is new
Gospel--for so they call it--is to furnish a pretext for seditions,
and to gain impunity for all crimes. "For God is not the author of
confusion, but of peace;"[58] nor is "the Son of God," who came to
"destroy the works of the devil, the minister of sin."[59] And it is
unjust to charge us with such motives and designs, of which we have
never given cause for the least suspicion. Is it probable that we are
meditating the subversion of kingdoms?--we, who were never heard to
utter a factious word, whose lives were ever known to be peaceable and
honest while We lived under your government, and who, even now in our
exile, cease not to pray for all prosperity to attend yourself and
your kingdom! Is it probable that we are seeking an unlimited license
to commit crimes with impunity? in whose conduct, though many things
may be blamed, yet there is nothing worthy of such severe reproach!
Nor have we, by Divine Grace, profited so little in the Gospel,
but that our life may be an example to our detractors of chastity,
liberality, mercy, temperance, patience, modesty, and every other
virtue. It is an undeniable fact, that we sincerely fear and worship
God, whose name we desire to be sanctified both by our life and by
our death; and envy itself is constrained to bear testimony to the
innocence and civil integrity of some of us, who have suffered the
punishment of death for that very thing which ought to be accounted
their highest praise. But if the Gospel be made a pretext for tumults,
which has not yet happened in your kingdom; if any persons make the
liberty of divine grace an excuse for the licentiousness of their
vices, of whom I have known many,--there are laws and legal penalties,
by which they may be punished according to their deserts; only let not
the Gospel of God be reproached for the crimes of wicked men. You have
now, Sire, the virulent iniquity of our calumniators laid before you
in a sufficient number of instances, that you may not receive their
accusations with too credulous an ear.--I fear I have gone too much
into the detail, as this preface already approaches the size of a full
apology; whereas I intended it not to contain our defence, but only to
prepare your mind to attend to the pleading of our cause; for, though
you are now averse and alienated from us, and even inflamed against
us, we despair not of regaining your favour, if you will only once
read with calmness and composure this our confession, which