1 This committee was appointed by the House of Lords, March 12, 1640. It sometimes bears the name of the Committee of Accommodation, and consisted of ten earls, ten bishops, and ten barons. To prepare the subjects of discussion, some bishops and several divines of different persuasions were appointed a sub-committee. The duty of the committee was to examine all innovations in doctrine and discipline, illegally introduced into the church since the Ileformation. See Neal's History, vol ii. 395. — Ed.
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two there is a great sympathy, a strict connection, having on each other a mutual dependence. Is there any disturbance of the state ? it is usually attended -with schisms and factions in the churcli ; and the divisions of the church are too often even the subversions of the comraon\\'ealth. Thus it hath been ever since that un- happy diflerence l)et\veen Cain and Abel; which was not concerning the bounds and limits of their inheritance, nor w'hich of them should be heir to the whole world, but about the dictates of religion, the offering of their sacrifices. This fire, also, of dissension hath been more stirred up since the Prince of Peace hath, by his gospel, sent the sword amongst us; for the preaching thereof, meeting with the strongholiJs of Satan and the depraved corruption of human natui'e, must needs occasion a great shaking of the earth. But most especially, distracted Christendom hath found fearful issues of this discord, since the proud Romish prelates have sought to establish their hell-broached errors, by inventing and maintaining un- charitable, destructive censures against all that oppose them : which, first causing scliisms and distractions in the church, and then being helped forward by the blind- ness and cruelty of ambitious potentates, have raised war of nation against nation, — witness the Spanish invasion of '88;' [and war] of a people within themselves, as in the late civil wars of France, where, after divers horrible massacres, many chose rather to die soldiers than martyrs.
And, oh, that this truth might not, at this day, be written Avith the blood of al- most expiring Ireland ! Yea, it hath lastly descended to dissension betwixt private parties, — witness the horrible murder of Diazius, whose brains were chopped out with an axe by his own brother Alphonsus,^ for forsaking the Eomish religion; what rents in [the] State, what grudgings, hatreds, and exasperations of mind among pri- vate men, have happened by reason of some inferior differences, we all at this day grieve to behold. "Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum!" JMost concerning, then, is it for us to endeavour obedience to our Saviour's precept, of seeking first the kingdom of God, that we may be partakers of the good things comprised in the promise annexed. Were there but this one argument for to seek the peace of the church, because thereon depends the peace of the commonwealth, it were sufficient to quicken our utmost industry for the attaining of it. Now, what peace in the church without truth ? All conformity to any thing else is but the agreement of Herod and Pilate to destroy Christ and his kingdom. Neither is it this or that particular truth, but the whole counsel of God revealed unto us, without adding or detract- ing, whose embracemcnt is required to make our peace firm and stable. No halt- ing betwixt Jehovah and Baal, Christ and Antichrist; as good be all Philistine, and worshippers of Dagon, as to speak part the language of Ashdod and part the lan- guage of the Jews : hence, hence hath been the rise of all our miseries, of all our dissensions, whilst factious men laboured every day to commend themselves to them who sat aloft in the temple of God, by introducing new popish-arminian errors, whose patronage they had wickedly undertaken. Who would have thought that our church would ever have given entertainment to these Belgic semi-Pelagians, who have cast dirt upon the faces and raked up the ashes of all those great ami pious souls whom God magnified, in using as his instruments to reform his church; to the least of which the whole troop of Arminians shall never make themselves equal, though they swell till they break? What benefit did ever come to this church l)y attempting to prove that the chief part in the several degrees of our salvation is to be ascribed unto ourselves, rather than Corf.?— which is the head and sum of all the controversies between them and us. And must not the introducing and fomenting of a doctrine so opposite to that truth our church hath quietly enjoyed
1 lie alludes to the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in 15SS. In France the civil wars on account nf religion were terminated about 1628, when the Protestants secured the confir- mation of the Kdict of Nantes, but lost possession of the towns that bad been given in guarantee for the faithful observance of it. — Kd. 9 Sleid. Com.
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