f cruelty against the
sincere servants of Christ, they are used as Absalom's sacrifice, to be
cloaks of wicked malice, they occasion the fining, confining, depriving,
imprisoning, and banishing of very worthy and good men.

Such instruments of cruelty brought into the habitation, not of the sons
of Jacob, Gen. xlix. 5, but of the God of Jacob, are to be accursed by all
who love the peace of Jerusalem, or bear the bowels of Christian
compassion within them, because they are not of Christ the meek Lamb of
God, who did not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the
street, who did not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax,
Isa. xlii. 2, 3; but they are of antichrist, to whom it is given to make
war with the saints.(320)

Surely those bowels of mercies, kindness, and forbearance, which the
Apostle requireth, as they should be in every Christian, Col. iii. 12, 13,
so chiefly _in iis qui praesunt_, as Melancthon noteth,(321) in them
towards all, but chiefly towards these who are both good Christians and
good subjects; towards these in all things, but chiefly in matters of
ceremony and indifferency. In such matters always, but chiefly when there
is no contempt nor refractory disposition, but only a modest and Christian
desire to conserve the peace of a pure conscience, by forbearing to do
that which it is persuaded is not right. Let magistrates remember well,

"Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos."

_Sect._ 2. If there were no more but such a doleful and woeful effect as
the cruel dealing with the faithful ministers of Jesus Christ, occasioned
by the ceremonies, this is too much for evincing the inconveniency of
them.

Dr Burges, in a sermon preached before King James, related a speech of the
emperor Augustus, who commanded that all the glasses should be broken,
that no man might incur such a fright as one Pollio was put into, for
breaking one of his master's glasses. Whereby (as he expounds
himself)(322) he meant to intimate unto that wise king, that it were
better to take away the ceremonies than to throw out the ministers for
them. Yet it is the verdict of some,(323) that the blame lieth not upon
the ceremonies, but upon ministers themselves, who leave their places and
draw all this evil upon themselves. This is even as Nabal blamed David for
breaking away from his master, when he was chased away against his will, 1
Sam. xxv. 10, and as Julian,(324) when he had impoverished the Christians