A peace-offering in an apology and humble plea for indulgence and liberty of conscience

and this cannot but be evident unto them (if they will give themselves but the liberty of unprejudiced consideration) who know that a relinquishment of those Principles would instantly cause all those other Pleas and Pretences to vanish out of their minds, which at present they only make use of. And therefore also shall we not much concern our selves in any other charge that is laid against us, but only as to what we profess, and practise in the ways and worship of God, as knowing that from thence alone all occasion is taken for them. We shall therefore only briefly declare our sense of them, and then proceed to that which is our real concernment. For there is not any new thing herein under the Sun.

In all ages, where ever any way in Religion hath been judged by the most, rightly, or otherwise, to be contrary to the mind of God, as by them apprehended, it hath been immediately charged with the guilt of all the evils that fell out in the days of its profession, though evidently they had other Causes and Occasions. Such was the condition of Christianity in general of old, as is manifest from the Apologetical Writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Arnobius, Cyprian, Lactantius, Minutius Felix, Augustine, and others. Upon every occasion of trouble, the common cry was, Christianos ad Leones. Such was also the condition of the Professors of the Protestant Religion, upon the first Reformation, throughout the world; under which prejudice and imputation, they are yet forced to suffer the wrath of men in many places. What ever disadvantages then on this account we may be exposed unto, we have no reason to complain or think strange of, it being no other than all men in the like condition in all ages have had to conflict withal; and will have so, whilst sin and darkness continue in the world. To commend our consciences unto God in well-doing, is the only means of peace in our selves, and the whole Defensative in reference unto others, which in this case is left unto us.

In all ages, where ever any way in Religion hath been judged by the most, rightly, or otherwise, to be contrary to the mind of God, as by them apprehended, it hath been immediately charged with the guilt of all the evils that fell out in the days of its profession, though evidently they had other Causes and Occasions. Such was the condition of Christianity in general of old, as is manifest from the Apologetical Writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Arnobius, Cyprian, Lactantius, Minutius Foelix, Augustine, and others. Upon every occasion of trouble, the common cry was, Christianos ad Leones. Such was also the condition of the Professors of the Protestant Religion, upon the first Reformation, throughout the world; under which prejudice and imputation, they are yet forced to suffer the wrath of men in many places. What ever disadvantages then on this account we may be exposed unto, we have no reason to complain or think strange of, it being no other than all men in the like condition in all ages have had to conflict withall; and will have so, whilst sin and darkness continue in the world. To commend our consciences unto God in well-doing, is the only means of peace in our selves, and the whole Defensative in reference unto others, which in this case is left unto us.