Twelfthly. Lastly, true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, either of Jew or Gentile.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
BOTH
HOUSES OF THE HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT.
Right honourable and renowned Patriots,
Next to the saving of your own souls in the lamentable shipwreck of mankind, your task as Christians is to save the souls, but as magistrates the bodies and goods, of others.
Many excellent discourses have been presented to your fathers’ hands and yours, in former and present parliaments. I shall be humbly bold to say, that, in what concerns your duties as magistrates towards others, a more necessary and seasonable debate was never yet presented.
Two things your honours here may please to view, in this controversy of persecution for cause of conscience, beyond what is extant.
First. The whole body of this controversy formed and pitched in true battalia.
Secondly. Although in respect of myself it be impar congressus, yet, in the power of that God who is Maximus in Minimis, your Honours shall see the controversy is discussed with men as able as most, eminent for ability and piety—Mr. Cotton, and the New English ministers.
When the prophets in scripture have given their coats of arms and escutcheons to great men, your Honours know the Babylonian monarch hath the lion, the Persian the bear, the Grecian the leopard, the Roman a compound of the former three, most strange and dreadful, Dan. vii.