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

Let men of God in Courts and Churches watch, O'er such as do a Toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a Cockatrice, To poison all with Heresy and Vice. If men be left, and otherwise Combine, My Epitaph's, I died no Libertine.

Let men of God in Courts and Churches watch, O're such as do a Toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a Cockatrice, To poyson all with Heresie and Vice. If men be left, and otherwise Combine, My Epitaph's, I dy'd no Libertine.

(But this is no excuse to them, that Tolerate not men to obey the Laws of Christ.)

To these I may add that (though many Prelatists utterly mistake, and think that it is the Ministers every where that are the chief Leaders of the people to Separation, yet) both in New-England and in Old, the ⟨p. 175⟩people are so much proner to it than the Ministers, (except a very few,) that if it were not for the wisdom, gravity, stability and authority of the Ministers restraining them, the matter would be otherwise than it is. As this Synod of New-England showeth you their stability and moderation, so do the choicest of their Pastors still stand firm against all extremes, and hold the people in that Concord which they have. The excellent service of Mr. Mitchell in this kind before he died is predicated by all. I will not recite all the complaints I heard from Mr. Nortons mouth, against the separating humour of many people, and their danger thereupon; nor the many Letters to the same purpose, which many worthy men thence have sent over to their friends, and their particular lamentations of the case of Hartford, Boston, &c. which I have had the sight of; which fully testify that they are no promoters of those ways.