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Remote corner of the world on purpose that that they might injoy the or

=dinances of God according to his word for themselves & theirs heer alone

in peace: And accordingly they have heer Erected churches & setled

Religion in the way of pædobaptisme & secured the same by lawes esta

=blished: other contrary ways therfor cannot be heer set up without

Reall injury to the body of this people, who still cleave to the princi

pells & ends of their first comming, neither should they be constrayned to

receive or retayne amongst them such a troublsome & dangerous In

-mate as an Anabaptistical Society is ; or to leave their posterity to be a

prey into such temptation, seduction & confusion as this will expose them to

8: God having given us soe many warnings by other places wher Anabapti

=sme getting head hath proved an incendiary & vexation to church

and state: It would be too great an Imprudence not to take war

=ning therby prov: 22.3.

     The Question now before us not being what forbearance the

     Churches heer have used, or may use towards particular persons

     Amongst them who onely scruple infant baptisme, & doe not spred

     their scruples, & are otherwise orderly & peaceable: But what is to

     be done as to such who set up an assembly heer in the way of

     Anabaptisme we speak not to the foremar but to the latter Question

  To the Revered M^r Cobbet M^r Hubbert M^r Phillips & M^r Gerish[28]

Reverend & beloved in y^e lord Jesus

Since it hath pleased the lord, even the Lord against whom we have sinned

to bring a day of calamity upon his pp, inhabiting this wilderness, we

have thought that it doth (in a more peculiar manner) concern those

whom God hath set as watchmen, to doe their uttmost that present judg

=ments may be removed, Impending wrath diverted, & feared desolation pre

vented: accordingly the Elders who are wont to meet at the Lecture in

Boston, have at times been discoursing about thes things; & they doe

unanimously conceive, that if a Solemn renewall of the Covenant in

the Several Churches of Christ amongst us were dewly attended, it might

(by the blessing of God) be a means to obtain the mercy we all desire

& pray for: We know from the Scripture that the lords pp in the days

of old were wont to renew their covenant when ther had been any

great defection from the good ways of the lord, either in respect of doctrin

2 Chr 15 12 17 & 23 16: & 29 10 & 37 30. or of conversation Ezra 10

3.4 5. Neh. 9. 37 38. & 10 29 30 &c.

And whatever may be say^d in the foremar respect (considering that Spirit

of indulgence towards men of corrupt mindes in the things of God, which of

late time hath prevailed in this land) the visible decay of the power of

godliness in the present generation, The sensuality, pride worldliness &c. of

Too many professors doth sadly evidence that the latter respect mentioned

is too much our case: Yea moreover we find it sometime that the lords

people (even y^e 2^d generation of them that were brought out of Egypt being

born in y^e wilderness & in other respects their case & state to be parrelleld w^th

ours) haveing a difficult undertaking before them, being to ingage with

thoe Heathen enemise most solemnly renewed their covenant with god deut

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