Suppose only such men Pastors as are now most improperly, whether as
boast or as sneer, called Evangelical, what an insufferable tyranny
would this introduce! Who would not rather live in Algiers? This alone
would make this minute history of the ecclesiastic factions invaluable,
that it must convince all sober lovers of independence and moral
self-government, how dearly we ought to prize our present Church
Establishment with all its faults.
Ib. p. 272.
Therefore we humbly crave that your Majesty will here declare, that it
is your Majesty's pleasure that none be punished or troubled for not
using the Book of Common Prayer, till it be effectually reformed by
divines of both persuasions equally deputed thereunto.
The dispensing power of the Crown not only acknowledged, but earnestly
invoked! Cruel as the conduct of Laud and that of Sheldon to the
Dissentients was, yet God's justice stands clear towards them; for they
demanded that from others, which they themselves would not grant. They
were to be allowed at their own fancies to denounce the ring in
marriage, and yet impowered to endungeon, through the magistrate, the
honest and peaceable Quaker for rejecting the outward ceremony of water
in Baptism, as seducing men to take it as a substitute for the spiritual
reality;--though the Quakers, no less than themselves, appealed to
Scripture authority--the Baptist's own contrast of Christ's with the
water Baptism.
Ib. p. 273.
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