neither meddle nor make with them, less or more, nor seek their favour, nor embrace it when it is offered, on any terms that may imply any obligation to surcease from our duty to our King, and irreconcileable opposition to them,' &c. Now I shall come more distinctly to the purpose, in offering a short vindication of the heads and grounds of our great sufferings, dividing them into their principal parts, which I reduce to two, to wit, negatives and positives. The negative grounds I reckon three principally. 1. For refusing to acknowledge a corrupt ministry. 2. For refusing to own a tyrannical magistracy. 3. For refusing to swear and subscribe their unlawful imposed oaths, chiefly that of abjuration, which was the occasion of suffering unto death. The positive grounds are also three. 1. For frequenting field-meetings, to receive gospel ordinances from faithful ministers. 2. For maintaining the principle and practice of defensive resistance of superior powers. 3. For maintaining the privilege and duty of offensive revenge, in executing justice upon murdering enemies of mankind, in cases of extreme necessity, in prosecuting which, I shall intertex some subordinate questions relating to their respective heads, and endeavour to discuss them briefly. HEAD I. _Where the sufferings of many, for refusing to acknowledge a corrupt ministry, are vindicated; and the question of hearing curates is cleared._ This question, though it may seem nice, and of no great moment, to persons of Gallio's or Laodicea's temper, indifferent and lukewarm dispositions, consulting their own more than the things of Christ, which make it pass without any enquiry with the most part of the world; yet, to all who are truly tender in keeping a good conscience, free of the times contagion, to all who have the true impression of the fear of God, who is jealous, especially in the matters of his worship; to all who have the true zeal of God eating them up, in a just indignation at the indignities done to him, in usurping the office and corrupting the administration of the ministry; to all who truly love the gospel, and put a due value on the ordinances of Christ, the corruptions whereof this question touches, it will be accounted of great importance.