An Answer BY AN ANABAPTIST TO THE Three Considerations Proposed to Mr William Penn, By a pretended BAPTIST, CONCERNING A MAGNA CHARTA FOR Liberty of Conscience.  
Allowed to be Published this 10th Day of September, 1688.  
London, Printed in the Year 1688.   

An Answer BY AN ANABAPTIST TO THE Three Considerations etc.  
YOU desire, All your Dissenting Brethren to Consider, and then Answer.  
I have Considered, but I cannot tell whether you suppose all Dissenters are your Brethren, or that all are your Brethren who descent from you. If the first, It seems probable to me, that you have been either Educated in a strange Soil, or have forgotten your Brother's Dialect; so that I cannot discern, that you are any otherwise a Baptist then only in Masquerade, and therefore am shy of owning the Relation: But if all that descent from you, must therefore be reckoned your Brethren, than I am in that Number, and because I think Mr Penn may not have so much leisure as myself at present to attend upon your Trifles, I intent to be in the first Rank of your Respondents.  
I consider also that though you have proposed but Three Considerations, yet you have bolted out a Mulitude of Questions, which administer an occasion for as many more to be retorted.  
To your first Question, Then; What Validity or Security can any pretended or designed future New Law or Charter have, when we see so many of the present Laws we already have, may be, and are by the Dispensing Power Dispensed with?  
So many of the present Laws— The Grievance then with you may lie rather in the Number, than in the Dispensing Power. His Majesty might with your leave perhaps have dispensed with some Persons, and some Penalties too, but not with so many altogether.  
One would think by that you would not have Quarrelled at the Dispensing Four, though the Act for levying Twelve Pence a Week had never been Prosecuted, so as the Twenty Pound a Month had been Levied, nor if the Conventicle Act had been Dispensed with, so as the Thirty fifth of Queen Elizabeth had been rigorously Executed.  
I cannot tell how many, but all the Laws that are Dispensed with, are Penal Laws of a like nature for matters Ecclesiastical: Uniformity, Sacraments, Oaths and Tests are the Subject of them all. If this be your Grief, you must be either a Conforming Baptist, or such a strange sort of a Baptist, as in my Forty Years Conversation among them I have never met with.  
But to come more close to your Question, What Validity can a New Law have, seeing so many of these we have already are Dispensed with?  
I Answer with a like Interrogation, I grant that the King may do what his Royal Pleasure is with his own, Does it thereupon follow, that He may do so likewise with what is mine? If I acckowledge and thankfully accept His Dispensing with a Penalty, to which I am Obnoxious, because I take a Liberty in matters of mere Religion, which I am not allowed by Statute Laws, Is it of necessary consequence that I therein acknowledge He may also impose a Fine upon me for lawfully using a Liberty when granted to me by Law?  
It's hoped the designed New Charter for Repeal of such Penal Laws as are inconsistent with the Doctrines of Christianity, will according to His Majesty's Declaration, both maintain the National Religion, as it is now Established by Law, and provide for such a Christian Liberty as may set at Ease and Secure the Consciences, Persons and Properties of all that will Live Soberly, Righteously and Godly in this present Age, whether they be Conformists or Non-conformists to the National Religion. And a Grant remains valid, though a Penalty may be dispensed with.  
But what if the New Law should have no more Validity or Security then these Old Ones that are Dispensed with? The Dissenters will yet be in so much a better Case by a New Law, as that they will then be Secured by Law, whereas till that be done, they are always subject to be Ruined under colour of Law. But why are you so Querulous at the Dispensing Power in this particular case wherein it is Exercised? The King declares his Opinion, That Conscience ought not to be constrained, nor People forced in matters of mere Religion. This Principle is the ground of his Dispensation. Have you not lately observed, That divers Gentlemen, who being in Commission would not Execute these Penal Laws, and were therefore for a season laid aside, are now returned again into their former Stations, with Reputation, and the Love of their Neighbours? Have you not Read the Apology for the Church of England with relation to the Spirit of Persecution, for which she is accused? How their former Errors are extenuated by Instances, pag. 4. That though the Party (in Parliament) of the Church of England did not perform what had been promised by some Leading Men to the Dissenters (in procuring them a Bill of Ease) yet there was little or nothing done against them for about Nine Years; but they had their Meetings almost as publicly & as regularly as the Church of England had their Churches. Do you not remember a Vote of the House of Commons in 1680. whereby it was Resolved, That the Proseeution of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws was at that time Grievous to the Subject.  
Shall the Justices that did not Execute these Laws gain Esteem by it? Shall the Church of England excuse herself from the charge of Severity by her not Executing these Laws for Nine Years together? Shall the Commons in Parliament Vote the Execution of them a Grievance? And may not the King extend his Compassion towards his Dissenting Subjects, and say They shall not be Executed? To make such a signal Act of Grace the ground of a groundless Jealousy, and cause of Contention, to say no worse of it) is highly Disingenuous, and discovers a very froward and perverse Disposition: But let us consider your next knot of Questions.  
Have we, or can we have any higher Power here in England then King, Lords and Commons in Parliament Assembled? The Laws that are now Dispensed with, and rendered useless, were they not made by that Power? Can your New Charter be made by any higher or other Power? Do you think there is any Temponal or Spiritual Power here in England above the Dispensing Power? And can you make it appear to us? To these Questions you desire Mr Penn would let his Brethren and you know his Mind honestly.  
In his stead I answer, We have no Law Makers, but King, Lords and Commons in Parliament Assembled, but yet we are in England, as well as in other parts of the World, under a Law to God, and thereby each Man is obliged to preserve within his own Breast the Answer of a good Conscience, from which no Law of King, Lords and Commons can absolve him; and hence it is that we have many Fundamental Maxims of Law grounded upon the Law of God, and common Reason of Mankind, as well respecting the Sovereign's Prerogative, as the Right of the Subject, not written in Acts of Parliament, but in their Nature so invariable, That (as our Lawyers tell us) Acts of Parliament made against them are void in themselves. And if this Opinion be true, these Fundamental Maxims of Law, whether in Spirituals or Temporals, though they may be for a season by a particular. Act of Parliament interrupted, they are not thereby vacated, but still retained, and will at one time or other again discover their Vigour. Acts not contradictory to these Fundamental Laws may be useful for a season, but not having that innate Stability as Fundamental Maxims have, may afterwards become useless, improper and grievous to be put in Execution; hence those common distinctions between Malum in se, & malum prohibitum. And subseqent thereto, in many cases a power or no power of Dispensing, That which is unlawful in itself to be done, as Murder, Theft, Trespass, and the like, cannot be made lawful by any Law or Dispensation whatsoever. That which is lawful in itself, but becomes unlawful, because prohibited by a particular Statute, may be Dispensed with, so as no particular Person be Damnified by that Dispensation, and not otherwise. Among the many Vicissitudes of Succession to the Crown, between the two Houses of York and Laneaster, Do you think there were no Laws in being, made in the Reign of a King of one of these Branches (in Fact) dispensed with by his Successor of the other Branch, till they came to be Repealed in Parliament? Were the Oaths of Fidelity and Obedience made to the Line Interrupted, required to be taken by all Judges, Justices, Sheriffs, and other Officers Commissionated by the other Line which succeeded, until they were Repealed in Parliament? In the various changes of the National Religion, between the Reigns of King Henry the the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth, were all Penalties imposed by Laws respecting Religion, exacted without any Relax or Suspension, till those Laws were Abrogated in Parliament. In the first Year of King Henry the Fourth a whole Parliament held in the Twenty first of Richard the Second was Repealed: In one of which Laws then made, divers Pains of Treason were ordained, whereby, as the Act of Repeal says, No Man did know how he ought to behave himself to Do, Speak or Say for doubt of such Pain; and if that Law had been Religiously observed till the moment of its Repeal It could never have been repealed. In the Second Year of Richard the Third, a Statute made in the First of the said King was Dispensed with by Proclamation. 
Vaughan's Rep. pag. 353.  Now I would gladly hear what cause my pretended Brother Baptist has to Quarrel at his present Majesties gracious Dispensing with Laws inflicting Temporal Penalties for Ecclesiastical Matters, and rendering them useless for the present, in that respect only, till they can be Repealed in Parliament. And wherein the exercise of this Dispensing Power has exceeded what has been in Fact done by his Royal Predecessors, and admitted may be lawfully done by our greatest Lawyers. But to proceed,  
Shall your New Charter have a Penalty inserted to be inflicted on the Infringers or Breakers of it or no? If not, What will your New Charter signify? Not three skips of a Louse: And if it hath a Penalty, Cannot any King by his Prerogative and Authority Royal Dispense with the Penalty? And what will it signify then?  
This pretended Baptist's Resolution of the first of these Questions is as Weak as it is Idle, and both that and the others, may receive a satisfactory Answer.  
Such a New Charta as is desired, if no Penalty be annexed, may be very significant in many respects, (1) It may be materially good and obliging to Obedience by its innate Virtue, on pain of Condemnation by the Divine Law; and in that respect of greater signification, and much more desirable than such Laws as are materially Bad, and cannot be obeyed without Breach of the Law of God. (2) This New Charter may, without annexing any Penalties, Repeal all those Penalties, by which Persons are compelled to perform Acts of Divine Worship, contrary to their Understanding, Faith, and a Good Conscience, and put it out of the Power of any Dispensation to revive those Laws, or to impose Penalties of the like kind. (3) Such a New Law may without any Penalties by its simple Declarations put an issue to that, which is now unreasonably made the ground of all our Contests, and confirm to us all those Laws by which our Liberties and Properties are preserved.  
But presuming it may also have Penalties inserted to be inflicted on the Infringers or Breakers of it, These may be so qualified as not to be Dispensed with; (if under the colour thereof evil minded Men do not practise upon the Sovereign Power: For in such a case, if the Sovereign Power cannot Dispense with the Penalty of a Statute Law, it may be divested of such means as are necessary for its own Preservation, (but in any ordinary case, if any Person or Body Corporate receive particular Damage by the breach of such a New Law, He or They may if the Legislators please, be Entitled to a particular Action by the same Law, and recover Damages against the Breakers of it, 
Vaughan's Rep. pag. 334, 342.  at the King's Suit, by Indictment, or Presentment, or by a Special Action, with which the King cannot Dispense.  
The Instance you give, to put us out of Doubt, in Mr Langhornes Words, touching the Kings Right in Dispensing with Penal Laws, I shall not Repeat, but only observe, That the Opinion you cite (however you may do it in scorn) carries such an Evidence in it for a Dispensing Power (not in ordinary Cases, as that Author has well observed) but upon extraordinary Occasions, when the King in his Wisdom shall find it necessary, as calls for more Cunning than I yet perceive in you, to raise any material Objection against it.  
Qu. Now where is the assurance then of Mr Penn's New Charter?  
Ans. Our Assurance will lie not only in the Authority of the Legislators, equal to any other Law, but also in the Authority of the Matter, which will command an Assent in every Man's Conscience assoon as he reads it, Not to do that to another, which he would not have done to himself. Our Assurance will be in our Love and Affection One towards Another, as Neighbours concerned to promote the common Interest of the Realm. In the Watchfulness of all Parties against any one particular Faction, if any such should rise up, and attempt to enthral the Consciences of all the rest, in our thankful and dutiful Behaviour towards our Sovereign for breaking off those intolerable Yokes we could not bear, and setting us upon such a lasting Foundation, both for our Civil and Religious Liberties, as with a discreet Care and Management of them may remain firm to Perpetuity.  
Qu. But who can tell what King we may have after our present Sovereign whether so merciful, or so just? Or what Skeriffs the next King may choose, and what Returns of Parliament Men they may make? For you know the Forfeiture on the Sheriffs making a false Return is no great matter, and cannot a King pardon it by his Dispensing Power or Authority Royal? What will, nay what can your new Charter then signify, when it either is or may be, (according to your own Doctrine) Invalidated, Disannulled, or Annihilated in an instant.  
Ans. If there should be raised by my Querest, or any other like him, such a perverse Spirit and behaviour in any Party of Men, as to prevent the Nations selted enjoyment of these Privileges we now have as Men and Christians, by his Majesty's Prudence, Justice and Clemency, who can tell (indeed) what the sad Consequences of it may be? But if Duty, Reason and common Interest prevail, here is nothing offered that should cause any Man to slack his utmost diligence and endeavours to arrive at the Settlement proposed by a New Charter. For what do these Queries tend to, or what of any weight do they contain? For,  
First, Does William Penn, or any party of Dissenters propose any such Methods to be pursued, as may advance Prerogative to that degree, as to Invalidate, or Annihilate all our Laws?  
Secondly, Is not the National Religion, as it is Styled in the first place to be maintained, and as well secured, as any old or new Law can make it, with such a Liberty for consiencious Dissenters from it in the worship of God (Exploding of all Lisenciousness) as may free them front future inconveniency upon account of Religion.  
Thirdly, Is any thing suggessed that by a new Charter, greater power should be given to the King for choosing of Sheriffs, than now he has, or that the penalties upon a Sheriffs making false Returns, shall be less than now then are? or any thing else to render our Case worse than it is.  
You take it for granted, I know, that which I do not know, nor yourself neither, as I suppose, that the Sheriff's Forfeiture, who shall make a false Return is no great matter, or that which the King can pardon, or dispense with. The Case of Sir Samuel Barnardiston wherein he had a Verdict and Eight Hundred pounds' damage given against a Sheriff for a false Return, may inform you otherwise; and certainly a new Charter will not make it less Penal than now it is, but if it should ever happen, notwithstanding a new Charter, as it has heretofore happened notwithstanding our old Charter, that Knights and Burgesses should not be duly chosen; the same Fate may attend such a Parliament, as did that of 38 H. 6.  
I now come to your second Consideration, wherein you pray Mr Penn to consider, What his New Charter can signify, so long as there is a High Commission Court, or a high Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs set up? Cannot those Commissioners take any of your and our Preachers, Teachers, or Ministers to Task when they please? Cannot they, when they have a mind to it, suspend Mr Pen, or George Whitehead, Mr Alsop, Mr Lob, Mr Mead, or Mr Bowyer, as well as the Bishop of London, etc. Cannot the Court when they will, or shall think fit, or be commanded, suspend, silence or forbid any or all the Dissenting Ministers to Preach any longer in their Meetings, if they will not Read any Declaration or Order whatever, that the King shall set forth and require them to Read? Remember the Magdalen College Men; Remember also that sauce for a Goose is or may be sauce for a Gander.  
Ans. The case of Magdalen College is published at large, you may Read it if you please, and Answer it if you can, especially the parallel case in Edward's the Sixth time. But pray what is that to a New Charter? If wrong Judgement was given by the Court (as you perhaps suppose) in that case, do you make no disserence between Dispensing with a Law, and wrong Judgement given against a Law (if any such should be) in Westminster Hall or the Ecclesiastical Court  
If the Dissenters you name, or you who pretend to be a Baptist, be of the Clergy of England in the Eye of the Law, and hold Ecclesiastical Affairs and Benefits, they or you may for Mis-behaviour be suspended from them by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. But why do you fancy that a New Charter (by which it is expected that Penalties for matters of mere Religion will be repealed) should be made to signify nothing, by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners which now are; I can easily foresee that a New Charter may make that Commission in the cases you mention to signify nothing; but I cannot imagine how that Commission should make a New Charter insignificant. As to the silencing of Dissenting Ministers, its evident as the Law now is, their reading or not reading the King's Declaration in their Meetings will not prevent it, if the King withdraw his Favour, nor is there any cause to give the Ecclesiastical Commissioners any trouble about them; for as the Laws now are there are other Ecclesiastical Courts, which with the aid of the Justices at their Sessions are sufficiently empowered to Censure, Fine, Imprison, Banish or Hang them for their Nonconformity to the Religion Established by Law.  
You exhort us to see before we Leap, whether the Words in the Orders set forth in the Gazett, for contempt of his Majesty's Authority will run no further then just Mr Penn will have it. And ask, Can he stop the Current of it when he pleases? and say, If he could, we are not sure he would; for formerly he had no great kindness (we know) for us Baptists and other Dissenters, and if he could and would we are not sure of his Life, how long; therefore it will be the greatest piece of Weakness and Folly in the World for us to Danee after his and the Jesuits Pipe alone, contrary both to all common Sense and Reason, and our own general Interest.  
Ans. How do you make out your Inference, That to do as you say is the greatest piece of Weakness and Folly? I take it to be altogether as great folly to Dance after your Pipe in Company, contrary to common Sense, Reason and Interest, as after Mr Penn and the Jesuits alone; surely in this you take the Dissenters to be very forgetful of what their Senses so lately testified, when under the feeling Prosecution of Penal Laws, and to be unreasonably ignorant of their Interest in desiring those Penal Laws may be Repealed in Parliament, and a due Liberty of Conscience Established in their room. But for what cause do you reflect upon Mr Penn? I take it as a certain Evidence, that all Pamphlets on this Subject, that are interlaced with personal Reflections asserted on Surmises, without proof, are designed to promote Factious Dissensions, rather than to Unite in one common Interest, and heal our uncharitable Divisions. I have known Mr Penn for many Years, and have been credibly informed by others, that from his Age of Seventeen Years he has been an intimate Associate with the most eminent of Dissenters, that when he was of Christ Church College in Oxford, he was fined for his dissent from the Religious Ceremonies of the College: He suffered many Hardships in his Father's Family on that account, has been a constant Advocate these Twenty Years for the Liberty we enjoy and hope to to have confirmed: I have heard of many good Offices he has done at Court, both for Dissenters and Conformists; & that he has improved that Favour which has been shown him by his Prince, both before and since his Ascending to the Throne, for the Benefit and not to the Prejudice of others: I have not known of any rich Presents or Rewards that have been given or required for any of his Services, or any Employments he seeks or accepts of. How his plead for Liberty of Conscience has or can tend to the improvement of his Revenues, I cannot apprehend neither; therefore if you will free yourself from the suspicion of an ill Design, and a groundless Aspersion, though Mr Penn may be no Friend to such pretended Baptists and nominal Dissenters as you are; its incumbent on you to show wherein he has manifested that he had formerly no great Kindness for those that are really such upon this account.  
I pass by your trifling about the enlarging or limiting Authority by the power or will, length or shortness of Mr Penn's Life, and proceed.  
Thirdly, To consider above all what Security or Validity this New Charter can be of, when there is a standing Army kept on Foot? Whether Guns will hear Reason, or Dragoons mind Charters or Arguments? your reference to their practice in France, if we are not strangely Infatuated and given up to Ruin and Destruction; your Query whether their Carriage and Quartering will agree with a New Charter for Liberty, and if Mr Penn be a Friend to Liberty for Liberty's sake, you desire an honest, clear nnd satisfactory Answer to these Three Points.  
In Mr Penn's stead give me leave at present to return you an answer, by ask you some Questions; Is the Western Rebellion, slipped out of your mind? Was there no occasion given for multiplying Dragoons? Is Sovereign Power so limited by our Laws, as that it cannot make use of such means as are of apparent and absolute necessity for its own preservation? Did you ever know of any Army wherein no dissorders were committed in their Marches, or Quartering? Are our Dragoons without any discipline, for reforming or punishing abuses when they are complained of?  
Do you, and such as follow your Examples, take a right course to avoid such mischiefs, being done in England by Dragoons, as are committed in France? I am as far from defending any of their disorders, or desiring their continuance longer than needs must, as I am from believing you to be a Baptist.  
But sure I am, whatever you are, your Reasonings are very unsavoury, and unsafe, tending to fasten us under that Bondage, you seemingly advise us to avoid; for to deal plainly and honestly with you, (as you desire Mr Penn to do) I see no way to escape the dissorders that are either felt or feared, but by giving His Majesty full satisfaction, not only of our Fidelity, but of our Affection also to his Person and Government, in complying with what he shall propose, for maintenance of the National Religion, and all the possessions of the Clergy, as Established by Law, and abolishing all such Penalties for Nonconformity to the National Religion, as may be found inconsistent with the common Right and Reason of Mankind, Doctrines of Christianity and Interest of England.  
I shall now consider your closing points (1) In the mean time it appears to be highly the Duty of all Men as well Dissenters as others, who have Votes in choosing Parliament-Men, above all to choose such Faithful Patriots as will take care of these things already hinted, and others that may be brought before them; that our Liberties, our Laws, and our Lives may be preserved from ill designing Men, and from future Quo Warrantoes, and all the high Violators and Infringers thereof called to account, and justly punished; this will well become them, and secure us, more than any titular Charter what soever.  
If you had only advised the choosing Faithful Patriots for Parliament-Men, without cutting out their Work, your advice might have been sound; or if you had only looked forwards that our Liberties, and our Lives might be preserved from ill designing Men; and our Laws so settled, that all good Subjects may equally share in the benefit of them; your Advice might have been seasonable; for it is evident that our Circumstances require as wise and moderate Men, experienced in civil and Religious affairs, as every Parliament in England did; and if the Nation be blessed with such a Choice in the next Parliament, all sober persons, may by their wise Counsels be out of fear of suffering Prejudice by future accidents of State: But at this juncture to talk of calling to an Account, and punishing all such as you may reckon high Violators and Infringers of our Laws and Liberties is very unseasonable: Pray tell us since you undertake to Chalk out the way for a Parliament, and propose the Work you would have done by them, how far they are to look back, and where and with what sort of Men you would have them begin; with such of the Clergy, or of the Lawyers, as were the first Advancers of Prerogative above your measures; or with the Dissenters for thankfully accepting the King's Indulgence, and making use of the Liberty he has been pleaed to grant in their peaceable and Religious Assemblies? after so many Convulsions in the State, Plots and Counterplots as we have known in our Age. The same things to be liable to Penalties at one season, which at another time have been marks of the greatest Loyalty; sober Men cannot but think it is high time to adhere to, and pursue those Royal Methods, that have been with good success begun, and are proposed to be settled on terms of lasting security and Peace.  
If the Case should be proposed to any Assembly (your self being in the company) in reference to any Man that you can mark out as it was by the Jews, in reference to the Adulteress before our Saviour, That he who is without Fault should cast the first Stone, your supposed Criminal might escape by the Assemblies going out one by one, from the Eldest to the last convict in their own Consciences; and if you should have the confidence to stay behind the rest, it might be no good evidence of an awakened Conscience; but if Peacemakers have singular marks of favour always attending them, certainly such worthy Patriots as at this season shall be found in that Work, repairing our Breaches, healing our Divisions, settling our Civil and Religious concerns, that whoever will conscientiously discharge his duty to God, his King and his Neighbour, may not only enjoy Peace and Truth in his Days, but leave it on like terms as a Blessing to his Posterity, will deserve the highest marks of favour from all good Men, and may therein also expect a Blessing from Heaven.  
Liberty, say you, is indeed a Fine Word, but Remember Brethren what the Apostle Peter hath told us, That some there were, that while they promise them Liberty they themselves are the Servants of Corruption? And Observe what Follows; ●or of whom a Man is overcome, of the same he is brought in Bondage, And then you ask (I suppose Mr. Penn or myself) How Do You. How will you like that Word?  
Answer, I like it as part of Holy writ, Teaching me (1) Not to abuse that Liberty whereunto I am called by the Gospel, (2) To prise that Liberty in the Gospel which is indulged me by my Sovereign and to promote what in me lies, the Establishing of it by a New Charter (3) Not to hearken to you, or any, which perhaps did never feel the want of this Liberty, and would misguide me, and take an Occasion to deceive me of it, by talking of Liberties of another Sort which signify nothing to me or any other Conscientious Dissenters, if we be deprived of this (4) as inducing me (for the better understanding of the Text you cite) to consider the Context by which I am cautioned not to hearken to any such, as promise me Liberty, who are themselves overcome by, and in Bondage to their own Fleshly poluting Lusts, (5) as instructing me by certain Characters to discern what sort of Persons they are who (by enticing Words) would beguile me of my Liberty; chief such as despise Government, are Presumptuous, and not afraid to speak Evil of Dignities: And with this short Paraphrase, I may after your Example, ask, How do You; Or how will you like that word?  
In this I agree with what you say, The Name of Liberty signifies nothing without the Substance. And that which the Dissenters desire and endeavour after, is that such a Liberty may be obtained, and secured by a New Charter to Perpetuity as is substantial: But in this we may differ, if you think a present Liberty signifies nothing, for it is now, and will be at all times, so long as we can enjoy it, the present comfort of our Lives, and of so great value, that I think he that has felt the want of it, will not easily be enticed to make a Forfeiture of his present Liberty, by taking any such course as you steer to Secure Penal Laws for Coercion of Conscience under the Name of Substantial and English Liberties, If these Penal Laws be the Goose you advise us not to part with for sticking down a Feather; and the Bird in the Hand, I cannot Guess how you came to be a Baptist; sure I am you do not show yourself in the Colours of an English Anabaptist, for your course tends to the b●●ding of Heavy Burdens on their and other Dissenters Shoulders, which its most likely you never did, nor will touch with one of your Fingers.  
You exhort us, To be of one mind as Brethren, to let Brotherly Love and Charity continue, and tell us, nothing will save us but Union. Pray take your part in the Exhortation let Brotherly Love have a beginning (for I fear that is not yet settled between us) and then I doubt not but the profitable Experience of the Exercise of it will give it a continuance; If you are for uniting, be content to part with those Offensive Weapons that have caused our divisions, let our Civil Liberties as Men, and our Religious Liberties as Christians be settled upon sure Foundations, let temporal penalties, for descent in spirituals be set aside, and the hard Names of Sedition, Felony Treason be severed from such things as are in no manner offensive to the Civil Government, but mere Opinions, and peaceable Exercises subsequent in matters of Religion. Let us learn to be kindly affectionate and Compassionate as Men and Neighbours ought to be one to another, whether True Believers, Misbelievers, or unbelievers, and then there will be no ground to fear that the Corruptions or projects of Rome, Geneva, France, Holland, or any thing else should ever dis-unite us, or be able to gain any advantage by attempting to sow amongst us the Seeds of Dissension.  
FINIS.