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The Substance of a Council Held at Lancaster - 13

tian Cause, and therefore blush and shudder at the Consequences of such rash and disloyal Conduct. Men who can make so free with their Sovereign, may well take upon them to lay their peremptory commands upon their Fellow Ministers, who are their Equals in all respects, in this thundering and arbirary Tone, "And let no Man persuade you to the contrary." Did ever the Pope exceed this in his Conclave? Whatever Mandates they are pleas'd to send us we must swallow them down implicitly by Wholesale, without Examination, and not even suffer any Man to Reason with us on the Subject: Surely if a few Ministers in Town, who are of a passionate Disposition with such horrid Presumption' diametrically opposite to our Discipline, and the sublime precepts of the Christian Religion lord it with such a high Hand over their Brethren in the Country, what will our Ministers do over us that are Laymen? As for my part I am determin'd to be a free Agent and think for myself; I have read all the Pamphlets and Speeches that have been publish'd on the present Dispute, and am fully of Opinion that Religion has nothing to do with it; I am also persuaded, that if our Ministers spent the Time, that they trot about the Country after Politicks in correcting their Sermons and

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