RICHARD BAXTER's Penitent Confession And His Necessary VINDICATION In Answer to a BOOK called The Second Part of the Mischiefs of Separation Written by an Unnamed Author With a PREFACE to Mr. Cantianus D Minimis in Answer to his LETTER which extorted this Publication Psal 32. 5. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin Psal 19. 12 13. Who can understand his Errours Cleanse thou me from secret faults Keep back thy Servant also from presumptuous sins Let them not have dominion over me Then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression John 8. 44 45. Ye are of your Father the Devil and the Lusts of your Father you will do He was a Murderer from the beginning and abode not in the Truth because there is no truth in him When he speaketh a Lie he speaketh of his own for he is a Liar and the Father of it And because I tell you the truth ye believe me not Isa 5. 20. Woe to them that call Evil Good and Good Evil That put darkness for light and light for darkness that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter Prov. 24. 24. He that saith to the wicked Thou art Righteous him shall the People Curse Nations shall abhor him Sharp words LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel 1691. For the very Reverend Dr. Edward Stilling fleet Lord Bishop of the Diocess of Worcester Reverend Sir SUpposing the Book which I answer as injurious to you as to me I judge it meet to propose to you this Opportunity of your own Vindication Or if I be herein mistaken to crave your help for my own Conviction Your former Accusation of such as I of the heinous Sin of Schism or Separation I confess I answered in a manner that required your Patience If it was too free and provoking I beg your pardon and do not Justifie it My Reasons were 1. That I thought that to take such as I for Schismaticks or Separatists was a great hardening and strengthening of the real Separatists when my Character and such others should seem to be theirs and if we were falsly accused they should seem to be so too 2. Because I knew how much your Authority and just Reputation would add as a Whet-stone to the keenness of their Zeal who thought us unmeet to live out of the common Goals 3. Because I knew whatever is said against it how great a Loss it would be to Souls to have all silenced Ministers give over preaching to any more than four and what Sacrilege we should be guilty of to give over our Ministery which we were vowed to and to be banished five Miles from all Corporations or there to avoid all publick worshiping of God And your Pacificatory Accommodation so earnestly restraining Parents without excepting the Nobility from chusing School-masters for their own Children seemed to one to be an unsufferable Overthrow of that Family Government which is of Divine Institution antecedent to Regal and most literally required in the Fifth Commandment These Reasons carrying me to Earnestness I perceive the Conceit or Suspition is too common that your Exasperation was the Spring both of Dr. Morrice's Defence of you and of this Book which is commonly famed to be written by Mr. Long of Exeter a Member of the Representative Church of England of whom I will not say as Bishop Morley of me Ex uno omnes This Concest is increased by the Title of his Book the same with yours as The Second Part and by your Collocutor's Title The Army-Chaplain and such other Circumstances For my part I take it for my duty to believe that you abhor such a Fardel of malicious impudent Lyes And that he that hath written so many excellent Books of which I thankfully acknowledge the Receipt of many as your Gift will by no Temptation be poysoned to the Approbation of so venomous a Label But if I should be in any part mistaken and while you own not the manner of his Writing you should own the main Cause or Accusation I humbly and earnestly beg that before I dye if it may be you will afford me that help of Conviction and Repentance which may be expected from a Man of Learning Piety and Truth and the now Bishop of that Diocess where the surviving part of my only Flock that ever I had remain among whom you may learn more of the falshood of this Man's Accusations And as I cannot but think that the present Necessity brought about by God's Providence without us will engage a Man of your Knowledge and Temper to use your Interest and Parts to the uttermost both in Parliament and Convocation for the strengthening of this Nation and Church by Concord and necessary Amendment and unlocking the â—oors of the Parish-Churches to the Lovers of Unity and Peace So Acquaintance enableth me to be confident that though such as I are past having our part in such a Blessing on Earth yet a great number of young Preachers will be ready joyfully to accept of any lawful Terms for so good an End who now serve God on Terms of Sâ—lfdenial and are Men of greater Orthodoxness Piety Learning and skilful powerful Preaching than you would have believed our Nonconformists Schools would have brought forth And if that blessed Day may hasten I doubt not but those of the suffering Ministers that have overlived their long Silencing Imprisonments and Distresses will gladly do as Joseph forgive the Envy and Injuries of their Brethren and Afflicters observing how much of the Hand of God was in the Over-ruling of all and making use of that Sin which he did neither cause nor justifie Sir As the Importunity of Cantianus with many others drew me to publish this Writing which I once cast by as never to have been seen so the opportune Occasion of my desiring your own Vindication or your help for my Conviction hath caused this Address to you from Jun. 13. 1691. A willing Learner And Penitent Ri. Baxter A LETTER to Mr. BAXTER Reverend SIR I am a stranger to your person but not to your Excellent Writings for which I praise God and give you my hearty thanks I have many I have read many I have given away and recommended many to others to read and I bless God have received much light and warmth from many of them whereby I am engaged to pray for you and to take all occasions to speak write and act whatsoever may tend to your good here and hereafter And to that end I cannot be at peace with my self until I have desir'd you to take into your serious dying thoughts how you have walk'd towards the Church of England in your Practice and your Writings that before you appear at Gods Tribunal you may foresee your Sentence what it will be and whether your Writings and Practice have done or are likely after your death to do
more Good or Evil to the Professors of the Christian Religion for this is generally said by many of your Friends concerning your Writings Ubi benè nemo melius ubi malè nemo pejus And for your Enemies they are generally so prejudiced with your Malè that they are not able to read or think or speak well of your Benè but discourage many good Souls from reading or minding your most profitable Discourses Now my humble suit to you is to consider whether as St. Augustine that great Light and voluminous Writer Crowned all his Works with his Retractations of what was amiss Mr. Baxter might not do the same to Gods Glory the establishing of good Christians in the Truth bringing the misled out of their Errors stopping the Mouths of your Enemies and causing your Person and good Works to be had in Everlasting Remembrance and the preventing the ill consequences of what has been acted and writ by you which may attend the Church of God for many Ages after your death Sir I doubt not but you have heard and read the dreadful things that you are charged withal I have been amazed at them and heartily sorry for them I beseech you consult some Religious Wise Faithful Person whom you know to be a true Son of the Church of England as no doubt there are some among so many learned Bishops and Pastors and desire them freely to deal with you in helping you to see the great Errata's of your Sarcastical Writings against the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England or take but that one Book call'd The Unreasonableness of Separation the Second Part c. with special Remarks on the Life and Actions of Mr. R. Baxter 1681. and let God and Men see that you cannot only write well of Humility Repentance and Self-denial but you can act them also Where a Cross in time of Plagues is upon the Door every Man that passes by is ready to pray Lord have mercy on that Family Sir if you with your own Hand would please to acknowledge which of your Works is Infectious and may hurt Souls all Men that read it would bless God for you and heartily send up their Prayers to Heaven if they be but Persons that ever frequent the Throne of Grace with a Domine Miserere R. B. wherefore I beseech you think of the advice of a mean Brother of yours in the Work of the Ministry who in real gratitude for the benefit he has received by your Works and for your own Comfort Honour and Happiness and Gods Glory above all presumes before he goes to his Grave to express his Love and Duty to you before you go to yours for he finds that you and we both entred into the Church of Christ March 12. 1614 and therefore cannot be long from appearing before Almighty God to receive a Sentence to an Eternal state Liberavi animam meam Deus Omnipotens dirigat Te in omnibus viis tuis Many years past I met with an Expression in a Preface to another Mans Writing with your Name to it which much troubled me that it should fall from that Pen which had writ such Excellent Helps to follow Christ Jesus his Rules and Example It was this You was speaking of Hell and the Government and Order among Devils and clapt in that common Pulpit-prayer Expression concerning the Ministry of the Church of England viz. By what Names or Titles soever Dignified or Distinguished which I thought one of the bitterest unchristian Reflections I ever read and I was heartily troubled to read it because I thought it impossible for Hell to have crouded it in where there was so much of Heaven Sir You have the best Prayers I can put up to God for you and humbly beg your Prayers that I may follow Paul's advice to Timothy in taking heed to my Self and Doctrine and continue therein that thorough Gods Mercy and Christs Merits my own Soul may be saved and theirs that hear me So I hope we shall meet in Heaven for we have an Advocate with the Father Feb. 169◠Cantianus D Minimis THE PREFACE TO Mr. Cantianus D Minimis Salutem SIR § 1. I unfeignedly thank you for your Invitation to Repentance O pray for me that neither Ignorance nor Prepossession and Prejudice keep me in Impenitency so near my Death I daily wait for my last day on Earth and it is dreadful to die in the guilt of Impenitence But who knoweth all his secret faults I hope God will accept my willingness to know them and openly to confess them what Party or Person soever be displeased with it Upon your Letter I began to practise it and finding the Book which you refer me to begin with my Childhood and Youth in his Accusations I thought my Answer must follow him and begin there also But shewing it to a Friend more prudent than my self he disliked it that I should tell the World of my Childish sins when it is Schism and Rebellion that are my Charge by the Accuser And I have oft heard bis pueri senes as if such passages were the effects of aged weakness which better remembereth the passages of Youth than of later years I suspect that this is true And yet a dying Man is afraid of such prudence as would stifle penitent Confession when I am so loudly called to it by you and the Accuser I will therefore satisfie Him and You and such other and my Conscience though I bear the derision of prudent dislikers It wrongeth no Man and to be accounted weak and simple I can easily bear § 2. But I doubt it is confessing too little and not too much that you will blame me for And I cannot remedy that neither Your Liturgy denieth Christian Burial to all that kill themselves and it is no Virtue to belie our selves I am sure it is sin to belie a Neighbour whom I must love but as my self Yea or not seasonably to vindicate his Reputation against malignant Slanderers I have many years left the Book unanswered to which you refer me for the Confession of my sins though many told me it was my Duty to answer it It is you now that have call'd me to it Would you have me confess all that he falsly accuseth me of Then you would make your self guilty of all his Lies by presuming that they are true and judging before you ever heard the defence of the accused You write too honestly to allow me to judge so hardly of you But truely I durst not put by your Call to my necessary defence The chief reason is that as you doubt whether my Books will do more good or hurt and your Author thinks it would be good that They were all burnt and the Papists are of the same mind so I am fully perswaded is the Devil And till he can get the Conquering Papists or Tories to do it he will Endeavour to make them as useless as if they were burnt by rendering them odious for their own
Moral change I used most undeniable Reasons and Means as Moral Causes I set Heaven before them in my Promises and Hell in Threatnings I convinced them of the Evil of Sin and of the Misery of unconverted Sinners and of the Vanity of all that can be set against the Mercies and Hopes which I set before them and of all other Remedies without my Grace And yet unless I would by Omnipotency heal them they would not be healed However God use the way of unresistible Omnipotency on some and will not be frustrate in his Design of the Saving of his Elect nor leave the Event of his Grace to the uncertain Determination of the Will of Man yet those will be found unexcuseable that wilfully go on and perish after all the sapiential moral Methods Reasons Perswasions Mercies and Patience warning and Corrections that were used as tending to their Cure Chap. II. Sect. 1. The Author's Profession of his own Repentance § 1. HE is unfit to profess himself to be called of God to call others to Repentance who is Impenitent himself And what Man hath a louder Call to Repent from God and Man than I my Self And should I not be truly willing to know my Sin that I may Repent of it and to confess it bewail it and forsake it when I know it Conscience would tell me that hereby I should aggravate it beyond all just excuse Alas it hath not been so sweet so profitable or friendly to me that I should take its part or be loth to leave it It hath been worse to me every day of my Life than all the Enemies that ever I had in the World And since God taught me effectually to know what Sin is and what God and Christ and Grace and the Hope of Heaven is and to know my Self all the Sufferings that ever I have had from Men from Malice from Envy from Persecutors from Slanderers have been next to nothing to me in comparison of what in Soul and Body I suffer daily for and by my Self and Sin § 2. Therefore I humbly and earnestly beg of that God that is the Hater of Sin and the Father of Lights that he will not deny me that illuminating convincing Grace which is needful to make me know the truth of my own Condition nor that uprightness and tenderness of Heart which is necessary to my true Humiliation and that I may not forbear any true Confession which is necessary to my exercise of Repentance and to my Forgiveness It is no time for me to deny or extenuate my Sin when I am waiting daily in pain and languishing for my final Doom at my approaching Change when I shall quit this transitory World and all its Vanities for ever If I knew nothing of dangerous and doubtful Consequence by my Self yet am I not thereby justified And how small a matter should it be to me to be judged and acquit or praised by Men when there is one that Judgeth me by the final Sentence even the Lord. The false applause and praise of Men the miserable Hypocrites reward addeth no Joy to those in Heaven nor abateth the Misery of those in Hell Whether they praise or dispraise me they are all Dying as well as I and in that day their thoughts perish And who that seeth a Skull cast up doth much care what that Man thought of him while he was alive Verily every Man at his best Estate is altogether Vanity Cease therefore O my Soul from Man § 3. But what Must I or may I therefore Repent of all that men of divers Minds call me to Repent of How impossible is that How foolish and how wicked There are above Sixty Books written against me in part or in the main scope And I have written above a Hundred and twenty which must needs make work for many mens censure And are all or most Wise and Judicious that read and censure them I. The Sadduces censure me for asserting the Life to come and the Resurrection II. The Somatists censure me for the asserting of the Difference of Spirits from Bodies III. The Antitrinitarians censure me for shewing what Evidence of Trinity in Unity God hath imprinted on the whole frame of Nature and Morality IV. The Church-distracting Hereticators censure me for taking the old Controversies with the Nestorians Eutychians and Monothelites to be capable of easier reconciliation and gentler handling than it hath found by such fierce Dividers V. The Arrians and Socinians say I judge too hardly of them that deny the Godhead of Christ VI. The Arminians censure me for holding special Election and Differencing Grace VII The hot Anti-Arminians censure me for holding any such free Will and Universal Redemption as Usher Davenant Preston and such other knowing men have defended VIII The Anabaptists call me to Repentance for Writing so much for Infants Baptism IX The Antinomians deeply censure me as being against Christ and free Grace and ascribing too much to Man to Faith to Work and our own Righteousness and for detecting their Errours X. The Separatists call me to Repentance for separating no further from the Conformists than they force us from them and separate themselves from necessary Truth And for perswading men to Communion with the Parish Assemblies XI The Conforming Separatists call me to Repentance for not separating from all save themselves and for knowing and owning those to be true Members of the Church of England and faithful Servants of Christ whom they eject XII Clement Writer and the Seekers censure me for asserting the certainty of Scripture Verity as sealed by the Spirit by Miracles and Sanctification and for maintaining that there is yet continued a true Ministry and true Churches XIII Mr. Liford and some others censure me for taking the Blasphemy of the Holy Ghost to be fixed Infidels judging Christs Miracles to be by the Devil XIV Mr. Henry Dodwell censureth me for not taking the Office of Presbyters to be specified or measured and varied by the Will of the Bishop or Ordainer and not determined by the Institution of Christ and for not denying the Presbyters and Bishops of all the Reformed Churches to be really Ministers and their Churches true Churches who have not an uninterrupted Succession of Canonical Ordination by Diocesans as from the days of the Apostles and that they commit not the Sin against the Holy Ghost by administring Sacraments as being but Lay-Men while he holdeth such as the French to be true Ministers XV. The Erastians censure me for vindicating the Power of the Keys and the necessity of Ministerial Church Discipline XVI The Independents blame me for being for a National Church and some of them for being against their unnecessary Covenanting terms of Communion and their giving too much Power to popular Votes XVII The Scots Presbyterians blame me for blaming the Imposition of their Covenant and for being so much for a superior sort of Bishops or Archbishops XVIII The English Diocesan Enemies to Episcopacy who are for setting
faults and for mine And you tell me that my Enemies will not read them Now till my Opinion of them be the same with theirs you cannot expect that I that have spent so great a part of above Seventy five years in writing above an hundred and twenty Books should be content to lose my Labour and End and that all Men lose the benefit of them rather than I shall confute a most impudent Liar If you say I over-value them why do you speak the over-valuing of many of them That is good that doth Good About Twelve of them are Translated into the German Tongue and the Lutherans say They have done good Some are Translated into French One into the Language of the New-England Americans by Mr. Eliots Multitudes say they have been the means of their Conversion and more of their Information Confirmation and Consolation And the Chief benefit that I expect by them to the World is when I am dead and gone And can you expect that after so much labour for the Church and Souls I should so far despise both it and them as not to think all worthy of a just defence § 3. But you think that the way of Confessing his Accusations will better do it and will make Men write on the Doors a Domine Miserere for my Soul But have you known me better than I have known my self Or did he know me better who I suppose never spake with me but hath lived two hundred and lately and hundred Miles from me Or is there no way to win the love of your Party but by my known confessing such a multitude of shameless Lies as an Irish Tory or a Pagan would abhor I think it enough that I have to satisfie my Conscience and such as you exposed my self to the Censure of imprudent weakness by my Confessions § 4. But as to my Account of my Opinion about the Wars I must intreat you to take it as it is given you Not as a peremptory justification of all that I did but as the reasons which yet I see not answered desiring that where I erre God will better inform me that I may neither condemn the just nor justifie any sin § 5. But besides your Authors Accusations you have added two heinous ones of your own 1. That before some Book of anothers speaking of Order among Devils I clapt in that Expression By what Names or Titles soever Dignified or Distinguished And you did not think Hell could have done the like because it is a common Pulpit Expression I fear that you are over-tender of your Parties honour to some degree of melancholy suspiciousness that could find so much of Hell in those words I think I have not heard those words in the Pulpit thrice to my remembrance in forty years Our Preachers that I have heard mention only Archbishops Bishops and the Inferiour Clergy I hope you pray for more than England But what Obligation you have to pray for the Three Patriarchs of Antioch the Two Patriarchs of Alexandria or him of Constantinople or the Catholick of Armenia or the Abuna of Abassia or him of Moscovy or the Pope or the Cardinals Priests and Deacons or the Archbishop of Rhemes quâ tales as so Dignified and Distinguished I know not Is not a General Prayer for them enough Did Paul speak the Language of Hell in calling Devils Principalities and Powers and Spiritual Wickedness in High Places no nor in calling Satan The God of this World And is any Name more tenderly to be used than Gods Is it a wrong to Princes that Beelzebub is called The Prince of the Devils and the Prince that Ruleth in the Air Doth Scripture use Hellish Language in calling wicked Rulers GODS But I gave you not the least cause to think that I meant that Devils were Bishops or Bishops Devils I I spake not of Bishops And do you not know that Devils are dignified and distinguished in superiority by Names and Titles Why did you not name the Book which I prefaced that I might examine it Do you think that I can remember all that I have written before mens Books Seneca saith truly that he that hath a Sore or Ulcer thinks that you hurt him when you touch him not if he do but think you touch him However Dignities Dominions and Titles being words of Political common use if when we talk of spiritual heavenly or hellish Policy we must not use the same terms as of Humane Policy we must devise new Languages and Lexicons and correct the Bible Your second Accusation of me being my writings against the Bishops and Church of England I must suppose you mean truly not Bishops as Bishops nor the true Church of England as such or as heretofore But those Changers that since Laud have called themselves the Church If you speak truth this is your meaning § 6. And I cannot but think that as your honest and kind admonition obligeth me to be truly thankful to you and to renew the tryal of my ways so I am obliged by the same principle of Love and Fidelity humbly to intreat you to consider if possible without partiality 1. How you can answer the owning of such a Volume of a Lying Slanderers Accusations before you hear the defence of the Accused 2. But much more how you can so far countenance the heinous sins of those that you call the Church as not at all to blame them and to take it for so great a crime to name them and call men to repentance for them Can you find so much of Hell in the mention of the Dignities and Distinctions of Devils and yet see nothing but blamelesness in the silencings of about Two thousand such Ministers seizing on the goods and books and beds of so many as were so used laying many so long in common `fails with Rogues even divers to their death ruining so many hundred godly Families shutting the Church doors against so many Scholars that were educated and devoted to the Ministry causing and continuing the woful divisions of the Land to the great weakning of the Church and hinderances of Piety and Love and the great advantage of Popery and Forrein Enemies O how much more of such work have some to answer for Is Repentance for feeling and bewailing all this so great a duty as you suppose and is committing it and preaching it up a virtue not to be repented of Doth God require us to mourn and cry for the common evils if we will escape our selves Ezek. 9. 4. and to mourn for the reproach of the solemn Assembly as a burden Zeph. 3. 17. and is it now a heinous crime Hath Satan got so much right to his possession that if he use but the name of the Church for it they must repent as of hellish evil that so much as blame it and call men to Repentance O how hard is it to be impartial § 7. And when you look back on the Wars why do you not call them to Repentance
been tryed therein by many but would not so easily resign what he had got He once admitted me to his Discourse and before the Lord Broghil Lambert and Thurloe I urged him to tell us what the People of England had done to forfeit their right to the Enjoyment of their ancient constituted Government which they professed to be for and still desired And all the answer that I could have was that God had changed it by his Providence the passages of which he talkt over near two hours till Lambert took on him to be asleep for we must not interrupt him Then Sir Francis sent me his Printed Books and some Papers to have disputed over all the Case of the War And not knowing how many such I might be put to answer I thought best in Print to tell him on what Grounds and Principles I had gone not undertaking that I had not mistaken but to desire him if I had erred to shew it by answering my Reasons there given But before I could have his Answer the distracted Armies had overturned all the present Government I repented Writing that Book 1. Because it came out unseasonably too late 2. Because in opposition to Harrington I had pleaded for Monarchy with some excess and I wisht that I had not medled with Government but left all to the Providence of God 3. Because it did occasion more hurt than good so that it became the common Theme of ambitious young Preachers especially at Court before K. Ch. II. as the way to Preferment to talk against The Holy Commonwealth falsly perswading men that by a Commonwealth I meant Democracy or Popular Government which the Book was purposely written against So that when the Oxford University burnt that Book with Dr. Whitby's excellent Reconciler and some others though I expostulated with the Vice-Chancellor concerning its Principles I told them I consented that the Book was burnt though I told them not why as now I do XXXVII Though both Nature and Grace inclined me to hate Lying and specially in Writers and Preachers and I honoured Jul. Caes Scaliger the more because his Son Joseph tells us how vehemently he hated a Lie so that he could not be reconciled to a Liar yet I confess that my impatience herein was faulty It was long before I well perceived that the Father of Lies doth Govern his Kingdom most of the World by meer Lying Call it Errour or Mistake or Falshood or what you will all signifieth the same thing It is delivering Falshood for Truth Christ had told us that the Devil is the Father of Lies and when he speaketh a Lie he speaketh his own Deceit is by Lying and by this he ruleth his World As God's Image consisteth in Life Light and Love the Devil's Image is Hatred Falshood and Hurtfulness or Murder Joh. 8 But alas to take this for some strange thing and to be over-impatient with Liars was my fault when now I find it is but the very state of corrupt unreneved Nature And Pride the Father and Ignorance the Mother make Kingdoms Cities and Persons like a rotting Carkass that swarms with Maggots You that read Histories read with Judgment and due Suspicion for the common corrupt Nature is a lying Nature And it is not about Religion only but the Fool rageth and is confident in all his Errours O what abundance of Lying Books are Shops and Libraries fill'd with even in History and Theology What abundance of false Counsels do Physicians give what abundance of false accusations doth Envy and Malice vend What abundance of false Doctrines and Censures doth ignorant Sectarian Zeal foment How many Lies for one Truth is carried for News or for Slander about the Streets And how few scruple receiving and reporting them how fewer rebuke them It 's useful for the World to know how common this Malady is but it was almost in despair that I lately wrote a Book against it of pretended Knowledge and Love I blame not my self for hating it but being too impatient with it especially in Books and Preachers as if it had been a strange thing XXXVIII When I wrote my five Disputations of Church Government I too hastily mis translated some words of Ignatius and though I then owned Apostolick Successors in the continued part of their Work I did not so fully as now understand how Christ by Institution then founded a National Church nor what a National Church was nor how that which was ultimum in executione a Christian Soveraignty was primum in intentione to which bare Preaching was preparatory XXXIX When I wrote my Treatise of Episcopacy I Calculated it to the Laudian Faction then prevalent that called it self the Church of England and though I distinguished them that put down all the Parochial Pastors and Churches and turned them all into meer Curates and Chappels or partes Ecclesiarum infimarum and so put down hundreds of Bishops and Churches under pretence of magnifying One from the old Reformed Church of England that put not down these but only sinfully fettered them yet I did not so largely open the difference as I ought which gave Mr. Lobb occasion to write confidently for Separation XL. When my Books against Conformity had irritated Dr. Stillingfleet to make me an instance of mischievous Separation who had constantly heard and communicated with my Parish Churches and for my private or occasional Preaching had the Bishops Licence approved under the hands of two the greatest Lawyers of England the Lord Chief Justice Sanders and the now Lord Chief Justice Polixâ—en I doubt that I too provokingly took the advantage of his temerity and confuted him in too provoking terms not considering enough that a Man of great Learning Labour and Merit and Name hath a great interest of Reputation which he would not be insensible of And if it were true as many without proof report that his exasperation engaged first Mr. Morrice and after the second Author of the Mischief of Separation whose writing against me is the transcript of the Character given by Christ John 8. 44. yet I honour the Reading Learning Labour and great Worth of Dr. Stillingfleet now Bishop of Worcester and what ever hand he had in it I unfeignedly forgive him XLI And in defence of the Nonconformists against the false accusation of Shism laid on them by the Imposing Schismaticks I doubt I was too keen in confuting Mr. Sherlocke I found it hard to discern whether the defence of truth and slandered suffering Servants of Christ or not exasperating false Accusers should command my style XLII What other Errors there are or have been in my Life or Writings I daily beg of God to discover to me and pardon For I never did any thing which might not and ought not to have been done better Particularly I beg pardon for too frequent hastiness and harshness of Speech to my nearest Domesticks from whom I never differed one moment in point of Interest or Love but had too often sour over-hasty
conformable to Episcopacy and Parochial Worship and some of them so Zealous for the Liturgy and Diocesanes that they would not hear a Man as a Minister that had not Episcopal Ordination The Archbishop of York Williams was one of them and was not he for Episcopacy § 5. But the Accuser confuteth all this by telling us that it began in King James days between the Regians and the Republicans between Prerogative and Priviledge by a Party that would have perswaded the King to War for the Palatinate c. And why began he it not in Queen Elizabeth's Reign who more overtopt Parliaments than King James did I perceive by this Man that none must pass for Conformable and Episcopal that are not of Sibthorp and Mainwaring's Mind and renounce not Parliamentary Priviledges and give not up Property and Liberty to the meer will of the King called Prerogative And so all our Parliaments till the Dividing and Tearing Long one were not of the Church of England And what then was that Church Was it a Christian Kingdom and yet was the Kingdom Representative no part of it Are none but Leeches Sangutsugi's Men of Blood that must have all lye and die in Goals among Rogues that will not Swear and Subscribe and Declare and Covenant and Practise all that they impose of the Church of England What a Reproach is this to such a Church If I must Repent that I take not all the old Parliaments and all the Bishops in Queen Elizabeths days to be no Church Protestants if I must Repent for taking Jewel Bishop Bilson Ri. Hooker and his Friend Sir Edwin Sandyes for Church Protestants and Repent for believing all Rushworth's Collections all Whitlock's Memoirs all Sir Simon Dewes and Dr. Fuller's Church History and the Volumes of M. S. Parliament Speeches if I must take this King and Parliament and all the Bishops and Clergy that Conform to them to be no Protestants of the Church of England because they have made a Law declaring it to be the Rights and Liberties of the people to be governed by Law and not by Arbitrary Prerogative and have asserted what the old Parliaments claimed I must then heinously dishonour the Church of England and Repent that I am a Man § 6. He falsly feigneth me to say that the Bishops began the War because I said it began between the two Episcopal Parties those that were of Archbishop Abbot's and the old Reformers way and those that were for Land's Innovations and Persecutions And I should justly be noted for vain and tedious if I would stand to answer all his talk about the Provocations He that will read Whitlock may have full satisfaction and particularly find that the Parliament voted a Diocesane in every County when they began to reform And were they not then for Episcopacy § 7. Page 10. He saith From the year 1660 it hath been my chief work to pour out the like contempt malice and violence as was begun 1640. Ans Not a word proved or true till I was silenced 1662 Aug. 24. I was never accused for any word then preached writ and published Which was not for want of Enemies or Power Of many years after I neither preach'd nor printed And what I printed since the world may be judge of § 8. Page 12. He saith that the numerous fry of Sectaries agree to own me as their Champion Ans When the Grand Accuser can hope to make such stuff as this believed and that in a Land City and Time where the clean contrary is more commonly known than I am what can be devised so impudently false which he may not by his stamp make current as truth Are not above Sixty Books of Sectaries written more or less against me an evidence to prove that they take me not for their Champion Are not above Sixscore Books of my own writing many at large and all in part against Sectaries and Errors a visible Evidence of this Mans falshood Is not the common Cry of City and Countrey a sufficient witness that the Sectaries take me not for their Champion but their Adversary Indeed they have shewed it but by words it being but the two Master Sects Papists and Tory Prelatists that shew it by Fining Silencing Prison and taking all for their prey § 9. The Accuser tells me that it is no new thing for Hereticks to have many admirers and to pretend to purity that they may deceive Ans Which is very true and I will add that which is far worse It is no new thing even for them that do not so much as seem to have either Purity Conscience or common Honesty no nor to scruple the grossest Lying and Perjury to have more Followers than Christ himself had while he was on Earth notwithstanding his Purity and all his Miracles Such Men find corrupted nature as disposed to believe and follow them as a Dunghil to breed Weeds or a Carcase Maggots Even those that openly militate under Satan as deadly Enemies to serious Godliness if they will but cloak their malignity with the Name of a Sacred Function and call Piety and Conscience by their own Titles Hypocrisie and Schism shall convert more Souls to Diabolism in a little time than all the Preachers that they silence could have converted to Piety and serious Christianity And the French Prelacy and Dragoon Discipline will cleanse a Nation quickly from Protestant Heresie and Schism We hope not for the honour of having more Followers than such Men. This Man and his Sect would comfort me if I were in fear of that threatening of Christ Mat. 5. Woe to you when all Men speak well of you § 10. Ibid. He saith That under a form of Godliness I would destroy the power of it Ans Hem What is the Power of Godliness with this Sect of Men If it be the Power of Silencing the most Godly and Practical and Blameless Preachers and of Beggering and Murdering by long Imprisonment in common Goals both Preachers and Hearers that will not give over all publick Worship of God like Atheists till they dare venture to Lie and be Perjured and own all that such Men bid them say is faultless If it be the power of Godliness to have an ignorant worldly scandalous Priest who driveth Men from him by his naughtiness to hate threaten and ruine them if they will hear any but him or use any trustier Pastor for their Souls and that would turn Churches into Prisons and Sacraments into forced Drenches to be given by him that can get a Patent for the Trade which some Patrons and Prelates chosen by a Papist King can easily help him to then I am against the power of Godliness Where Gain is Godliness I have long been against the power of it § 11. Page 13. He saith Our Nation would be less in danger of new Flames if all my Books Practical and Polemical were consumed to Ashes Ans How came I to escape till now my self Not at all by your Clemency Your
to this day § 32. Accus XIX He was acquainted Forty years ago with many Aged Nonconforming Ministers and probably Confederate with them c. Ans Yes in the Baptismal Covenant renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil I repent not of that Nor take it for a sin to have known them § 33. Accus XX. Prejudices against Conformity possest him from his Youth Ans Not unless Cainism be Conformity or twenty four years old be my Youth such as your Writings and Doings are an ill cure of prejudice § 34. Accus XXI Is that I broke my Oaths to the King and Ecclesiastical Superiors whom I was bound to obey Ans I thought verily that I broke neither I Swore not to obey the Convocation much less against the Parliament in unlawful Canons and imposed Oaths never yet Authorized I took the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and thought that defending the Land against Armed Delinquents and Irish and Papists Insurrections had been no breach of it If I was mistaken the Lord convince me and forgive me But your way is unapt to it Let the Reader peruse but Sir Edward Deering's Speeches in Parliament proving that this Et caetera Oath was sinfully imposed without Authority by them that were neither a Convocation a Synod or Commissioners the same Man that spake so much for Liturgy and Episcopacy against Presbytery and Independency And I doubt not but it was flat Perjury that by it we were required to Swear viz. That the described Et caetera Government of the Church ought so to stand And was I perjured for refusing Perjury As a summary Confutation of a multitude of his Lies I at once tell the Reader that I neither was nor am for the way called Presbytery Independency or the English Diocesane way But for the mixture described excellently by Grotius de Imper. Sum. Pot. and Bishop Usher and Sir Edward Deering whose Counsel I wish'd that the Parliament had followed And that I was and am far from defending the irregular Actions of the Parliament or any Members of it Tho' they thought that the Delinquents had put a necessity on them to overgo their own Judgments to please the Scots and the Indiscreet and Schismatical part of the Nonconformists I doubt not but they did ill herein and should have trusted God in the use of none but lawful means I believe that a few Men by Craft and unwearied Industry over-reach'd many that knew not what they did Sir Edward Deering nameth some of them especially Sir H. V. Sir A. H. and O. C. that over-reach'd his own upholders and all the rest I believe they did ill to excite and encourage disorder and tumults on pretence of Petitioning and of scurrilous defamations of such Men as the Lord Falkland the Lord Digby Sir Edward Dering and some other worthy Men and so many good Bishops as they abused And yet that I durst not for these miscarriages consent to give up the Kingdoms Parliamentary Security for its present and future Safety and Liberties I still think is consonant to the most common Principles of Lawyers Politick Writers Historians Divines Protestants Papists and Heathens Even the late great Lord Chancellor Hide sat Chairman of the Committee of Parliament that received the Petitions against Episcopacy Root and Branch and made such Speeches against the Delinquents as I dare not justifie But he forsook them when they quite over-went him If the King of England had a War with the French and I knew that his Cause were bad I would not defend his bad Cause but I would in his Army defend the Kingdom against those that would Captivate it by Conquest For the Kingdom doth not forfeit its safety by the Kings misdoing And if any say Then the King shall be defended in all his injuries how bad soever I would answer That is by accident it is the Kingdom that I defend and Him as a means to defend the Kingdom and not to justifie his sin I leave that to God What a case is a Kingdom in if it must Fight against it self and its representing security as oft as its Representatives miscarry by any sinister means And that all that are to be judged by the chief Judicature shall Fight to Conquer them if the King do but bid them If the safety of this Kingdom be once put into the Trust of the King alone the Constitution is changed and all Enslaved § 35. Accus XXII He saith that in 1640. I entred into a War against the King Ans Whereas the War in England began not till 1642. And I never medled in War but as aforementioned long after § 36. Accus XXIII He saith by the Treatise of Diocesane Episcopacy meditated 1640. I broached Faction in the Church my Pen disdaining to be less active than my Sword Ans 1. I never struck with a Sword in War or Peace 2. Did Meditating broach a Book that was not published nor written till thirty years after 3. Is it Faction to give reasons why I Swore not to Faction even that Antiepiscopal sort of Diocesanes that put down many hundred Churches and Bishops to set up the Name and Image of one 4. Why is not that Book answered to this day when so many Nonconformists have Challenged Called and Beg'd for an Answer to it Will a Lying Scorn satisfie any Conscionable Nonconformist 5. That Book owneth so much of Bishops and Diocesanes and Archbishops which Sir Edward Dering condemned that these Men now shew that it is not such as I only but such as Grotius Spalatensis Usher Hall yea most of the great Writers for Episcopacy of whose Judgment I have there given a particular account whom he condemneth for Faction and Enmity to the Church I have written against the Pope too And is not that as bad I am sure many Papists write more against Episcopacy than I. § 37. Accus XXIV It 's probable his Church History had its conception at the same time Ans About Forty years after 1640. Forty years breaks no square with this sort of Men I would this lort of History were not too common with them § 38. Accus XXV Page 23 He feigneth me in my Church History to commend all the Hereticks and omit what is good of the Fathers and Martyrs and write only their faults Ans It seems he thought that without reading the Book that disproveth him his Faction would take his word that he saith true § 39 Accus XXVI The like he saith of my reproaching Councils because I shew the miscarriages of many and our Bishops that plead for a Forreign Jurisdiction dare yet own but six or eight General Councils § 40. Accus XXVII Page 25. He reciteth my mention of the former courses of undoing Men for hearing a Sermon of a Godly Conformist at the next Parish when they had none at home and for Fasting and Praying c. And he taketh it for my crime to call these ungodly Persecutions crimes So that he that is not for them while they are
if he eat saith Paul England yet feeleth such Mens Mercy There is I think but one of their Commissioners now surviving nor on our side but few even Dr. Tho. Pierce Dean of Salisbury And he moved for leave by Disputation there to prove that it is a work of mercy to all that think it unlawful to receive the Sacrament kneeling to deny it them and the Communion of the Church though the prohibition of all kneeling in Adoration on any Lords Day was one of the Ancient Ceremonies of the Church setled also at the great Council of Nice and continued near a Thousand years saith Dr. Heylin But Morley had the wit to take him off that dispute § 90. Accus LXXIII Page 96. After other Harangues he alledgeth false Causes of my refusing a Bishoprick I satisfied the Lord Chancellor Hide by a Letter with truer Reasons too long here to repeat § 91. Accus LXXIV He next accuseth my Moral Prognostication Ans Let it answer for it self to the Impartial Reader § 92. Accus LXXV He threateneth me for blaming the Laws Ans And do not many Bishops now blame the Laws If Laws be made engines of Schism and Persecution let them justifie them that can and that love them David saith Shall the Throne of Iniquity have Fellowship with thee that frameth mischief by a Law How many German Divines blamed the Interim imposed by the Emperor as for Peace § 93. Accus LXXVI He next reciteth Bishop Morley's Accusations in his printed Letter Ans Which I have proved to abound with falshood in a full Answer which for want of printing hath lain by me these six and twenty years Mr. Baldwin is yet living who was present when he forbad me to preach And Dr. William Bates is yet living who joyned with me in the Savoy Disputation which he misreported § 94. Accus LXXVII He accuseth my Book called The Cure of Church Divisions and yet saith It is the only Book that Mr. B. hath written that hath any thing of moderation Ans Must the World have a confutation of so gross a Liar after the visibility of above Sixscore Books that are an evidence against him and after the testimony that the Lord Chancellor Hide and Morley gave of me producing one of these Books before the King Lords and Drs. at Worcester-House If I understand them above a hundred Books have been written by me with a special design for Moderation Unity and Concord § 95. Accus LXXVIII Page 101. He is not ashamed to be a procurer of the Indulgence for Popery 1. Because I said I would have Papists used like Men. 2. I would have no Man put to death for being a Priest 3. I would have no writ de Excommunicato capiendo or any Law to compel them to our Communion and Sacraments Ans This Man is for Moderation Do you think he or I is more for Popery or hath written more against it Would he not have them used like Men nor suffered to live And must they be cast out of a Church that they were never in It seems he would receive them all to his Sacramental Communion if they will but chuse his Church before the Goal § 96. Accus LXXIX Page 102. Because I hold that If a Bishop or their Church Party would lay us in Goal for our Duty to God it is lawful to accept deliverance from a Papist that is in Authority He feigneth that If they will not come to us I would go to them And if a Protestant did Hang this Man himself would he take it for Popery or Sin to consent that a Papist cut the Rope You see what kind of crimes we Nonconformists are guilty of A willingness to live out of Goals against the Churchmens will Nay it is yet more our Crime is that we will not damn our selves by Subscribing or Swearing falsly and breaking our Ordination Vow by giving over our Ministry The proof that these Men are against Popery is that they would have the Nonconformists die in Goals and have no Papist seek to deliver them § 97. Accus LXXX Accusing my Book against Sacrilegious Desertion of the Ministry he asketh me Why I Baptize not nor Administer the Lords Supper and so seem to desert Christianity Ans Because I was called to preach and not to Baptize and Administer the Lords Supper by the Necessities of the people where I lived There were in Martins Parish about 60000 more than could come into the Church to hear But they had Curates enough to Baptize and they were compelled to the Lords Supper or might have come and neither Minister nor People desired my help And if these Men believe it not I do That we may and must preach to many that yet are not capable of Sacraments And to many whose Pastors and Judges herein we are not Shall every Minister that preacheth occasionally for him presume to Congregate his Flock and give them the Sacrament Or is he displeased that I gathered not a separated Church § 98. Accus LXXXI As to his Accusation of the Book I leave it to the Readers Judgment that will impartially peruse it But I am not yet convinced by him that it is a Crime to name the heinous sins that have torn this poor Nation and no Crime to commit them Most of his Accusations are that I tell them of their sin and perswade them to repent § 99. Accus LXXXII He accuseth my Plea for Peace and my Book called The true and only way of the Churches Concord as being utterly against Peace Ans Read them and Judge § 100. Accus LXXXIII He accuseth my History of turbulent Bishops and Councils and their Anathematizing as if it were false and almost all was done by Presbyters Ans Let him that hath read it and the proof I cite freely judge who is the falsifier As to his talk about Nestorius had he read David Derodon and what I have said in my Reply to the Defender of Dr. Stillingfleet Mr. Morrice it might have acquainted him with more than he seemeth to know about the Nestorians Eutychians and Monothelites As to his talk against the Arrians I am as much against them as he but not so much against Peace Dr. Henry More a Learned Conformist saith that those after the Council of Nice were to be numbered with the Catholicks and not with the Antichristians Though a Presbyter began their Sect it was Bishops and Persecuting Emperors that upheld it As to my words of many Writers mistakes therein before the Council of Nice he may find them with abundance more in Petavius de Trinitate As to his words of the Controversies and Councils de tribus Capitulis he that excuses the said Councils and Bishops as faultless as to all the doleful Divisions that followed hath not a due love to peace and prudence The same I say of the Monothelites § 101. Accus LXXXIV His great Accusation Page 126. is that If I had any fear of God or reverence of Man I would not reproach the
would have Parents disabled to chuse Schools and Tutors for their own Children But whether such Men as this were not far more against Dr. Stillingfleet's Concessions than I was let my old Friend Mr. Samuel Thomas now of Chard his Invective against Dr. Whitby and Dr. Stillingfleet be Judge and Dr. Stillingfleet himself who seemed once to yield to Terms of Concord which many of us offered to him and others And judge of the peaceableness of that Tribe of Clergy-men by the University of Oxford's burning Dr. Whitby a Conformist's excellent Book called The Reconciler and his being forced to seem to retract it § 118. Accus C. His Intimations pag. 156. of my desiring to be a Parish Bishop and also motioned with Dr. Owen to be an Archbishop are meerly impudent When I never was either Parish-Bishop or sought it at least since cast out of the Ministry 1662. nor so much as the Pastor of any Church and have refused a Diocesan Bishoprick many Years before any one now in England was a Bishop How can a Man be n nocent before such impudent Accusers and Judges § 119. Accus CI. As to his Accusation of my Self-Contradictions and L'Estrange ' s Proof I think no distinguishing Reader will need a Confutation of so false a Charge which confused Heads do feign that understand not things that differ And for his Charge against my Third Plea for Peace about the Principles of Government I only refer the Reader to the Book § 120. I have not thought his mere general Clamours worthy of a particular Answer lest I tire the Reader as I have tired my self with so unsavoury an Employment But I will here tell the Reader how I that these eight Years have never thought this Accuser worthy of an Answer have been brought to change my Judgment and to be at this unpleasing Labour when other Thoughts are more suitable to my Condition I. A Letter from some ancient Conformist that calls himself Cantianus De Minimis of my Age Seventy five so earnestly calleth me to Repentance and Retractation before I dye referring me to this Book for the notice of my Sins that I thought not meet to resist his Importunity II. I read so much of the horrid Reports of many Papists of the Crimes and Deaths of Luther Zuinglius Oecolampadius Calvin Bucer Phagius Beza and many such and how confidently they are commonly believed in the Roman Church and how greatly it hardeneth many against the Reformation that I was loth to contribute to their Deceit And I find that the same Sect accuseth the Generality of Dissenters that do but affirm that there is AND THING in their Books of Liturgy or Articles or in their Ceremonies or Ordination or in their Government by Archbishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons AND THE REST that bear Office therein unlawful or repugnant to the Word of God who are my Accusers and cry as Morley Ex uno disce omnes and when they have render'd me as one of the worst on Earth they make the rest as bad when I take them to be for the most the best Ministry that I ever knew And no wonder that their Writers and Preachers thus report them when their Canons ipso facto excommunicate them unheard not excepting Lords Knights Ministers or any And Lying is now grown so common a Sin in England confessed by all that few know what Reports to believe or to reject So that to betray my own Cause to these Accusers and Canoneers is to betray the Innocency of many Thousands III. I have long thought it my duty to call this sinful divided selftearing bleeding Nation to Repentance in a Treatise called REPENT O ENGLAND Bradford's dying Words though Experience telleth me that such Men as this will take the Motion for a greater Crime than all the Sins that I call them to repent of so odious a thing is Repentance and Confession to the Proud and Impenitent And before I call others to Repentance several sorts I take it for my first Duty to exercise my own To which end I unfeignedly resolved to confess what I could by any means find to be my Sin and being referred to this Accuser for my Conviction I found the Falshoods and Calumnies so many and so gross that I took it for my Duty not to seem by Silence to give Credit to them but having confessed what Sins I found to do my part to save others from the Temptations to Hatred and Lying and Persecution which such Men lay before them IV. And having laboured most of Forty two Years by Writing to profit Posterity as well as the present Age and written above a hundred and twenty Books to that End and God having prospered them far beyond my expectation in Germany and other Foreign Lands as well as in Britain I thought it Treachery to suffer the Devil and his Agents to blast them all with those that know me not without any Contradiction and Confutation of the Slanderers Sure if they were worth so many Years Labour 't is worth a little to take them out of the Fire or Water where Diabolism casteth them Which I am the more moved to because while I have the Thanks of Thousands that have read them common Fame and Mr. Cantianus that called me to this Work and others do tell me that the Generality now known by the Name of Tories or malignant Haters of serious Piety in England especially among the Universities and Clergy do so much hate my Name that they will read no Book which they see my Name prefixed to unless as the Adversary against whom it is written And as I have small hope of curing that malignant Prejudice which is more the hurt of the Envious than of me so I must not by Sloth or Silence contribute to its Increse and Men's Guilt § 121. I will conclude with these three farther Notices to all Readers for the true understanding of all these Controversies with the Men who so implacably hate and accuse me I. That they grosly cheat their sequacious Believers with this great Lye that I am against Bishops whereas I am for a Divine Right of three sorts of Bishops two by direct Institution and the other by Consequence viz. I. General Bishops call them Archbishops or Diocesans or Apostolicks or Evangelists that in every Nation are over many Churches II. Episcopi Gregis or Ruling Pastors of single Churches which are all true Presbyters III. Episcopi Praesides or Pro-estotes which are the Presidents of the Presbyters in particular Churches And that I am of the Judgment of Grotius De Imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra and highly value Bishop Overall's Convocation-Book in the main but abhor all Foreign Jurisdiction yet desiring the most extensive Foreign Communion § 122. II. That they grosly cheat their Believers in telling them that I am against Forms and Liturgies when they know that we offered to use theirs upon the Amendment of some Faults and severe cruel Impositions and by their Demand
call me to Repentance who while they falsly judge of the History can be no true Judges of the Application I proceed therefore to the exercise of Repentance as far as I can know SECTION 5. XXIV I Greatly repent that I at Coventry took the Scots Covenant for the many Reasons which I shall hereafter rehearse And that once I gave it to one Man a Papist Physition who pretended to be converted and desired me to give it him But suspecting his Hypocrisie I never gave it more but kept I think Thousands from taking it in Worcestershire and elsewhere I thought at first that it was intended only as a Test to the Garisons and Armies and knew not that it would after be made a dividing test for the Magistracy and Ministry through the Land which yet by the tenour of it I might have understood But I repent not that I neither sware nor subscribed that no man that ever took it is obliged by it to that part which is good and necessary Perjury is no jesting Matter XXV I more repent that I once publickly defended it against a Writing of Sir Francis Nethersole which he wrote against Mr. Vines who had Preached for it And that I did not more impartially consult with Sir Francis and hear all that he had to say against it For he was near us and I Preacht to him once at Kenelworth-Castle where as a Prisoner he was liker the Master of that Pleasant Seat under Colonel Needham for he seemed purposely to force the Committee to Imprison him by constant provoking them who would fain have let him alone But by that means he saved House-keeping and scaped both Plundering and Sequestring on both Sides and secured his Estate and his Person in a place of freedom and delight by Water and Land XXVI And though I thought that a Parliament's Judgment was above all Lawyers yet I repent that I had not more diligently consulted Lawyers on the other side Though indeed I knew not well where to find them the Lawyers of my Acquaintance being for the Parliament XXVII And whereas I then thought that Neutrality was a heinous Sin to stand by in the Danger of the Land I now repent of that Opinion considering that in a case of Blood Men should very clearly be resolved before they venture on either side XXVIII And I repent that I was by Ignorance in too much fear of Religion by the danger of Arminianism and thought too hardly of the Laudian party on that account For though I am no Arminian I have fully proved in my Catholick Theology that the difference is more verbal and small than the Zealots of either side do imagine which Book is yet answered by none XXIX Accordingly I at Coventry engaged in a dispute against Mr. Cradock and Mr. Diamond to prove Remission of Sin not only Conditional but Actual to be an Immediate effect of Christ's Death and pleaded for it Heb. 1. 3. and Rom. 8 32. and against Universal Redemption which I since perceive I misunderstood and abused XXX I repent that I sooner enquired not into the danger that the Land was in by Cromwell and his Sectaries And I repent that when his fundamental Troop at Cambridge which after made Commanders headed his Army wrote to me with Subscribed Names to be their Pastor I refused and rejected the offer to their offence telling them that I was neither for a Military Church nor an Independent popular Church Had I gone to them then what might I have prevented XXXI Though I am not able to see that I did not my Duty my most Self-denying and costly Duty in taking the defence of the Nation Religion King and Parliament to be reduced to Unity to be my necessary Employment while I owned not their Miscarriages yet knowing the frailty of my understanding I daily beg of God that if I was mistaken he will make me know it for which I have long Prayed and that he will pardon my Sins which I would fain know and fain repent of and publickly confess if I could know them but dare not take the greatest Duty of my life to be my Sin XXXII I am in great doubt how far I did well or ill in my opposition to Cromwell and his Army at last I am satisfied that it was my duty to disown and as I did to oppose their Rebellion and other Sin But there were many honest Pious men among them And when God chooseth the Executioners of his Justice as he pleaseth I am oft in doubt whether I should not have been more Passive and Silent than I was Though not as Jeremy to Nebuchadnezzar to perswade men to submit Yet to have forborn some sharp publick Preaching and Writing against them too late when they set themselves to promote Piety to ingratiate their Usurpation To disturb Possessors needeth a clear Call when for what end soever they do that good which men of better title will destroy XXXIII When they commanded days of Prayer and Thanksgiving for their Wars in Scotland c. And when they imposed the ENGAGEMENT to be true to the Commonwealth as it was established without a King and House of Lords I repent not that I refused it and wrote and preach'd against it But I doubt whether I did well in overdoing herein And had not waited more silently on God's Providence till he had cleared my way XXXIV I repented oft that I wrote the Book called Aphorisms of Justification and the Covenant Not but that I think it sound Doctrine and useful But it being my first is defective in Method and in some words which should have been more clearly and cautelously exprest And in my personal opposition to Dr. Owen's Errours I should have considered what a temptation it would prove to the Passions of such a man who yet grew more humble and orthodox before he died XXXV Though my Conscience telleth me that the very many Books which I after wrote were for the propagating and defending of needful Truth and that I never trusted to any thing but Truth and Evidence for Victory yet I fear lest in many of them there be the faultiness of some imprudent provoking words and that I did not always sufficiently consider what mistaking men cannot bear as well as what is congruous to the Matter and Cause I still found it difficult to avoid too much Keenness and yet not to wrong the Cause by dull pretence of Lenity XXXVI Two things concurred to cause me to write my Political Aphorisms or Holy Common-wealth of which I afterward repented 1. James Harrington wrote his Oceana for a loose Popular Government and Sir H. Vane was contriving another for a Military and Phanatick Democracy both which I saw were utterly inconsistent with the Obligations Peace and Safety of the Land 2. Sir Francis Nethersole sent purposely to me a Messenger to desire me to go to London to Cromwell and perswade him to resign the Government to King Ch. II. I answered him that Cromwell had
provoking words on trifling occasions XLIII But all forementioned set together lye not half so heavy on my Soul as my inward Deficience and Omission That having had so many Convictions of the truth of Scripture and the certainty of the Life to come and can scarce think of any thing but death and the future state it is so sure and near and have read and heard and written so much of the Love of God and of Heaven as I have done it shameth it grieveth me it maketh me even abhor and loath my self that I usually reach little higher than pacifick quieting dull Affections and that Faith and Hope and Love do not keep me in more delightful thoughts of God and my Redeemer and in a more joyful longing to be with Christ and all the Blessed and that ever I should have a cold and common thought of God and things so high and holy and that the prospect of my change and the coming of Christ is not a continual Feast to my Soul and setteth me not more above the concerns of this vile and corruptible Flesh and above all impatience of pain and above the fears of Death and Corruption O what a contradiction is there between that Head and Tongue that professeth to believe what I profess of God of Christ of Endless Glory and that Heart that no more rejoiceth in that Belief and Hope but by languor and decay of Nature and doubtless great imperfection of Faith is kept from that joy that such believing in reason should produce and goeth towards Heaven with so many pawses of fear or dulness and so little of that Heavenly delight which I have long been seeking of God and which my low and weak condition needeth Lord all my sins are known to thee let me never be unwilling to know them nor let them be so unknown to me as to invalidate my Repentance or frustrate my hope of pardon through Christ Chap. III. The Reasons why I cannot without known gross Lying profess such Repentance as Dr. Stillingfleet's Anonymus Second and many such others call for or expect § 1. AS it is no less sin to Murder ones self than to Murder another so it is no less to belie ones self than to belie another Yea it is the greater in that it is like to be more against knowledge we being better acquainted with our own thoughts and deeds than with other Mens And it would be the greater sin in me because that the Father of Lies purposely designeth his calumnies to cause hatred in many and to frustrate all my Writings both to the Church and to particular Souls § 2. Why I cannot Repent of my Writings against the Sadduers or Brutists the Antitrinitarians the Somatists the Quakers the Anabaptists the Antinominians the Papists the Separating Dividers and the rest before-mentioned the Books that I have written against them express my Reasons But no Men call me to it by such an agreeing number of voices as the late Protestant Conformists of that fiercer sort who appropriate to themselves the Name of the Episcopal Church of England especially those that are for a Forreign or Universal Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And no Man hath done it with such virulent malice as the Anonymus Author of the Book called The Second part of the Unreasonableness of Separation as seconding Dr. Stillingfleet Whose Libel I shall now peruse and return the Reasons why I cannot Repent of all that he reciteth by way of Accusation § 3. I. In his Preface That my Opinions and Practices have been condemned by the generality of Christians from the most Primitive and Purest Times of the Church Ans To which I appeal and can get no answer § 4. II. I must first tell the Reader that should I stay to confute all the falsification of my words which he pretendeth to recite it would make an unsavoury tedious unprofitable Volume A word put in or left out or altered will serve our grand Accuser to do much of his Works with the Sons of Ignorance and Malice He seemeth to expect that I should Repent of saying that our Civil War between King and Parliament was begun in England between two Parties of Episcopal Protestants And must I repent that I lived in England And that I know what it was naturally impossible for me not to know Why doth he not also make me a Liar for saying that I then dwelt in England and both sides were English Men and spake English Had I been a Mushroom sprung up as lately as our fiery Tories 〈◊〉 had Malice enough to make me mad I might have needed none of his imposed Repentance I have in another writing named the Commanders of the Army and the Parliaments Lords Lieutenants and all the Major Generals besides the Chaplains and Challenged them to find among all these one Presbyterian or two Independants for ten if not twenty Episcopal Protestants A Wise and Credible Parliament Man yet living hath oft told me that when the War begun he knew but One Presbyterian in all the House of Commons which was worthy Mr. Tate of Northampton it being not then known among them The Earl of Warwick who commanded at Sea I knew to be for Communion with the Patish and Episcopal Churches In the Army let them enquire of the Communion and Religion of the General and all his Commanders and I believe they will find among all the Colonels but two Independants the Lord Say and the Lord Brooke and one moderate Puritane yet living the Lord Wharton and that all the rest were moderate Episcopal Conformists what the old Scots Souldiers Browne and Urrey that turn'd to the King were I know not supposing their pay was their Religion We knew this to be true of the Earl of Essex General the Earl of Bedford General of the Horse is yet living and well known Sir John Merrike Major General Colonel Dolbiere the Earl of Peterborough General of the Ordnance Lionell Copley Scout-Master the Earl of Stampford the Lord Roberts lately President of the Kings Privy Council the Lord Hollis the Lord Kimbolton after Earl of Manchester and Lord Chamberlain that chose the Kings Preachers and constantly heard them the Lord Hastings Earl of Huntington the Lord Rochford after Earl of Dover the Lord Fielding after Earl of Denbigh the Lord St. John Son to the Earl of Bullingbrook kill'd at Edghill Col. Goodwin Col. Lssex Col. Grantham Col. Sir Henry Cholmley Col. Bampfield Sir William Constable after turn'd Independant yea Col. Hampden was no Separatist from the Parish Churches but a sober Protestant I have named the rest elsewhere I heard enough of Col. Sandyes before he was mortally wounded to tell me that he was no Puritane And as for the Major Generals of the several Counties the Lord Ferdinando Fairfax the Lord Willoughby of Parham the Earl of Stampford Sir John Gell Sir Tho. Middleton Col. Mitton Col. Morgan Col. Massey Sir William Waller the Earl of Denbigh Col. Langhorne and Col. Poyer were all
Patron Judge Jeffreys on the Bench said He was sorry that the Act of Indempnity disabled him from Hanging me And your Mouth Roger Le Strange foretold the Reason Never was so wicked a Book written as my Paraphrase on the New Testament Were I at his Ear I would whisper to him Do you not take the New Testament it self to be far worse But what is the deadly evil Why I say with Paul That if an Angel from Heaven preach another Gospel let him be accursed But did I make those words Or find them made The Judge by the help of our Great Clergy-men and their Curates found out eight Paraphrases that deserved this Death The sum of which was that I accuse the Pharisees and Herodians and Priests for malicious hating and murdering Christ for doing good and working Miracles and for urging Men to be Informers against him and for forbidding the Apostles to Preach And they said that by an Innuendo I meant all this of the Church of England And when a Famous but exasperated Dr. gathered some passages as Seditious against Government to have hanged me even our Judges and prosecutors searching the Books and particularly on Rom. 13. cast by those accusations and never mentioned them And when they burnt my Political Aphorisms and I wrote my Judgment thereof to the Vice-Chancellor I had not a word of contradiction But there are deeper Reasons that cause both Papists and Cainites to wish that all that I have written were burnt to Ashes And they tell me what to expect from them if God restrain them not for then I believe that it is more than my writings and than the Nonconformists that they will burn They that cannot now endure that any but they should be heard will not endure that they be read § 12. Page 13. He adds That neither Men nor Books are properly good that are not so ex causis integris Ans So none is Good but God only and the perfect I confess that I am not so good If I say that I have no sin or that I ever did any thing that is sinless and omnimodo bonum and might not have been done better I am a Liar And is this the Exposition of the Declaration for want of which we are if we preach used like Rogues in Goals viz. That we assent and consent to all things contained in and prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer Ordination and Articles and that there is nothing in it contrary to the Word of God Is it Integrally perfect Or must I wish it burnt else I am not for so hard usage of it though I cannot justifie the prescribing two Easter days in it and far worse matters But what is the fault that deserveth burning § 13. Ibid. His own Practice demonstrates that his Writings for Peace and Unity are but so many Pleas for Schism and Division They need an Ignis Expurgatorius Ans An easie Purgatory Your Excommunication ipso facto of all that affirm any thing in your Ceremonies Ordinations Liturgies or Church Government to be contrary to the Word of God threateneth Hell which is worse than Purgatory But Reader seeing all my Books must be burnt as a Sacrifice to the Accusers of my Conversation as for Schism and Division I owe the World a particular account of such an accused practice 1. When I first forbore practical Conformity it was but in a scrupled part I read most of the Common Prayer and I received the Sacrament Kneeling 2. I never disobeyed my Ordinary's command but got me to a place where the Ordinary thought as I did 3. I ever disswaded people from Separation and reprehended those Nonconformists that inclined towards it 4. It was I confess a Dividing practice that I took the Scots Covenant before I foresaw it would be used to Division But I quickly repented and kept my Flock and Thousands from taking it 5. I had not the last or least hand in suppressing the promoters of Schism where I lived 6. I purposely hazarded my Life and spent Time and Labour a year and half in Fairfax's Army in hope too late to have healed and prevented the foreseen Ecclesiastical and Civil Divisions 7. I got the Ministers of Worcestershire and the Neighbour Counties Episcopal Presbyterians and moderate Independants to subscribe an Agreement in practice so far as they agreed in Principles Which Dr. Warmstree and Dr. Good consented to till Dr. Guning drew them off again And Westmoreland Cumberland Dorsetshire Wiltshire Hampshire Essex and Dublin all imitated us so that we were ready to have had a common Concord 8. By Letters I treated for Union with Dr. Hammond Bishop Brownrig Archbishop Usher and such others before King Charles the Second's Return 9. I preach'd for peace to the Parliament and City in publick Sermons 10. I got divers Meetings before the King came in with many peaceable Drs. Dr. Gauden Dr. Bernard Dr. Allen Dr. Gulston c. with whom Dr. Morley would be one that he might frustrate all who seemed to be all for Unity 11. I was the first with Mr. Calamy Dr. Reynolds and Mr. Ash that sought to the King to help us to this desired Unity by his Commission who seemed forward to it and promised that he would draw them to meet us half way 12. We never offered any form of Church Government but Archbishop Usher's Primitive Episcopacy and gave publick thanks for a seeming Grant of much less never once speaking against the Bishops Parliament Powers Baronies Revenues or Pomp. 13. When Chancellor Hide as from the King offered me a Bishoprick I refused it on terms in a Letter that pleased him viz. That if the King continued what he had granted in his Declaration I should take it for my great Duty to do all that I could by writing and preaching to perswade all to Conformity and Unity and therefore would not be a Bishop lest I should frustrate that labour by making Men think that I did it for my self But if no such liberty was intended to be continued which I easily foresaw why should I be a Bishop to be quickly cast out 14. Had my Life lain on it I could have done no more to have prevented our Divisions and foreseen Confusions that I did in the Treaties at Worcester-House and at the Savoy by reason and by earnest and humble petition and true prediction But all did but enrage and instead of Abatements according to the Kings Commission far more was after imposed than before 15. I went voluntarily to Bishop Sheldon for his License when I could have had it by the Kings Declaration without any Subscription and I Subscribed what might shew that I was for peace that I would not preach against the Liturgy or Ceremonies but live peaceably 16. When Bishop Morley forbad me preaching in his Diocess I asked him leave but to preach to some small Village among the ignorant where there was no Maintenance for a Minister And he old me They were better have none than
this be a Character of the best Church in the World to have such Ministers But if there be no Obligation from that Vow to the things aforesaid 1. Dr. Sanderson and most sober Casuists are mistaken who say That though a Vow be unlawfully imposed and unlawfully taken and part of the Matter be unlawful to be kept it bindeth us nevertheless to keep the necessary part And what am I that I should swear or say that I am wiser than all these Doctors and sure that they are mistaken 2 And then I must swear or say that neither King nor Lords nor any one took it in a lawful sense which else would oblige them And must I become a Voucher for Thousands whom I never knew 3 And then I must swear or say that the King was brought in by Errour and Deceit Monk's Presbyterian Army and the Presbyterian Gentry and Ministry of England brought in the King as bound to it by this Covenant as they declared And must I say it did not bind them to it But our Accusers are no Self-accusers but God will difference between him that sweareth and him that feareth an Oath and dare not take God's Name in vain § 76 Accus LIX He dipped his Pen not in Gall and Vinegar but in the very poyson of Asps to keep open the wounds of the expiring Church To which end he endeavours to draw his Neighbour-Ministers into an Association and procures the Worcestershire Agreement the design of which you may see in his Gildas Salvianus Ans I have here some help to understand Christ They that kill you shall think they do God service What Duty so great that some will not say is a Crime that deserveth death The Agreement accused is printed in a Book called Christian Concord The terms of it were that Episcopal and Presbyterians and Independents should agree in the practice of so much of the Ministry and Church-Discipline as they were agreed about in their Judgments or Principles and be left in the rest to their several Liberties Was this a Crime Is an Attempt of voluntary Concord and Peace the poyson of Asps Or is not the poyson of Asps under their lips that are haters of it and have not known the way of peace I have had thanks from Helvetia and other parts of Germany for that Gildas Salvianus and that pacificatory Attempt which is to these Men the poyson of Asps § 77. Accus LX. But there was then a Petition that scandalous and insufficient Ministers might not administer Sacraments on which the Loyal Party were restrained Ans And is it a Crime to be against a scandalous insufficient Ministry and a Duty to be for them that we may be the best Church in the World Reader the truth is this There was a Petition by some that those of what side soever for King or Parliament whose Insufficiency and Scandal was so great as to render them utterly uncapable of Ministry might not be allowed it And I petitioned withal that no Man might be cast out or restrained for being for the King against the Parliament and their Cause Is this so poysonous Doth not this Man more disgrace his Church than me that taketh it for the poyson of Asps to cast out only the uncapable and keep in the rest § 78. Accus LXI He accuseth me for telling the World truly how the English Prelates had encouraged the Enemies of serious Godliness in the Land and at how much cheaper a rate a Man might be a Swearer a Drunkard a Whoremonger an open Scorner of Godliness than to fast and pray or to hear a Conformist in the next Parish when there was no Sermon at home Ans What doth the Man mean by rendering this odious If he mean that all this was well done and that as in Armies he hath most Honour that killeth most so in their Church he is the best Man that doth most against serious Piety this is to profess themselves the Devil's Militia But if he mean that I mis-report the matter of fact and this was not so he may as well persuade us that we lived not then in England or that we knew not our Neighbours or that Men spake not English Can we chuse but know that which every Corner in all the Land did speak Doth he say a word to confute all this And it was a meritorious work to silence and imprison with Rogues all that obeyed not their ungodly Canons but it must go for a heinous Crime to feel their Malice or blame their Cruelty § 79. Accus LXII Pag 66 c. He accuseth me as accusing King Charles the First of too much favouring the Grotian design of Union with the Papists But 1. Doth he say a word so much as to deny his Letter to the Pope to venture Crown and all for Union 2. Or to deny his sworn Articles for Toleration mentioned in Rushworth's Collections and others 3. Or to deny the Papists Murders in Ireland and their power in the King's Armies in England 4. Or that he set up such Bishops as Laud Bromhall and others But if accusing these Men be my Crime when I would have saved England from them Reader peruse but a full Treatise which I have long ago written and hope to get speedily printed with the very words of Laud Bromhall Gunning Saywell Thorndike Heylin Pierce Parker Sparrow Beveridge c. for our Subjection to a Foreign Jurisdiction which the Kingdom is sworn against and then judge whether I accuse them wrongfully Must we be brought under Aristocratical Popery or French Church-Government merely by saying It is not Popery And must the Land so tamely be perjured and enslaved § 80 Accus LXIII Pag. 67. He hath been made use of as one of the most keen and Catholick Tools that ever the Papacy did employ Ans 1. 'T is an unrighteous Honour to Popery to call it Catholick while they are a Sect contrary to Catholicism But why then do not these Men love and cherish me while they are striving for a Foreign Jurisdiction if I be so much for them § 81. Accus LXIV Pag. 68. That I am for a mixture of Episcopal Presbyterian and Independent Government Ans And what harm is that I am for that which is good in all and for the Faults of none But these Men must needs be faultless and curse all others that they may bless themselves But am I Episcopal and yet the greatest Enemy to Episcopacy Are they for Episcopacy that put down hundreds to set up one in their stead § 82. Accus LXV The next Accusation is That my five Disputations of Church-Government came out to keep out Episcopacy and justifie our Ordination Ans 1. It was to bring in a threefold Episcopacy which our Diocesans kept out viz. Episcopos Gregis Episcopos Praesides and Archbishops over these 2. Chancellor Hide and Morley produced that Book before the King Lords and Bishops at the great Meeting at Worcester-house and Morley said No Man hath written better
Government and defame their Laws as if they were a strange Parliament that made so many Laws that a Man fearing God cannot obey Ans 1. And must we go on such suppositions that our Law-makers must not be said to make sinful Laws Where and in what Ages doth this Principle hold Not in Jeroboam's days nor in Ahab's nor in any Age after Christ till Constantine and Athanasius had exceptions then Not in the days of Constantius or of Valens no nor of Theodosius the Second Zeno Basiliscus Anastasius Philippicus or of few Christian Emperors Nor now in Rome Spain France Poland Portugal Germany c. The Lutherans under Calvinists believe it not nor the Calvinists under Lutherans nor the Prelatists under Presbyterians Nor those English Bishops and Clergy that now here refuse the Oath to King William imposed by the Parliament If this Man think that we have not fully shamed that worse than brutish conceit that we must not plead Conscience against Mens Laws though as good men as any Rulers we know he should have said more to confute us than that we fear not God because we fear him more than man This easie Disputant confuteth my many Volumes of Reasons against obeying their Impositions of Oaths Subscriptions Professions and Practices by telling men that I may be ashamed to call them Reasons A short and cheap Confutation Cannot the French say as much for Dragooning the Protestants And that the Laws were made upon deliberation and for our peace That is for the peaceable success of Silencers and Persecutors of Gods Faithful Servants And were not the Six Articles in Henry the Eighth's days made on deliberation And the French Edicts against the Protestants He referreth us to a Book of Church Unity written in Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet And I refer him to my Answer to that Book which was never answered and confuteth much of this Mans charge As to his talk That Men of Blood may be no Bishops I answer 1. I never drew a drop of Blood 2. I refused their Bishoprick 3. I preach'd for the defence of Kings and the Nation against Men of Blood Irish Papists and Delinquents 4. Were not the Military Clergy Men of Blood who complain of the Parliament for ejecting them for promoting the War against them Was not Dr. Mew now Bishop of Winchester Dr. Crofts now Bishop of Hereford Dr. Compton now Bishop of London Men of War when they went as Chaplains or Officers in the Kings Army and yet are Bishops § 102. Page 127. He nameth The Act for Uniformity As if naming it were a Defence of it for Silencing 2000 Ministers for not Lying and Sinning He nameth Renouncing the Covenant And is that a Justification against Perjury to them that own not the Imposing or Taking it nor obligation to keep any but the Moral Necessary parts He nameth the Declaration that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against any Commissioned by the King And is that a Confutation of Bilson and other Bishops and doth he not make his own Church and Party now perjured who have taken Arms against King James or those that were Commissioned by him and have set up another King If King James Commission a French and Irish Army to Invade England are all bound not to resist them § 103. Accus LXXXV He chargeth me with a Scandalum Magnatum for saying The Parliament was drawn by the Clergy to make those Acts. Ans And did any Man doubt of it that then lived with his Reason awake If it were not good why did they do it and why do you justifie it If it were good why is it a Scandalum magnatum to say you did it Is your Merit and Praise a Scandal § 104. Accus LXXXVI Because I tell how Hypocrites tempted Christ about paying Tribute to Caesar he feigneth that I make Christ do what he never intended or really approved and complied with Hypocrites and saith It is near to Blasphemy Ans I find too little in this Accuser that is near to Truth How easily by such Fictions may he turn much of the Gospel into Blasphemies § 105. Accus LXXXVII He addeth And who can wonder if he that speaks thus of the Master should not stick to revile his Disciples making the Conformists so many deliberately perjured Persons Ans 1. Must we not refuse Perjury for fear of your supposition that we accuse you We professed not to accuse you but to prove that it would be Perjury in us 2. But if you are guilty is not that more to be feared by you than our saying why we dare not imitate you § 106. Accus LXXXVIII He addeth And which is Mendacium magnum that about Six Thousand Persons that had gone the other way did declare their Assent and Consent to a Book which they never saw Ans Oh what a mortal Wound do this sort of Men give to the Credit of all History of the proud factious worldly part of the Clergy when this Man dare call this a Lye in the same Land and Age in which 1. It is known that there are near Ten Thousand Parish-Churches besides Hundreds of Chapels and Curacies and Chaplains 2. The Land knoweth that these were in possession 1662. 3. The Land knoweth that the Generality of them that were in 1659. conformed to the Directory or else the Prelatists belye the Usurpers that they say turned out all that did not 4. The Land knoweth or at least it is here commonly known that the new altered Liturgy came not out of the Press till about Bartholomew Even 5. The Land knoweth that all were by the Law to be turned out that declared not Assent and Consent to all things contained in and prescribed by that Book by Bartholomew Day 6. The World knoweth that all over England the Books could not be sent down and seen in a Day 7. The Conformists confess the Matter of fact save to a few in London that could go to the Press 8. The Land knoweth that it was but about Two Thousand that conformed not Must there not be then far more than Six Thousand that declared Assent c. to the Book that they saw not Some of them now say that in Universities and the Chaplains and all set together there are about Thirty Thousand Ordained Ministers in England And what are Two Thousand to such a Clergy § 107. Accus LXXXIX He noteth that I say that before I was turned out I could keep no Man-Servant nor any but one old Woman in a hired Room and yet in St. Martin ' s I could build a Tabernacle for Worship From whence he gathereth 1. That I hoped to gain the Centurion's Reputation among the Factious 2. That I had got well by Nonconformity that could lay out so much Ans Is there any thing pious or charitable that these Men cannot turn into odious Crimes by malignant Calumny 1. Was it Faction to offer to teach freely in a Parish where were Fifty Thousand that could not come
within the Church 2. Did he know my Heart that I did it for Reputation And may he not say the like by any Man that doth good 3. Did I gain by Nonconformity that from the Day that I was silenced had never taken a Groat for Preaching nor ever had a Church to maintain me and had commonly refused even Friends Gratuities save 10l from one Man that I could not refuse for many Years after this and save from few to this day Who by refusing a Bishoprick and other Emoluments have lost I think above Twenty Thousand Pounds by Nonconformity What Answer do these Men deserve And I preached but one Sermon in that Chapel When I had built it to have preached freely And when they persecuted me away I resigned it to the Parish-Minister for their publick Worship which is used there to this Day near Sixteen Years But must I tell this Man how I got the Money that did it How much others gave towards it and how much I borrowed or else be so guilty as this Spirit maketh me If it were a Crime to be rich Fame reporteth him extraordinarily guilty But if it be Building Chapels that is the Crime I never heard of his Guilt § 108. Accus XC He saith I am guilty of Pride Malice and Uncharitableness for telling Men that the Wheel is turning and bidding them remember which side will be down at last whether I mean of a Change by Providence or of the Day of Judgment Ans Alas poor Men How soon will you know that such Counsel once signified better than Pride Malice and Uncharitableness unless all Preaching be such § 109. Accus XCI He accuseth me for saying in Mr. Corbet's Funeral-Sermon How sad a Prognostick the Death of such Men was Ans Had this Man known the great Wisdom sincere Piety eminent Charity and Peaceableness of that excellent Man as well as I did or as Glocester Chichester and London did and his Writings testifie he would not have turned my Lamentation into a Reproach nor seemed to intimate his contrary Disposition § 110. Accus XCII Because some other Men say that the Time of the Episcopal Persecution will be but short he gathers that we are engaged in some Plot against the Government Ans Who he meaneth I know not but if the time of Life and this World be short certainly Persecution will be short Every one that saith Your Life is short is not in a Plot to murder you All save one Man that were commissioned as against us in 1661. have found already by Death that their time of Revenge and Wrath was short His talk of Dr. Owen and his surmizing that some would have had a Toleration for Popery is like the rest when our main fears have been lest this sort of Men were studying from the time of Laud a Coalition with the French Papists and so many of them have written for a Foreign Jurisdiction But if we would not be ruined silenced and dye in Goals by them they will say we are for Popery § 111. Accus XCIII He accuseth me as most unchristian in my Answer to Mr. Cheyny for what I say of his Books and accounting him melancholy Mr. Cheyny is a Man better known to me than to him and I think much better loved by me He calls himself a Nonconforming Conformist and a Conforming Nonconformist I have motioned him to Friends for publick Employment for his serious Piety But these Men that seem now to be for him have depressed him and driven him up and down and disown his Books I think more than I do But any one that will allow them to use his Name for them shall be so far praised while they cannot well endure him But he glorieth of Mr. Cheyny's Success in pleading the Direction in some dubious Cases to go to the Bishop for Resolution in the Preface to the Liturgy And I wonder not at their valuing of that Clause for it is worth to many some Hundreds a Year and 't is hard to imagine what else could quiet many Men's Consciences But if I should say This is a frivolous â—alliate though I prove it he will say I am criminal or confuted by so denominating it But 1. The Words limit the Decision of the Bishop only to that which is not contrary to any thing in the Book and I am very tractable in such a Case But it is none of the Cases that I am concerned in 2. If it were in the Bishop's power to put what Sense he please on all the Words he were the Law maker for the Sense is the Law 3. I have gone to divers Bishops and asked their Sense and found it as unsatisfactory as the Book it self For instance I asked the Bishops at the Savoy-Debate If I have two in my Parish that declare they believe not in Christ but are Deists and yet will send their Child to be baptized with Godfathers and Godmothers of their own Fraternity who declare that whatever they say they never mean to own or educate the Child what Right that Child hath both to Baptism and certain Salvation And Dr. Sanderson in the Chair answered That as long as he brought such Godfathers as the Church of England requireth I must not doubt of his Right I long after asked Bishop Cunning What proof he had from God's Word of the certain undoubted Salvation of all such baptized Infants if the Parents were Heathens or Jews or Atheists and resolved to educate their own Children And he answered that As any one had Right to take up an exposed Child in the Street and take him in Charity into his House so any one had power as an Act of Charity to take up any Heathen's or Infidel's Child and being him to Baptism and then it was certain by the Word of God that he was in a present State of Salvation These Bishops Judgments are not that undoubted Word of God which they boast of but will not shew us And other Bishops think otherwise And so under several Bishops we must be of several Religions § 112. Accus XCIV He accuseth me for speaking of the Tediousness of Mr. R. Hooker's Argumentation when their Bishop Sam. Parler speaketh much more and the Case is undeniable And that I say If Hooker Bilson and Usher were alive they would be Nonconformises Ans Have I not fully proved it They were honest Men and would not subscribe and practise contrary to their own Writings but their Writings are downright against much of Conformity How large is Hooker for the Popular Legislative Power and that the King useth not Power but Usurpation when he useth more than the Law giveth him How large is bishop Bilson for Resisting the King in divers Cases Doth not Conformity renounce and forswear this Mark the renowned Bilson in this Honest Men would not go against their Judgments § 113. Accus XCV Pag. 134 135. He maketh it my shameful heinous Sin to beg of the Bishops not to be guilty of one of the most
were put to draw up Additional Forms which we did in the very Words of Scripture And though some called it The Reformed Liturgy because it seemeth an entire Frame yet it is falsely said that we would have that or none for we only offered it to the Bishop's Examination which they would never do And even this Accuser hath nothing that I find against it but that I confess it was hastily drawn up in eight Days and therefore must needs be imperfect and deserve a Review And so it is our Crime that we take not their three Books to be all such Effects of Infallibility as to have no one Fault contrary to God's Word and yet to confess our own though in the Words of Scripture to be the Work of defectible imperfect Men and therefore needing a perfecting Review Humility and not Subscribing to an Arrogant Claim of their Indefectibility is our great Crime § 123. III. They yet more dangerously deceive their Believers persuading them That we appropriate Godliness and serious Religion to our Extemporate Praying and to the Opposition to Bishops Liturgy and Conformity and that we falsely dishonour their Church by representing their Candidates and Clergy to be more unable Preachers or more ungodly Livers than the Nonconforming Ministers and Candidates and their Parish-Flocks to be more unqualified for Church-Communion and a more irregular Church than such as we have desired in our Motions for Reforming-Concord Whereas say they we have the best Clergy and Church in all the World To which I say 1. That we have largely enough in Folio oft told the World what it is we account and call Godliness even the making and keeping the Baptismal Covenant Believing willing and living according to the Creed Lord's Prayer and Law of Christ We offered them a Liturgy we owned all that was good in theirs We know that Prayers from a Book as from a Habit are accepted if they come from a penitent believing and obedient Soul and that the Prayers of ungodly Hypocrites are unacceptable to God whether with a Book or without 2. And we love and honour Conformable Ministers and People that are Christians indeed and shew it by serious practice of Christianity And we are very thankful to God that England hath had so many such that were conformable long ago and we doubt not hath many such yet even under the new and much worse Conformity We know not that Nation that hath more excellent Men than many of the Bishops were in Queen Elizabeth's Time and than many Divines since have been such as Robert Bolton Dr. Presion Dr. Sibs Mr. Scudder Mr. Wheatley Mr. Dyke Dr. Taylor Mr. Downham Dr. Stoughton Dr. Gouge Mr. Gataker Dr Willet Dr. Whitaker Dr. Field Archbishop Usher Bishop Downam Bishop Beadle c. Oh how many of such excellent Men hath this Land been blessed with And the pious Nonconformists were of the same Spirit though not in all things of the same Opinions I have lately told you in a small Book called CAN and ABEL what are the things that make the difference which hath my chief Regard But such Conformists as I have named have since Laud's â—ays with many gone under the name of Conformable Puritans and by this Accuser are reproached by the Name of Passive Conformists because they had rather the Ceremonies and needless Subscriptions were forborn than able faithful Preachers silenced The Prejudice that he saith I had from my Youth against the Bishops and Clergy was only against Ungodliness and Malignity Is it like that I was against the pious Conformists when I was tutored by them heard them and was of their Judgment But can we not even among Conformists distinguish the Malicious Ungodly Worldly from holy Men of Love and Peace § 124. If Posterity and Strangers must be deluded by such false Historians as this that tell them the serious Godly Ministers and People were Schismaticks and Rogues and the Haters of serious Religion were the most Religious who can help it They talk so now to those that live among both Parties And the debauched sensual Youth and the covetous and ambitious Worldlings seem partly to believe them But so do not the sober Sort that daily see the Confutation of their Malice § 125. For my own part I will conclude That if I had not known that sort of serious Godly Men whom the present Malignants now render odious by their Calumnies I fear I should not have sincerely believed in Jesus Christ and that his Gospel is true For the rest both Ministers and Laity whom I ever knew shewed no serious â—elief of that Christian Faith which they professed Here and there there was a civil Person by Temper and Education but commonly not a serious Word could I hear from their Mouths about God or our Redeemer and the Spirit 's sanctifying Works or of Death and Judgment and the Life to come save in the Pulpit nor did they love to hear any such from others but their Talk and whole Conversation was about the World or common worldly Things and as Mr. Bolton largely describeth them any Godly serious Discourse did but disgust them and marr their Mirth and make them revile the Speakers as Puritaus Hypocrites or some such Names Few did I know of them that excelled Cicero Sencca or equalled Antâ—nine Epictetus Plutarch And if Christ made Christians no better than the Philosophers how could I think better of him than of them Or trust that Physician that cureth none I thank God that I have found more of the Effects of his Saving Grace than the ordinary sort and Members of the described Church-Party which these Men extol did ever shew me Note The Words in the Epistle and pag. 84. about School Masters are thse and no otherwise to be understood That no indulged Persons under severe Penalties to breed up Scholars or to teach Gentlemen's Sons University-Learning because this may be justly looked on as a Design to propagate Schism to Posterity and to lay a Foundation for the Disturbance of future Generations Dr. Stillingfleet ' s Unreasonableness of Separation Preface pag. 88. How many excellent Preachers hath God raised by this Way which he would have hinder'd by severe Penalties And how many Souls converted and confirmed by them A Catalogue of Mr. Richard Baxter's Books sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns near Mercers Chapel at the Lower End of Cheapside Folio 1. Mr. Baxter's CHRISTIAN DIRECTORY Or Cases of Conscience 2. Catholick Theology 3. Methodus Theologiae Quarto 4. Saints Everlasting Rest 5. Church-History 6. History of Councils Second Part. 7. His Treatise of Episcopacy 8. Annotations on the New Testament 9. Life of Faith 10. Naked Popery 11. Apology for Nonconformists 12. Answer to Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock 13. Second Defence of Nonconformists against Dr. Stillingfleet 14. Catholick Communion In Six several Controversies 15. Which is the True Church 16. Moral Prognostication 17. Search for English Schismaticks 18. Farewell-Sermon 19. Alderman Ashurst's Funeral-Sermon 20. Mr. John Corbet's Funeral-Sermon Octavo 21. Treatise of Self-denial 22. His Catechism for Families Or Teacher of Householders 23. Spiritual Comfort In Thirty two Directions 24. Directions for Weak Distemper'd Christians 25. Mr. Baxter's Treatise of Justification Imputation of Righteousness and Imputation of our Parents Sins against the Accusations of Dr. Tully 26. A full and easie Satisfaction which is the true and safe Religion 27. The Cure of Church-Divisions 28. The Certainty of Christianity without Popery 29. A Key for Catholicks to open the Jugling of the Jesuite 30 31. Two Treatises of Death and Judgment 32. The Defence of the Nonconformists Plea for Peace Or An Account of the Matter of their Nonconformity Against Mr. J. Cheyny's Answer 33. A Defence of the Principles of Love 34. More Reasons for Infants Church-Membership In Answer to Mr. Tombs 35. Immortality of the Soul 36. More Reasons for the Christian Religion 37 38. Two Disputations of Original Sin 39. Mr. Stubbs his Funeral-Sermon These Under-written are lately Printed Quarto 1. Mr. Baxter's ENglish Nonconformity sa under King Charles II. and King James II. truly Stated and Argued 2. A Treatise of Knowledge and Love compared In two Parts I. Of falsly pretended Knowledge II. Of true saving Knowledge and Love 3. The Glorious Kingdom of Christ described and clearly vindicated 4. A Reply to Mr. Thomas Beverly's Answer to my Reasons against his Doctrine of the Thousand Years Middle Kingdom and Conversion of the Jews 5. Of National Churches their Description Institution Use Preservation Danger Maladies and Cure partly applied to England 6. Church-Concord Containing I. A Dissuasive from unnecessary Divisions and Separation and the real Concord of the moderate Independents with the Presbyterians instanced in Ten seeming Differences II. The Terms necessary for Concord amongst all true Churches and Christians * Said to be one Parker a Lawyer ☞ ☞ * See Mr. Clarksons proofs See Dr. Sherlock's Defence Hath not Bishop Stillingfleet himself taken K. William's Oath * So Dr. Ashton prosessed as before God that it is 〈…〉 Covetousness that we conform not