112)       178          1678

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The Brethren doe decline the advise of the council, & therby continue

and propegate the dissention amongst them, & wave the next way to re

=ceive satisfaction, & their own peac, which we doe heartily lament, & wherof

we doe heerby forewarn them, & shall give an account of our transactions in the mat

=ter to our churches & what opposition we have mett with therin

And we farther solemnly declare unto them, that if they shall still resist in

opposition to the means that have bin offered to them, & used with them for y^e

healing their breaches, we have just cause to fear that they will debarr y^mselves

from comunion with their neighbour churches, who may alsoe (soe farr as we

know) hold communion with that offending, but confessing brother, whom they

seem to be irreconcileably set against.

  Rowley ffeb 26. 1678                     Daniel Denison

                                                             moderators

                                            John Ward

                     William Perkins            Tho: Cobbett

                     Moses Pengry               Jer: Hubbard

                     Samuel Dolton              Seaborn Cotton

                     Nicholas Noyes             John Richardson

                     Tho: Perkins

                     Caleb Moodey

  An Answer to the 2^d result of the late Reverend Elders & respected

messengers of the 5 churches which they left with us (haveing first published

it before the Church & Town) at their dissolving at which Time the major Gen.

declared that their members absent wher of the same mind with themselves

 

   The last result as it is dated from the 10^th of Decemb 1678, soe it is

for substance the same with the foremar, onely ther are some more faults

found with the church, & new ones that they comitted sinc the councills first

coming, besides several overlooked, and alsoe withdrawing comunion threat

=ned, & reception of our Excommunicate

  Its say^d out of tenderness to the churches credit and peace you waved y^t

particular strickness in takeing notice of several irregularityes of the

Church in their proceeding with M^r Nelson.

 We would gladly have had your help to shew us all our irregularityes, several

of which (as you publickly declare) you waved out of tenderness to the churches

credit, but we conceive it had bin better farr to have told us what they are

then to tell the countrey ther were several of them, & that before you give

us any hint what they are, or any oppertunity to answer for our selves:

It is not as we apprehend either for our comfort or credit, that several

breaches of Rule (for noe less several irregularityes import) shuld be imputed

to is & yet not told us what they are, that soe we might clear ourselves

if truely we could, or els acknowledg our irregularityes, thise this seems to us

to be a tenderness with a contradiction:

And we beseech you to consider, what tenderness to the churches credit was

ther in reading M^r Nelsons paper of fals apsersions upon the church, before

Towne & countrey: Receive not an accusation &c.[101] much less publish it

That ther was a waveing that particular strickness in takeing notice of

several Evills in M^r Nelson, the church cannot but be sencible, and have (as we

conceive) fully demonstrated it to be soe in our grounds why we can not sit y^e

councills result

Wheras they declared that we sent a paper of complaints against the council

                                                             we