A RENUNTIATION AND Declaration OF THE MINISTERS OF Congregational Churches AND PUBLIC PREACHERS Of the same JUDGEMENT, Living in, and about The CITY of LONDON: Against the late Horrid INSURRECTION and REBELLION Acted in the said CITY.  
LONDON: Printed by Peter Cole and Edward Cole, Printers and Booksellers, at the Sign of the Printing-press in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange. 1661.   

A RENUNTIATION and DECLARATION of the Ministers of Congregational Churches and Public Preachers of the same Judgement, livingin, and about the City of LONDON; against the late Horrid Insurrection and Rebellion Acted in the said City.  
THere hath been of late, a Rebellion, so Impious, and Prodigiously daring, Acted upon so open and great a Stage, as this Famous and Populous City; and before the Sun of Gospel light shining round about us: as that the Noise thereof cannot but make its own report, not only throughout all Christendom, but even to the Ends of the Earth; and fill the most Barbarous and Inhuman of Nations that shall hear of it, with astonishment to the highest Scandal of Christian Religion; Yea, and let down the hateful Memory thereof to all Ages to come; As that which perhaps cannot be paralleled, except by those at Munster of the same principle in the former Age.  
And this Grand iniquity having, through the Artifice of Satan, been falsely and most uncharitably charged on those (at least as the favourers of it) whom some will needs style the Independent Party.  
We, therefore hold ourselves Necessitated to make this true, and sincere Renuntiation of, and Protestation against so horrid a Fact, and Principle they were Acted by, as both highly Derogatory to Christ and most Pernicious to his Saints.  
To Christ,  
In that his Kingdom, the Coming of which is by Him so closely annexed to the Hallowing of God's Name, is on the contrary perverted to the greatest Dishonour to him, and the Profaning of his Name; and a perfect Contradiction to all those Principles, which he left behind him. And that divine and Heavenly seed (the Image of Christ) laid by God in the Souls of all his Children, the eminent fruits whereof are lowliness of Heart, Self-denial, Peaceableness, with the like, is hereby turned into a Root of such Bitterness, and unto so swollen a Self-Assuming, As under the Title of Saints, as such; and in the Name of Jesus Christ, to take to themselves, the Titles of all the Kingdoms of the World, and in the Face of the full exercise of the Dominion thereof, to Pronounce the Titles of all Earthly Potentates, actually, and absolutely void; Whom from the Apostles times, and at this day, he hath continued, as his own Ordinance; and unto whom, he hath commanded Saints, as Saints, and by so much the more because Saints, for Conscience sake, to be Subject. And who, we are sure, according to the Ordination of God shall continue TO the Destruction of the true Babylon; 
Rev. 17.  And yet to make all the Reformed Churches to be Spiritual Babylon, and all Governments of the World to be Civil Babylon, and all alike from hence forth to be destroyed.  
And to turn Meetings for Religious Worship (which ought only to Assemble in the Name of Christ, (and as to such ends only have the promise of his presence) into Consultations and Designments for the diustrbance and destruction of those States which yet by Christ do Reign; and under whose Indulgence and Protection they live. And then to render Faith (by which Believers overcome the World) and absolute Folly (which this hath done) yea and a daring Madness, Manifest to all Men. And,  
For Vain and Sorry Man, or any company of the Sons of Men, To rise up and Designedly to say within themselves, we will go to such and such a City, and from such or such a time erect a new Throne for Jesus Christ the Son of God, from thence to Reign over all the world; And then to think to invite him from Heaven, and in the Clouds to bring him to the Ancient of days, 
Dan. 7.  and so to give him possession of that Kingdom. All which are the sole sovereign Prerogatives of God the Father to give; (Thine is the Kingdom) and of Christ the Son, 
Rev. 11.  to take to himself that great Power and Reign. And again to under take that, which can be no other than the Immediate Act and Work of Christ himself, to Create new Heavens and new Earth, and to fill the world, with Righteousness. (which I create saith the Lord) And must needs be judged a far greater work than the first creating of the old World, and never to be set up by outward Violence.  
To make all this a Cause, And the cause of Religion, by the power of force and Blood, thus to obtain a worldly Dominion and Power over all means Estates and Lives: What an high Presumption is all this, and Derogation to the Glory of Christ?  
Nor can there be any principle more Pernicious to the Saints themselves dispersed throughout the Nations of the World.  
Seeing the Wrath of Princes, and Governors in all Dominions might, thereby, be inflamed, and Their Sword whetted against them. And it engageth also these men themselves, or any others, with whom this wicked persuasion shall prevail, to Destroy the whole Body of Saints, and others Promiscuously, as enemies to the Kingdom of Christ, if not of this Opinion. As if that Jesus Christ who is Lord over all, and Rich unto all, having so long expected the accomplishment of His Kingdom, were so impatiently desirous of a Kingdom of Saints to be set up in the World, that to advance it, though but in a few, he regarded not the thousands of thousands of the People of God that are in the World, and who in their Consciences stand engaged to oppose it.  
Neither is this Protestation now made against such principles and proceed, other, in the Tendency and Drift thereof, then what some years since, such of us, as had opportunity thereunto, did, by letters, declare unto divers in this Kingdom, whose principles then were comparatively modest; for which we have ever since been openly reproached personally by Name in writings and otherwise: as is well known. And again, in a Meeting, at the Savoy, above two years since, of Persons sent from one hundred and twenty Churches of our way, in the Confession of Faith, there, by them agreed upon, It was, as concerning Magistrates in the general, Unanimously declared as followeth.  

Chap. 24. Of the Civil Magistrate.  
I GOD the supreme Lord and King of all the World, hath ordained civil Magistrates to be under him, over the people for his own glory and the public good: And to this end hath armed them with the power of the Sword, for the Defence and Encouragement of them that do good; and for the punishment of evil-doers.  
TWO It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the Office of a Magistrate, when called thereunto: in the management whereof, as they ought especially to maintain Justice and Peace, according to the wholesome Laws of each Commonwealth; so, for that end they may lawfully, now, under the New Testament wage war upon just and necessary occasion.  
III. Although the Magistrate is bound to encourage, promote, and protect the professors and profession of the Gospel, and to manage and order civil administrations in a due subserviency to the interest of Christ in the world, and to that end, to take care that men of corrupt minds and conversations do not licentiously publish and divulge Blasphemy and Errors, in their own Nature, subverting the Faith, and inevitably destroying the souls of them that receive them; Yet in such differences about the Doctrines of the Gospel, or ways of the worship of God is may befall men exercising a good conscience, manifesting it in their conversation, and holding the foundation, not disturbing others in their ways, or worship, that differ from them; there is no warrant for the Magistrate under the Gospel to abridge them of their liberty.  
iv It is the duty of people to pray for Magistrates, to honour their persons, to pay them Tribute and other deuce, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their Authority for conscience sake. Infidelity, or difference in Religion, doth not make void the Magistrates just and legal Authority, nor free the people from their obedience to him: from which Ecclesiastical persons are not exempted, much less hath the Pope any power, or jurisdiction over them in their dominions, or over any of their people, and least of all, to deprive them of their dominions, or lives, if he shall judge them to be Heretics, or upon any other pretence whatsoever.   
And accordingly we cease not to pour out hearty Prayers for all sorts of Blessings spiritual and temporal upon the Person and Government of his Majesty both in our Congregations, Families and Retirements, and through God's Grace, according to our Duties shall continue so to do, ourselves, and to persuade others thereunto; and to live quietly and peaceably in all Godliness and Honesty  
To conclude all, We have a far greater and sadder occasion to utter of these late attempts, and Resolutions, what Jacob did of that fatal Execution, by Simeon and Levi, upon a whole City (the order of the words being only inverted.) 
Gen. 49.  The Instruments of cruelty are in their Habitations (which ver. 6. is termed Assembly) Cursed be their Anger, for it was fierce, and their Wrath, for it was cruel. And we each one say, O my Soul come not thou into their secret, unto their Assembly, mine Honour, be not thou united; but let God divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.  


Joseph caryl.  
George Griffiths.  
Richard Kentish.  
Robert Bragg.  
Ralph Venning.  
John Oxenbridg.  
Philip Nye.  
John Roe.  
Thomas Weld.  
Samuel Slater.  
George Cockayne.  
Thomas Goodwin.  
Thomas Brooks.  
Carn. Helm.  
John Hodges.  
John Bachiler.  
Seth Wood  
Wiliam Greenhill.  
Matthew Barker.  
Thomas Malory.  
John Loder.  
John Yates.  
Th. Owen.  
Nathaniel Mather.  
William Stoughton.   January, 1660.  
FINIS.