against Prelacy in Specie and to let their Places and Honours die with them The Government may be so altered without putting out any Man if none be put in to succeed them when they die 2. And what if the King continue them as Church-Magistrates only to do what his own Officers may do to keep the Churches Peace as Justices and continue their Baronies and their Lands and Places in Parliament and only reform the pretended Spiritual Power of the Keys would not this have been a taking down of Prelacy without the wrong of any 3. Or what if he had taken down all their Power and given them a Writ of Ease and therewith left them durante vita their Estates and Honours Would this have been any injury to them 4. If Prelacy be as sinful as the Non-Subscribers foregoing Arguments would prove can it be injustice to save a Man from Sin and Hell and to save all the Churches from such Calamity for some fleshly abatements that follow to a few Persons 5. Was it injustice to put down the Abbots Or cannot King and Parliament do good by Laws to the Church or Commonwealth whenever a single Person or a few do suffer by it 6. Especially where the Maintenance is Publick and given for the Work and the Work is for the Publick Good Doth any Prince scruple the removing of an intolerable Pilot or Captain from a Ship Or an intolerable Minister from the Church Or an intolerable Officer from the Court though it be to his loss For my part I never accused them for casting out so many Hundred Ministers from their Livings or Benefices upon supposition that it be no wrong to Christ and Mens Souls to cast us out of the Church but should rather justifie it § 383. 11. The last and not the weakest Reason against the Obligation of the Covenant is That if it were lawful before for subjects to petition and Parliament Men to speak and vote against Prelacy yet now it is not because by this Act the Parliament hath made it unlawful Answ. 1. The Parliament doth only declare their sense of a thing past that no Man is bound and not enact by a Law that no Man shall henceforth be bound 2. If it had been otherwise all Protestants confess that neither Pope nor any Earthly Power can dispense with Oaths and Vows 3. They do not so much as prohibit all Men to endeavour an alteration of Government in the Church but only forbid them to say That they are bound to it by the Covenant 4. They have allowed Subjects to petition for the change of Laws so they do it but ten at a time 5. The Parliament is not by any Man to be accused of such a Subversion of Liberties and of Parliaments Priviledges and of the Constitution of the Kingdom as to forbid Subjects petitioning and all Parliament Men speaking and to disable the King and Parliament from changing a Law when they see cause If they should do any of this the Charges now brought against the Long Parliament would teach and allow us to suppose all to be null 6. If the Laws of God be against Prelacy those oblige above all Humane Laws And he that should forbid another to save him or his Neighbour when he is drowning doth not by that prohibition make the saving of them unlawful before God § 384. Now to the Latitudinarians addition of Reasons de modo sensu 1. They say that the Act extendeth not to the King at all when it biddeth us subscribe that there is no Obligation on me or any other person for Laws being made for Subjects are to be interpreted only of Subjects unless when the King is named To this it is easily answered That they distinguish not between the King as the Subject of a Law and the King as the Object of my Assertion or Belief It 's true that the Law speaketh of Subjects only whenever it speaketh of the Duty of Subjects and the King is no Subject But it is as true that the Law speaketh of the King only whenever it speaketh of the Prerogatives of the Crown and Soveraignty and as the Object of the Subjects Acts of Loyalty The question is not here Who is commanded by this Act but who is obliged by the Covenant or Vow And if I be commanded to say that no person is obliged without any limitation I can with no reason except the King whom the Law excepteth not Princes may be obliged by Vows as well as others and their Obligations may be the Subject of our Assertions and Belief § 385. 2. The second Reason is Because the King's Government is part of that whose alteration is declared against therefore be can be none of the any other persons Answ. 1. So the Prelates are the Persons whose Government is here mentioned and yet no doubt they are included in the any other persons as their Chancellors Commissaries Deans c. 2. If the King may be included when it is said That no Man must extirpate Monarchy no not the King much more when it is said That no Man may extirpate Prelacy for there the reason of the Objection faileth § 386. 3. They further say That the Act meaneth only that no Man is bound by the Vow to endeavour against Law as by Rebellion Sedition Treason c. and not that Subjects may not petition Parliament Men speak or King and Parliament alter the Law which they prove because it was taking up Arms and illegal Actions only that the old Parliament was blamed for Answ. This one pretence hath drawn abundance of laudable Persons to Subscribe but how unsatisfactory it is may thus appear 1. Why then could it never be procured to have the word unlawfully put into the Act when it was know that in that sence none of us would have scrupled it 2. All Casuists agree that Universal Terms in or about Oaths and Vows must not be understood any otherwise than Universally without apparent cogent Reason On such Terms as these else a Man may take any Oath in the World or disclaim any The Parliament hath exactly tyed Subscribers to the particular words and they long deliberated to express their own sence And they say neither I nor any other person and now cometh an Expositor and saith The King is not the any other person What! Is he no Person or is he not another Person So they say no Obligation lieth on us to endeavour and the Latitudinarian saith That I may endeavour it and that they mean no Endeavour but unlawful This contradictory Exception and Exposition is against all common Use and Justice and such as will allow a Man to cheat the State by saying or unsaying any thing in the World 3. We have many a time told some Latitudinarians how this matter may be soon decided if they will The Parliament hath past another Act with the self same words in it making it Confiscation for any Man to say That he or any other person is
for them it might have emboldned their Enemies against them and that if the permitting of Petitioners to crowd to them too boldly and speak too unmannerly can be called the raising of a War when they fought with none but were assaulted themselves then the calling up of the Army from the North was much more so and so they were not the Beginners Or had they been the Beginners it had been lawful being but to bring Delinquents to Justice as the Sheriff himself may in Obedience to a Court of Justice But the Irish Flames which threatned them were kindled before all these 3. To the third they said that the Parliament are Subjects limitedly and not simply as the King is not an absolute but a limited King viz. limited by the Laws and Constitutions of the Government they are Subjects to him according to Law but not subject to Arbitrary Government against Law Their Propriety is excepted in their Subjection and they have certain Liberties which are not subject to the Will of the King And also they said That as the Sheriff is a Subject and a Court of Justice Subjects and yet may resist the King's Letters even under the Broad-Seal and his Messengers or armed Men that act illegally because the Law which hath his Authority and the Parliament's enable them so to do so also may the Parliament which is his highest Court of Justice And they said that as they have a part in the Legislative Power they have part in the Summa Potesâ—â—as and so far are not Subjects And they said that the bare Title of Supreme is no Argument against the Constitution of a Kingdom though it be expressed in an Oath For the King is stiled the Supreme Governor of France and yet the Oath of Supremacy doth not bind us to believe that no French Man may lawfully â—ear Arms against him 4. They say to the fourth That they wholly grant it that though Religion may be the end of a lawful War yet not of a Rebellion nor may any Reformations be performed by any Actions which belong not to the Places and Callings of the Performers But where the means are Lawful Religion and Reformation are lawful Ends. 5. To the fifth they said That they agree with all good Christians and Protestants that true Authority may not be resisted by any Subject But all Protestants or most agree with them that a limited Governor which hath not Authority to do what he lists may perform an Act of Will which is no Act of Authority and that the Parliament was the highest Judicature and that it was Rebellion in them that resisted the Parliament in their legal prosecution of Delinquents and Defence of the Land and themselves and that Paul Rom. 13. determineth not at all whether the Emperors or the Senate was the higher Power and that the Resisters of the Parliament are the condemned Breakers of that Order and Command 6. To the sixth they said that they Charge nothing on the King but what their Eyes behold viz. That he hath forsaken his Parliament and raiseth Arms against them and protecteth Delinquents And this they mention but as Matter of Fact for the culpability they charge upon his evil Counsellors and Instruments For the King being no Subject is liable to no Accusations in any of his 〈…〉 Irish the Papist and those guilty Persons who would ruine all to 〈…〉 Justice whom they accuse and not the King And whateve◠〈…〉 King 's Declarations say Ship-money hath been imposed the Judges have been 〈◊〉 the German Horse were to have been brought in the Northern Army 〈◊〉 have been brought up against the Parliament the House was invaded and 〈◊〉 Members demanded a Guard was set upon them and their Destruction 〈◊〉 Enemies was powerfully endeavoured 7. 〈◊〉 the seventh they said That for the supreme legislative Authority to defend 〈◊〉 and the Land and for the King's Courts of Justice to prosecute Delinâ—◠〈◊〉 though against the King's Will is no dishonour to the Protestant Religion 〈◊〉 any thing like the Papists Doctrine and Practices of Rebellion nor any Justification of them If it were then the very Constitution of our ancient Government or Kingdom would it self be a dishonour to our Religion 8. To the last they say That Patience is our Duty so far as we are called to Sufferings and God is â—o be trusted in the way which he hath appointed us But if the Irish Rebels had foretold the Parliament and Justices of their Insurrection and then exhorted them to Patience and Non-resistance and trusting God or if a Thief that would rob us to exhort us to be patient and not resist he doth but exhort us to be guilty of his Sin 〈◊〉 Protestants Patience was that which pleased the Irish or if a King must be brought in as a Party the French Mens Patience in the Parisian Massacre pleased Charles IX and the Executioners And if in all Countries the Protestants would let the Papists cut their Throats and die in the Honour of Patience it would satisfie those bloody Adversaries who had rather we died in such Honour than lived without it But if such Patience would be a poor Excuse for a Father that sought not to preserve his Children much less for the Paliament that stand still while Papists and Delinquents subvert both Church and State These were their Answers to their Accusers in those Points § 54. The Sum of those Reasons which satisfied many that adhered to the Parliament were these which I will but briefly name 1. As to the Danger of the State the Matters of Fact did make it seem undeniable to them Ship-money they judged not of according to the Sum but they thoughtâ— Propriety was thereby destroyed and Parliaments cast aside and made unnecessary And they saw that this Parliament was called upon the Scots and then called Discontented Lords importunity after many Parliaments had been dissolved in displeasure and after they had been long forborn And the calling up of the Northern Army and the demanding of the Members made Multitudes think that the ruine of the Parliament was the great Design and their ungrateful beginning and proceedings made this seem credible so that I met with few of that sort that doubted of it But above all the Two hundred thousand kill'd in Ireland affrighted the Parliament and all the Land And whereas it is said that the King hated that as well as they They answered that though he did his hating it would neither make all those alive again nor preserve England from their threatned Assault as long as Men of the like malignity were protected and could not be kept out of Arms nor brought to Justice 2. The End of the War did much prevail with them For they thought that to master and destroy the Parliament was to leave the People hopeless as to any Security of their Propriety or Liberties or any Remedy against meer Will For there is no other Power that may relieve them And if Parliaments
fourth sort are the Independents who are for the most part a serious godly People some of them moderate going with Mr. Norton and the New-England Synod and little differing from the moderate Presbyterians and as well ordered as any Party that I know But others of them more raw and self-conceited and addicted to Separations and Divisions their Zeal being greater than their Knowledge who have opened the Door to Anabaptists first and then to all the other Sects These Sects are numerous some tolerable and some intolerable and being never incorporated with the rest are not to be reckoned with them Many of them the Behmâ—nists Fifth-Monarchy-men Quakers and some Anabaptists are proper Fanaticks looking too much to Revelations within instead of the Holy Scriptures And thus I have truly told you of all the Sorts among us except the Papists who are sufficiently known and are no more of us than the other Sects are The Atheists and Infidels I name not because as such they have no Pastors § 286. Next it will not be amiss if I briefly give you the Sum of their several Causes and the Reasons of their several Ways I. The Conformists go several Wâ—ys according to their forementioned Differences 1. Those that are high Prelatists say 1. For Episcopacy it is of Divine Institution and perpetual Usage in the Church and necessary to Order among the Clergy and People and of experienced Benefit to this Land and most congruous to Civil Monarchy and therefore not to be altered by any no not by the King and Parliament if they should swear it Therefore the Oath called the Et caetera Oath was formed before the War to Swear all Men to be true to this Prelacy and not to Change it 2. Those that are called Conforming Presbyterians and Latitudinarians both say that our Prelacy is lawful though not necessary and that Mr. Edward Stillingfleet's Irenicon hath well proved That no Form of Church Government is of Divine Institution And therefore when the Magistrate commandeth any he is to be obeyed But since they grew up to Preferment they grow to be hot for the Prelacy § 287. And therefore as to the Covenant they all say 1. That the End of it was Evil viz. To Change the Government of the Church without Law which was setled by Law 2. That the Efficient Cause was Evil or Null viz. That the Imposers had no Authority to do it 3. That the Matter was Evil viz. to extirpate and change the Government of the Church by Rebellion and Combination against the King 4. That the Swearers Act in taking it was sinful for the foresaid Reasons 5. That the King's Prohibition and disowning it did nullifie all the Subjects Obligations if any were upon them by virtue of Numb 30. 6. That the People being all Subjects cannot endeavour the Change of Church Government without the King 7. That King Charles took not that same Covenant but another 8. That he was forced to it 9. That he was virtually pre-engaged to the contrary Matter in that he was Heir of the Crown and bound to take the Coronation Oath 10. That to cast so many Men as the Bishops out of all their Honours and Possessions is Injustice which none can be obliged to do 11. That if it were lawful before to endeavour an Alteration of the Government of the Church yet now it is not when King and Parliament have made a Law against it These are Mr. Fulwood's and Mr. Stileman's Pleas and the Sum of all that I have heard as to that Point § 288. But further as to the Interpretation of the Words of the Declaration hereabouts the Latitudinarians and Conforming Presbyterians and some of the Prelatists say as followeth 1. That the Declaration includeth not the King when it saith There is no obligation on me or any other person which they prove because that Laws are made only for Subjects and therefore are to be interpreted as speaking only of Subjects 2. Because the King is meant in the Counterpart or Object viz the Government of the State which is not to be altered 2. They say that it is only Rebellions or other unlawful Endeavours that are meant by the words to Endeavour 3. They say that by any Alteration is meant only any Essential Alteration and not any Integral or Accidental Alteration of the Government 4. And the leading Independents have taught them also to say that this Covenant was essentially a League between two Nations upon a certain occasion which therefore if ever it did bind is now like an Almanack out of date Et cessat obligatio cessantibus personis materiâ fine 5. They principally argue that all Mens words are to be taken charitative in the most honest and favourable sence that they will bear much more the King 's and Parliaments Therefore Charity permitteth us not to judge them so inhuman irrational irreligious and cruel as to command Men to be perjured and to change the constituted Government by prohibiting King Parliament or People to do any thing which belonged to them in their places These are the Reasons for the lawfulness of declaring against the Obligation of the Covenant § 289. 3. In the same Declaration it is professed That it is not lawful on any pictente whatsoever to take up Arms against the King or any Commissionated by him c. Concerning this they are also divided among themselves One Party say That this is true universally in the proper sence of the words The other say That it is to be understood of such as are legally Commissioned by him only and that if he should Commission two or three Men or more to kill the Parliament or burn the City or to dispossess Men of their Freeholds it were lawful forcibly to resist Or if the Sheriff be to raise the Posse Comitatus in obedience to a Decree of a Court of Justice to put a Man into possession of his House he may do it forcibly though the Defendant be Commissioned by the King to keep it Because they say that the Law is to be taken sano sensu and not as may lay the Law-givers under so heavy an Accusation as the literal unlimited sence would do § 290. 4. The fourth Matter of Difference being the Oath of Canonical Obedience they here also differ among themselves 1. Some of them think that as the Necessity of Monarchy and our Relation to the King doth make the Oath of Allegiance necessary or very meet so the Necessity of Prelacy and our Relation to the Prelates doth make the Oath of Obedience to them justifiable and meet For that which must be done may be promised and sworn 2. Others of them say That it is only to the Bishops as Magistrates or Officers of the King that we swear to them 3. And others say That as we may be subject to any Man in humility so we may promise or swear it to any Man And it being but in licit 〈◊〉 honestis that what we may
they are doubtful 1. In Case that a Man pretend to have the King's Commission but doth not shew it me what am I then to do 2. In Case he shew it me under the Privy Seal and another shew the Broad Seal to a Commission to resist him 3. In Case he shew the Broad Seal and I know not whether it be counterfeit or surreptitiously procured 4. In Case that by the fault of Officers or forgetfulness or any other cause one Man should have a Commission to defend and command a Ship or Fort or Country and another shew a Commission of the same date to command and defend the same Ship Fort or Country and to resist any that oppose him Is it unlawful for both of them here to obey the King's Command 5. In case that any shall shew or pretend a Commission for any illegal Act as to take Mens Purses by the High-way to break into their Houses and take their Money and Goods and seize their Estates or kill their Families Or to lay a Tax upon the Country without the Consent of Parliament or to ravish Mens Wives or Daughters or to burn the City or if two or three should shew a Commission to come into the House of Lords or Commons and kill them all in the place c. It is certain that a Sword is Arms and that to fight in a Man 's own Defence is to take up Arms Or if any say it must be the fighting of many together only that is called the Taking up of Arms as that is not to be understood by the words which have no such restriction so no Man knoweth how many it must be that by concurrence must make the Act to be a Taking up of Arms. We have put some of these Cases to Parliament Men and they tell us That in any such Case they would use their Arms to defend themselves But these are single Members What the Houses mean we know not but by the words And no words can be more exclusive of any Exception than these That it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever Also what if Saul gives Commission to his Armour bearer to kill him Might not a Subject by Arms defend the King and rescue his Life against his Will and Commission And what if a Court of Justice decree a Subject the Possession of his House and Land and require the Sheriff of the Country to put him in possession and to raise the Posse Comitatus to do it if there be resistance And what if the Person to be ejected shew a Commission from the King to keep possession contrary to this Judgment is it unlawful for the Sheriff to obey the Court And the Posse Comitatus of Yorkshire hath been a considerable Army § 394. The Things which increase the Doubt of the Non-subscribers in this Case are these 1. Because if as it is said by some the Laws are the King's Laws and the Acts of his Will as well as his Commissions are Then if his Law and his Commission be contradictory I must need disobey the King which soever I disobey and resist the King's Will which soever I resist We have no Laws but what are Acts of the King's Will and till they are repealed they still express his Will 2. Because that the Laws are made purposely to be the Subjects Rule of Obedience being also the Rule of Judgment in all Courts and being that Act of the King's Will which the Subjects have publick certain Notice of They know that the Laws are indeed the King's Laws and are not counterfeit And they are of universal Obligation But a Seal to a Commission may possibly be counterfeit or the Subject can have no such certifying notice of it 3. And they know that the King is not himself every where present to tell his doubtful Subjects which signification of his Will he owneth and which they should prefer and that he governeth his Kingdom by his Courts and Officers they sit and send forth their Orders in his Name And a known publick Court of Justice seemeth to be a more credible declarer of the King's Will than a Stranger or particular Person who saith that he hath his Commission It is the Form of the Law to be the Act of the Governing Will of the King and the use of his Courts to declare it and expound it and judge by it for his Subjects But a private Commission wanteth these Advantages 4. Because they think that the Law of Nature and the Constitution of the Kingdom must else submit to this Declaration For if two or three or more shew a Commission to kill all the Parliament and fire the City Nature seemeth to allow them Self-defence and Parliaments which are part of the Constitution are vain if they have no better Security for their Lives 5. They find a Statute of King Edward the Third That if any Man bring from the King a Command under the Little Seal or the Great Seal to require any Judge to go against Justice or to contradict it the Judge shall go on as if it signified nothing And the Sheriff's forcible Assistance may be part of his Judgment or the legal Consequent 6. Else no Subject seemeth to have any Security for his Estate or Life nor the Subject any Liberties For if their Estates or Purses be taken away or their Lives assaulted by pretended Commissions or Taxes imposed contrary to Law what remedy have they To say they may question the Instruments at Law is vain and worse as long as that Law whatever it decreeth must submit to a Commission and must never resist it nor use any force of Arms though against a single Man for its own Execution Who will begin a Suit at Law against the King's Will at all if he first know that his Will must not be resisted and that the End will but be his greater ruine 7. They said King Iames asserting in his Writings for Monarchy that a King may not make War against his whole Kingdom In case then that he should do it they are uncertain that the whole Kingdom might not at all resist his commissioned Officers 8. They find the late King Charles the First in his Answer to the Nineteen Propositions of the Parliament asserting a Protecting Power in the Lords and setting up the Laws above his own Will 9. They know that the Laws are made by King and Parliament and Commissions here supposed to be by the King alone And the whole Authority of all parts seemeth more than of one alone 10. They find that it hath been familiar with Lawyers to prefer the Law before the King's Commissions and Parliaments have been of that mind And they are too weak to Condemn them all in their own Faculties 11. They find that the greatest Defenders of Monarchy of all Forreign Lawyers even Barclay and Grotius have instanced in many Cases in which it is as they say lawful by Arms to resist a King And we pretend not to more
that Traytorous Positon of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissionated by Him in pursuance of such Commission And that I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of Government either in Church or State The Reasons of Men's refusal to take this Oath were such as these following 1. Because they that were no Lawyers must Swear not only that they think it is unlawful but that it is so indeed 2. Because they think that this setteth a Commission above an Act of Parliament And that if one by a Law be made General or Admiral during Life another by a Commission may cast him out And though the Law say He shall be guilty of Treason if he give up his Trust to any upon pretence of a Commission Yet by this Oath he is a Traytor if he resist any one that hath a Commission 3. Because they fear they are to Swear to a contradiction viz. to set the King 's bare Commission above a Law which is the Act of King and Parliament and yet not to endeavour the Alteration of Government which they fear least they endeavour by taking this Oath 4. Because they think that by this means the Subject shall never come to any certain Knowledge of the Rule of his Duty and consequently of his Duty it self For it is not possible for us to know 1. What is to be called a Commission and what not and whether an illegal Commission be no Commission as the Lawyers some of them tell us and what Commission is illegal and what not and whether it must have the broad Seal on only the little Seal or none 2. Nor can we know when a Commission is counterfeit The King's Commanders in the Wars never shewed their Commissions to them that they fought against at least ordinarily There was a Collonel of the King 's since his coming in that brought a Commission Sealed with the broad Seal to seize on all the Goods of a Gentleman in Bishopsgate-street in 〈◊〉 by which he carried them away But the Commission being proved counterfeit he was hanged for it But a Man that thus Seizeth on any Gentleman's Money on Goods may be gone before they can try his Commission if they may not resist him But the Parliament and Courts of Justice are the Legal publick Notifiers of the King's mind and by them the Subjects can have a regular certain notice of it So that if the Parliament were concluded to have no part in the Legislative Power but the King 's meer will to be our Law yet if the Parliament and Courts of Justice be erected as the publick Declarers of his will to the People they seem more regardable and credible than the words of a private unknown Man that saith he hath a Commission 5. And they think that this is to betray is to the King and give the Chancellour or Lord-Keeper power at his pleasure to depose him from his Crown and dispossess him of his Kingdoms For if the King by Law or Commission shall settle any Trusty Subject in the Government of Navy or Militia or Forts and command them to resist all that would disposseâ—â— them yet if the Lord Chancellor have a design to depose the King and shall Sealâ—â— Commission to any of his own Creatures or Confidents to take possession of the said Forts Garisons Militia and Navy none upon pain of Death must resist them but â—e taken for Traytors if they will not be Traytors yea though it were but whilst they send to the King to know his Will And when Traytors have once got possession of all the Strengths the detecting of their stand will be too late and to Sue them at Law will be in vain And he that remembreth That our Lord Chancellor is now banished who lately was the chief Minister of State will think that this is no needless fear 6. And they think that it is quite against the Law of God in Nature which obligeth â—s to quench a Fire or save the Life of one that is assaulted much more of our selves against one that would kill him and that else we shall be guilty of Murder And according to the preper Sense of this Oath If two Foot-boys get from the Lord Chancellor a Commission to kill all the Lords and Commons in Parliament or to set the City and all the Country on Fire no Man may be Force of Arms resist them Lords and Commons may not save their Lives by force not the City their Houses And by this way no Man shall dwell or travel in safety while any Enemy or Thief may take away his Life or Purse or Goods by a pretended Commission and if we defend our selves but while we send to try them we are Traytors and few have the means of such a Tryall 7. They think by this means no Sheriff may by the Posse Comitatus execute the Decrees of any Court of Justice if 〈◊〉 can but get a Commission for the contrary 8. They think that Taxes and Subsidies may be raised thus without Parliaments and that all Men's Estates and Lives are at the meer will of the King or the Lord Chancellor For if any be Commissioned to take them away we have no remedy For to say that we have our Actions against them in the Courts of Justice is but to say that when all is taken away we may cast away more if we had it For what good will the Sentence of any Court do us if it pass on our side as long as a Commission against the Execution of that Sentence must not be resisted unless a piece of Paper be as good as an Estate 9. And they think that by this Oath we Swear to disobey the King if at any time he command us to endeavour any alteration of the Church-Government as once by this Commission to some of us he did about the Liturgy 10. And they think that it is a serving the Ambition of the Prelates and an altering of the Government to Swear never to endeavour any alteration of Church-Government yea and to put the Church-Government before the State-Government and so to make the Prelacy as unalterable as Monarchy and to twist it by an Oath into the unalterable Constitution of the Government of the Land and so to disable the King and Parliament from ever endeavouring any alteration of it For if the Subjects may not at any time nor by any means endeavour the King will have none to execute his Will if he endeavour it And if Divines who should be the most tender avoiders of Perjury and all Sin shall lead the way in taking such an Oath who can expect that any others after them should scruple it And it was endeavoured to have been put upon the Parliament 11. And they think that there is a great deal in the English Diocesian Frame of Church-Government which is very sinful and which God will have all Men in their places and callings to endeavour to reform
as that the Bishop of the lowest degree instead of ruling one Church with the Presbyters ruleth many hundred Churches by Lay-Chancellors who use the Keys of Excommunication and Absolution c. And they take it for an Act of Rebellion against God if they should Swear never to do the Duty which he commandeth and so great a Duty as Church-Reformation in so great a Matter If it were but never to pray or never to amend a fault in themselves they durst not Swear it 12. This Oath seemeth to be the same in Sence with the Et caetora Oath in the Canons of 1640. That we will never consent to an alteration of the Government by Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans c. And one Parliament voted down that and laid a heavy charge upon it which no Parliament since hath taken off 13. As the National Vow and Covenant seemeth a great Snare to hinder the Union of the Church among us in that it layeth our Union on an exclusion of Prelacy and so excludeth all those learned worthy Men from our Union who cannot consent to that Exclusion so the laying of the Kingdoms and Churches Union upon the English Prelacy and Church-Government so as to exclude all that cannot consent to it doth seem as sure an Engine of Division We think that if our Union be centered but in Christ the King of all and in the King as his Officer and our Soveraign under him it may be easie and sure But if we must all unite in the English Frame of Prelacy we must never Unite § 15. Those that take the Oath do as those that Subscribe resolve that they will understand it in a lawful Sense be it true or false and so to take it in that Sense To which end they say that nullum iniquum est in Lege praesumendum and that all publick Impositions must be taken in the best Sense that the Words will bear And by force and stretching what words may not be well interpreted But the Nonconformists go on other grounds and think that about Oaths Men must deal plainly and sincerely and neither stretch their Consciences nor the Words nor interpret universal Terms particularly but according to the true meaning of the Law-givers as far as they can understand it and where they cannot according to the proper and usual signification of the Words And the Parliament themselves tell us That this is the true Rule of interpreting their Words Beyond which therefore we dare not stretch them § 16. And therefore 14. They dare not take the Oath because if it be not to be taken in the proper or ordinary Sense of the Words then they are sure that they cannot understand it for it doth not please the Parliament to expound it And Oaths must be taken in Truth Judgment and Righteousness and not ignoranatly when we know that we understand them not § 17. The Lawyers even the honestest are commonly for a more stretching Exposition And those that speak out say That an illegal Commission is none at all But we our selves go further than this would leads us for we judge That even an illegally commissioned Person is not to be resisted by Arms except in such Cases as the Law of Nature or the King himself by his Laws or by a contrary Commission alloweth us to resist him But if Commissions should be contradictory to each other or to the Law we know not what to Swear in such a case § 18. But because much of the Case may be seen in these following Questions which upon the coming out of that Act I put to an able worthy and sincere Friend with his Answers to them I will here Insert them viz. Serjeant Fountain Queries upon the Oxford Oath We presuppose it commonly resolved by Casuists in Theology from the Law of Nature and Scripture 1. That Perjury is a Sin and so great a Sin as tendeth to the ruin of the Peace of Kingdoms the Life of Kings and the Safety of Mens Souls and to make Men unfit for Humane Society Trust or Converse till it be repented of 2. That he that Sweareth contrary to his Iudgment is Perjured though the thing prove true 3. That we must take an Oath in the Imposer's Sense as near as we can know it if he be our Lawful Governour 4. That an Oath is to be taken sensu strictiore and in the Sense of the Rulers Imposing it if that be known if not by the Words interpreted according to the common use of Men of that Profession about that subject And Vniversals are not to be interpreted as Particulars nor must we limit them and distinguish without very good proof 5. That where the Sense is doubtful we are first to ask which is the probable Sense before we ask which is is the best and charitablest Sense and must not take them in the best Sense when another is more probable to be the true Sense Because it is the Truth and not the Goodness which the Vnderstanding first considereth Otherwise any Oath almost imaginable might be taken there being few Words so bad which are not so ambiguous as to bear a good Sense by a forced Interpretation And Subjects must not cheat their Rulers by seeming to do what they do not 6. But when both Senses are equally doubtful we ought in Charity to take the best 7. If after all Means faithfully used to know our Rulers Sense our own Vnderstandings much more incline to think one to be their meaning than the other we must not go against our Vnderstandings 8. That we are to suppose our Rulers fallible and that it 's possible their decrees may be contrary to the Law of God but not to suspect them without plain cause These things supposed we humbly crave the Resolution of these Questions about the present Oath and the Law Qu. 1. Whether upon any pretence whatsoever refer not to any Commissionated by him as well as to the King himself 2. Whether not lawful extendeth only to the Law of the Land or also to the Law of God in Nature 3. Whether I Swear that it is not lawful do not express my peremptory certain Determination and be not more than I Swear that in my Opinion it is not lawful 4. What is the Traytorous Position here meant for here is only a Subject without a Praedicate which is no Position at all and is capable of various Praedicates 5. If the King by Act of Parliament commit the Trust of his Navy Garrison or Militia to one durante vita and should Commissionate another by force to eject him whether both have not the King's Authority or which 6. If the Sheriff raise the Posse Commitatus to suppress a Riot or to execute the Decrees of the Courts of Justice and fight with any Commissioned to resist him and shall keep up that Power while the Commissioned Persons keep up theirs which of them is to be judged by the Subjects to have the King's Authority 7. If a Parliament or a
Church the bowing to Altars the Book for Sports on Sundays the Casting out of Ministers the troubling of the People by the High-Commission Court the Pilloring and Cutting off Mens Ears Mr. Burtons Mr. Prins and Dr. Bastwicks for speaking against the Bishops the putting down Lectures and Afternoon Sermons and Expositions on the Lord's Days with such other things which they thought of greater weight than Ship-money But because these later agreed with the former in the Vindication of the Peoples Propriety and Liberties the former did the easilier concur with them against the Proceedings of the Bishops and High Commission Court And as soon as their Inclination was known to the People all Countreys sent in their Complaints and Petitions It was presently known how many Ministers Bishop Wren and others of them had suspended and silenced how many thousand Families had been driven to flie into Holland and how many thousand into New-England Scarce a Minister had been Silenced that was alive but it was put into a Petition Mr. Peter Smart of Durham and Dr. Layton a Scotch Physician who wrote a Book called Sion's Plea against the Prelates were released out of their long Imprisonment Mr. Burton Mr. Prin and Dr. Bastwick who as is said had been pillored and their Ears cut off and they sent into a supposed perpetual Imprisonment into the distant Castles of Gernsey Iersey and Carnarvon were all set free and Damages voted them for their wrong And when they came back to London they were met out of the City by abundance of the Citizens with such Acclamations as could not but seem a great Affront to the King and be much displeasing to him The Lord Keeper Finch and Secretary Windebank fled beyond Sea and saved themselves The guilty Judges were deeply accused and some of them imprisoned for the Cause of Ship-money But the great Displeasure was against the Lord Deputy Wentworth and Archbishop Laud Both these were sent to the Tower and a Charge drawn up against them and managed presently against the Lord Deputy by the ablest Lawyers and Gentlemen of the House This held them work a considerable time The King was exceeding unwilling to consent unto his death and therefore used all his skill to have drawn off the Parliament from so hot a Prosecution of him And now began the first Breach among themselves For the Lord Falkland the Lord Digby and divers other able Men were for the sparing of his Life and gratifying the King and not putting him on a thing so much displeasing to him The rest said If after the Attempt of Subverting the Fundamental Laws and Liberties no one Man shall suffer Death it will encourage others hereafter to the like The Londoners petitioned for Iustice And too great numbers of Apprentices and others being imboldened by the Proceedings of the Parliament and not fore-knowing what a Fire the Sparks of their temerity would kindle did too triumphingly and disorderly urge the Parliament crying Iustice Iustice. And it is not unlikely that some of the Parliament-men did encourage them to this as thinking that some backward Members would be quickned by Popular Applause And withal to work on the Members also by disgrace some insolent Painter did seditiously draw the Pictures of the chief of them that were for saving the Lord Deputy and called them the Straffordians he being Earl of Strafford and hang'd them with their Heels upward on the Exchange Though it cannot be expected that in so great a City there should be no Persons so indiscreet as to commit such disorderly Actions as these yet no sober Men should countenance them or take part with them whatever ends might be pretended or intended The King called these Tumults the Parliament called them the Cities Petitioning Those that connived at them were glad to see the People of their mind in the main and thought it would do much to facilitate their Work and hold the looser Members to their Cause For though the House was unanimous enough in condemning Ship-money and the Et caetera Oath and the Bishops Innovations c. yet it was long doubtful which side would have the major Vote in the matter of the Earl of Strafford's Death and such other Acts as were most highly displeasing to the King But disorderly means do generally bring forth more Disorders and seldom attain any good end for which they are used § 28. The Parliament also had procured the King to consent to several Acts which were of great importance and emboldened the People by confirming their Authority As an Act against the High Commission Court and Church-mens Secular or Civil Power and an Act that this Parliament should not be dissolved till its own Consent alledging that the dissolving of Parliaments emboldened Delinquents and that Debts and Disorders were so great that they could not be overcome by them in a little time Also an Act for Triennial Parliaments And the People being confident that all these were signed by the King full sore against his will and that he abhorred what was done did think that the Parliament which had constrained him to this much could carry it still in what they pleased and so grew much more regardful of the Parliament and sided with them not only for their Cause and their own Interest but also as supposing them the stronger side which the Vulgar are still apt to follow § 29. But to return to my own matters This Parliament among other parts of their Reformation resolved to reform the corrupted Clergy and appointed a Committee to receive Petitions and Complaints against them which was no sooner understood but multitudes in all Countreys came up with Petitions against their Ministers The King and Parliament were not yet divided but concurred and so no partaking in their Differences was any part of the Accusation of these Ministers till long after when the Wars had given the occasion and then that also came into their Articles but before it was only matter of Insufficiency false Doctrine illegal Innovations or Scandal that was brought in against them Mr. Iohn White being the Chair-man of the Committee for Scandalous Ministers as it was called published in print one Century first of Scandalous Ministers with their Names Places and the Articles proved against them where so much ignorance insufficiency drunkenness filthiness c. was charged on them that many moderate men could have wished that their Nakedness had been rather hid and not exposed to the Worlds derision and that they had remembred that the Papists did stand by and would make sport of it Another Century also was after published Among all these Complainers the Town of Kederminster in Worcestershire drew up a Petition against their Ministers The Vicar of the place they Articled against as one that was utterly insufficient for the Ministry presented by a Papist unlearned preached but once a quarter which was so weakly as exposed him to laughter and perswaded them that he understood not the very Substantial Articles of
close our Wounds whenever they are closed § 94. The King sending his final Answers to the Parliament the Parliament had a long Debate upon them whether to acquiesce in them as a sufficient Ground for Peace and many Members spake for resting in them and among others Mr. Prin went over all the King's Conscessions in a Speech of divers Hours long with marvellous Memory and shewed the Satisfactoriness of them all and after printed it So that the House voted that the King's Concessions were a sufficient Ground for a Personal Treaty with him and had suddenly sent a concluding Answer and sent for him up but at such a Crisis it was time for the Army to besâ—ir them Without any more ado Cromwell and his Confidents send Collonel Pride with a Party of Souldiers to the House and set a Guard upon the Door one Part of the House who were for them they let in another part they turned away and told them that they must not come there and the third part they imprisoned the soberest worthy Members of the House and all to prevent them from being true to their Oaths and Covenants and loyal to their King To so much Rebellion Perfideousness Perjury and Impudence can Error Selfishness and Pride of great Successes transport Men of the highest Pretences to Religion § 95. For the true understanding of all this it must be remembred that though in the beginning of the Parliament there was scarce a noted gross Sectary known but the Lord Brook in the House of Peers and young sir Henry Vane in the House of Commons yet by Degrees the Number of them increased in the Lower House Major Sallowey and some few more Sir Henry Vane had made his own Adherents Many more were carried part of the way to Independency and Liberty of Religions and many that minded not any side in Religion did think that it was no Policie ever to trust a conquered King and therefore were wholly for a Parliamentary Government Of these some would have Lords and Commons as a mixture of Aristocracie and Democracie and others would have Commons and Democracie alone and some thought that they ought to judge the King for all the Blood that had been shed And thus when the two Parts of the House were ejected and imprisoned this third part composed of the Vanists the Independants and other Sects with the Democratical Party was left by Cromwell to do his Business under the Name of the Parliament of England but by the People in Scorn commonly called The Rump of the Parliament The secluded and imprisoned Members published a Writing called their Vindication and some of them would afterwards have thrust into the House but the Guard of Soldiers kept them out and the Rump were called the Honest Men. And these are the Men that henceforward we have to do with in the Progress of our History as called The Parliament § 96. As the Lords were disaffected to these Proceedings so were the Rump and Soldiers to the Lords So that they passed a Vote supposing that the Army would stand by them to establish the Government without a King and House of Lords and so the Lords dissolved and these Commons sat and did all alone And being deluded by Cromwell and verily thinking that he would be for Democracie which they called a Commonwealth they gratified him in his Designs and themselves in their disloyal Distrusts and Fears and they caused a High Court of Justice to be erected and sent for the King from the Isle of Wight Collonel Hammond delivered him and to Westminster-Hall he came and refusing to own the Court and their Power to try him Cook as Attorney having pleaded against him Bradshaw as President and Judge recited the Charge and condemned him And before his own Gate at Whitehall they erected a Scaffold and before a full Assembly of People beheaded him Wherein appeared the Severity of God the Mutability and Uncertainty of Worldly Things and the Fruits of a sinful Nation 's Provocations and the infamous Effects of Error Pride and Selfishness prepared by Satan to be charged hereafter upon Reformation and Godliness to the unspeakable Injury of the Christian Name and Protestant Cause the Rejoicing and Advantage of the Papists the Hardning of Thousands against the Means of their own Salvation and the Confusion of the Actors when their Day is come § 97. The Lord General Fairfax all this while stood by and with high Resentment saw his Lieutenant do all this by tumultuous Souldiers tricked and over-powered by him neither being sufficiently upon his Guard to defeat the Intreagues of such an Actor nor having Resolution enough as yet to lay down the Glory of all his Conquests and for sake him But at the King's Death he was in wonderful Perplexities and when Mr. Colomy and some Ministers were sent for to resolve him and would have farther persuaded him to rescue the King his Troubles so confounded him that they durst let no Man speak to him And Cromwell kept him as it was said in praying and consulting till the Stroke was given and it was too late to make Resistance But not long after when War was determined against Scotland he laid down his Commission and never had to do with the Army more and Cromwell was General in his stead § 98. If you ask what did the Ministers all this while I answer they Preach'd and Pray'd against Disloyalty They drew up a Writing to the Lord General declaring their Abhorrence of all Violence against the Person of the King and urging him and his Army to take heed of such an unlawful Act They present it to the General when they saw the King in Danger But Pride prevailed against their Counsels § 99. The King being thus taken out of the way Cromwell takes on him to be for a Commonwealth but all in order to the Security of the good People till he had removed the other Impediments which were yet to be removed so that the Rump presently drew up a Form of Engagement to be put upon all Men viz. I do promise to be True and Faithful to the Commonwealth as it is now established without a King or House of Lords So we must take the Rump for an established Commonwealth and promise Fidelity to them This the Sectarian Party swallowed easily and so did the King's old Cavaliers so far as I was acquainted with them or could hear of them not heartily no doubt but they were very few of them sick of the Disease called tenderness of Conscience or Scrupulosity But the Presbyterians and the moderate Episcopal Men refused it and I believe so did the Prelatical Divines of the King's Party for the most part though the Gentlemen had greater Necessities Without this Engagement no Man must have the Benefit of suing another at Law which kept Men a little from Contention and would have marr'd the Lawyers trade nor must they have any Masterships in the Universities nor travel above so many Miles
wherein the best part of his Opinions are so expressed as will make but few Men his Disciples His Healing Question is more plainly written When Cromwell was dead he got Sir Arthur Haselrigge to be his close Adherent on Civil Accounts and got the Rump set up again and a Council of State and got the Power much into his own Hands When he was in the height of his power he set upon the forming of a new Commonwealth and with some of his Adherants drew up the model which was for popular Government but so that Men of his Confidence must be the People Of my own displeasing him this is the true Account It grieved me to see a poor Kingdom thus tost up and down in Unquietness and the Ministers made odious and ready to be cast out and a Reformation trodden under Foot and Parliaments and Piety made a Scorn and scarce any doubted but he was the principal Spring of all Therefore being writing against the Papists coming to vindicate our Religion against them when they impute to us the Blood of the King I fully proved that the Protestants and particularly the Presbyterians adhorred it and suffered greatly for opposing it and that it was the Act of Cromwell's Army and the Sectaries among which I named the Vanists as one Sort and I shewed that the Fryers and Jesuits were their Deceivers and under several Vizors were disperst among them and Mr. Nye having told me that he was long in Italy I said it was considerable how much of his Doctrine their Leader brought from Italy whereas it proved that he was only in France and Helvetia upon the Borders of Italy and whereas it was printed from Italy I had ordered the Printer to correct it fromwards Italy but though the Copy was corrected the Impression was not Hereupon Sir Henry Vane being exceedingly provoked threatned me to many and spake against me in the House and one Stubbs that had been whipt in the Convocation House at Oxford wrote for him a bitter Book against me who from a Vanist afterwards turned a Conformist since that he turned Physician and was drowned in a small Puddle or Brook as he was riding near the Bath I confess my Writing was a means to lessen his Reputation and make men take him for what Cromwell that better knew him called him a Iugler and I wish I had done so much in time But the whole Land rang of his Anger and my Danger and all expected my present Ruine by him But to shew him that I was not about Recanting as his Agents would have perswaded me I wrote also against his Healing Question in a Preface before my Holy Commonwealth And the speedy turn of Affairs did tye his Hands from Executing his Wrath upon me Upon the King's Coming in he was questioned with others by the Parliament but seemed to have his Life secured But being brought to the Barr he spake so boldly in justifying the Parliaments Cause and what he had done that it exasperated the King and made him resolve upon his Death When he came to Tower-hill to die and would have spoken to the People he began so resolutely as caused the Officers to sound the Trumpets and beat the Drums and hinder him from speaking No Man could die with greater appearance of gallant Resolution and Fearlesness than he did though before supposed a timorous Man Insomuch that the manner of his Death procured him more Applause than all the Actions of his Life And when he was dead his intended Speech was printed and afterwards his Opinions more plainly expressed by his Friend than by himself When he was Condemned some of his Friends desired me to come to him that I might see how far he was from Popery and in how excellent a Temper thinking I would have askt him Forgiveness for doing him wrong I told them that if he had desired it I would have gone to him but seeing he did not I supposed he would take it for an injury for my Conference was not like to be such as would not be pleasing to a dying man For though I never called him a Papist yet I still suppose he hath done the Papists so much Service and this poor Nation and Religion so much wrong that we and our Posterity are like to have cause and time enough to Lament it And so much of Sir Henry Vane and his Adherents § 121. The second Sect which then rose up was that called Seekers These taught that our Scripture was uncertain that present Miracles are necessary to Faith that our Ministry is null and without authority and our Worship and Ordinances unnecessary or vain the true Church Ministry Scripture and Ordinances being lost for which they are now Seeking I quickly found that the Papists principally hatcht and actuated this Sect and that a considerable Number that were of this Profession were some Papists and some Infidels However they closed with the Vanists and sheltered themselves under them as if they had been the very same § 122. The third Sect were the Ranters These also made it their Business as the former to set up the Light of Nature under the Name of Christ in Men and to dishonour and cry down the Church the Scripture the Present Ministry and our Worship and Ordinances and call'd men to hearken to Christ within them But withal they conjoyned a Cursed Doctrine of Libertinism which brought them to all abominable filthiness of Life They taught as the Familists that God regardeth not the Actions of the Outward Man but of the Heart and that to the Pure all things are Pure even things forbidden And so as allowed by God they spake most hideous Words of Blasphemy and many of them committed Whoredoms commonly Insomuch that a Matron of great Note for Godliness and Sobriety being perverted by them turned so shameless a Whore that she was Carted in the Streets of London There could never Sect arise in the World that was a lowder Warning to Professors of Religion to be humble fearful cautelous and watchful Never could the World be told more lowdly whither the Spiritual Pride of ungrounded Novices in Religion tendeth and whither Professors of Strictness in Religion may be carried in the Stream of Sects and Factions I have seen my self Letters written from Abbington where among both Soldiers and People this Contagion did then prevail full of horrid Oaths and Curses and Blasphemy not fit to be repeated by the Tongue or Pen of Man and this all uttered as the Effect of Knowledge and a part of their Religion in a Fanatick Strain and fathered on the Spirit of God But the horrid Villanies of this Sect did not only speedily Extinguish it but also did as much as ever any thing did to disgrace all Sectaries and to restore the Credit of the Ministry and the sober unanimous Christians So that the Devil and the Jesuits quickly found that this way served not their turn and therefore they suddenly took another § 123. And
his Discources Of Dr. Pierce I will say no more because he hath said so much of me On our part Dr. Bates spake very solidly judiciously and pertinently when he spake And for my self the reason why I spake so much was because it was the desire of my Brethren and I was loth to expose them to the hatred of the Bishops but was willinger to take it all upon my self they themselves having so much wit as to be therein more sparing and cautelous than I and I thought that the Day and Cause commanded me those two things which then were objected against me as my Crimes viz. speaking too boldly and too long And I thought it a Cause that I could comfortably suffer for and should as willingly be a Martyr for Charity as for Faith § 237. When this Work was over the rest of our Brethren met again and resolved to draw up an Account of our Endeavours and present it to his Majesty with our Petition for his promised help yet for those Alterations and Abatements which we could not procure of the Bishops And that first we should acquaint the Lord Chancellour withal and consult with him about it Which we did and as soon as we came to him according to my expectation I found him most offended at me and that I had taken off the distaste and blame from all the rest At our first entrance he merily told us That if I were but as fat as Dr. Manton we should all do well I told him if his Lordship could teach me the Art of growing fat he should find me not unwilling to learn by any good means He grew more serious and said That I was severe and strict like a Melancholy Man and made those things Sin which others did not And I perceived he had been possessed with displeasure towards me upon that account that I charged the Church and Liturgy with Sin and had not supposed that the worlt was but inexpendiency I told him that I had spoken nothing but what I thought and had given my Reasons for After other such Discourse we craved his Favour to procure the King's Declaration yet to be past into an Act and his Advice what we had further to do He consented that we should draw up an Address to his Majesty rendering him an account of all but desired that we would first shew it him which we promised § 238. When we shewed our Paper to the Lord Chancellour which the Brethren had desired me to draw up and had consented to without any alteration he was not pleased with some Passages in it which he thought too pungent or pressing but would not bid us put them out So we went with it to the Lord Chamberlain who had heard from the Lord Chancellor about it and I read it to him also and he was earnest with us to bloe out some Passages as too vehement and such as would not well be born I was very loth to leave them out but Sir Gilbirt Gerrard an ancient godly Man being with him and of the same mind I yielded having no remedy and being unmeer to oppose their Wisdoms any further And so what they Scored under we left out and presented the rest to his Majesty afterwards But when we came to present it the Earl of Manchester secretly told the rest that if Dr. Reignolds Dr. Bates and Dr. Manton would deliver it it would be the more acceptable intimating that I was grown unacceptable at Court But they would not go without me and he profest he desired not my Exclusion But when they told me of it I took my leave of him and was going away But he and they came after me to the Stairs and importuned me to return and I went with them to take my Farewel of this Service But I resolved that I would not be the Deliverer of any of our Papers though I had got them transcribed and brought them thither So we desired Dr. Manton to deliver our Petition and with it the fair Copies of all our Papers to the Bishops which was required of us for the King And when Bishop Reignolds had spoken a few words Dr. Manton delivered them to the King who received them and the Petition but did not bid us read it at all At last in his Speeches something fell in which Dr. Monton told him that the Petition gave him a full account of if his Majesty pleased to give him leave to read it whereupon he had leave to read it out The occassion was a short Speech which I made to inform his Majesty how far we were agreed with the Bishops and wherein the difference did not lye as in the Points of Loyalty Obedience Church Order c. This Dr. Monton also spake And the King but the Question But who shall be Iudge And I answered him That Judgment is either publick or private Private Judgement called Discretionis which is but the use of my Reason to conduct my Actions belongeth to every private rational Man Publick Iudgment is Ecclesiastical or Civil and belongeth accordingly to the Ecclesiastical Governours or Pastors and the Civil and not to any private Man And this was the end of these Affairs § 239. I will give you the Copy of the Petition just as I drew it up because 1. Here you may see what those words were which could not be tolerated 2. Because it is but supposing the under-scored Lines to be blotted out and you have it as it was presented without any Alteration For those under scored Lines were all the words that were left out To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The due Account and humble Petition of us Ministers of the Gospel lately Commissioned for the Review and Alteration of the Liturgy May it please your Majesty WHen this distempered Nation wearied with its own Contentions and Divisions did groan for Unity and Peace the wonderful Providence of the most Righteous God appearing for the removal of Impediments their Eyes were upon your Majesty as the Person born to be under God the Center of their Concord and taught by Affliction to break the Bonds of the Afflicted and by Experience of the lad Effects of Mens Uncharitableness and Passions to restrain all from Violence and Extremities and keeping Moderation and Mediocrity the Oyl of Charity and Peace And when these your Subjects Desires were accomplished in your Majesty's peaceable possession of your Throne it was the Joy and Encouragement of the Sober and Religions that you began the Exercise of your Government with a Proclaimation full of Christian Zeal against Debauchery and Prophaneness declaring also your dislike of those who under pretence of affection to your Majesty and your Service assume to themselves the liberty of Reviling Threatning and Reproaching others to prevent that Reconciliation and Union of Hearts and Affections which can only with God's Blessing make us rejoyce in each other Our Comforts also were carried on by your Majesty's early and ready Entertainment of
Lives zealously and constantly continue therein against all Opposition and promote the same according to our power against all Lets and Impediments whatsoever And that we are not able our selves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known that it may be timely prevented or removed All which we shall do as in the sight of God And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many Sins and Provocations against God and his Son Iesus Christ as is too manifest by our present Distresses and Dangers the Fruits thereof We profess and declare before God and the World our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own Sins and for the Sins of these Kingdoms especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts nor to walk worthy of him in our lives which are the Causes of other Sins and Transgressions so much abounding amongst us And our true and unfeigned purpose desire and endeavour for our selves and all others under our power and charge both in publick and in private in all Duties we owe to God and Man to amend our Lives and each one to go before another in the Example of a real Reformation That the Lord may turn away his Wrath and heavy Indignation and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in Truth and Peace And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty God the Searcher of all hearts with a true intention to perform the same as we shall answer at that great Day when the Secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed Most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his Holy Spirit for this end and to bless our Desires and Proceedings with such Success as may be Deliverance and Safety to his People and encouragement to other Christian Churches groaning under or in danger of the Yoke of Antichristian Tyranny to ioyn in the same or like Association and Covenant to the Glory of God the Inlargement of the Kingdom of Iesus Christ and the Peace and Tranquility of Christian Kingdoms and Common-wealths The Oath and Declaration imposed upon the Lay-Conformists in the Corporation Act the Vestry Act c. are as followeth The Oath to be taken I. A. B. do declare and believe That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King and that I do abhor that Traiterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissioned by him So help me God The Declaration to be Subscribed I. A. B. do declare That I hold there lyes no Obligation upon me or any ot her Person from the Oath commonly called The Solemn League and Covenant and that the same was in it self an unlawful Oath and imposed upon the Subjects of this Realm against the known Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom All Vestry Men to make and Subscribe the Declaration following I. A. B. do declare That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King and that I do abhor that Traiterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissioned by him And that I will Conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England as it is now by Law established And I do declare That I do hold there lyes no Obligation upon me or any other Person from the Oath commonly called The Solemn League and Covenant to indeavour any Change or Alteration of Government either in Church or State and that the same was in it self an unlawful Oath and imposed upon the Subjects of this Realm against the known Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom The Declaration thus Prefaced in the Act of Uniformity Every Minister after such reading thereof shall openly and publickly before the Congregation there assembled declare his unfeigned Assent and Consent to the use of all things in the said Book contained and prescribed in these words and no other I. A. B. do here declare my unfeigned Assent and Consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book Instituted The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England together with the Psalter or Psalms of David pointed as they are to be sung or said in Churches and the Forms or Manner of Making Ordaining and Consecrating of Bishops Priests and Deacons The Declaration to be Subscribed I. A. B. d◠declare That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King and that I abhor that Trayterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissionated by him and that I will Conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England as it is now by Law established And I do declare that I do hold there lyes no Obligation upon me or any other Person from the Oath commonly called The Solemn League and Covenant to endeavour any Change or Alteration of Government either in Church or State and that the same was in it self a◠unlawful Oath and imposed upon the Subjects of this Realm against the known Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom The Oath of Canonical Obedience EGo A. B. Iuro quod praestabo Veram Canonicam Obedientiam Episcopo Londinens◠ejusque Successoribus in omnibus licitis honestis § 302. II. The Nonconformists who take not this Declaration Oath Subscription c. are of divers sorts some being further distant from Conformity than others some thinking that some of the forementioned things are lawful and some that none of them are lawful and all have not the same Reasons for their dissent But all are agreed that it is not lawful to do all that is required and therefore they are all cast out of the Exercise of the Sacred Ministry and forbidden to preach the Word of God § 303. The Reasons commonly given by them are either 1. Against the Imposing of the things forementioned or 2. Against the Using of them being imposed Those of the former sort were given into the King and Bishops before the Passing of the Act of Uniformity and are laid down in the beginning of this Book and the Opportunity being now past the Nonconformists now meddle not with that part of the Cause it having seemed good to their Superiours to go against their Reasons But this is worthy the noting by the way that all that I can speak with of the Conforming Party do now justifie only the Using and Obeying and not the Imposing of these things with the Penalty by which they are Imposed From whence it is evident that most of their own Party do now justifie our Cause which we maintained at the Savoy which was against this Imposition whilst it might have been prevented and for which such an intemperate Fury hath
not the Primitive Episcopacy or any other sort but the present Diocesan Prelacy which was in being in England Ergo no other could be extirpated 2. Because when the Covenant was debated first in the Synod at Westminster abundance of Divines who Subscribed the Covenant did openly profess that they were not against Episcopacy and would not consent to it in any such sence 3. Because the said Divines upon that profession caused the Description of the word Prelacy to be exprest in a Parentheses which is only the Description of our Diocesan Frame which is to be seen in the words of the Covenant 4. Because when the House of Lords who imposed it did conjunctly and solemnly take the Covenant Mr. Tho. Coleman who preached and gave it them did openly declare at the giving and taking of it that it was not all Episcopacy that they renounced or vowed by this Covenant to extirpate but only the Diocesan Prelacy there described All this with the words themselves I think is sufficient Evidence of the matter of that Clause § 365. 2. And for the Persons here are especially three sorts in question 1. The King 2. The Parliament 3. The People The first question is Whether the People in the number allowed by the Act may not by humble petition endeavour a reforming Alteration of the Prelacy 2. Whether Parliament Men may not lawfully speak and vote for it 3. Whether King and Parliament may not alter it by altering the Laws If all these Actions be the endeavouring of a Duty or of a lawful Thing in their several Places and Callings and that be the very thing which the Vow obligeth them to then the question is Whether hereto it do not bind them § 366. 1. To say that the People may not so much as petition for a Thing so much concerning their Felicity is to take away not only that Liberty which the King hath in many of his Declarations against the Parliament professed to maintain but also such Liberty as Lawyers say is woven into the Constitution of the Kingdom by the Fundamental Laws and cannot be taken from them but by changing the Constitution yea and reducing them to a state below that of a Subject § 367. 2. To say that a Parliament Man may not speak or vote for such an alteration seemeth to be against the old unquestioned Priviledge of Parliaments which was never denied by the King who opposed them in other things And this Opinion also by such an Alteration of Parliaments would alter the Constituted Government of the Land § 368. 3. To say that the King and Parliament may not alter Prelacy by altering the Law doth seem to be the highest Injury to Soveraignty by denying the Legislative Power § 369. If it be a thing which the People may not petition for nor Parliament vote for nor speak for nor King and Parliament alter then either because the Law of God disableth them or the Common Good forbiddeth them or the Laws of the Land restraineth them from But it is none of these Ergo 1. It is before shewed That no Law of God hath established the English Form of Prelacy nay that the Law of God is repugnant to it 2. And that the Common Good forbiddeth not the Alteration but requireth it 3. And that no Law restraineth in any of the three formentioned Cases is plain in that there is no Law against the Peoples Petitioning as aforesaid nor can be without alteration of the Government And the King with his Parliament are above Laws and have power to make them and to abrogate them So that it seemeth a thing that may be done and a Vow turneth a may be into a must be where it is of force And thus far they think that there is no great difficulty in the Controversie § 370. Before I tell you their Answers to the contrary Reasons I may tell you that not only Dr. Sanderson granteth but all Conformists that ever I talkt with hereabout do agree with us in these following Points 1. That we must here distinguish between the Actum Imperantis the Actum Iurantis and the Materiam Iuramenti the Act of the Parliament imposing it the Act of the Persons taking it and the Matter of the Oath or Vow 2. And also between the Sinfulness of an Oath the Act of the Swearer and the Nullity of it 3. And that if the Imposers Act be sinful and the Taking Act be sinful yet the Oath is obligatory if the Matter vowed be not unlawful and the Actus Iurandi were not a Nullity as well as a Sin 4. That if there be six Articles in a Vow and four of them be unlawful this doth not disoblige the Swearer from the lawful part Otherwise an unlawful Clause put in may free a Man from a Vow for the most necessary Duties 5. That if a Nation take a Vow it is a personal Vow to every individual Person in that Nation who took it 6. That if there be in it a mixture of a Vow to God and a League Covenant or Promise to Men the Obligation of the Vow to God may remain when as a League or Covenant with Man ceaseth unless when the Vow is not co-ordinate but sabordinate to the League or Covenant as being only a Vow or Oath that it shall be faithfully performed 7. That if a Vow be imposed in lawful proper Terms it is not any unexpressed Opinion of the Imposers that maketh the Matter unlawful to the Taker 8. That if the Imposers be many Persons naturally making one collective Body â—o â—ence of theirs is to be taken as explicatory but what is in the words or otherwise publickly declared to the Takers Because they are supposed to be of different 〈◊〉 among themselves when they agree not in any Exposition 9. That though a Subject ought to take an Oath in the sence of his Rulers who impose it as far as he can understand is yet a Man that taketh an Oath from a Robâ—eâ— to sive his Life is not alway bound to take it in the Imposers sence if he take it not against the proper sence of the words 10. That though a Subject should do his best to understand the Imposers sence for the right taking of it yet as to the keeping of it he is bound much to the sence in which he himself took it though possibly he misunderstood the Imposers § 371. Now to their Answer to the Reasons of the Conformists Object 1. The End was evil to change the Government of Church and State withâ—â—â— Law which was setled by Law The Bishops were a part of the House of Lords and therefore could not be cast out but by their own consent and the whole Parliament's with the King Answ. 1. It is not the ill ends of the Persons imposing that can disoblige the Taker unless it had been the fiâ—is proximus ipsius Iuramenti essential to the Vow it self and inseparable from it The Ends of Parliaments may be manifold and unknown
which the People cannot know nor are bound to search after The words of the Vow it self are in our several Places and Callings we shall endeavour And this was the expressed work and end And this was not doing any thing against Law If a discontented Person now should say that the Parliaments End in the Act of Uniformity and that against Conventicles was Persecution and the Suppression of Religion and therefore they are not to be obeyed how would this hold while Uniformity and Peace are the published Ends and the rest are either uncertain or impertinent to us 2. Whether indeed the Imposers Ends were ill is a Controversie fit to be touched by it self They thought such a Change of Church-Government was a good End And for doing it against Law they put not that into the Swearers part in this Clause and proâ—essed the contrary themselves But if they did themselves purpose to do that against to Law which others swear to do in their Places and Calling that is according to Law are those others therefore not obliged to do what they vowed to do according to Law because the Imposers intended to do their part against Law 3. I suppose all the King's Party who took the Oath at their Composition had no ill end in it and are they not then to interpret it by their own Ends as it is their Personal Vow 4. If we reach Men that the bad Ends of the Imposers do disoblige Men from performing Vows materially good take heed left it follow that it will disoblige them much more from obeying Commands and Laws materially good And then every Subject will take himself to be disobliged who is but confident that Persecution Oppression c. were his Rulers Ends. What if a Man for evil Ends command me to obey the King or to worship God or to give to the Poor Or make me swear to do all this Doth not my Vow oblige me because he had evil Ends that drove me to it Nay if I had my self vowed to do all these for some evil end though it is certain that I must not do it to that end yet whether the change of my End does disoblige me also from my Vow as to the Matter is a difficult question which I think Casuists commonly resolve in the Negative But if any Man did mistake their Design and had good Ends himself while theirs were bad yea and the End commanded him were good the Case is much plainer 5. Who can say that the King had an ill End in taking it Or that his Place and Calling did not impower him to do that which in a Subject would have been illegal and that he may not lawfully endeavour accordingly And whereas it is said That the very War it self expounded their meaning who imposed it they being then in Arms against the King It is answered by the Non-Subscribers 1. That they openly professed to take up Arms only against Delinquent Subjects according to Law 2. That their misapplication made not good words to be bad to others 3. That if they make me swear to do it in my Place and Calling I am not obliged to expound this to be out of my Place and Calling because they go out of their Place and Calling And whereas it is said That the Bishops were part of the Parliament and so of the Civil Government â— It is answered 1. That the Parliament declared that they were no Constitutive Essential Unchangeable Part without whom the Acts of both Houses were invalid They were but part of the Lords House where they might be over-voted 2. The Scruple of the Non-Subscribers is not at all whether they are obliged to endeavour to dispossess them of their Baronies or Places in Parliament which is in the power of the King to give them but only about their Ecclesiastical Power and Government as here formed And if it could be proved that the Covenant intended both the Ejection of them from their Church Power and their Places in Parliament it followeth not that it obligeth not to the lawful act because it obligeth not to the unlawfulâ— 3. Nor can it easily be proved unlawful for the King and Parliament either to make a separation of these Powers or to take both from them and so set up the Primitive sort of Bishops either with or without any Civil Authority Abbots had once also a place in Parliament and yet they are now taken down it is supposed not unlawfully The King himself doth lawfully make Members of both Houses by making Earls and Barons and by giving Corporations power to choose Burgesses who before had none And as the new making of these so the excluding of some Members may be without any change in the Form of Civil Government Certainly many Fathers and Canons are against the Civil Government of the Clergy § 372. 2. The second objection is That the Authority of the Imposers was null as to that Act Answ. That is a distinct Controversie which here I shall pass by But granting it to be so no more will follow but that the People were not bound by any Command of theirs to take it But a Vow that is taken in my Closet without any Man's imposition or knowledge may be obligatory or one that a Robber forceth me to by the High-way The nullity of the Obligâ—â—on to take it is all that followeth the nullity of their Authority which will not infer the nullity of the Obligation to keep it for it maketh it but equal to a Vow which is made of a private Will without any Command of Authority at all § 373. 3. The third Reason which most nearly toucheth the Controversie is That the Matter vowed to extirpate Prelacy was unlawful both as against the Laws of God and of the Land Answ. If this be proved no doubt but the Obligation is void and of no effect But 1. It is before proved to be far from being against the Law of God to alter this Prelacy by warrantable means And also that it is not against the Law of the Land for Subjects modeâ—â—y to petition or Parliament Men to speak or the King and Parliament to change which are the Actions which belong to their Places and Callings And if it had been expresly part of the matter of that Vow to do this by unlawful means the question is Whether this can disoblige the Swearer from the lawful part adjoying which is to do it in their Places and Callings Whatever other matter is this matter is not yet proved to be unlawful § 374. Object But Episcopacy is Jure Divino and the Covenant mentioneth the extarpatien of Prelacy which is of the same Species with the other Episcopacy And therefore it is to be understood as to the extirpation of all Episcopacy and so not obligatory Answ. 1. It is before proved that our Prelacy is not of Divine Right but against it 2. And that it differeth even specically from the Primitive Episcopacy 3. But that 's nothing to the
Non-Subscribers to speak de materia necessaria 2. The Text expresly limiteth the indulgence to a daughter in the family or a wife and doth not extend it to the stronger Sex 3. It limiteth it to Families where the Ruler is still at hand and extendeth it not to Kingdoms 4. It doth not prove the Obligation null from the beginning but only dissolved afterward by the Father's or Husband's dispensation as many Verses express 5. Therefore to pretend a parity of reason for a King 's dispensing with his Subjects Vows is a bare pretence and unproved and disproved 6. If it would hold then it is in the power of Kings to save all their Subjects from the guilt of Perjury by dispensing with all their Vows 7. This Law in Numbers is no further in force than it appeareth to belong to the Law of Nature or of Christ For as Moses's Law it dy'd with Christ and was nailed to his Cross Though the general equity of it be still of force 8. How many Thousands in this Land and Scotland never knew of the King's Declaration against the Covenant How then could that dispense with their Vows which they never knew of nor possibly could know of being in the Parliaments Garrisons or Quarters 9. What 's this to all those that took it when the King was dead and therefore could not dispense with their Oaths 10. What is this to the King himself who took it long after his Father's Death over whom no man had a dispensing Power 11. What 's this to all those that took it after the present King had taken it and published a Declaration for it Did not this then confirm the Obligation Though for my part I am one of those that think that the Scots did ill unmannerly disobediently unlawfully inhumanly foolishly in forcing the King to take the Covenant against his will and to publish so harsh a Declaration against his Father's Actions contrary to his own Iudgment Yet it is his open Declarations and not his secret Unwillingness which his distant Subjects could take notice of So that this reason seemeth strongly to make against the pleaders of it because of the King 's confirming Act. § 378. 6. The sixth Reason is That the People cannot lawfully endeavour the change of Church Government without the King Answ. 1. Cannot the Subjects petition and the Parliament speak and vote without him and petition him also 2. Cannot a Bishop lawfully advise the King to do it if the King ask his Advice 3. Cannot the Subjects endeavour it if the King command them Are they all bound to disobey the King if he should command their Service for the Change of Prelacy into the Primitive Episcopacy Their Place and Calling is to do it when the King commandeth them And so many of them understood and took it And it seemeth too near a kin to Rebellion to say that no Subject must obey the King in such a matter though he swear it If you say This is never like to be I answer No Man knoweth what Change the Mind of Kings as well as other Men may admit And they that read the King's Declaration in Scotland thought they had a visible proof of it 4. And what 's all this to the King 's own Act who took it himself whom we must also by our Subscription disoblige § 379. 7. The seventh Reason answereth this That the King took not the same Covenant mentioned in the Act of Uniformity but another Answ. This is so thin a shift that the King himself doth not own it but saith That his Enemies drove him to it against his will As if mutatis mutandis the various Names and Cases of Persons made an Oath or Covenant not to be the same Because it 's said in the beginning We Noble men Knights c. and not We the King and Nobles they suppose another Name or Person maketh it specifically another Covenant Or because the Article of protecting the King's Person belonged not to him to take § 380. 8. Another Reason is That the King was forced to it Answ. The more to be blamed are they that did it then But all the World acknowledgeth that the Will of Man cannot be forced absolutely and that a voluntary Act though caused by necessity or terrour is moral and that a Promise made to Man much more a Vow to God in materia licita though forced by a Robber that would take away ones Life may yet be Obligatory A Man that may choose whether he will vow or die is bound by his Vow if he choose it before Death Though yet the choosing it may possibly be his sin § 381. 9. Mr. Fullwood's great Reason is That the King was pre-engaged to take the Corporation Oath as Heir of the Crown and consequently engaged to Episcopacy and consequently he was not obliged against it by the Covenant Answ. 1. If he were not obliged to take the Crown he was not obliged to take that Oath If he were obliged under the Peril of a Sin to take the Crown then Charles the Fifth and other Princes that have laid down Crowns or refused them have sinned unless some peculiar Reason be here brought But this is not affirmed by any That a Prince may not lawfully refuse a Crown unless when it would hazard the Happiness of the Kingdom 2. He might have taken the Crown with an alteration of that Oath Who ever said That the King and Parliament have not power to change that Oath who can change the Laws 3. Who can prove that it is any violation of that Oath or wrong to the liberties of the Church which the King sweareth to preserve to change the Prelacy into the Primitive Episcopacy by taking down Lay-Chancellors and restoring Pastoral Power c. any more than it was to take down Abbots and to cast out the Pope and to subject the Clergy to the Magistrate who before were much exempt All these seem to be much more against the Liberties of that which was called the Church when this Oath was formed than the shewing Mercy to Prelates and the whole Land by reducing them to a lawful rank can be 4. Do any Casuists in the World teach such Doctrine That a former Oath is null because some Conveniencies required the taking of a later 5. If this hold true then God's Law which is former and higher than all having first made it as many Non-Subscribers think a sin to cherish the Diocesan Frame at all and consequently to swear to do it the question is Whether the Obligation to swear the upholding of them or the Obligation not to swear it were the greater § 382. To Mr. Fullwood's further Reason is That it is injustice to cast out so many Men from their possessed Dignities and Estates and therefore no Vow can oblige any to it Answ. 1. If indeed it were so then the Vow extending but to our Places and Callings cannot bind us to it But is it any Injustice to make a Law
obliged by the Covenant to endeavour any Alteration of Church-Government Let them write or say openly Men are obliged by the Covenant to endeavour it by lawful means but not by unlawful and let them give leave to another to accuse them in a Court of Justice for these words and let it be there tried and judged and then the sence of the Law will be declared If they be in the right the Accuser shall lose his Costs and no danger can befal them If they be not in the right they will be punished by Confiscation And is not the hazard of such a Law Suit cheap enough for a Man to save himself and others from so great a Guilt as the Justification of three Kingdoms in the Sin of Perjury if it so prove And yet I could never hear of the Man that would hazard his Estate thus on the confidence of his Exposition of the Law but multitudes venture their Souls upon it 4. The Parliament who is the Expounder of their own Laws have given us their sence of the Subject of our Controversie in a former Law which puts all out of doubt For in the Corporation Act all Men are put out of Power and Trust who will not declare that absolutely without any limitation There is no Obligation upon me or any other person from the Oath called c. so that all Obligation to any thing at all by that Vow is in this most important Act denied and the profession of this denial thus imposed By which it is past doubt that the Law-makers sence is against all Obligation absolutely 5. And that it is so is well know to those that know what was said in the Parliament when among the Commons this Reason carried it viz. That if any Obligation at all be acknowledged even to things lawful every seditious person will be left to think that he is bound to all which he conceiveth lawful which with some will be to resist the King or commit Treason Therefore all Obligation absolutely must be denied I confess such Villains there may be and they should be carefully restrained but as I doubt this Act of Parliament will no whit change their belief of their Obligations for they will think Parliaments cannot dispense with Oaths or with the Laws of God so it is a sad remedy for such villanous Errours to disoblige Men from the lawful part of Vows for fear lest they take the unlawful to be lawful As it is to teach Men to take nothing which God commandeth to be their Duty for fear least they should take ther Sin to be their Duty § 387. Object But what if the Bishop give me liberty to put in the word unlawfully or to Subscribe only in that sence may I not then lawfully do it Answ. This was the only Expedient to draw in Nonconformists heretofore and so it hath proved of late again But I distinguish 1. There is much difference between Subscribing the very words of the Act with the verbal or by-addition of your own Explication and the putting in of your Explicatory words into the Sentence which you Subscribe 2. Between Subscribing this as the imposed Declaration in the Act and Subscribing it only as another thing 3. Between the secret and the open Explication of your Mind For my part if the word unlawfully had been joyned to endeavour by the Law-makers I would not have scrupled to Subscribe that part of the Declaration But 1. the Bishop is not the Law-maker and therefore hath no more power than a private Man to expound the Law Nor is he so much as a Iudge in this business who may expound it in order to the decision of a particular Cause but only a Witness that you Subscribe 2. If you only Subscribe the very words of the Declaration and speak your Explication or write it in a by-paper you do then provide an insufficient Plaister for the Sore you do that which is evil in it self and would cure it by an uneffectual accidental Medicine You harden both the Imposers and Subscribers by your Scandal while you are said to Subscribe the very thing imposed whose sence is so plain that your Exposition is but an apparent ludicrous distortion As if I were commanded to Subscribe this Sentence God hath no knowledge nor no love The Imposer understandeth it vulgarly and blasphemously The words in the most strict and proper sence are true which cannot be said in our Case because knowledge and love are spoken primarily of the Creatures Acts and are not in God formaliter but eminenter that is somewhat more excellent which hath no other name because we have no formal Conceptions of them but must speak of God after the manner of Men while Man is the Glass and Image by which we know him yet would I not Subscribe this imposed Proposition while the Imposer meaneth it blasphemously because it is a heinous Scandal to be said to Subscribe and own such Villany and so to encourage others to it no though I might express my sence 3. Especially I may express it but privately where the Remedy against the Scandal will be ineffectual But if you may Subscribe the whole Sentence with your own words therein and that not as it is the imposed Declaration which is otherwise expounded by the Law-makers themselves but as another and may make this as publick and notorious as your Subscription it self is then I have less to say against it There are no words utterable which a Man may not put a good sence on if he please And yet I durst not so far play with Death and comply with the Spirit of Impiety as to Subscribe that There is no God or God is unjust or unwise or unholy c. though I had liberty to say I mean it in this or that sence which is true and warrantable § 388. 4. Another Motive of the Latitudinarians to Subscribe is That by to endeavour any Change or Alteration of Government in the Church is meant only any change of the Species of our Church-Government and not any Reformation of integral or accidental Defects or Depravations Answ. 1. And yet these very Men do profess to believe with Mr. Stillingfleet That no Form of Church-Government is of Divine Appointment or Imposition And if so why is it not lawful for the King and Parliament to change that which God hath not made necessary Or for Subjects to endeavour it by Petition 2. It is agreed on by Casuists and their Bishop of Lincoln Dr. Sanderson with the rest That Oaths are to be taken sensu strictiore and so are Laws and those especially which determine of the Obligation of Oaths But it is an unwarrantable audacious liberty for any Subject unnecessarily thus to turn an Universal Enunciation into a Definite and Particular and when the Law saith any alteration of Government to say that some alteration is not included Their reason is because it is said of and not in Government Answ. There is no Language much
It is a transient Image used as a means of Worship Therefore unlawful by the Second Commandment 2. It is a stated Human Ordinance in God's Worship an instituted fixed Sacramental dedicating Sign 3. It is no less than the Covenant of Grace which it signifieth yea somewhat of God's part as well as ours and acted by the Minister and not by the Parents as a professing Sign It signifieth the Cross and Sufferings of Christ the Ground and Seal of the Covenant on his part And if God would have had such Sacraments used he could as well have instituted them as he did the rest VII § 414. The 7th Controversie is about Actual Administrations according to the Common Prayer and Canons 1. We dare not when we give the Sacrament to others refuse it to all those faithful Persons who fear to take it kneeling lest it be Idolatry Though I can so take it my self I cannot execute so unjust an Imposition as to cast out Christ's Members upon that account no more than to cast out Children for crying or for being Children And I think it better for me not to meddle with the Sacrament at all than to be guilty of such Oppression Uncharitableness Injustice and Division and to do such actual wrong to one part that I may give the Sacrament to the other part § 415. 2. And I dare not knowingly Baptize those Children that are not in the Covenant of God nor call every Child regenerate without exception that can but have Godfathers Nor dare I while I receive all these reject all the Children of godly Parents who dare not bring them to be Baptized with the Sacrament of the Cross. To say that others forbid me is nothing while I must be the Executioner of their Decrees § 416. 3. And I dare not if I undertake a Pastoral Charge give the Sacrament to the notoriously unworthy though the Chancellor absolve him or never question him nor utterly neglect all that part of Discipline which belongeth to my Office though Men forbid it nor be guilty of all that corruption and confusion which the neglect of Discipline bringeth into the Church 4. Nor dare I absolutely pronounce a wicked Man forgiven if in his sickness he superficially say I repent 5. Nor dare I at the Burial of every notorious wicked Man that is not Unbaptized Excommunicate nor a Self-murderer solemnly pronounce That God hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother c. lest I harden the wicked in their damnable Presumption If the Child of the holiest Parent die unbaptized we must not say these words for it that is in their Language we must not bury it by the Office of the Church with Christian Burial but such are numbred with the Excommunicate and Self-murderers But if a hundred Thieves Adulterers Drunkards die or Murderers or Traytors be hanged for ther sin though they never so much as say I repent but justifie themselves to the last breath yet must we bury them all with these words God hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother to teach the People to give him the lie who giveth himself the lie by preaching that the Impenitent and Wicked are not saved And to teach all the most ungodly to look to speed as well as others Purgatory is a better Doctrine than this for it leaveth the Wicked under some awe Yet all this we must Assent and Consent to and use if we will have leave to preach in the Publick Churches Nor do the little poor Evasions used for these things seem worth the answering It tendeth to the vitiating also of the Commonwealth to pronounce thus the Salvation of every Traytor Thief Murderer as well as of Drunkards Whoremongers and Atheists who never so much as said We repent How can we preach the Misery of Sinners or the Necessity of Renovation and Sanctification without contradicting our selves when we must tell a Man in the Pulpit That except be repent be shall perish and if he live after the flesh he shall die and without holiness he shall not see God And yet if he die without one Penitent word we must say God hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother So much of the Controversie between the present Conformists and Non-conformists § 417. Having thus interposed the State of the Controversie and Cause of the Ejected Ministers of England and so being got past Barthelomew-day I proceed in the History of the consequent Calamities When I was absent resolving to meddle in such Businesses there no more Mr. Calamy and the other Ministers of London who had Acquaintance at the Court were put in hope that the King would grant that by way of Indulgence which was before denied them And that before the Act was past it might be provided That the King should have power to dispense with such as deserved well of him in his Restoration or whom he pleased But that was frustrate And after that they were told that the King had power himself to dispense in such Cases as he did with the Duteb and French Churches Ane some kind of Petition I have not a Copy of it they drew up to offer the King But when they had done it they were so far from procuring their Desires that there fled abroad grievous Threatnings against them that they should incur a Premunire for such a bold attempt when they were drawn to it at first they did it with much hesitancy through former Experience and they worded it so cauteously that it extended not to the Papists Some of the Independents presumed to say That the Reason why all our Addresses for Liberty had not succeeded was because we did not extend it to the Papists and that for their parts they saw no reason why the Papists should not have Liberty of Worship as well as others and that it was better for them to have it than for all us to go without it But the Presbyterians still answered to that motion That the King might himself do what he pleased and if his Wisdom thought meet to give Liberty to the Papists let the Papists petition for it as they did for theirs But if it be expected by any that it shall be forced upon them to become Petitioners for Liberty for Popery they should never do it whatever be the issue Nor shall it be said to be their work § 418. On the 26th of Decemb. 1662. the King sent forth a Declaration expressing his purpose to grant some Indulgence or Liberty in Religion with other matters not excluding the Papists many of whom had deserved so well of him When this came out the ejected Ministers began to think more confidently of some Indulgence to themselves Mr. Nye also and some others of the Independents were encouraged to go to the King and when they came back told us That he was now resolved to give them Liberty On the Second of Ianuary Mr. Nye came to me to treat about our
Learned and Worthy Man Mr. Shaw another Silenc'd Miâ—ister and his Brother in Law who being shut up gave God Thanks for his Deliverance in a very Learned and Profitable Treatise which he Published thereupon And since being found not only very Learned but moderate and holding Communion in the Publick Assemblies and a peaceable Man hath got connivance to Teach a Publick School a great favour in these Times 3. Mr. Roberts a Godly Welsh Minister who also flying from the Plague fell Sick as far off as between Shrewsbury and Oswestry and died on a little Straw while none durst entertain him § 4. It is scarce possible for People that live in a time of Health and Security to apprehend the dreadfulness of that Pestilence How fearful People were thirty or forty if not an hundred Miles from London of any thing that they bought from any Mercer's or Draper's Shop or of any Goods that were brought to them or of any Person that came to their Houses How they would shut their Doors against their Friends and if a Man passed over the Fields how one would avoid another as we did in the time of Wars and how every Man was a Terrour to another O how sinfully unthankful are we for our quiet Societies Habitations and Health § 5. Not far from the place where I sojourned at Mrs. Fleetwood's three Ministers of extraordinary worth were together in one House Mr. Clearkson Mr. Sam. Cradock and Mr. Terry Men of singular Judgment Piety and Moderation and the Plague came into the House where they were one Person dying of it which caused many that they knew not of earnestly to pray for their Deliverance and it pleased God that no other Person dyed § 6. But one great Benefit the Plague brought to the City that is it occasioned the Silenc'd Ministers more openly and laboriously to Preach the Gospel to the exceeding comfort and profit of the People insomuch that to this Day the freedom of Preaching which this occasioned cannot by the daily Guards of Soldiers nor by the Imprisonments of Multitudes be restrained The Ministers that were Silenced for Nonconformity had ever since 1662. done their Work very privately and to a few not so much through their timorousness as their loathness to offend the King and in hope still that their forbearance might procure them some Liberty and through some timorousness of the People that should hear them And when the Plague grew hot most of the Conformable Ministers fled and left their Flocks in the time of their Extremity whereupon divers Non-comformists pitying the dying and distressed People that had none to call the impenitent to Repentance noâ— to help Men to prepare for another World nor to comfort them in their Terrors when about Ten Thousand dyed in a Week resolved that no obedience to the Laws of any mortal Men whosoever could justifie them for neglecting of Men's Souls and Bodies in such extremities no more than they can justifie Parents for fanishing their Children to death And that when Christ shall say Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these ye did it not to me It will be a poor excuse to say Lord I was forbidden by the Law Therefore they resolved to stay with the People and to go in to the forsaken Pulpits though prohibited and to preach to the poor People before they dyed and also to visit the Sick and get what relief they could for the Poor especially those that were shut up Those that set upon this work were Mr. Thomas Vincent late Minister in Milk-street with some Strangers that came thither since they were Silenced as Mr. Chester Mr. Ianeway Mr. Turner Mr. Grimes Mr. Franklin and some others Those heard them one Day oft that were sick the next and quickly dyed The Face of Death did so awaken both the Preachers and the Hearers that Preachers exceeded themselves in lively fervent Preaching and the People crowded constantly to hear them and all was done with so great Seriousness as that through the Blessing of God abundance were converted from their Carelesness Impenitency and youthful Lusts and Vanities and Religion took that hold on the Peoples Hearts as could never afterward be loosed § 7. And at the same time whilst God was consuming the People by these Judgments and the Nonconformists were labouring to save Men's Souls the Parliament which sate at Oxford whither the King removed from the danger of the Plague was busie in making an Act of Confinement to make the Silenc'd Ministers Case incomparably harder than it was before by putting upon them a certain Oath which if they refused they must not come except the Road within five Miles of any City or of any Corporation or any place that sendeth Burgesses to the Parliament or of any place where-ever they had been Ministers or had preached since the Act of Oblivion So little did the Sense of God's terrible Judgments or of the necessities of many hundred thousand ignorant Souls or the Groans of the poor People for the Teaching which they had lost or the fear of the great and final Reckoning affect the Hearts of the Prelatists or stop them in their way The chief Promoters of this among the Clergy were said to be the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Dr. Seth-Ward the Bishop of Salisbury And one of the greatest Adversaries of it in the Lord's House was the very Honourable Earl of Southampton Lord Treasurer of England a Man that had ever adhered to the King but understood the interest of his Country and of Humanity It is without Contradiction Reported that he said No honest Man would take that Oath The Lord Chancellor Hide also and the rest of the Leaders of that mind and way promoted it and easily procured it to pass the Houses notwithstanding all that was said against it § 8. By this Act the Case of the Ministers was made so hard that many thought themselves necessitated to break it not only by the necessity of their office but by a natural impossibility of keeping it unless they should murder themselves and their Families As to a moral Necessity as they durst not be so Sacrilegious as to desert the Sacred Office wholly to which they were consecrated which would be worse than Ananias and Sapphird's Alienating their devoted Money so they could hardly exercise any part of their Office if they did obey this Act. For 1. The Cities and Corporations are the most considerable part of the Kingdom and also had for the most part the greatest need of help partly because of the numerousness of the People For in many Parishes in London the fourth part nay in some the tenth part cannot be contained in the publick Temples if they came so as to hear what is said Partly also because most Corporations having smaller Maintenance than the Rural Parishes are worse provided for by the Conformists And every where the private Work of Over-sight and Ministerial Help is through their Numbers greater than many
Court of Justice declare That the King by his Laws commandeth us to assist the Sheriffs and Justices notwithstanding any Commission to the contrary under the great or little Seal and one shew us a Commission to the contrary which must we take for the King's Authority 8. Whether this extendeth to the Case of King Iohn who delivered the Kingdom to the Pope Or to those Instances of Bilson Barcley Grotius c. of changing the Government putting by the true Heir to whom we are Sworn in the Oath of Allegiance c. if Subjects pretend Commission for such Acts 9. Whether Parliament Judges in Court or private Men may by the King's Authority in his Laws defend their Lives against any that by a pretended Commission invadeth them or their Purses Houses or Companions 10. Whether we must take every Affirmer to have a Commission if he shew it not Or every shewn Commission to be current and not surreptitious though contrary to Law 11. Whether he violateth not this Oath who should endeavour to alter so much of the Legislative Power as is in the Parliament or the Executive in the Established Courts of Justice Or is it meant only of Monarchy as such 12. Doth he not break this Oath who should endeavour to change the Person Governing as well as he that would change the Form of Government 13. If so doth it not also tye us to the Persons of Church-Governours seeing they are equally here twisted and Church-Government preposed 14. Is it the King 's Coercive Government of the Church by the Sword which is here meant according to the Oath of Supremacy Or Spiritual Government by the Keys Or both 15. Is it not the English Form of Church-Government by Diocesans that is here meant and not some other sort of Episcopacy which is not here And doth he not break this Oath who instead of a Bishop over 500 or 1000 Churches without any inferiour Bishop should endeavour to set up a Bishop in every great Church or Market-Town or as many as the Work requireth 16. Seeing Excommunication and Absolution are the notable parts of Spiritual Government and it is not only the Actions but the Actors or Governours that we Swear not to alter and Lay-Chancellors are the common Actors or Governours whether an endeavour to alter Lay-Chancellors Government as some did that procured his Majesty's Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs be not contrary to this Oath and excluded by any alteration 17. Whether petitioning or other peaceable means before allowed by Law be not any endeavour and a violation of this Oath 18. Whether not at any time c. tye us not to disobey the King if he should command us by Consultation or Conference to endeavour it Or if the Law be changed doth not this Oath still bind us Lastly Whether this following Sense in which we could take it be the true sense of the Oath I A B do Swear That a it is not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever b to take up Arms against the King c And that I do abhor that Traytorous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissionated by him d in pursuance of such Commission And that I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of Government either in Church or State e a In my Opinion b For the Subjects of his Majesty's Dominions c Either his Authority or his Person the Law forbidding both d Whether it be his Parliament Courts of Justice Legal Officers or any other Persons authorized by his publick Laws or his Commission supposing that no contrariety of Laws and Commissions by over-sight or otherwise do Arm the Subjects against each other e I will not endeavour any alteration of State-Government at all either as to the Person of the King or the Species of Government either as to the Legislative or Executive Power as in the King himself or his Parliament or Established Courts of Justice And therefore I declare That I take all the rest of this Oath only in a Sense consistent with this Clause implying no alteration in the Government And I will endeavour no alteration of the Coercive Government of the Church as it is in the King according to the Oath of Supremacy Nor any alienation of the Spiritual Power of the Keys from the Lawful Bishops and Pastors of the Church Nor will I endeavour to restore the Ancient Discipline by removing the Spiritual Government by the Keys out of the Hands of Lay-Chancellors into the Hands of so many able Pastors as the number of Churches and necessity of the work requireth nor any other Reformation of the Church by any Rebellious Schismatical or other unlawful means whatsoever nor do I believe that any Vow or Covenant obligeth me thereto declaring notwithstanding that it 's none of my meaning to bind my self from any Lawful Means of such Reformation nor to disobey the King if at any time He command me to endeavour the Alteration of any thing justly alterable The General Answer was as followeth UPon Serious Consideration of the Act of Parliament Entitled An Act for Restraining of Nonconformists from Inhabiting in Corporations And of the Oath therein mentioned I am of Opinion That there is nothing contained in that Oath according to the true Sense thereof But that it is not Lawful to take up Arms against the King or any Authorised by his Commission or for a private Person to endeavour the Alteration of the Monarchical Government in the State or the Government by Bishops in the Church And that any Person notwithstanding the taking of such Oath if he apprehend that the Lay-Judges in Bishop's Courts as to Sentence of Excommunication for Matters meerly Ecclesiastical or for any other Cause ought to be Reformed or that Bishopricks are of too large extent may safely Petition or use any lawful Endeavour for Reformation of the same For that such Petition or other Lawful Endeavour doth not tend to the Alteration of the Government but to the amendment of what shall be found amiss in the Government and Reformed by Lawful Authority and thereby the Government better Established And I conceive every Exposition of the said Oath upon Supposition or Presumption of an Obligation thereby to any thing which is contrary to the Law of God or the Kingdom is an illegal and a forced Exposition contrary to the intent and meaning of the said Oath and Act of Parliament for it is a Rule nullum iniquum est in Lege praesumendium And an Exposition tending to enjoyn any thing contrary to the Law of God would make the Act of Parliament void which ought not to be admitted when it bears a fair and plain Sense which is no more Than that Subjects ought not to take up Arms against their Lawful King or such as lawfully Commissionated by him and for private Persons to be unquiet in the place wherein they live to the disturbance of the Government in Church or State Iohn Fountain Feb. 6.
any thing amiss in the Government of Church or State Established by Law If Endeavour be taken in its Latitude it is a perfect contradiction to this Law 3. The Testimonies of several Members of both Houses who assured us that in the Debate this was the declared Sense of the Parliament Sir Heneage Finch told me the intention of it was only to have security from us without any respect to our Iudgments concerning the Government that we would not disturb the Peace and that it was imposed at this Season in regard of our Wars with France and Holland He added it was a tessera of our Loyalty and those who refused it would be looked on as Persons reserving themselves for an Opportunity My Lord Chamberlain said the Bishops of Canterbury and Winchester declared it only excluded Seditious Endeavours and upon his urging that it might be expressed the Arch Bishop replyed It should be added but the King being to come at Two of the Clock it could not with that Explication be sent down to the House of Commons and returned up again within that time The Bishop of Exeter told Dr. Tillotson That the first Draught of this Oath was in Terms a Renunciation of the Covenant but it was answered they have suffered for that already and that the Ministers would not recede it was therefore reasonable to require security in such Words as might not touch the Covenant 4. The concurrent Opinion of the Iudges who are the Authorized Interpreters of Law who declared that only tumultuous and seditious Endeavours are meant Iudge Bridgman Twisden Brown Archer Windham Atkins who were at London had agreed in this Sense Some of the Ministers were not satisfied because the Opinion of a Iudge in his Chamber was no Iudicial Act but if it were declared upon the Bench it would much resolve their Doubts I addressed my Self to my Lord Bridgman and urged him that since it was a Matter of Conscience and the Oaths were to be taken in the greatest simplicity he would sincerely give me his Opinion about it He professed to me that the Sense of the Oath was only to exclude seditious and tumultuous Endeavours and said he would go to the Sessions and declare it in the Court He wrote down the Words he intended to speak and upon my declaring that if he did not express that only seditious Endeavours were meant I could not take the Oath be put in the Paper before me that word and told me that Iudge Keeling was of his Mind and would be there and be kind to us The Ministers esteemed this the most publick Satisfaction for Conscience and Fame and several of them agreed to go to the Sessions and take the Oath that hereby if possible they might vindicate Religion from the Impâ—tation of Faction and Rebellion and make it evident that Consciences only hindereth their Conformity Some of the most unsatisfied were resolved to take it We came in the afternoon on Friday to the Court where seven Ministers had taken it in the Morning At our appearance the Lord Bridgman addrest himself to us in these Words Gentlemen I perceive you are come to take the Oath I am glad of it The intent of it is to distinguish between the King 's good Subjects and those who are mentioned in the Act and to prevent Seditious and Tumultuous Endeavours to alter the Government Mr. Clark said in this Sense we take it The Lord Keeling spake with some quickness Will you take the Oath as the Parliament hath appointed it I replyed My Lord We are come hither to attest our Loyalty and to declare we will not seditiously endeavour to alter the Government He was silent and we took the Oath being 13 in number After this the Lord Keeling told us He was glad that so many had taken the Oath and with great vehemency said We had renounced the Covenant in two Principal Points that damnable Oath which sticks between the Teeth of so many And he hoped That as here was one King and one Faith so here would be one Government And if we did not Conform it would be judged we did this to save a stake These Words being uttered after by his Silence he had approved what my Lord B. had spoke of the Sense of the Act and our express Declaration that in that Sense we took it you may imagine how surprizing they were to us It was not possible for us to recollect our selves from the Confusion which this caused so as to make any reply We retired with sadness and what the consequences will be you may easily fore-see Some will reflect upon us with severity judging of the nature of the Action by this check of Providence Others who were resolved to take the Oath recoil from it their Iealousies being increased I shall trouble you no longer but assure you That notwithstanding this accident doth not invalidate the Reasons for the lawfulness of it in our apprehensions yet the fore-sight of this would have caused us to suspend our proceedings The good Lord sanctifie this Providence to us and teach us to commit our dearest Concernments unto him in the performance of our Duty to whose Protection I commend you and remain Yours intirely William Bates London Feb. 22. After my Lord Keeling's Speech Sir Iohn Babor enquired of Lord Bridgman whilst he was on the Bench Whether the Ministers had renounced the Covenant He answer'd the Covenant was not concerned in it Mr. Calamy Watson Gouge and many others had taken the Oath this Week but for this unhappy Accident My Lord Bridgman came to the Sessions and declared the Sense of the Oath with my Lord Chancellor's allowance But all the Reasons contain'd in this Letter seem'd not to me to enervate the force of the fore-going Objections or solve the Difficulties § 24. A little before this L. B. and Sir S. committed such horrid wickedness in their Drinking acting the part of Preachers in their Shirts in a Balcony with Words and Actions not to be named that one or both of them was openly censured for it in Westminster-Hall by one of the Courts of Justice You will say Sure it was a shameful Crime indeed And shortly after a Lightning did seize on the Church where the Monuments of the were and tore it melted the Leads and brake the Monuments into so small pieces that the people that came to see the place put the Scraps with the Letters on into their Pockets to shew as a Wonder and more wonderful than the consumption of the rest by fire § 25. In this time the Haunting of Mr. Mompesson's House in Wiltshire with strange Noises and Motions for very many Months together was the Common Talk Of which Mr. Ios. Glanvil having wrote the Story I say no more § 26. The Number of Ministers all this while either imprisoned sined or otherwise afflicted for preaching Christ's Gospel when they were forbidden was so great that I forbear to mention them particularly § 27. The War began with
that was Governour of our Fort at Sheerness had not fortifyed it and deserted it And so they came up to Chatham and burnt some of our greatest Ships and took away some while we partly lookt on and partly resisted to no great purpose And had they but come up to London they might have done much more This cast us into a great consternation § 45. At this time the King came in person among the Citizens to perswade them not to desert him and made a Speech to them at Tower-Hill not here to be recited And he had now great Experience of the Loyalty of the Citizens who after such sufferings and under such pressures in matters of Conscience and of worldly Interest even in such extremity were neither proved to do or say any thing that was contrary to their fidelity to the King § 46. The firing of London which was most commonly suppos'd to be done by the Papists and the Wars with the French did raise greater Jealousies of the Papists than had appeared before so that weekly News came to London from many Counties that the Papists were gathering Horse and Arms and that some of them had got Troops under pretence of the Militia or Volunteers to be ready for our defence The Parliament hereupon declared themselves more against them than was expected which greatly troubled the Papists The Royalists in many Countries were almost ready to disarm them especially the E. of Derby in Lancashire was wholly true to the Protestant Interest Whereupon the Papists thought it policy to live more privately and to cease their oftentation and to obscure their Arms and Strength and to do their work in a more secret way And some of them Printed an Address to the Royalists to plead kindness and affinity of dispositions with them telling them that they hoped that they that had fought and suffered in one cause for the King against the Puritans should have continued in the same Union and Kindness and that they would not have been so much against them This was answered solidly by Dr. Loid And doubtless the Papists had never so great a dejection and disappointment since the King came in For they seemed to think that the Parliament and Royalists had been so distracted with malice and revenge against the Puritans as that they would have been content that London was burnt and would have done any thing that they would have them even against themselves their Countrey their Religion and Posterity so it had but favoured of that revenge But it proved otherwise § 47. Whilest that all these Calamities especially our loss and disgrace by the Dutch must be laid on some or other the Parliament at last laid all upon the Lord Chancellor Hide And the King was content it should be so Whereupon many Speeches were made against him and an Impeachment or Charge brought in against him and vehemently urged and among other things that he counselled the King to Rule by an Army which many thought as bad as he was he was the chief means of hindering And to be short when they had first sought his Life at last it was concluded that his banishment should satisfy for all And so he was banished by an Act during his Life The sale of Dunkirk to the French and a great comely House which he had new built increased the displeasure that was against him but there were greater Causes which I must not Name § 48. And it was a notable providence of God that this Man that had been the grand Instrument of State and done almost all and had dealt so cruelly with the Nonconformists should thus by his own friends be cast out and banished while those that he had persecuted were the most moderate in his Cause and many for him And it was a great ease that befell good people throughout the Land by his dejection For his way was to decoy men into Conspiracies or to pretend plots and when upon the rumour of a plot the innocent people of many Countries were laid in prison so that no man knew when he was safe Whereas since then tho Laws have been made more and more severe yet a Man knoweth a little better what to expect when it is by a Law that he is to be tryed And it is notable that he that did so much to make the Oxford Law for banishing Ministers from Corporations that took not that Oath doth in his Letter from France since his banishment say that he never was in favour since the Parliament Sat at Oxford § 49. Before this the Duke of Buckingham being the head of his Adversaries had been overtopt by him and was fain to hide himself till the Dutch put us in fear and then he appeared and rendered himself and went prisoner to the Tower but with so great Acclamations of the People in the Streets as was a great Discouragement to the Chancellor And the D. of Buckingham was quickly set at liberty Whereupon as the Chancellor had made himself the head of the Prelatical party who were all for setting up themselves by force and suffering none that were against them so Buckingham would now be the head of all those parties that were for liberty of Conscience For the Man was of no Religion but notoriously and professedly lustful And yet of greater wit and parts and sounder Principles as to the interest of Humanity and the Common good than most Lords in the Court Wherefore he Countenanced Fanaticks and Sectaries among others without any great suspicion because he was known to be so far from them himself Though he marryed the Daughter and only Child of the Lord Fairfax◠late General of the Parliament's Army and is his heir hereby yet far enough from his mind but yet a defender of the Priviledges of Humanity § 50. Before this also the Earl of Bristol had attempted to pull down the Chancellor and to bring in a Charge against him into the Parliament But the King soon quelled him And being a Papist he hath lain latent or quiet ever since as unfit to appear in publick businesses And Buckingham performed the Work § 51. In October following the Parliament gave thanks to the King for removing the Lord Chancellor But they were vehement in seeking an account of the Moneys which have been granted for the publick service and also to have an account of the business at Chatham by whose fault it was that the Dutch were unresisted and surprized our shipping And Committees were appointed for these purposes and a great deal of talk and stir was made about them for a long time but they could never attain their ends but they that were faulty had friends enow to procure their security And tho the Parliament grudged at it and sometimes talkt high yet this made no alteration in our Affairs § 52. One notable disadvantage which we had by the Dutch attempt was that it drew down our new raised In-land Souldiers into Kent towards Sherness where the unhealthful Air
Bishops had their first Ordination of them by Pomeranus and others that were no Bishops And most Protestants hold That Baptism is null which is not performed by a Minister of Christ. Because no one else is Authorized to deliver God's part of the Covenant or to receive the Covenanter or invest him in the Christian State and Privileges VI. We dare not so far strengthen the cause of the Anabaptists as to declare thus far That all the People of England and all Protestant-Churches as were Baptized by such as had not Ordination by Diocesans are to be Re-baptized VII We dare not so far harden the Papists and honour their cause nor tempt the People to Popery as to seem to consent that their Churches Ministry and Baptism is true and the Protestant Ministry Churches and Baptism is false Nor dare we teach them if which God forbid they should get the power of governing us to call us all again to be Re-ordained and Re-baptized Our Liturgy bidding us to take private Baptism as valid if the Child was Baptized by any Lawful Minister intimating that else it is invalid and so that seemeth the Iudgment of the Church of England VIII We dare not tempt any other Sects or Vsurpers to expect that as oft as they can get the upper hand we must be Re-ordained and Re-baptized at their pleasure IX We dare not make a Schism in our Congregations by tempting the Pastors to reject most of the People from the Communion as unbaptized Persons X. We dare not dishonour the King and Parliament so far as to encourage them to confirm these Errors by an Act of Parliament Enacting really Re-ordination And I R. B. must profess That having eight Years ago written a Treatise purposely to prove the validity of the late Ordination by the Synods of Presbyteries in England though I never practised any my self and having openly called for some Coufutation of it I never could procure any to this day And therefore am the more excusable if I err Though I was my self Ordained by a Bishop Note That by Ordination we mean the Solemn Separation of a Person from the number of the Laity to the Sacred Ministry in general and not the designation appointment or determination of him to this or that particular Flock or Church nor yet a meer Ecclesiastical Confirmation of his former Ordination in a doubted Case Nor yet the â—agistrate's License to exercise the Sacred Ministry in his Dominions All which we believe on just Occasion may be frequently given and received And we thereby profess to consent to no more § 72. Besides the foresaid Alterations of their Proposals we offered them this following Emendation of the Liturgy containing in some Points less and in some Points more than their own Proposals for in this Dr. Wilkins was not streight The most necessary Alterations of the Liturgy THat the old Preface be restored instead of the new one The Order for all Priests Deacons and Curates to read the Liturgy once or twice every Day to be put out The Rubrick for the old Ornaments which were in use in the second Year of Edw. VI. put out The Lord's Prayer to be used intirely with the Doxologies Add to the Rubrick before the Communion thus Nor shall any be admitted to the Communion who is grosly ignorant of the Essentials of Christianity or of that Sacrament or who is an Atheist Infidel or Heretick that is denyeth any Essential part of Religion nor any that derideth Christianity or the Holy Scriptures or the strict obeying of God's Commands Read the Fourth Commandment as it is in the Text viz. God blessed the Sabbath Day Add to the Communion Rubrick None shall be forced to Communicate because it is a high Privilege which the Unwilling are unworthy of and so are those who are conscious that they live impenitently in any secret or open hainous sin And because many conscionable Persons through Melancholy or too hard thoughts of themselves have so great fears of unworthy receiving that it were like to drive them to despair or distraction if they are forced to it before they are satisfied Therefore let Popery and Prophaneness be expressed by some fitter means than this In the Prayer before the Consecration Prayer put out That our sinful Bodies may be made clean by his Body and our Souls washed by his precious Blood and put it thus That our sinful Souls and Bodies may be cleansed by his Sacrificed Body and Blood Alterations very desirable also THE Lord's Prayer and Gloria Patri seldomer used Begin with the Prayer for the second Sunday in Advent for Divine Assistance or some other Let none be forced to hear the Decalogue kneeling because the Ignorant who take them for Prayers are scandalized and hardened by it Let none be forced to use Godfathers at their Childrens Baptism who can either Parent be there to perform their Duty Or at least let the Godfathers be but as the ancient Sponsors whose Office was 1. To attest the Parents Fidelity 2. And to promise to bring up the Child in Christian nurtue if the Parents dye or prove deserters Because Ministers subscribe to the 25th Article of the Church's Doctrine which saith Those Five commonly called Sacraments that is Confirmation c. are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles For they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God Therefore in the Collect for Confirmation put out Upon whom after the Example of the Holy Apostles we have now laid our Hands to certifie them by this sign of thy favour and gracious goodness toward them Holidays left indifferent save only that all be restrained from open labour and contempt of them Especially Holy Innocents-Day St. Michael's Day and All-Saints because there is no certainty that they were Holy Innocents And its harsh to keep a Holiday for one Angel And all true Christians being Saints we keep Holidays for our selves The Book of Ordination restored as it was Let there be liberty to use Christ's own Form of Delivery recited by St. Paul 1 Cor. 11. changing only the Person Take Eat this is Christ's Body which c. Let Christian Parents be permitted to offer their own Children to God in Baptism and enter them into the Holy Covenant by using those Words that are now imposed on the Godfathers That where any Minister dare not in Conscience Baptize the Child of proved Atheists Infidels gross Hereticks Fornicators or other such notorious Sinners as the Cannon forbiddeth us to recive to the Communion both Parent being such and the Child in their power and possession that Minister shall not be forced to do it but the Parents shall procure some other to do it For â—â—â—t thou be Baptised put â—ilt thou have this â—â—ld Baptized The Cross and the Surplice left at liberty and kneeling at the Act of Receiving and bowing at the Name â—esus rather than â—hrist God
are who can take such a State as this to be their Interest Sure I am That Peace-makers shall be Blessed as the Children of God that safe and honest Terms might easily be found out if Men were impartial and willing and that he that shall be our Healer will be our Deliverer and if your Lordship could be Instrumental therein it would be a greater honour to you in the Estimation of the true Friends of the King and Kingdom and Church and a greater Comfort to your Conscience than all worldly Greatness can afford For the Means I am not so vain as to presume to offer you any other Particulars than to tell you that I am persuaded That if there were first a Command from His Majesty to the Bishops of Chester and Norwich on one side and two Peaceable Men on the other freely to Debate and offer such Expedients as they think most proper to heal all our Divisions they would 〈◊〉 agree And when they had made that Preparation if some more such Moderate Divines were joyned to them as Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tillotson Dr. Outram Dr. Pierson Dr. Whitchcot Dr. More Dr. Worthington Dr. Wallis Dr. Barlow Dr. Tully Mr. Gifford c. on one side and Dr. Conant Dr. Dillingham Dr. Langley and many more that I could Name on the other side they would quickly fill up and Confirm the Concord And such a Preparation being made and shewed His Majesty certainly he would soon see that the Inconveniences of it will be so great as the Mischiefs of our Divisions are and are like to be for the further they go as a Torrent the more they will swell and Violence will not end them when it seemeth to allay them And oh what a Pleasure would it then be to His Majesty to Govern a Concordant People and to feel the Affections and Strength of a Vnited Kingdom and to have Men's Religious Zeal engage them in a Fervency for his Love and Service And what a Joy would it be to the Pastors to be Beloved of their Flocks And what a Joy to all the Honest Subjects to live in such a Kingdom and such a Church And that this Work may not seem over-difficult to you when your Lordship shall Command it I shall briefly tell you what the generality of the Sober Nonconformists hold and what it is that they desire and what it is that they refuse as sinful that when they are understood it may appear how far they are from being intolerable either in the Kingdom or the Church My Lord Pardon this boldness of Your Humble Servant Rich. Baxter Iune 24. 1670. To the Right Honourable the E. of Lauderdale His Majesty's Commissioner for Scotland §172 When the E. of Lauderdale was gone into Scotland Sir Rob. Murrey a worthy Person and one of Gresham-Colledge-Society and the Earl's great Confident sent me the Frame of a Body of Church-Discipline for Scotland and desired my Animadversions on it I had not Power to Transcribe them or make them known but you may Conjecture what they were by my Animadversions Only I may say That the Frame was very handsomely contrived and much Moderation was in it but the main Power of Synods was contrived to be in the King To the Honourable Sir Rob. Murrey this present IN General 1. The External Government of the Church is so called 1. From the Object because it is about the Body and so it belongeth both to the King and to the Pastor who speak to Men as sensible and corporeal 2. Or from the Act of Governning and so it belongeth also to both For to Preach and Admonish and give the Sacrament of Baptism by the Key of Admission and to Excommunicate c. are outward Acts. 3. From the Matter of Punishment when it is the Body immediately or the Goods that are meddled with by Penalty And so the Government belongeth to the King and Magistrates alone But this is much plainlier and fitlier distinguished as Bishop Bilson frequently and Protestants ordinarily do by the Terms of Governing by the Sword and by the Word Or by Co-active and Spiritual and Pastoral Government which is by Authoritative Persuasion or by God's Word applied to the Conscience II. Though there be an External Government in the two first Senses given by Christ as immediately to the Pastors as to the Prince they having the Keys of the Church as immediately committed to them as the Sword is to the Prince yet in the Exercise of their Office in Preaching Sacraments and Discipline they are under the Civil Government of the King who as he may see that Physicians and all others in his Kingdom do their Duties without gross abuse so may he do by Pastors tho' he cannot either assume to himself their Office or prohibit it yet he may govern them that use it and see that they do it according to Christ's Law So that under that Pretence he take not their proper Work into his own hand nor hinder them from the true Exercise III. Though there are many things in the Frame of Canons which I am uncapable of judging of as concerning another Kingdom whose Case and Customs I am not perfectly acquainted with yet I may say these three things of it in general 1. That I am very glad to see no ensnaring Oaths Declarations Professions or Subscriptions in it no not so much as a Subscription to these Canons themselves For peaceable Men can live quietly and obediently under a Government which hath many things in it which they dare not justifie or approve of It is our Work to obey it is the Magistrate's Work and not ours to justifie all his own Commands and Orders before God as having no Errors Therefore it is pity to see Subjects so put upon that which is not their Work upon the terrible Terms as some-where they are 2. I conceive that this Frame will make a Nation happy or miserable as the Men are who shall be chosen for the Work The King having the choice of all the Bishops and Moderators and the Commissioners having the Absolute Power of nullifying all if Wise and Godly Bishops and Moderators be chosen and moderate Commissioners Piety will be much promoted by these Rules of Government But if contrary it will have contrary Effects 3. Therefore supposing a choice of meet Persons though the mixtures of the Magistrates and the Churches power here be such as I cannot justifie who had rather they were distinctly managed yet I should be thankful to God if we might see but as good a Frame of Canons well used in England and should live peaceably submissively and gratefully under such a Government To the Particulars 1. The Name of Bishop appropriated to the Diocesane will stumble some who have learned that every Church hath one Bishop saith Ignatius Et ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia saith Cyprian Therefore they will think that you Un-Church all the Churches of the Land save the Diocesane And I could wish that the Name were fitted to
Sorrow but such as tendeth to raise us to a high Estimation of Christ and to the magnifying of Grace and a sweeter taste of the Love of God and to the firmer Resolution against Sin And that Tears and Grief be not commended inordinately for themselves nor as meer Signs of a Converted Person And that we call Men more to look after Duty than after Signs as such â—â—t Self-love on Work and spare not so you will call them much more to the Love of God and let them know that that Love is their best sign but yet to be exercised on a higher Reason than as a sign of our own Hopes for that Motive alone will not produce true Love to God And as the Antinomians too much exclude Humiliation and signs of Grace so too many of late have made their Religion to consist too much in the seeking of these out of their proper time and place without referring them to that Obedience Love and Joy in which true Religion doth principally consist Reader I do but transcribe these three Counsels for thee from a Multitude of Melancholy Persons sad Experiences § 185. This Year Salisbury-Diocess was more fiercely driven on to Conformity by Dr. Seth Ward their Bishop than any place else or than all the Bishops in England besides did in theirs Many Hundreds were Prosecuted by him with great Industry And among others that learned humble holy Gentleman Mr. Thomas Grove an Ancient Parliament-Man of as great Sincerity and Integrity as almost any Man I ever knew He stood it out a while in a Law-Suit but was overthrown and fain to forsake his Countrey as many Hundreds more are quickly like to do § 186. And his Name remembreth me that Ingenuity obligeth me to Record my Benefactor A Brother's Son of his Mr. Rob. Grove is one of the Bishop of London's Chaplains who is the only Man that Licenseth my Writings for the Press supposing them not to be against Law which else I could not expect And besides him alone I could get no Licenser to do it And because being Silenced Writing is the far greatest part of my remaining Service to God for his Church and without the Press my Writings would be in vain I acknowledge that I owe much to this Man and one Mr. Cook the Arch-bishop's Chaplain heretofore that I live not more in vain § 187. And while I am acknowledging my Benefactors I add that this Year died Serjeant Iohn Fountain the only Person from whom I received an Annual Sum of Money which though through God's Mercy I needed not yet I could not in Civility refuse He gave me 10 l. per Ann. from the time of my Silencing 'till his Death I was a Stranger to him before the King's Return save that when he was Judge before he was one of the Keepers of the Great Seal he did our Countrey great Service against Vice He was a Man of a quick and sound Understanding an upright impartial Mind and Life of too much testiness in his weakness but of a most believing serious Fervency towards God and open zealous owning of true Piety and Holiness without owning the little Partialities of Sects as most Men that ever I came near in Sickness When he lay sick which was almost a Year he sent to the Judges and Lawyers that sent to visit him such Answers as these I thank your Lord or Master for his kindness Present my Service to him and tell him It is a great Work to Die well his time is near all worldly Glory must come down intreat him to keep his Integrity over-come Temptations and please God and prepare to Die He deeply bewailed the great Sins of the Times and the Prognosticks of dreadful things which he thought we were in danger of And though in the Wars he suffered Imprisonment for the King's Cause towards the end he came from them and he greatly feared an inundation of Poverty Enemies Popery and Infidelity § 188. The great Talk this Year was of the King 's Adjourning the Parliament again for about a Year longer and whether we should break the Triple League and desert the Hollanders c. § 189. Before they were Adjourned I secretly directed some Letters to the best of the Conforming Ministers telling them how much it would conduce to their own and the Churches Interest if they that might be heard would become Petitioners for such Abatements in Conformity as might let in the Non-conformists and unite us seeing two things would do it 1. The removal of Oaths and Subscriptions save our Subscription to Christianity the Scriptures and the 39 Articles and the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy 2. To give leave to them that cannot use all the Liturgy and Ceremonies to be but Preachers in those Churches where they are used by others submitting to Penalties if ever they be proved to Preach against the Doctrine Government or Worship of the Church or to do any thing against Peace or the Honour of the King and Governours But I could get none to offer such a Petition And when I did but mention our own petitioning the Parliament those that were among them and familiar with them still laught at me for imagining that they were reasonable Creatures or that Reason signified any thing with them in such Matters And thus we were Silenced every way § 190. During the Mayoralty of Sir Samuel Sterling many Jury's Men in London were Fined and Imprisoned by the Judge for not finding certain Quakers guilty of violating the Act against Conventicles They Appealed and sought remedy The Judges remained about a Year in suspense and then by the Lord Chief Justice Vaughan delivered their Resolution against the Judge for the Subject's Freedom from such force of Fines that when he had in a Speech of two or three Hours long spoke vehemently to that purpose never thing since the King's Return was received with greater Joy and Applause by the People and the Judges still taken for the Pillars of Law and Liberty § 191. The Parliament having made the Laws against Nonconformists Preaching and private Religious Meetings c. so grinding and terrible as aforesaid the King who consented to those Laws became the sole Patron of the Nonconformist's Liberties not by any Abatements by Law but by his own Connivance as to the Execution the Magistrates for the most part doing what they perceived to be his Will So that Sir Rich. Ford all the time of his Mayoralty in London though supposed one of their greatest and most knowing Adversaries never disturbed them The Ministers in several Parties were oft encouraged to make their Addresses to the King only to acknowledge his Clemency by which they held their Liberties and to profess their Loyalty Sir Iohn Babor introduced Dr. Manton and some with him Mr. Ennis a Scotch Non-conformist by Sir Rob. Murray introduced Mr. Whittakers Dr. Annesley Mr. Watson and Mr. Vincent's The King as they say themselves told them That though such Acts were made He was against
Lawful And what if we had done so Is the Liturgy all that Nonconformists stick at Is the Canonical Subscription and Oath of Obedience and Re-ordination c. no more And doth not the Nation know that it was only the old Conformsty which was then questioned and that the new was not in being And that the Act of Uniformity was since made wherein besides Re-ordination is the new Declaration and new Subscription and since that the new Oxford Oath Such Impudency it was that assaulted and rendered us odious to the ignorant contrary to publick notoriety of Fact yet visible in Print to all the World § 234. Another at that time wrote that I had written that the Supreme Power might be resisted for Religion And another a Papist writing for Toleration that I wrote that the â—uthority of any of the Peers might warrant Subjects to take up Arms against the King Things that I never wrote or thought or any thing like them but have written very much to the contrary But it is our Lot to fall into the Hands of such Men as have banished all Modesty in their Calumnies § 235. About the beginning of May in my Walk in the Fields I met with Dr. Gunning now Bishop of Chichester with whom I had the contention and fierce Opposition to all the motions of Peace at the Savoy and at his Invitation went after to his Lodgings to pursue our begun Discourse which he vehemently professed that he was sure that it was not Conscience that kept us from Conformity but meerly to keep up our Reputation with the People and we desired alterations for no other ends and that we lost nothing by our Non-conformity but were fed as full and lived as much to the Pleasure of the Flesh in Plenty as the Conformists did And let me know what odious thoughts he had of his poor Brethren upon Grounds so notoriously false that I had thought few Men that lived in England could have been so ignorant of such matters of Fact But alas what is there so false and odious which exasperated factious malicious Minds will not believe and say of others And what Evidence so notorious which they will not out-face I told him that he was a stranger to the Men he talked of that those of my Acquaintance whom he confessed to be far more than of his were generally the most Conscionable Men that I could 〈◊〉 on Earth That he might easily know Reputation could not be the thing which made them suffer so much Affliction because 1. many of them were young men not pre-engaged in point of Reputation to any side 2. He knew that we lost by our Nonconformity that Worldly Honour which we were as capable of as he and others We did not so vilifie the King Parliament Lords Bishops Knights and Gentry who were most against us as to think it a piece of Worldly Honour to be vilified by them and called Rogues and sent to the common Goals among Rogues and branded to the World as we are in the Oxford Act of Confinement and banished five Miles from Cities and Corporations Our Consciences would not allow us to say that he and such 〈◊〉 he who were Clergy-Lords and Parliament-Barons did conform out of Pride or Love of Reputation and which was the liker to a reasonable Conjecture That he should be moved by Pride who chuseth the way of worldly Wealth and Domination and Honour giving Laws to his Brethren and vilifying them and trampling on them at his Pleasure as on a company of contemned scorned Wretches or they that chuse the way of this Contempt and Scorn with Poverty and Corporal Distress Whose honour is it that such Men seek You account their Followers the refuse of the World as you do them And if they themselves think better of them yet they will know that they are 〈◊〉 of the meaner sort and that poor Men have little to spare for others and we are not so sordidly dis-ingenious as not to be sensible that to be beholden to poor Men that want themselves for our daily Bread is not the work of Pride but putteth our Humilty to it to the utmost It 's foolish Pride which chuseth the hatred and scorn of the Great Men of the World instead of Dignities and Honour and chuseth to suffer Scorn and Imprisonment among poor Men to whom we must be beholden for a beggerly Sustenance And as for the Plenty and fullness which they upbraid us with it telleth us that there is nothing so immodest and unreasonable which some Mens Malice will not say Do they not know into what Poverty London is brought by the late Fire and want of Trade And what Complaints do fill all the Land And how close-hunded almost all Men are that are themselves in want And Ministers are not so impudent as to turn Beggers without Shame I had but a few days before had Letters of a worthy Minister who with his Wife and six Children had many Years had seldom other food than brown Rye Bread and Water and was then turned out of his House and had none to go to And of another that was fain to spin for his Living And abundance I know that have Families and nothing or next to nothing of their own and live in exceeding want upon the poor Drops of Charity which they stoop to receive from a few mean People And if there be here and there a rich man that is Charitable he hath so many to relieve that each one can have but a small share Indeed about a dosen or twenty Ministers about London who stuck to the People in the devouring Plague or in other times of Distress and feared no Sufferings have so many People adhering to them as keep them from Beggery or great want and you judge of all the rest by these when almost all the rest through England who have not something of their own to live upon do suffer so much as their Scorners will scarce believe It is no easie thing to have the Landlord call for Rent and the Baker the Brewer the Buther the Taylor the Draper the Shooemaker and many others call for Money and Wife and Children call for Meat and Drink and Cloaths and a Minister to have no Answer for them but I have none And the Bishop had the less modesty in standing confidently to my Face of his certainty of our losing nothing by our Non-conformity when he himself knew that I was offered a Bishoprick in 1660. and he got not his Bishoprick for all his extraordinary way of Merit till about 1671 or 1672 and I had not a Groat of the Ecclesiastical Maintenance since the King came in nor to my best remembrance ever received more than the fonâ— Pound even now mentioned as a Salary for Preaching these Eleven Years nor any way for Preaching the Sum of eight Pound in all those Years Yea on this occasion I will not think it vain to say that all that I remember that ever I
while these envious Preachers cryed out against our Preaching and perswaded men how fully we were maintained they laboured for Laws to increase their setled maintenance and some of them in my hearing Preached how miscrable a case the Clergy were in were they left to the people's kindness and bounty And yet proclaim our fulness who are left to the kindness of those few who also pay fully their Tythes to the Parish Ministers who these Envyers say are but the smaller and poorer sort in the Land which comparatively is true though by this time I think the far greatest part are grown into dislike with the present Prelates who yet cleave to their Church And if their noble rich and numerous followers would leave them in want were they left to their Charity it seems they take their Church to consist of men much more covetous and less Religious and liberal than our few poor men § 261. The Lord's day before the Parliament was dissolved one of these Prelatists Preached to them to perswade them that we are obstinate and not to be tolerated nor cured by any means but Vengeance urging them to set Fire to the Fagot and teach us by Scourges or Scorpions and open our eyes with Gall. Yet none of these men will procure us leave to publish or offer to Authority the Reasons of our Non-conformity But this is not the first proof that a carnal worldly proud ungodly Clergie who never were serious in their own professed belief nor felt the power of what they Preach have been in most Ages of the Church its greatest plague and the greatest hinderers of Holiness and Concord by making their formalities and Ceremonies the test of Holiness and their Worldly Interest and Domination the only cement of Concord And O how much hath Satan done against Christ's Kingdom in the World by setting up Pastors and Rulers over the Churches to fight against Christ in his own name and livery and to destroy piety and peace by a pretence of promoting them § 262. This foresaid Preacher brings to my remembrance a Silenced Minister who heard the Sermon Mr. Iohn Humphrey a man not strait and factious in Doctrin Government or Worship as his Books shew for the middle way about Election Justification c. and his former Writings for giving the Lord's Supper to the Ungodly to convert them and his own Reordination and writing for Reordination The former Sessions of Parliamen he printed a sheet for Concord by restoring some silenced Ministers and tolerating others for which he was Imprisoned as was Dr. Ludovicus Molinaeus M. D. Son to old Peter for writing his Patronus against the Prelatists but delivered by the Common Act of Pardon And this Session the said Mr. Humphrey again printed another sheet and put it into the hands of many Parliament men which though slighted and frustrate by the Prorogation of the House yet I think hath so much reason in it that I shall here annex it though it speak not at all to the righteousness of our Cause and the Reasons of our Non-conformity that the Reader may see upon what Terms we stood But the truth is when we were once contrived into the Parliament's Inquisition and persecution it was resolved that we should be saved by the King or not at all and that Parliaments and Laws should be our Tormenters and not our Deliverers any more Mr. Iohn Humphrey's Papers given to the Parliament-Men Comprehension with Indulgence Nihil est jam dictum quod non fuit dictum prius Terence IT hath pleased his Majesty by several gracious Overtures to commend a Union of his Protestant Subject to the consideration of a Parliament A design full of all Princely Wisdom Honesty and Goodness In this Atchievement there is a double Interest I apprehend to be distinguished and weighed that of Religion it self and that of the Nation The advance of Religion doth consist much in the Unity of its Professors both in Opinion and Practice to be of one Mind and one Heart and one way in Discipline and Worship so far as may be according to the Scriptures The advance of the Nation does lie in the freedom and flourishing of Trade and uniting the whole Body in the common Benefit and dependence on the Government The one of these bespeaks an Established Order and Accommodation the other bespeaks Indulgence Liberty of Conscience or to eration For while People are in danger about Religion we dare not launch out into Trade say they but we must keep our Moneys being we know not into what straits we shall be driven and when in reference to their Party they are held under severity it is easie for those who are designing Heads to mould them into Wrath and Faction which without that occasion will melt and dissolve it self into bare Dissent of Opinion peaceably rejoycing under the Enjoyment of Protection The King we know is concerned as Supreme Governour and as a Christian Protestant Governour As he is King he is to seek the welfare of the Nation as he is a Christian the Flourishing of Religion and the Protestant Religion particularly is his Interest as this Kingdom doth lie in Ballance he being the chief Party with its Neighbour Nations The Judgment now of some is for a Comprehending Act which may take in those who are for our Parochial Churches that severity then might be used for reclaiming all whosoever separate from them The Judgment of some others is for a free and equal Act of Grace to all indifferently the Papists with most excepted whether separatists or others abhorring Comprehension as more dangerous to them upon that Account mentioned than all the Acts that have passed Neither of these Judge up to the full interest of the King and Kingdom as is proposed It becomes not the Presbyterian if his Principles will admit him to own our Parochial Churches and enjoy a Living to be willing to have his Brethren the Independents given up to Persecution And it becomes not the Separatist if he may but enjoy his Conscience to Repine or envy at the Presbyterian for reaping any further Emolument seeing both of them supposing the later may do so have as much at the bottom as can be in their Capacities desired of either It is an Act therefore of a mixt Complexion providing both Comprehension and Indulgence for the different Parties must serve our Purpose And to this end as we may humbly hope there is a Bill at present in the House A Bill for the ease of the Protestant Dissenter in the business of Religion Which that upon this present Prorogation it may be cast into this Model I must present the same yet in a little farther Explication There are two sorts we all know of the Protestant Dissenters one that own the Established Ministry and our Parish Congregations and are in Capacity of Union upon that account desiring it heartily upon condescension to them in some small matters The other that own not our Churches and so are
uncapable of a Conjunction who do not and cannot desire it or seek it For the One that which we propose is a farther Latitude in the present Constituted Order that such may be received and this we call Comprehension or Accommodation Let us suppose that nothing else were required of a Man to be a Minister of a Parish than there is to the Parishioner to be a Member of a Parish Church as part of the National If a person Baptised will come to Church and hear Common-Prayer and receive the Sacrament and does nothing worthy of Excommunication he is he may he must be received for a Parochial Member In like manner If a Minister first ordained and so Episcopally or Classically approved for his Abilities for that function will but read the book of Liturgy and Administer the Sacraments according to it and does nothing which deserves suspension we appeal to all this indifferently sober why should not this suffice a Man for the enjoying his Living and exercising the Office unto which he is called For the other there is indeed nothing can be done to bring those in and joyn them with us in Parochial Union yet is there this to be proposed that you bear with them and not let any be persecuted meerly for their Consciences and that we call Indulgence or Toleration If the Presbyterian now may be comprehended he will be satisfied to act at his Ministry without endeavouring any Alteration otherwise of Episcopacy If the Congregationalist be indulged he will be satisfyed tho he be not Comprehended for that he cannot submit unto and so shall there be no Disobligation put on any but all be pleased and enjoy the ease of this Bill Let but the Grounds of Comprehension be laid wide enough to take in all who can own and come into the publick Liturgy which we suppose as yet to be the greater weight ofâ— the Nation and when the Countenance of Authority and all State-Emoluments are cast into one Scale and others let alone to come of it without persecution to inflame them or preferment to encourage them especially if one Expedient be used which shall not pass unmentioned in the close that such as came in may find it really better to them to be a priest to a Tribe than a Levite to a Family we need not doubt but time the Mistress of the Wise and Unwise will discover the peaceable Issue of such Counsels And here let me pause a little for methinks I see what Icesicles hang on the Eeves of the Parliament-House at this Motion what prejudices I mean and Impressions have been laid on the Members by former Acts. There was a speech delivered by the then Chancellour in Christ-Church Hall in Oxford to the Parliament there and the Schollars assembled Wherein the Glory of contriving the Oxford-Oath and Consequently of the like former Impositions was most magnificently as well as spitefully enough arrogated to its proper Author It wasâ— it seems the designed Policy of that Great Man to root those Principles out of Men's minds upon which the late Wars as he supposed were builded and he would do it by this Invention to wit the Imposing upon them new Declarations Oaths and Subscriptions of a strain framed contrary to those Principles I do remember now the sentence of Esdras to the Apologue of the Angel where the Woods and the Seas would encounter one another Verily says he it was a foolish purpose for the trees could not come down from the hills nor the Waves get up from the shoars I must say the same of this Policy It was really a great vanity to think that folk should be made to swear away their thoughts and beliefs Whatsoever it is we think or believe we do think it we must think it we do believe it we must believe it notwithstanding any of these outward Impositions The honest Man indeed will refuse an Injunction against his Conscience the knave will swallow it but both retain their Principles which the last will be the likeliest to put any villanous Practice on On the Contrary there is nothing could be advised more certain to keep the Covenant and such Principles alive in Mens heart 's and memories than this perpetual injoyning the Renunciation of it Nor may you wonder if that Lesson sink deep into Men's flesh which you will teach them with Briars and Thorns as Gideon taught the Men of â—uccoth Besides it is the most impolitick thing that ever could have been for such Contents as are of that dangerous Consequence to Majesty and the Government to have them once disputed or brought into question to be put into these Declarations Oaths and Subscriptions which necessitates the Examination of them to so many It was the wisdom of the Ancient Church instead of Contention about the Jewish Ceremonies to take care they might have an honourable burial And I dare say if that great Lord Chancellor had but put off his Cap to the Covenant and bidden it a fair Adieu only he should have done more towards its Extirpation than by all this iterated trouble to Men's Consciences And if it shall therefore please the succeeding Ministers of our State instead of going to root out the Principles of Innovation which are got into people by this means which is no means to do it but the means to rivet them more in us to endeavour rather to root out the Causes from us which make men willing to entertain such Principles and desire Change I suppose their Policy will prove the sounder The way to establish the Throne of the King is this to make it appear that all those Grievances and all those Good things which the People in the late times expected to be removed or to be obtained by a Common Wealth or a Change of the Government may be more effectually accomplished by a King in the Acts of his Parliament I am sensible how my Threm riseth upon me and that I begin to shoot wide I take my Aim therefore again and two things in earnest I would expect from this Bill as the summ of what is necessary to the end of it our Ease if it be made to serve the turn The one is that Bishop Laud be confined to his Caththedrals and the other that Chancellour Hide be totally expelled our Acts of Parliament By the first I mean that the Ceremonies in the ordinary Parish Churches be left to the Liberty of the Minister to use or use them not according to his Conscience and Prudence toward his own Congregation And by the latter that all these new devised Oaths Subscriptions and Declarations together with the Canonical Oath and the Subscription in the Canons be suspended for the time to come If that be too much I shall content my self with a modester motion that whatsoever these Declarations â—e that are required to be made subscribed or sworn they may be imposed only as to the Matter and End leaving the Takers but free to the use of their own
Expressions And this Expedient I gather from my Lord Cook who hath providently as it were against such a season laid in this observation The â—orm of the Subscription set down in the Canons ratified by King James was not expressed in the Act of the 13th of Elizabeth Instit. p. 4. c. 74. And Consequently if the Clergy injoyed this freedom untill then in reference to the particulars therein contained what hinders why they might not have the same restored in reference also to others It is true that it may seem hard to many in the Parliament to undo any thing themselves have done But tho this be no Rule for Christians who are sometimes to repent as well as believe if they be loth to repent any thing what if they shall only Interpret or Explain Let us suppose then some Clause in this Bill or some new Act for Explanations If anâ— Nonconformist cannot come up to the full meaning and intent of these Injunctions rightly Explained let him remain in statu quo under the state only of Indulgence without benefit of Comprehension for so long as those who are not Comprehended may yet injoy that ease as to be indulged in some equal measure answerable to his Majestie 's Declaration whether Comprehension be large or narrow such Terms as we obtain are pure Advantage and such as we obtain not are no loss But if any does and can honestly agree to the whole sense the Parliament intends in such Impositions why should there be any Obstruction for such a Man tho he delivers himself in his own words to be received into the Established order with others Unless men will look on these Injunctions only to be contrived for â—â—gines of Battery to destroy the Nonconfromist And not as Instruments of Vnity to edify the Church of God I will not leave our Congregational Brethren neither so long as I have something more that may be said for them not ordinarily considered by any It is this that tho indeed they are not and cannot seek to be of our Churches as they are Parochial under the Diocess or Superintendency of the Bishops yet do they not refuse but seek to be comprehended within the Church as National under his Majesty I will explain my self The Church may be considered as Vniversal and so Christ alone is the head of it and we receive our Laws from him Or as Particular and so the Pastors are Heads Guides or Bishops over their respective flocks who are commanded therefore to obey them in the Lord Or as National which is an accidental and external respect to the Church of God wherein the King is to be acknowledged the supreme Head of it and as I judge no otherwise For thus also runs the statute That our Sovereign Lord shall be taken and reputed the only supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England called Ecclesia Anglicana Now if it should please the King and Parliament to allow and approve these Separate Meetings and Stated Places for Worship by a Law as His Majesty did by his Declaration I must profess that as such Assemblies by this means must be constituted immediately integral parts of the Church as National no less than our Parish Cougregations So would the Congregate Churches at least those that understand themselves own the King for Head over them in the same sense as we own him Head over ours that is as much as to say for the supreme coercive Governour of all in this accidental regard both to keep every several Congregation to that Gospel-order themselves profess and to supervise their Constitutions in things indifferent that nothing be done but in subordination to the peace of the Kingdom Well Let us suppose then a liberty for these separate Assemblies under the visitation of his Majesty and his Justices and not the Bishops I would fain know that were the Evil you can find in them If it lie in any thing it must be in that you call Schism Separation then let us know in it self simply considered is nothing neither good nor Evil. There may be reason to divide or separate some Christians from others out of prudence as the Cathechumens of old from the fully instructed for their greater Edification and as a Chappel or two is added to a Parish-Church when the people else were too big a Congregation It is not all Division then or Separation that is Schism but sinful Division Now the supreme Authority as National Head having appointed the Parochial Meetings and required all the Subjects of the Land to frequent them and them alone for the Acknowledging Glorifying or National serving and worshiping the only true God and his Son whom we have generally received And this Worship or Service in the nature of it being intrinsecally good and the external Order such as that of time and place and the like Circumstances being properly under his Jurisdiction it hath seemed to me hitherto that unless there was something in that order or way prescribed which is sinful and that required too as a Condition of that Communion there is no Man could refuse his attendance on these Parochial Assemblies without the sin of Disobedience and consequently his separation thereby becoming sinful proves Schism But if the Scene be altered and these separate Assemblies made Legal the Schism in reference to the National Church upon the same account does vanish Schism is a separation from that Church whereof we ought or are bound to be Members if the supreme Authority then loose our obligation to the Parish-Meeting so that we are bound no longer the iniquity I say upon this account is not to be found and the Schism gone Lo here a way opened for the Parliament if they please to rid the Trouble and Scruple of Schism at once out of the Land If they please not yet is there something to be thought on for the Separatist in a way of forbearance that the innocent Christian at least as it was in the time of Trajan may not be sought out unto Punishment Especially when such a toleration only is desired as is consistent with the Articles of Faith a Good Life and the Government of the Nation And now I turn me to the Houses My Lords and Gentlemen I will suppose you honest persons that would do as you would be done unto that would not wrong any or if you did would make them recompence There hath been very hard Acts passed which when the Bills were brought in might haply look smooth and fair to you but you saw not the Covert Art secret Machination and purposely contrived snares against one whole Party If such a form of words would not another should do their business By this means you in the first place your selves some of you were overstript Multitudes dispossest of their Livings The Vineyard Let out to others The Lord Jesus the Master of it deprived of many of his faithful Labourers And the poor sheep what had they done bereft of their accumstomed spiritual
the Parish Churches through the greatness of some Parishes the lowness of the Minister's voices and the paucity of Churches since the burning of the City And they confess that the knowledge of the Gospel is ordinarily necessary to salvation and teaching and hearing necessary to knowledge and that to leave the people untaught especially where so many are speaking for Atheism Beastiality and Infidelity is to give them up to Damnation But yet they say that to do so is my duty because the Bishop is against my Preaching And I ought to rest satisfied that it is the Bishop and not not I that must answer for their Damnation Alas poor Souls Must they needs be damned by thousands without making any question of it as if all the question were who should answer for it I will not believe such cruel men I undertake to prove to them to them 1. That our English Species of Dioâ—â—san 〈◊〉 and Lay Choncellours power of the Keys is contrary to God's Word and destructive of true Discipline and of the Church form and Offices instituted by Christ. 2. That were the Offices Lawful the men have no true calling to it being not chosen or consented to by the Clergy or the People 3. That if their Calling were good they have no power to forbid the present Silenced Ministers to Preach the Gospel but thereby they serve Satan against Christ and Men's salvation Paul himself had his power to edification and not to destruction And Christ the Saviour of the World giveth his Ministers only a saving power and to none a power to samish and damn the people's Souls 4. That we are Dedicated as Ministers to the Sacred Office and it is Sacriledge in our selves or others to alienate us from it while we are not unfit or unable for it 5. That we are Charged as well as Timothy before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the Dead at his appearing that we Preach the Word and be in season and our ef season reprove rebuke exhort c. 6. That the Ancient Pastors for many Hundred years did Preach the Gospel against the Wills of their Lawful Princes both Heathens and Aâ—â—ians 7 That the Bishop hath no more power to forbid us to Preach than the King hath And these men confess that Ministers unjustly Silenced may Preach against the Will of Kings but not say they of Bishops 8. That were we Lay-men we might teach and exhort as Lay-men as Origen did though we might not do it as Pastors much more being Ordained the Ministers of Christ. And that now to us it is a work which both the Law of Nature and our Office or Vow do bind us to even a Moral Duty And that when Christ judgeth men for not Feeding Clothing Visiting his Members it will not excuse us to say that the Bishop forbad us That if King or Bishop forbid us to feed our Children or to save the lives of drowning or famishing men we must disobey them as being against a great command of God Love and the Works of Love being the great indispensable Duties And Souls being greater Objects of Charity than Bodies 9. That it was in a Case of Pharifaical Church Discipline when Christ avoided not converse with sinners when their good required it that Christ sent the Pharisees to learn what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice and at two several times repeateth the same words 10. That Order is for the thing Ordered and it's ends and a power of Ordering Preachers is not a power to depose necessary Preaching and famish Souls 11. And I shew them that I my self have the License of the Bishop of this Diocess as well as Episcopal Ordination and that my License is in force and not recalled 12. And that I have the King's License 13. And therefore after all this to obey these Silencers nay no Bishop doth forbid me otherwise than as his Vote is to the Acts of Parliament which is as Magistrates and to fulfill their will that will be content with nothing but our forsaking of poor Souls and ceasing to Preach Christ this were no better than to end my Life of Comfortable Labours in obeying the Devil the Enemy of Christ and Souls which God forbid § 272. Yet will not all this satisfie these men but they cry out as the Papists Schism Schism unless we will cease to Preach the Gospel And have little to say for all but that No society can be governed if the Rulers be not the Iudge Yet dare they not deny but a Iudgment of discerning duty from sin belongeth to all Subjects or else we are Brutes or must be Atheists Idolaters Blasphemers or what ever a Bishop shall command us But under the Censures of these unreasonable Men who take our greatest Duties for our heinous sin must we patiently serve our Lord But his approbation is our full reward § 273 On Iuly 5th 1674. at our Meeting over St. Iamses's Market-house God vouchsafed us a great Deliverance A main Beam before weakened by the weight of the People so cracked that three times they ran in terrour out of the room thinking it was falling But remembring the like at Dunstan's West I reproved their fear as causeless But the next day taking up the boards we found that two rends in the Beam were so great that it was a wonder of providence that the floor had not faln and the roof with it to the destruction of multitudes The Lord make us thankful § 274 A person unknown professing Infidelity but wâ—ether an Infidel or a jagling Papist I know not sent me a Manuscript called Examen 〈◊〉 charging Scripture with Immorality Falshoods and Contradictions from the beginning to the end and with seeming Seriousness and Respectfulness importâ—ned me to Answer him I was in so great pain and weakness and engaged in other work that I sent him word that I had not time or strength for so long a Work He selected about a Dozen Instances and desired my Answer to them I gave him an Answer to them and to some of his General accusations but told him That the rational Order to be followed by a Lover of Truth is first to consider of the proofs brought for Christianity before we come to the Objections aganst it And I proved to him that Christianity was proved true many years before any of the New Testament was Written and that so it may be still proved by one that doubted of some words of the Scripture and therefore the true order is to try the truth of the Christian Religion first and the perfect Verity of all the Scriptures afterwards And therefore Importuned him first to Answer my Book called The Reasons of the Christian Religion and then if I lived I would answer his Accusations But I could not at all prevail with him but he still insisted on my Answering of his Charge And half a year or more after he sent me a Reply to the Answer
which I had hastily given him And though he before professed that none in the World but I and his servant knew of it yet accidentally by speech with Dr. Stillingfleet I understood that the same M. S. was sent to him Therefore I sent him the Reply to mine and desired him seeing he had more strength and leisure to answer alltogether for himself and me and then I need not do the same § 275. It pleased God to give me marvellous great Encouragement in my Preaching at St. Iames's The Crack having frightened away most of the Richer sort specially the Women most of the Congregation were young men of the most capable age who heard with very great Attention and many that had not come to Church of many years received so much and manifested so great a Change some Papists and Divers others returning publick Thanks to God for their Conversion as made all my Charge and Trouble easie to me Among all the Popish rude and ignorant People who were Inhabitants of those parts we had scarce any that opened their mouths aganst us and that did not speak well of the Preaching of the Word among them though when I came first thither the most knowing Inhabitants assured me that some of the same persons wisht my Death Among the ruder sort a common Reformation was notifyed in the place in their Conversation as well as in their Judgments § 276. But Satan the Enemy of God and Souls did quickly use divers means to hinder me 1. By Persecution 2. By the Charges of the work and 3. By the troublesome Clamours of some that were too much inclined to Separation And first a fellow that made a Trade of being an Informer accused me to Sir William Poultney a Justice near upon the Act against Conventicles Sir William dealt so wisely and fairly in the business as frustrated the Informer's first attempts who offered his Oath against me And before he could make a second Attempt Mr. David Lloyd the Earl of St. Alban's Bayliff and other Inhabitants so search't after the quality of the Informer and prosecuted him to secure the Parish from his Charge of Children as made him fly and appear no more I that had been the first Silenced and the first sent to Gaol upon the Oxford-Act of Confinement was the first prosecuted upon the Act of Conventicles after the Parliament's Condemning the King's Declaration and Licenses to Preach § 277. But shortly after the Storm grew much greater The great Ministers of State had new Consultations The Duke of Lauder dail the Lord Treasurer Sir Thomas Osborne made Earl of Danby The Lord Keeper Sir Heneage Finch the Bishop of Winchester Dr. Morley and the Bishop of Salisbury Dr. Ward c. were the Men that the World talk't of as the Doers of the Business The first thing that appeared was That His Majesty called the Bishops up to London to give him Advice what was to be done for the securing of Religion c. The Bishops after divers Meetings and Delays the said Duke and Lord Treasurer being appointed to meet with them at last Advised the King to recall His Licenses and put the Laws in Execution Which was done by a Declaration and Proclamation Declaring the Licenses long since void and requiring the Execution of the Laws against Papists most largely mentioned and Conventicles No sooner was this Proclamation published but special Informers were set on Work to Ascertain the Execution and I must here also be the first that must be Accused § 278. A litle before the King had Recalled his Licenses knowing on what Accusations they would proceed according to the Act of Uniformity I did to Obviate the Accusation deliver in Words and Writing this following Profession Though when I began to Preach in this place I publickly professed That it was the notorious Necessity of the People who are more than the Parish-Church can hold which moved me thereunto and that we Meet not in Opposition to or Separation from the Publick Churches yet perceiving that by some we are misunderstood I repeat the same Profession And that we Meet not under colour or pretence of any Religious Exercise in other manner than according to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England And that were I able I would accordingly Read my Self For the understanding of this it must be known 1. That being my Self unable both to Read and Preach I had an Assistant who daily Read the Scripture-Sentences the 95th Psalm the Psalms for the Day the two Chapters for the Day Singing the Psalms appointed for Hymns using the Lord's Prayer the Creed and the Decalogue all which is the Greatest part of the Liturgy though none of the Common Prayers were used 2. That I forbear the use of much of the Common Prayer which I think lawful and good meerly because many of the Nonconformists could not bear it 3. That the Act against Conventicles punisheth none but those that meet on colour or pretence of any Religious Exercise in other manner than according to the Liturgy and practice of the Church of England 4. That my Judgment was that my Meeting was not such and that I broke no Law And therefore I made this open Profession as Preparatory to my Answer before the Magistrate not expecting that any such means should free me from suffering in the least degree but that it should conduce to the clearing of my Cause when I Suffered But upon this Paper those that are unable or unwilling to suspend their Censures till they understand the Cause and that cannot understand Words in their plain and proper signification but according to their own Preconceptions did presently divulge all over the Land many false Reports of it and me The Separatists gave out presently That I had Conformed and openly declared my Assent and Consent c. And so confidently did they affirm it that almost all the City believed it The Prelatists again took the Report from them and their own willingness that so it should be aud reported the same thing In one Episcopal City they gave Thanks in Publick that I Conformed In many Counties their News was That I most certainly Conformed and was thereupon to have a Bishoprick which if I should I had done foolishly in losing Thirteen years Lordship and Profit and then taking it when I am dying This was divulged by the Conformists to fortisie their Party in the Conceits of their Innocency and by the Separatists in Spleen and Quarrelsome Zeal But confident Lying was too common with both And yet the next day or the next day save one Letters fled abroad on the contrary that I was sent to Gaol for not Conforming § 279. Not long before this having Preached at Pinners-Hall for Love and Peace divers false Reports went currant among the Separatists and from them to other Nonconformists that I Preached against the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness and for Justification by our own Righteousness and that the Papists and Protestants differ
the King to remove him from all publick Enployment and Trust His chief accusing Witness was Mr. Burnet late Publick-Professor of Theologie at Glascow who said That he askt him whether the Scots Army would come into England and said What if the Dissenting Scots should Rise an Irish Army should cut their Throats c. But because Mr. Burnet had lately magnified the said Duke in an Epistle before a published book many thought his witness now to be more unfavoury and revengefull Every one judging as they were affected But the King sent them Answer That the words were spoken before his late Act of pardon which if he should Violate it might cause jelousies in his Subjects that he might do so also by the Act of Indemnity § 294. Their next Assault was against the Lord Treasurer who found more Friends in the House of Commons who at last acquitted him § 295. But the great work was in the House of Lords where an Act was brought in to impose such an Oath on Lords Commons and Magistrates as is Imposed by the Oxford-Act of Confinement on Ministers and like the Corporation-Oath of which more anon It was now supposed that the bringing the Parliament under this Oath and Test was the great work which the House was to perform The Summ was That none Commissioned by the King may be by Arms resisted and that they would never endeavour any alteration of the Government of Church or State Many Lords spake vehemently against it as destructive to the Privileges of their House which was to Vote freely and not to be preobliged by an Oath to the Prelates The Lord Treasurer the Lord Keeper with Bishop Morley and Bishop Ward were the great Speakers for it And the Earl of Shaftsbury Lord Hollis the Lord Hallifax the D. of Buckingham the Earl of Salisbury the chief Speakers against it They that were for it being the Major part many of the rest Entered their Protestation against it The Protesters the first time for they protested thrice more afterward were the Duke of Buckingham the Marquess of Winchester the Earls of Salisbury Bristol Barkshire § 296. The Protesting Lords having many days striven against the Test and being overvoted attempted to joyn to it an Oath for Honesty and Conscience in these words I do swear that I will never by threats injunctions promises or invitations by or from any person whatsoever nor from the hopes or prospects of any gift place office or trust whatever give my vote other than according to my opinion and conscience as I shall be truly and really perswaded upon the debate of any business in Parliament But the Bishops on their side did cry it down and cast it out § 297. The Debating of this Text did more weaken the Interest and Reputation of the Bishops with the Nobles than any thing that ever befel them since the King came in so much doth unquiet overdoing tend to undoing The Lords that would not have heard a Nonconformist say half so much when it came to be their own case did long and vehemently plead against that Oath and Declaration as imposed on them which they with the Commons had before imposed on others And they exercised so much liberty for many days together in opposing the Bishops and free and bold speeches against their Test as greatly turned to the Bishops Disparagement especially the Earl of Shaftsbury the Duke of Buckingham the Earl of Bristol the Marquess of Winchester the Earl of Salisbury the Lord Hollis the Lord Hallifax and the Lord of Alesbury Which set the Tongues of Men at so much liberty that the common talk was against the Bishops And they said that upon Trial there were so few found among all the Bishops that were able to speak to purpose Bishop Morley of Winchester and Bishop Ward of Salisbury being their chief Speakers that they grew very low also as to the Reputation of their parts § 298. At last though the Test was carried by the Majority yet those that were against it with others prevailed to make so great an alteration of it as made it quite another thing and turned it to the greatest disadvantage of the Bishops and the greatest accommodation of the Cause of the Nonconformists of any thing that this Parliament hath done For they reduced it to these words of a Declaration and an Oath I A. B. do declare That it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King And that I do abhor that Traiterous Position of taking Arms by His Authority against His Person or against those that are Commissioned by him according to Law in time of Rebellion and War in acting in pursuance of such Commission I A. B. do Swear that I will not endeavour an Alteration of the Protestant Religion now established by Law in the Church of England nor will I endeavour any Alteration in the Government of this Kingdom in Church or State as it is by Law Established § 299. This Declaration and Oath thus altered was such as the Nonconformists would have taken if it had been offered them in stead of the Oxford-Oath the Subscription for Uniformity the Corporation and Vestry Declaration But the Kingdom must be Twelve years rackt to Distraction and 1800 Ministers forbidden to Preach Christ's Gospel upon pain of utter ruin and Cities and Corporations all New-Modelled and Changed by other kind of Oaths and Covenants and when the Lords find the like obtruded on themselves they reject it as intolerable And when it past they got in this Proviso That it should be no hinderance to their Free-Speaking and Voting in the Parliament Many worthy Ministers have lost their Lives by Imprisonments and many Hundred their Maintenance and Liberty and that opportunity to serve God in their Callings which was much of the comfort of their Lives and mostly for refusing what the Lords themselves at last refuse with such another Declaration But though Experience teach some that will no otherwise learn it is sad with the World when their Rulers must learn to Govern them at so dear a rate and Countreys Cities Churches and the Souls of Men must pay so dear for their Governours Experience § 300. The following Explication will tell you That there is nothing in this Oath and Declaration to be refused 1. I do declare That it is not lawful can mean no more but that I think so and not that I pretend to Infallible certainly therein 2. To take Arms against the King That is either against his Formal Authority as King or against His Person Life or Liberty or against any of His Rights and Dignity And doubtless the Person of the King is inviâ—â—able and so are His Authority and Rights not only by the Laws but by the very Constitution of the Kingdom For every Common-wealth being essentially constituted of the Pars Imperans and pars subdita materially the Union of these is the Form of it and the Dissolution is the Death of it And
the 1 st 1662 nor ever since had any nor the offer of any And therefore the Law imposeth not on me the Declaration or the Assent or Consent no more than on Lawyers or Judges 2. I have the Bishop of London's License to Preach in his Diocess which supposeth me no Nonconformist in Law-sence And I have the Judgment of Lawyers even of the present Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Pollexfen that by that License I may Preach occasional Sermons 3. I have Episcopal Ordination and judge it gross Sacriledge to forsake my Calling 4. I am justified against suspicion of Rebellious Doctrine many ways 1. By my publick Retractation of any old accused words or writings 2. I was chosen alone to Preach the Publick Thanksgiving at St. Paul's for General Monk's success 3. The Commons in Parliament chose me to Preach to them at their Publick Fast for the King's Restoration and call'd him home the next day 4. I was Sworn Chaplain in Ordinary to the King 5. I was offered a Bishoprick 6. The Lord Chancellor who offered it attested under his hand His Majesty's Sense of my Defert and His Acceptance 7. I am justifyed in the King's Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs among the rest there mention'd 8. When I Preached before the King he commanded the Printing of my Sermon 9. To which may be added the Act of Oblivion 10. And having published above an Hundred Books I was never yet convict of any ill Doctrine since any of the said Acts of King Parliament and others for my Discharge and Justification 5. I have oft Printed my judgment for Communion with the Parish Churches and exhorted others to it And having built a Chappel delivered it for Parish use 6. I was never lawfully Convict of Preaching in an unlawful Assembly for I was not once summon'd by the Justices that granted out the Five Warrants against me to answer for my self nor ever told who was my Accuser or who Witnessed against me And I have it under the hand of the present Lord Chief Justice that a Lawful Conviction supposeth Summons And the Lord Chief Justice Vaughan with Judge Tyrrel Archer and Wild did long ago discharge me upon their declaring that even the Warrant of my Commitment was illegal because no Accuser or Witness was named and so I was left remediless in case of false Accusation 7. As far as I understand it I never did Preach in any unlawful Assembly which was on pretence of any Exercise of Religion contrary to Law I Preached in Parish Churches where the Liturgy was Read as oft as I had leave and invitation And when I could not have that leave I never took any Pastoral Charge nor Preached for any Stipend but not daring perfidiously to desert the Calling which I was Ordained and Vowed to I Preacht occasional Sermons in other Men's Houses where was nothing done that I know of contrary to Law There was nothing done but Reading the Psalms and Chapters and the Creed Commandments and Lord's Prayer and Singing Psalms and Preaying and Praching and none of this is forbidden by Law The Omission of the rest of the Liturgy is no Act but a not-acting and therefore is no pretended Worship according to Law But were it otherwise the Law doth not impose the Liturgy on Families but only on Churches and a Family is not forbidden to have more than four Neighbours at saying Grace or Prayer nor is bound to give over Family-worship when-ever more than Four come in The Act alloweth Four to be present at Unlawful Worship but forbids not more to be present at Lawful Worship And House-worship without the Liturgy is lawful worship And yet if this were not so as the Curate's Omission of the Prayers makes not the Preacher and Assembly guilty suppose it were an Assize-Sermon that for hast omitted the Liturgy so the owner of the House by omitting the Liturgy maketh not him guilty that was not bound to use it nor the Meeting unlawful to any but himself Charity and Loyalty bind us to believe that our King and Parliament who allow more than many Four's to meet at a Play-house Tavern or Feast never meant to forbid more than Four to bâ—â—ogether in a House to sing a Psalm or Pray or Read a Licensed Book or edifie each other by Godly Conference while no Crime is found by any Man in the Matter of their Doctrine or Prayer and no Law imposeth the Liturgy on any but Church-Meetings If after many years Reproach once Imprisonment and the late Distress and Sale of all my Books and Goods and those that were none of mine but another's and this by five or six Warrants for present Execution without any Summons or Notice of Accusers or Witnesses I could yet have leave to die in peace and had not been again persecuted with new Inditements I had not presumed thus to plead or open my own Cause I Pray God that my Prosecutors and Judges may be so prepared for their near Account that they may have no greater sin laid to their Charge than keeping my Ordination-Vow is and not Sacrilegiously forsaking my Calling who have had so good a Master so good a Word so good Success and so much Attestation from King Parliament City and Bishops as I have haâ— If they ask why I Conform not I say I do as far as any Law bindeth me If they ask why I take not this Oath I say Because I neither understand it nor can prevail with Rulers to Explain it And if have a good sence I have not only subscribed to it but to much more in a Book called The second Plea for Peace page 60 61 62. Where also I have professed my Loyalty much further than this Oath extendeth But if it have a bad sence I will not take it And I find the Conformists utterly disagreed of the Sence and most that I hear of renouncing that sence which the words signifie in their common use And knowing that Perjury is a mortal Enemy to the Life and Safety of Kings and the Peace of Kingdoms and to Converse and to Man's Salvation I will not dally with such a dangerous Crime Nor will I deceive my Rulers by Stretches and Equivocations nor do I believe Lying lawful after all that Grotius de Iure Belli and Bishop Taylor Duct Dub. have said for it I think Oaths imposed are to be taken in the ordinary sense of the words if the Imposers put not another on them And I dare not Swear that a Commission under the Broad-Seal is no Commission till I that am no Lawyer know it to be Legal Nor yet that the Lord Keeper may Depose the King without resistance by Sealing Commissions to Traytors to seize on his Forts Navy Militia or Treasure Nor can I consent to make all the present Church-Government as unalterable as the Monarchy especially when the Seventh Canon extendeth it to an caetèra to Arch-bishops Bishops Deans Arch-deacons and the rest that bear Office in the same not
excepting Lay-Chancellor's use of the Keys ipso facto Excommunicateth all Nobility Gentry Clergy and Commons that say That it is repugnant to the Word of God And it 's time to take heed what we Swear when the Act of Uniformity the Oxford-Act the Corporation Act the Vestry Act the Militia Act and the Oath of Supremacy do bind all the Nation by Solemn Oath not to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State And yet most Reverend Fathers who most sharply call us to Conformity do Write for a Foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction under the Name of an Universal Colledge of Bishops or Council having such power as other Courts even Commanding Pretorian Legislative and Judicial to all the Church on Earth and that obedience to this Foreign Jurisdiction is the necessary way to escape Schism and Damnation And if it be no alteration of Government to bring King and Kingom to be subject to a Foreign Jurisdiction this Oath and the Oath of Supremacy and the 39 Articles and Canons and several Statutes which renounced it are all unintelligible to us We renounce all subjection to any Foreign Church or Power but not Communion We have Communion with the Church of Rome and all others in Christianity but not in their sin and we are not yet so dull as to know no difference between Foreigners Government of us and their Communion nor to think that Separation from a Usurped Government is Separation from Christian Communion Nor can we possibly believe the Capacity of Pope or Council or Colledge of Bishops as a Monarchy or Aristocracy to Govern all the World in one Soveraignty Ecclesiastical till we see one Civil Monarchy or Aristocracy rule all the Earth And we dread the Doctrine and Example of such Men as would introduce any Foreign Jurisdiction while they are for Swearing all the Land against any alteration of Church-Government And we must deliberate before we thus Conform while so Great Men do render the Oath so doubtful to us I appeal to the fore-cited Profession of my Loyalty published many years ago as being far more full and satisfactory to any that questioneth it than the taking of this doubtful controverted Oath would be A true Copy of the Iudgment of Mr. Saunders now Lord Chief Iustice of the King's-Bench given me March the 22d 1674 5. 1. IF he hath the Bishop's License and be not a Curate Lecturer or other Promoted Ecclesiastical Person mentioned in the Act I conceive he may Preach Occasional Sermons without Conforming and not incure any Penalty within this Act. The due Order of Law requires that the Delinquent if he be forth-coming ought to be summon'd to appear to Answer for himself if he pleases before he be Convicted But in case of his withdrawing himself or not appearing he may be regularly Convicted Convictions may be accumulated before the Appeal be determined but not unduely nor is it to be supposed that any undue Convictions will be made As I Conceive Edm. Saunders M. day 22. 167â— Mr. Polixfen's Iudgment for my Preaching Occasionally A. B. before the Thirteenth of this King being Episcopally Ordained and at the time of the Act of Uniformity made Car. 2. not being Incumbent in any Living or having any Ecclesiastical Preferment before the Act of Uniformity viz. 25 Feb. 13 Car. 2. obtains a License of the then Bishop of London under his Seal to Preach in any part of his Diocess aud at the same time subscribes the 39 Articles of the Church of England Quest. Whether Licenses Preceding the Act be within the meaning of the Act I conceive they are For if Licensed at the time of the Act made what need any new License That were but actum agere and the Clause in the Act unless he be Iacensed c. in the manner of penning shews that Licenses that then were were sufficient and within the Provision And the followiug Clause as to the Lecturers is Express now is or shall be Licensed The former part of the Act as well as that extends to Licenses that then were For the same License that enables a man to Preach a Lecture must enable a man to Preach Q. Whether he be restrained by the Act of Vniformity to Preach a Funeral Sermon or other occasional Sermon I Conceiâ—e that he is not restrained by this Act to Preach any Occasional Sermon so as it be within the Diocess wherein he is Licensed Hen. Pollexfen Decemb. 19. 1682. § 77. While I continue night and day under constant pain and often strong and under the sentence of approaching death by an uncurable disease which age and great debility yields to I found great need of the constant exercise of patience by obedient submission to God and writing a small Tractate of it for my own use I saw reason to yield to them that desired it might be publick there being especially so common need of obedient patience § 78. Having long ago written a Treatise against Coalition with Papists by introducing a Foreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Councils I was urged by the Writings of Mr. Dogwel and Dr. Saywell to publish it but the Printers dare not Print it Entitled England not to be perjured by receiving a Foreign Jurisdiction It is in two Parts The first Historical shewing who have endeavoured to introduce a Foreign Jurisdiction citing Papists Grotius Arch-Bishop Bromball Arch-Bishop Laud Thorndike Dr. Saywell Dodwell four Letters to Bishop Guning and others The 2d part strictly Stating the Controversy and Confuting a Foreign Jurisdiction against which Change of Government all the Land is Sworn I may not Print it § 79. When I saw the storm of Persecution arising by the Agitators Hilton Shad Buck and such other and saw what the Justices were at least in present danger of and especially how Le Strange and other weekly Pamphleteers bent all their wit and power to make others odious and prepared for destruction and to draw as many as possibly they could to hate and ruine faithful men and how Conscience and serious piety grew with many into such hatred and reproach that no men were so much abhorred that many gloried to be called Tories tho they knew it was the name of the Irish common murdering Thieves I wrote a small Book called Cain and Abel in two parts The first against malignant Enmity to serious Godliness with abundant Reasons to convince Malignants The second against Persecution by way of Quaere's I wrote a third part as Impartial to tell Dissenters why while I was able I went oft to the Parish Church and there Communicated and why they should not suffer as Separatists or Recusants lest they suffer as evil doers But wise men would not let me publish it And the two first the Booksellers and Printers durst not print but twice refused them § 80. But the third part the Reasons of my Communion with Parish Churches that have honest able Ministers I sent to one friend who telling others of it a Bookseller after two
what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice You shall answer for your own Souls Neither Parents nor Princes have an absolute or a destroying Power over them nor any that divesteth you of the Charge or Government of your selves Prudence therefore in such Cases must look to Order to Publick Good and to your own Edification and preserve all as far as you are able and God will accept you if you do your best though interess'd Factions â—e offended with you XXI It is a great Doubt among Casuists Whether and when the Breach of Humane Laws oblige Men to any other than Humane Penalties So far as God is offended and his Law broken by the breach of Mans so far Punishment from God also is deserved but no further And a Council at Toletum hath an express Canon that lest Subjects by the Churches Laws should have their Souls ensnared in Guilt towards God it is declared that their Provincial Canons bind only ad poenam non ad culpam to bear the Penalty but not to conclude men Sinners The Expressions want skill but the Meaning is manifest XXII The Persons belief that an evil Course is lawful maketh it not lawful to him The esse is before the scire If God's Law have forbidden or commanded Man's Errour may ensnare himself in sin but cannot change the Law of God XXIII Some that I love and honour that have heretofore been ensnared in Anabaptistry and Separation in the sense of their Errour as is usual warp to the contrary Extream and fear not the dreadful guilt of perswading Christ's faithful Ministers to lay by the Sacred Office which they are devoted to yea and would blind us to believe there is no need save only to speak to particular persons privately whereby they should be a year in speaking to those whom they may speak to in an hour and few be able to do it and perhaps be thrust out with wrath by the Parish Ministers as creeping into Houses to seduce silly women or reproached and suspected for it They say truly that he that hath gone their former way of unjust Separation is like one that an travel seeth here a Leg and their an Arm lye in his way and therefore should fear to go on in danger But I tell them further he that readeth Church History and Councils what work Church Tyranny and striving to be greatest hath made with Kings and Kingdoms Churches and Families and the Blood of an hundred thousand Christians for about a thousand years at least is like one that in his travel seeth here a hundred Carkasses and there an hundred and there a stream of Blood and there a City ruined and there a good King surrendring his Crown as an Act of Penance as Ludovicus Pius did and there the Streets covered with the Blood and Carkasses of Monks and others and then cast into the Rivers by the wars and broils of contending Bishops as at Antioch c and if this Man will go on he overcometh another kind of warning than here a Leg and there an Arm Read but the History throughly and judge But what will not Ignorance make men say XXIV Some think that if Sacramental Communion only were left free it would alone heal most of our English differences I confess I that think Men may be forced to hear and be catechized do think the great Priviledges of Sacramental Communion and a sealed Pardon should be given to none by Cramming or as a Drench I mean to none against their wills none but Volunteers or Consenters being capable of so great Benefits according to Christ the Donor's mind But this requireth many Cautions and belongeth not to the Case in hand Numb VII A Letter of Mr. Baxter's about the Case of Nevil Symmons SIR I Think not the Confuting of any of the Calumnies that are cast upon me by Backbiters whether from Ignorance or Envy worth any great care or labour were it not for the sake of the Guilty themselves and others whom they may draw into the same Guilt or hinder from profiting by my Labours in the Calling that God hath placed me in But I will not despise all these so much as not to think them worthy the labour of a few Lines It is not long since some Gentlemen at a Coffee-House affirmed That I had kill'd a Man in cold Blood with my own Hand that is a Tinker beating his Kettle at my Door and disturbing me in my Studies I pistoll'd him and was tired at Worcester for my Life But these Gentlemen were so ingenuous as to ask Forgiveness and confess their Fault and one of them openly to my Vindication Though Dr. Boreman Parson of St. Giles's in the Fields that in a printed Pamphlet led the way never did so Yet lived three or four years Suspended or supposing himself Suspended and so died Another caracterized Iames 3. reporteth that I am so hot a Disputant that at a Gentleman's Table I threw the Plate at him that I disputed with The whole Story feigned nor did I ever know the least occasion for the Report The greatest Reproach that 's laid on me is by Conformists for not Conforming or not giving over my Preaching and Ministry And if they accuse me for not turning Papist and for not giving over Prayer as they did Daniel it would have the same effect with me But now comes a new one my Sufferings are my Crimes my Bookseller Nevil Symmons is broken and it is reported that I am the Cause by the excessive Rates that I took for my Books of him and a great Dean whom I much value foretold that I would undo him Of all Crimes in the World I least expected to be accused of Covetousness Satan being the Master of this Design to hinder the Success of my Writings when I am dead it is part of my warfare under Christ to resist him I tell you therefore truly all my Covenants and Dealings with Booksellers to this day When I first ventured upon the publication of my Thoughts I knew nothing of the Art of Booksellers I did as an act of meer kindness offer my Book called The Saints Rest to Thomas Underbill and Francis Tyton to print leaving the Matter of Profit without any Covenants to their Ingenuity They gave me Ten pounds for the first Impression and Ten pounds apiece that is Twenty pounds for every after Impresion till 1665. I had in the mean time altered the Book by the Addition of divers Sheets Mr. Underhill dieth his Wife is poor Mr Tyton hath Losses by the Fire 1666. They never gave me nor offered me a Farthing for any Impression after nor so much as one of the Books but I was fain out of my own Purse to buy all that I gave to any Friend or poor Person that asked it This loosening me from Mr. Tyton Mr. Symmons stept in and told me That Mr. Tyton said he had never got Three pence by me and brought witness Hereupon I used Mr. Symmons only When I
and also how the Plot was laid to Kill the King Thus Oates's Testimony seconded by Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey's Murder and Bedlow and Pranse's Testimonies became to be generally believed Ireland a Jesuit and Two more were Condemned as designing to Kill the King Hill Berry and Green were Condemned for the murder of Godfrey and Executed But Pranse was by a Papist first terrified into a Denyal again of the Plot to Kill the King and took on him to be Distracted But quickly Recanted of this and had no Quiet till he told how he was so Affrighted and Renewed all his Testimony and Confession After this came in one Mr. Dugdale a Papist and confessed the same Plot and especially the Lord Stafford's interest in it And after him more and more Evidence daily was added â—â—â—man the Dutchess of York's Secretary and one of the Papists great Plotters and Disputers being surprized though he made away all his later Papers was hanged by the Old Ones that were remaining and by Oates his Teâ—â—imony But the Parliament kept off all Aspersions from the Duke The Hopes of some and the Fears of others of his Succession prevailed with many § 28. At last the Lord Treasurer Sir Thomas Osborne made Earl of Danby came upon the stage having been before the object of the Parliament and People's jealousy and hard thoughts He being afraid that somewhat would be done against him knowing that Mr. Montague his Kinsman late Ambassadour in France had some Letters of his in his keeping which he thought might endanger him got an order from the King to seize on all Mr. Montagues Letters who suspecting some such usage had conveyed away the chief Letters and telling the Parliament where they were they sent and fetcht them and upon the reading of them were so instigated against the Lord Treasurer they impeached him in the Lords House of High Treason But not long after the King disolved the long Parliament which he had kept up about 17 or 18 years But a new Parliament is promised § 29. Above 40 Scots men of which 3 Preachers were by their Council sentenced to be not only banished but sold as servants called slaves to the American Plantations They were brought by ship to London Divers Citizens offered to pay their ransom The King was petitioned for them I went to the D. of Lauderdale but none of us could prevail for one man At last the Ship-Master was told that by a Statute it was a Capital crime to Transport any of the King's Subjects out of England where now they were without their consent and so he set them on shoar and they all escaped for nothing § 30. A great number of Hungarian Ministers had before been sold for Gally slaves by the Emperour's Agents but were released by the Dutch Admiral 's Request and some of them largely relieved by Collections in London § 31. The long and grievous Parliament that silenced about 2000 Ministers and did many works of such a nature being dissolved as aforesaid on Ian. 25. 1678. A new one was chosen and met on March 6 following And the King refusing their chosen speaker Mr. Segmore raised in them a greater displeasure against the Lord Treasurer thinking him the cause and after some days they chose Serjeant Gregory § 32. The Duke of York a little before removed out of England by the King's Command who yet stands to maintain his Succession § 33. The Parliament first impeached the foresaid Papist Lords for the Plot or Conspiracy the Lord Bellasis Lord Arundel Lord of Powis Lord Scafford and Lord Peter and after them the Lord Treasurer 34. New fires breaking out enrage the People against the Papists A great part of Southwark was before burnt and the Papists strongly suspected the cause Near half the buildings of the Temple were burnt And it was greatly suspected to be done by the Papists One Mr. Bifeild's house in Holbourn and Divers others so fired but quenched as made it very probable to be by their Conspiracy And at last in Fitter-Lane it fell on the house of Mr. Robert Bird a Man employed in Law of great Judgment and Piety who having more wit than many others to search it out found that it was done by a new Servant Maid who confessed it first to him and then to a Justice and after to the Lords that one Nicholas Stubbes a Papist having first made her promise to be a Papist next promised her 5 l. to set fire on her Master's house telling her that many others were to do the like and the Protestant Hereticks to be killed by the middle of Iune and that it was no more sin to do it than to kill a Dog Stubbes was taken and at first vehemently denyed but after confessed all and told them that one Giffard a Priest and his Confessor engaged him in it and Divers others and told them all as aforesaid how the Firing and Plot went on and what hope they had of a French Invasion The House of Commons desired the King to pardon the woman Eliz. Oxley and Stubbes § 35. If the Papists have not Confidence in the French Invasion God leaveth them to utter madness to hasten their ruine They were in full junctness through the Land and the noise of rage was by their design turned against the Nonconformists But their hopes did cast them into such an impatience of delay that they could no longer stay but must presently Reign by rage of blood Had they studied to make themselves odious to the Land they could have found out no more effectual way than by Firing Murder and Plotting to kill the King All London at this day is in such fear of them that they are fain to keep up private Watches in all streets besides the Common ones to save their houses from firing Yea while they find that it increaseth a hatred of them and while many of them are already hanged they still go on which sheweth either their confidence in Foreign Aid or their utter infatuation § 36. Upon Easter day the King dissolved his privy Council and settled it a new consisting of 30 men most of the old ones the Earl of Shaftsbury being President to the great joy of the People then tho since all is changed § 37. On the 27th of April 1679. Tho it was the Lord's Day the Parliament State excited by Stubbes his Confession that the Firing Plot went on and the French were to invade us and the Protestants to be murdered by Iune 28 and they voted that the Duke of York's declaring himself a Papist was the cause of all our dangers by these Plots and sent to the Lords to concur in the same Vote § 38. But the King that week by himself and the Chancellour acquainted them that he should consent to any thing reasonable to secure the Protestant Religion not alienating the Crown from the Line of Succession and Particularly that he would consent that till the Successour should take the Test he should exercise
no Acts of Government but the Parliament in being should continue or if none then were that which last was should be in power and exercise all the Government in the Name of the King This offer took much with many but most said that it signifyed nothing For Papists have easily Dispensations to take any Tests or Oaths and Queen Mary's case shewed how Parliaments will serve the Prince's will § 39. Divers Papists turned from them to the Protestants upon the Detection of their wickedness and bloody Principles and minds And among others Mr. Hutchinson that called himself Berry against whom I lately wrote He first wrote for the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and after forsook them seemingly for a time § 40. When I had written my Book against Mr. Gale's Treatise for Predetermination and was intending to Print it the good man fell sick of a Consumption and I thought it meet to suspend the publication lest I should grieve him and increase his sickness of which he dyed And that I might not obscure God's Providence about sin I wrote and preached two Sermons to shew what great and excellent things God doth in the World by the occasion of Man's sin And verily it is wonderful to observe that in England all Parties Prelatical first Independents Anabaptists especially Papists have been brought down by themselves and not by the wit and strength of their Enemies and we can hardly discern any footsteps of any of our own Endeavours wit or power in any of our Late Deliverances but our Enemies wickedness and bloody Designs have been the occasion of almost all Yea the Presbyterians themselves have suffered more by the dividing effects of their own Covenant and their unskilfulness in healing the Divisions between them and the Independents and Anabaptists and the Episcopal than by any strength that brought them down tho since men's wrath hath troden them as in the dirt § 41. In April I finished a Treatise of the only way of Union and Concord among all Christian Churches In three parts 1. Of the Nature and Reasons of Union an Concord 2. Of the true and only Terms 3. Of the Nature of Schism and the false Terms on which the Church will never unite § 42. Two years ago by the Consent of many Ministers I Printed one Writing called the Judgment of Nonconformists concerning the Parts or Office of Reason in Religion which having good acceptance by the same Men's consent I yielded to the Printing of three more one of the difference between Grace and Morality Another called the Nonconformists Judgment about things indifferent commanded by Authority And another What Nonconformity is not disclaiming several false Imputations To which I added a 4th of Scandal But when they were Printed some of our Political friends in Parliament and else where were against the publishing of them saying they would increase our sufferings by exasperating or offend some Sectaries that dislike some words And so I was put to pay 23 l. for the printing of them and suppress them § 43. I wrote also Divers Treatises of Nonconformity One opening their case by a multitude of Quere's Another by way of History and Assertion specially vindicating them from the Charge of Schism Another to prove it their duty to continue preaching tho forbidden c. § 44. The Earl of Argyle told me that being in company with some very great men one of them said that he went once to hear Mr. Baxter preach and he said nothing but what might beseem the King's Chappel and concluded that it was his Judgment that I ought to be beaten with many stripes because it could not be through ignorance but meer faction that I conformed not And the Bishops and Clergy to this day make unstudied Noble Men and Gentlemen believe that we confess all to be lawful and meer Inconveniences which we deny Conformity to O inhumane Impudence A Plot of Satan to tempt men never more to believe Clergy men's History Hereupon the said Earl of Argyle after many others desiring me to write down the points that we deny Conformity to I wrote 1. The case of the Nonconformists in a brief History 2. An Index of about 40 or 50 of the points that we cannot conform to but barely naming them without proof to avoid prolixity which may expose them to any Pretender's Confutation And at the importunity of a friend this week May 2. I permitted the shewing them to the Bishop of Lincoln Dr. Barlow who is a Man firmly zealous against Popery of great Reading and Learning long a publick Professor of Divinity in Oxford and esteemed of as equal at least with the best of the Bishops And yet told my friend that got my Papers for him that he could hear of nothing that we judged to be sin but meer inconveniences When as above 17 years ago we publickly endeavoured to prove the sinfulness even of many of the old Impositions and our petition for peace was printed in which we solemnly professed that nothing should hinder us from Conformity did we not believe it to be sin against God and endangering our salvation Yet thus talk the best and Learnedest of them as if they had dwelt a thousand Miles from us and had never heard our Case Some would persuade us that they are all meer hardened impudent Worldlings that know all to be Lies which they thus speak But I am persuaded that this is too hard Censure and that some yea many of the Clergy think as they thus speak because the Schism of the Age doth make them meer strangers to us knowing little more of our minds than what they hear from one another by such Reports And yet we never had leave to speak or write our Case to tell men what it is that we think sin in the New-Conformity much less to give our Reasons § 45. The firing fury going on still God leaving the Papists to self-destroying madness on Friday night May 9. Some Papist prisoners bribing the Porter they set the prison on fire and burnt much of it down the Porter and they escaping together which put the Parliament to appoint the drawing up of a stricter Law to prevent more firing But what can Laws do to it § 46. On the Lord's day May 11th 1679. The Commons sate extraordinarily and agreed in two Votes first that the Duke of York was uncapable of succeeding in the Imperial Crown of England 2. That they would stand by the King and the Protestant Religion with their Lives and Fortunes and if the King came to a violent Death which God forbid would be revenged on the Papists § 47. The Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews in Scotland Iames Sharp was Murdered this Month. The Actors a Servant hardly used by him or a Tenant drew in some Confederates since suffered § 48. The Parliament shortly dissolved while they insisted on the tryal of the Lord Treasurer § 49. The Scots being forbidden to preach and Meet in the open Fields being led by a few rash