The book contains an “Address to the High Court of Parliament,” in which the author prays them to favor toleration, and to secure their personal salvation. There are also two addresses, the one “to the several respective General Courts, especially that of the Massachusetts, in New-England,” and the other “To the Merciful and Compassionate Reader.” The body of the work is written, like the Bloody Tenet, in the form of a “Conference between Truth and Peace,” and is divided into chapters, in each of which, for the most part, a corresponding chapter of Mr. Cotton’s book is examined. At the close of the examination, is a letter to Governor Endicott, of Massachusetts, in which Mr. Williams expresses great affection for him, alludes to former days, and exhibitions of a different spirit, intimates that the love of honor had affected the Governor, beseeches him to adopt and practise the principles of toleration, and assures him, that if he should follow out his principles he must proceed to bloodshed. This prediction was soon after fulfilled in the execution of the Quakers. In an appendix, is an address “To the Clergy of the four great Parties (professing the name of Christ Jesus) in England, Scotland and Ireland, viz. the Popish, Prelatical, Presbyterian and Independent.” It is mild and respectful, though it accuses them all of persecuting each other, when they possessed the power. He says: “Just like two men, whom I have known break out to blows and wrestling, so have the Protestant Bishops wrestled with the Popish, and the Popish with the Protestant, the Presbyterian with the Independent, and the Independent with the Presbyterian. And our chronicles and experiences have told this nation and the world, how he whose turn it is to be brought under, hath ever felt a heavy, wrathful hand of an unbrotherly and unchristian persecution,” (p. 316.) He says, that they all pleaded for freedom when they were persecuted, and adds, “What excellent subscriptions to this soul freedom are interwoven in many passages of the late King’s book (if his.)”[381]