compliance with? If some of their Accusers on both sides were but in the same condition, they would think it should go for a sufficient notification of dissent.