The second part of The nonconformists plea for peace being an account of their…

43. As for the indifferent modes and circumstances of worship, some most of the Churches voluntarily agreed in; some they differed in; some the particular Bishops made to be the Order of their own particular Churches, (which were for 200 or 300 years no more populous than our Parishes), and this not against the peoples will; But none of them were imposed by any Bishops upon other Churches, nor made necessary to Communion against the wills and consciences of the Presbyters and people, nor Ministers silenced nor people excommunicated for refusing them; But they were used as things Indifferent with mutual charity, till the decay of Charity and the entrance of Pride and Church Tyranny turned things indifferent into those engines of divisions, which have wracked, and dismembered and torn in pieces the Churches through the world unto this day.

43. As for the indifferent modes and circumstances of worship, some most of the Churches voluntarily agreed in; some they differed in; some the particular Bishops made to be the Order of their own particuar Churches, (which were for 200 or 300 years no more populous than our Parishes), and this not against the peoples will; But none of them were imposed by any Bishops upon other Churches, nor made necessary to Communion against the wills and consciences of the Presbyters and people, nor Ministers silenced nor people excommunicated for refusing them; But they were used as things Indifferent with mutual charity, till the decay of Charity and the entrance of Pride and Church Tyranny turned things indifferent into those engines of divisions, which have wracked, and dismembred and torn in pieces the Churches through the world unto this day.

44. A diversity of such circumstances and indifferent modes in divers Churches or Parishes, and sometimes in the same Church, is no such dreadful mischief as some frightful Pastors would make themselves or others believe: much less to be compared with the consequents of unnecessary impositions. What harm is it if one Parish or Pastor use one Liturgic form or ceremony, and another use another, (so that neither of them be evil) any more than that now one Minister in the Pulpit useth one prayer, one Sermon, one method, and another useth another: Our Cathedrals and our Parish Churches have great difference of such modes, without any such mischiefs: And now one Parish Minister prayeth in the Pulpit, and another only biddeth Prayer (and pleadeth for it as the principal way): And one that prayeth in the Pulpit useth his own words, and another doth it in the words of the Liturgy: One useth a form (the same ordinarily) and another varieth according to the matter of his Sermon