A letter written out of the country to a person of quality in the…A letter written out of the countrey to a person of quality in the…

Which I now inquire after, (of those things in the Treatise it self) but whether they do consult for the Churches Peace and Unity who suspend it upon such things? How far either the example of our Saviour or his Apostles doth warrant such rigorous impositions? We never read the Apostles making Laws but of things supposed necessary. When the Counsel of Apostles met at Jerusalem for deciding a Case that disturbed the Churches Peace, we see they would lay no other burden [Greek or Hebrew] besides these necessary things. Act. 15. 29. It was not enough with them that the things would be necessary when they had required them, but they looked on an Antecedent necessity either absolute or for the present state, which was the only ground of their imposing those Commands upon the Gentile Christians. There were, after this, great diversities of practice and Varieties of Observations among Christians, but the Holy Ghost never thought those things fit to be made matters of Laws, to which all parties should conform; all that the Apostles required as to these, was mutual forbearance and condescension towards each other in them. The Apostles valued not differences at all, and those things it is evident they accounted such, which whether men did them or not, was not of concernment to Salvation. And what reason is there why men should be so strictly tied up to such things, which they may do or let alone, and yet be very good Christians still? Without all controversy the main In-let of all the distractions ⟨p. 17⟩confusions and divisions of the Christian World, hath been by adding other conditions of Church-communion than Christ hath done.

Which I now inquire after, (of those things in the Treatise it self) but whether they do consult for the Churches Peace and Unity who suspend it upon such things? How far either the example of our Saviour or his Apostles doth warrant such rigorous impositions? We never read the Apostles making Laws but of things supposed necessary. When the Counsel of Apostles met at Jerusalem for deciding a Case that disturbed the Churches Peace, we see they would lay no other burden 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 besides these necessary things. Act. 15. 29. It was not enough with them that the things would be necessary when they had required them, but they looked on an Antecedent necessity either absolute or for the present state, which was the only ground of their imposing those Commands upon the Gentile Christians. There were, after this, great diversities of practice and Varieties of Observations among Christians, but the Holy Ghost never thought those things fit to be made matters of Laws, to which all parties should conform; all that the Apostles required as to these, was mutual forbearance aud condescension towards each other in them. The Apostles valued not differences at all, and those things it is evident they accounted such, which whether men did them or not, was not of concernment to Salvation. And what reason is there why men should be so strictly tyed up to such things, which they may do or let alone, and yet be very good Christians still? Without all controversie the main In-let of all the distractions