Five disputations of church-government and worship

Sect. 2. I must entreat the Reader to observe that my drift in this writing is not so much to oppose any form of Government merely as contrary to the Institution or Apostolical Rule, as to plead against that which I take to be destructive to the Ends of Government: Not that I desire not a careful adhering to the sacred Rule, but 1. Because I suppose that many circumstantials of Discipline undetermined in the Word are feigned by some to be substanstantial necessary things: and that many matters are indifferent that some lay the Peace if not the being of the Church upon. 2. Because I so far hate contention, that if any Government contrary to my Judgement were set up, that did not apparently in the nature of it wrong the Church, I would silently live under it in peace and quietness: and accordingly would be now loth to enter a quarrel with any Writers that differ from us in tolerable things: But if I know that their judgement reduced to practice is like to be the undoing of many souls, and to cast Discipline almost wholly out of the Church, I think it better to displease ⟨p. 3⟩them, then let them undo the Church without contradiction. The best is, the serious Christians of this age have experience to help them to understand the case, and I suppose my Disputation to be unto them as if I Disputed before a man that is restored from want, or banishment or sickness, whether he should be reduced to the Condition from which he is restored?

Sect. 2. I must intreat the Reader to observe that my drift in this writing is not so much to oppose any form of Government meerly as contrary to the Institution or Apostolical Rule, as to plead against that which I take to be destructive to the Ends of Government: Not that I desire not a careful adhering to the sacred Rule, but 1. Because I suppose that many circumstantials of Discipline undetermined in the Word are feigned by some to be substanstantial necessary things: and that many matters are indifferent that some lay the Peace if not the being of the Church upon. 2. Because I so far hate contention, that if any Government contrary to my Iudgement were set up, that did not apparently in the nature of it wrong the Church, I would silently live under it in peace and quietness: and accordingly would be now loth to enter a quarrel with any Writers that differ from us in tolerable things: But if I know that their judgement reduced to practice is like to be the undoing of many souls, and to cast Discipline almost wholly out of the Church, I think it better to displease ⟨p. 3⟩