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

CAP. 1. The Narrative of those late Actions, which have occasioned mens displeasure against me on both sides: with the Reasons of them, and of my Writing, which I am now defending.

THE number of Books written against me is so great, that if I should not be very suspicious of my self, lest I had wronged the truth, and the Church of God, and given men just occasion of all this obloquy, I should be very defective in humility, and in that care, which I am obliged to for the avoiding of such injuries. And I find upon examination that ⟨p. 26⟩if I could have let all sides alone, and judged it consistent with my duty to be silent while the envious man sowed his tares, and not to have contradicted any that I took to be injuring the Truth and Church, nor to have sounded the trumpet against any error which arose before us, I could as easily have escaped their wrath as others. And I find that whereas our differences both in Doctrine, and Worship, and Discipline, have engaged men of several minds in such writings against me. (Some Infidels, diverse Quakers, Papists, Antinomians, some Arminians, some Anti-arminians, Anabaptists, Separatists, Levellers, Diocesans, &c.) What one accuseth me of, another doth not only acquit me of, but ordinarily as sharply accuse me for the contrary, and for going no further from the rest. So that nothing but silence could put by their fiercest accusations, And silence it self will not please the Imperious sect, who think me criminal, because I serve them not according to their own desire and way. And silence was not that which I promised God at my ordination, nor is it a doing of that work, to which I was then consecrated and devoted.

But because some men speak in a more Sanguinary dialect than others, and because the late charges of Disloyalty, ought not to be disregarded by a loyal subject, and because for the sakes of their own souls, it hath often made me pity Mr. Durel, Dr. Boreman, and many others like them, who have published ugly falsehoods of me, I once thought to have here exercised so much Charity to them, as by a full Narrative of all