2. You force me to confute you by Instances which yet you abhor to hear. You say [Persecution in no case can consist with love?] Do you think your self that all the1 Common-wealths-men, the Anabaptists, the Separatists, the Independents, or whoever, that had a hand in the order for sequestring all Ministers, that kept not their ⟨p. 136⟩days of humiliation and thanksgiving for the blood of Scotland, had no love at all remaining? Or that none of this was persecution? Nor yet the ejecting of them that refused the engagement? Nor yet the imprisonment and banishment of the London Ministers, and the death of Mr. Love and Gibbons? To pass by the Scotch war it self, and all the rest. Do not the Sectaries think that the Presbyterians did or would have persecuted them? And did not the Presbyterians think that the Sectaries persecuted them? Do you think that in the Contentions, with the Donatists, the Novatians, and many other professors of strictness, the parties that persecuted had no Love, and so no true grace remaining? Truly, brother, I like persecution as little as most men living do, and have written more against it than you have done; (forgive this pride) But I cannot be so uncharitable as to condemn all the sects, and parties, and persons, as utterly graceless that have been drawn to persecute one another; When I consider how few sects in the World have escaped the guilt; and how far peevishness and seeming interest hath carried them. You know, I suppose, that the Munster Anabaptists themselves, did not forbear it. The Lutherans have oft persecuted the Calvinists; And the Arminians in Holland thought that the Calvinists persecuted them, and denied them liberty of Conscience: Even the New England godly Magistrates and Ministers are ⟨p. 137⟩accused of it by the Quakers and the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson and Gortin.
2. You force me to confute you by Instances which yet you abhor to hear. You say [Persecution in no case can consist with love?] Do you think your self that all the1 Common-wealths-men, the Anabaptists, the Separatists, the Independents, or whoever, that had a hand in the order for sequestring all Ministers, that kept not their ⟨p. 136⟩daies of humiliation and thanksgiving for the blood of Scotland, had no love at all remaining? Or that none of this was persecution? Nor yet the ejecting of them that refused the engagement? Nor yet the imprisonment and banishment of the London Ministers, and the death of Mr. Love and Gibbons? To pass by the Scotch war it self, and all the rest. Do not the Sectaries think that the Presbyterians did or would have persecuted them? And did not the Presbyterians think that the Sectaries persecuted them? Do you think that in the Contentions, with the Donatists, the Novatians, and many other professors of strictness, the parties that persecuted had no Love, and so no true grace remaining? Truly, brother, I like persecution as little as most men living do, and have written more against it than you have done; (forgive this pride) But I cannot be so uncharitable as to condemn all the sects, and parties, and persons, as utterly graceless that have been drawn to persecute one another; When I consider how few sects in the World have escaped the guilt; and how far pievishness and seeming interest hath carried them. You know, I suppose, that the Munster Anabaptists themselves, did not forbear it. The Lutherans have oft persecuted the Calvinists; And the Arminians in Holland thought that the Calvinists persecuted them, and denied them liberty of Conscience: Even the New England godly Magistrates and Ministers are ⟨p. 137⟩accused of it by the Quakers and the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson and Gortin.
- 1Whether no persecution can consist with Love?
