Those of the Augsburgh Confession represent with due respect tliat your Petitioners are ordered in cases of the burial ofthelrdead, to pay the Sexton {Janspreecker^) of the Reformed Church notwithstanding they employ their own Sexton, as lately happened, one of theirs having seized goods by execution and sold the same at public auction : And the Petitioners remark that they fully pay all taxes assessments, excise and all others whatever they may be called; Yea they endeavour to pay also their own poor : I'liey are therefore, as they consider, not in the least subject to sucli charges but on tlie contrary ought to enjoy their (religious) exercises and Divine Service free and unconstrained, for which tliey have a written grant from tlie late Hon^'c Governour Lovelace copy of which is hereunto annexed.
It is also well known to all that M^" Roosenboom hath addressed a petition on tlmt subject to the Hon'j'® Heer General abovenamed, to be favored therein ; winch petition had no result, but the Heer Laval being come up, said in full Court in date the 7'*' November 1C72 he had authority as to Roosenboom's Petition -- Let tlie Dead buiy their Dead ; for with wliat free conscience can your Precentor- go and act for the Lutherans, for they have more ceremonies than tlie Reformed. Whereupon at that time he had no more to say, and it was as well
Wherefore }our Petitioners for aforesaid reasons approach
1 Literal!}', <' The person sent around with invitations to a funeral"; a custom still in practice in some of the ohier settlements of this State. We render the word, << Sexton," beinp the nearest approach we can find to the original.