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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	call_v	truth_n	word_n	1,740	5	3.9265	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94086	Malice rebuked, or A character of Mr. Richard Baxters abilities. And a vindication oe [sic] the Honourable Sr. Henry Vane from his aspersions in his Key for Catholicks, as it was sent in a letter formerly to Mr. D.R. and is now printed for the publike satisfaction. / By Henry Stubbe of Ch. Ch. in Oxon.	Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676.; Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676. Vindication of that prudent and honourable knight, Sir Henry Vane, from the lyes and calumnies of Mr. Richard Baxter, minister of Kidderminster.	1659 (1659)	Wing S6060; Thomason E1841_2; ESTC R209630	32,090	64

Ahaz ten degrees which was a signe of recovery to disconsolate and languishing Hezechiah But though I am confident of the finall issue of things that the prisoners of hope shall receive double satisfaction and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to ●…ion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away However these may be my thoughts yet I suppose I may justly be afflicted for the attempts of such as labour to reinslave us Shall I say onely re-inslave us and put upon our necks the former yoake No Sr. we are not so little versed in the World as to ignore that New Governments though Good create advantages for after-times and not those wherein they are erected but such as are bad threaten all with perpetuity of misfortunes unlesse God be more mercifull then man is wise Perswasions now are of that Nature as if they should bid us not returne to Goshen but the most dismall parts of Egypt rather then proceed on to our Felicity Nay this is not all which my soul regrets though to recede from Engagements Remonstrances Declarations and Protestations to forsake that providence to slight those mercies which we implored with tears be things meriting our highest resentments and the consequences whereof may involve not the Actours alone but such as afflict their righteous souls for the sins of Sodom and they who are strangers to their crimes participate often in the punishments of the wicked as Elijah suffered by the famine though Ahab and his Father's house troubled Israel certainely we ought all to lay it to Heart That the Ambitious ones of these times are not content to render others miserable by depriving them of or endangering them in their Liberties and fortunes unlesse they can make them criminall to and since the integrity of our Patriots is so well known that Envy it self can fasten no real imputation upon them they must be blemished with surmises and imaginations and what is defective in the proofe of the charge the Authority of those that divulge it must supply I could instance in many persons of such worth that this Age may blush they are not in greater dignities to which they would give a lustre rather then receive any thence themselves It was a complaint of the wise man an evill under the sun and an errour that folly should be set in great dignity and the rich sit in lowe place that servants were upon horses and Princes walked as servants upon the Earth How much more ought we to be aggrieved to see the most pious and prudent counsellours outed and disgraced and men of different qualifications advanced yet these men are aspersed and vilified thoroughout the Nation and by an uncouth barbarity they are assassinated in their reputes and whose names should be as pretious ointments powred forth these are represented as such which dead flies have infected with a stinking savour But their implacable malice hath discovered it self against no man so much as the Honourable Sr. Henry Vane one whom not to have heard of is to be a stranger in this land and not to honour and admire is to be an Enemy to all that is good and vertuous One whose integrity whose uprightness in the greatest employments hath secured him from the effects of their Hatred veiled with justice in whom his sincere piety Zeal for the publick and singular wisdom may have raised envy and dread Against him have they set themselves him have they damnified in his Estate prejudiced in his Liberty and laboured to disgrace unto the people of his native countrey but finding the Court-artifices to fail and that his inocence was not so to be prevailed upon they have at length incensed the Pulpit against him and made use of Mr. Richard Baxter's pen to serve their ends Sr. Henry Vane published in 1655 a book called The retired mans meditations in which he hath discovered the most glorious Truths that have been witnessed unto these 1500 years and more in a manner as extraordinary I mean not in the perswasive words of humane wisdom not in the sophistry of School-learning not as the Scribes and Pharisees but as one having Authority and in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit in that Booke upon which none hitherto hath animadverted but Mr. Finch who had never yet found a name in the World but by the esteem of his Adversary he hath layed down this position That the Mystery of iniquity working in men of a legall conscience is the Magistrates entermedling with Christs power over the judgments of men Upon which saying that may serve for a paraphrase which is layed down by the same Author in his Healing Question where speaking of freedom to be exercised and enjoyned in matters of religion or that concern the service and worship of God He saith Vnto this freedom the Nations of the World have right and title by the purchase of Christ's blood who by vertue of his death and resurrection is become the sole Lord and ruler in and over the conscience for to this end Christ died rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living and that every one may give an account of himself in all matters of God's worship unto God and Christ alone as their own Master unto whome they stand or fall in judgement and are not in these things to be oppressed or brought before the judgement seats of men For why shouldst thou set at nought thy Brother in matters of his Faith and conscience and herein intrude into the proper office of Christ since we are all to stand before the judgement-seat of Christ whither Governors or Governed and by his decision onely are capable of being declared with certainty to be in the right or in the wrong By vertue then of this supream law sealed and confirmed in the blood of Christ unto all men whose soules he challenges a propriety in to bring under his inward rule in the service and worship of God it is that all Magistrates are to fear and forbear intermedling with giving rule or imposing in those matters They are to content themselves with what is plain in their commission as ordained of God to be his Minister unto men for good whilest they approve themselves the doers of that which is good in the sight of men and whereof earthly and Wordly judicatures are capable to make a clear and perfect judgment in which case the Magistrate is to be for praise and protection to them In like manner he is to be a Minister of terrour and revenge to those that doe evill in matters of outward practise converse and dealings in the things of this life between man and man for the cause whereof the judicatures of men are appointed and set up But to exceed these limits as it is not safe nor warrantable for the Magistrate in regard he who is higher then the highest regards and will shew himself

displeased at it so neither is it good for the people who hereby are nourished up in a biting devouring wrathfull spirit one against another and are found transgressors of of that Royall law which forbids us to doe that unto another which we would not have them doe unto us were we in their condition This tenderness of Sr. H. V. might have been entertained with lesse opposition at least rage then it hath yet found in the spirits of many I never reflect thereon but methinks I see Stephen praying for them that stoned him and admire a Charity so diffusive as not to comprise onely friends but even enemies a love beyond that of Publicans towards them which hate despitefully use and persecute in fine a perfection like that of our Heavenly Father who besides that he makes them so endureth with much long suffering the vessells of wrath fitted for destruction though he wont not power though his knowledge by infallibly discerning and his justice in punishing both would be unquestionable He knoweth who are his yet doth he tolerate in his great house not only vessels of Gold and silver but also of wood and earth and some to honour some to dishonor But Mr. Richard Baxter Mr. Richard Baxter teacher of the Church at Kederminster Mr. Richard Baxter a Catholick Christian and pastour of a Church of such at Kederminster Mr. Baxter Envoy from heaven and Embassadour of Christ as he calls himself in the Dedicat of Saints everlast Rest he cannot endure this Tenet this compassionate tender and peaceable frame of spir it From this Candid principle and which allowed Mr. Baxter the liberty of his sentiments hath he taken an occasion in a late infamous Libell if so great a farce may be so termed called a Key for Catholiques to decry the Vanists with such language as may justly deserve that reply of Michael to the devill THE LORD REBUKE THEE But however this may be an Answer suitable to the Christian temper of Sr. H. V. and the quality of the person he hath to do with yet because severall weake ones may be betrayed into an ill opinion of that Honourable personage thorough that generall though undue esteem which Mr. Baxter hath gained in the World for Learning judgement and moderation whereby innocence may be distressed and railing become hallowed I shall vindicate Sr. H. V. from the reproaches of this Philistim or Shimei or Rabshakeh and defend that invidious Assertion but you must first give me leave to premise a character of the man As the man is so is his strength I cannot give you any account of the Birth or Education of Mr. Richard Baxter but I think I may say that he either never was at any Vniversity or made little stay there nor took any Degree unlesse the late perswasions of some may have prevailed with him who apprehended something of worth in him and were sensible how great a detriment might arise if Qualifications without university degrees should capacitate one for the Ministry in our days in a Time when ignorance or terrour or both had taken off the Ministers of this Nation from opposing those called Anabaptists then He tooke occasion to signalize himself by an intricate Dispute with honest Mr. Tombes and the Act being plausible the performance was thought great Since that time he hath aggrandized himself in the World and wanting not confidence to print what made for the interest of others he knew he could not faile of the applauds of such as however they might discover his weakness were concerned nor of the reall admiration of such as could not discerne I am a stranger to his life and report speaks not much to his disadvantage nor is he wanting to his own praises Whatever become of the precept let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth he in severall of his works acquainteth us with his charitableness to the poore and his care for the sick to whom he administers Physick Not that this successour of the Apostles delegated by the same commission Anoints them with oyle and so heales them or cures them as he walks by vertue of his shadowe nor doth he distribute hand-kerchiefes but all as I am told is atchieved by looch sanum and a liquorish stick or Gascoines powder c. Yea in his saints everlasting rest he is no lesse tiresome with the recitall of his infirmities and indisposition then is Balzac or Voiture in their letters with the Colick and feavour As for his learning the account he gives of himself is to have spent much time in reading over the Fathers of whose use or rather inutility read Daille the Schoole-men an upstart study unknown to the purer times modelled professed by that Order which now manageth the Inquisition and was at first erected for the suppressing the truth in the Abbigenses and Philosophers such as if the Apostle had not Authorised us to call Vaine their own writings would How much he hath benefited in these studies he hath endeavoured to give the World an account in a multitude of books which he voides continually Joachimus Fortius who was resolved to write a booke every yeere whilest he lived was but a slight pretender in comparison to Mr. Baxter's works And what Henry the fourth King of France said of King James that he was a fine King and wrote pretty little bookes this makes up but a part of Mr. Baxters commendations he writes not onely single sheets and little bookes but large volumes This tedious impertinent having run thorough the usuall method of English controvertists now assumes the fashion of the Dutch and that our countreymen may have something of novelty in his papers they who are in love with a lowe-dutch dresse may have recourse to Mr. Baxters disputations at Kederminster yea he out-goeth his pattern for theirs are disputes managed in vniversities but these Kederminsterian disputations have onely Mr. Br. for President Mr. Br. for respondent Mr. Br. for Opponent Thus I have seen some play at shittle-cock managing their battledoores in their right and left hands Thus children play by themselves at Cards thus the mad-man in Horace imagined himself at the Roman sports in vacuo sessor plausorque Theatro But for such as admire the man and buy his books for whose sakes the price is printed on the title-page or at the end at three farthings a sheet though that rate be not extraordinary for one or two books yet they had need of faire estates that are in a possbility of buying according to the Quotient in the Revelations Ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of sheets God Almighty thought it sufficient to give us one booke if I may so call it and that such as to make the man of God perfect thoroughly furnished to all good works But Mr. Baxter affordes us more not furnishing men to all good works unlesse railing and uncharitableness doe that and of that value that one may cheaper buy the Bible that TRVE SAINTS

EVERLASTING REST then Mr. Baxter's FALSE one He one told us That he judged those Tostatus's impudently proud who think the World should read no bodie 's works but theirs yet for ought I can see Tostatus will be but a puny scribler to him It was a pretty peice of Drollery in our Illustrious Romancist to desire Mr. Br. to finish his Saints everlasting rest which he mistakeing for a complement possibly upon that ground may have created the Saints that have leisure-time from the sincere word of God and hours for which they are not accountable more trouble His works are stuffed with Citations and school-notions and unsetling debates yet he cannot but know that the Judicious hold no part of Theology or scholasticall deductions to be matter of faith which Assertion if it were as candidly owned amongst Protestants as it is ingenuously professed amongst Papists our faith-confessions would be much shorter and the number of Herasies without a persecution soone abate Whither he hath read all the books he quoteth I know not but the false names of Authors not recorded amongst the errata makes his dealing suspicious In his Metaphysicks he hath so profited that he hath incurred manifold reproofes thereupon as for example he hath been charged with high blasphemy about the immanent Acts of God from which tenet common reason would have acquitted him as ordinary skill in reall philosophy would have shewed him the ridiculousness and falsity of his simile of the Looking-glasses I cannot insist long upon these things it being not my design to Catalogue Mr. Br. errours but to give you a sample of his proficiency in those courses he hath taken and oblige my credit unto you that I shall upon any warning furnish you with such an after-reckoning as will make good my opinion of him As for Church-Herory I shall by and by tell you that he understands not Greeke and so is not likely to have any perfection or assurance in that or Chronology judge of his skill however therein by his declaiming against democraticall Government which notwithstanding was the Government of Christian assemblies till the people were deprived of their votes and which was the Government of Israel instituted by God himself besides in his Key c. p. 330. he maketh the Jesuites to spawn the doctrine of Liberty of conscience which is as absur'd as that Serarius call'd Herod a Machiavellian I shall have occasion elsewere to shew how it is the doctrine of primitive Christians now let it suffice that S●… H. Vane is not more full in his judgment then Constantine the great nor doth he insist upon any other practise then what was the decree and usage of that Emperour If Eusebius had not written in Greek I should referre Mr. Br. to him in his life of Constantine lib. 2. c. 5.59 The Heathens had in his time their expenses of publick sacrifices defrayed out of the treasury and their Temples though not all yet most openly were frequented their Sophisters were maintained by the publick purse they were employed in places of trust and dignity civill and military and all this not onely in the time of Constantine but even till Justinian's time in great part as Procopius in his secret history tells us Theodosius did indeed refuse to defray the sacrifices of the Heathens out of the publick treasury yet even in his time the Senate were generally pagans and untill the time of Gratian if not after it was the custom of the Flamines or Heathen Priests to present the new Emperour though Christian with a Stole or Pontificall garment so that they had not onely a toleration free and open but even the Emperours were Christian Emperours but Heathen Priests Thus you see what others think would introduce Heathenisme this was the course that brought in and established Christianity But these things being to be fetched out of Greek authours I forgive Mr. Baxter his ignorance thereof and onely tell him that the great souldier and eminent protestant Monsieur La Nove was of no other judgment then Sr. H. V. as one may read in his discourses and that Possevin the Jesuite wrote against him for it As for his skill in languages it is so mean that I am amazed to see him quoted by the name of learned The Syriack the Arabick both which are of great use for understanding the Scripture of which you may read in Mr. Beveridge's discourse of the Eastern tongues upon the vulgar Analysis of faith of these I may suppose him totally ignorant His skill in Hebrew is as little Mr. Robertson hath said so much upon this subject in a particular book that I shall not urge it onely tell you that two or three days study in that tongue would have prevented some of his mistakes and one moneths diligence would have corrected such lapses as are not to be excused or endured Dare he boast unto the World what time he hath spent in impertinencies and yet be ignorant of that which is almost the unum necessarium in his function There is not that Quaker or most fanaticall sectarian whom he so undervalues but can ground his truthes upon the true version and his errours upon the mistakes of our English translatours Of this you will be much more convinced when I shall ascertain you he is no better at Greeke then other tongues weigh him in any ballance and you will finde him light I shall not run over all his works but attacque the most renowned Olio of practicall and Schoole-Divinity the latter of which is apt to create everlasting disputes rather then rest and made no part of the rest of the primitive whither Christians or Antichristians I meane his Saints everlasting rest In this book I observe he cites other Authours at large in their originall Latin and English but with the Greeks he deals not so Justin Martyr Clemens Alexandrinus Athanasius Laertius these are cited either in English or Latine A man so ambitious to stuff his Margin cannot be thought to have declined this out of modesty which he ought to have done out of necessity since in rationall discourses other proofs are not allowed then which are fetched out of the tongue in which the Authour wrote To evince this more he hath adventured sometimes to checquer his booke with Marginall Greeke words though but seldome as p. 74. there are placed two Greek words out of Polycarp to no purpose that I can imagine but to let men see Mr. Baxter is not ignorant of Greeke p. 118. There stands a Greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an animadversion that women shall not rise again in their own Sex which is a thing improbable I would say false if all the philosophy I have together with colourable texts of Scripture were a ground for such peremptoriness p. 551. you have Greeke quoted out of Ignatius but it is onely to disgrace our Army viz. that souldiers are Leopards and the more they are favoured and regarded the worse But he hath so

agitated whether the Sirname were FANE or VANE then we should not have been put to repetition for want of fresh wit but out of physick we might have heard of the Tela Gualiteri I am Scandit Gualter had not been lost nor would Mr. Br's persecuting spirit I am informed that he strook a Quaker openly have omitted the raillery of an Halter We should have heard of fictions too as now of Hiding and a Grammaticall dispute might have been moved whether the new Cavaliers should not be called the profane profani tanquam procul a fano as being opposites to the Fanes you will pardon me if I took notice of this Kedenminster wit it is remarkable in regard both of the Vanity and Sterility of the man that neither Malice which usually supplies naturall deficiencies in point of wit nor Melancholy which Aristotle observeth to dispose men to ingenuity should not furnish him with better Quibbles yet they are as good as what he objecteth in earnest against the aforesaid Patriot So certain it is that we can do nothing against the truth but for the truth He very often reflects upon him under the term of an Hider I do not apprehend his reason for it fince Sr. H. V. hath never declined to give forth an account of that hope that is in him He speaks plain and good English and if in his words the spirituality of the matter make all seeme to be hidden it is but the fate of the greatest soul-saving truths that they are hid to them that perish the Calumny of Mr. Br. is very old and made use of by the old Serpent in the Apostles time but they having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty gave this reason of their hidden words If our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this World hath blinded the minds of them that believe not least the light of the glorious gospell of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them 2. Cor. 4. v. 3.4 But what reason is there Sr. H. should suffer for Mr. Br's intellectualls thousands bear witnesse to the pretionsnesse of those truths they are his seale and experiment the comfort of what Mr. Baxter condemnes as vain and empty This will be of no strength till our great physician avow that we ought to resign up our senses to the delusions of Hypochondriaques and because the stupid do not we must not say we do feel What if Paul be reputed a babler by the Grecians as Sr. H. is by one that is no Grecian what if the doctrine of saving grace be a stumbling-block to the Jews and folly to the Greekes must the saints therefore quit their hopes of Salvation and that which is to them a Savour of life unto life We know what it is that the animall man entertaineth not because it is foolishness unto him neither can he because it is spiritually to be discerned But shall the man of God be concluded by those his sentiments that he should thereupon renounce him who is made unto us wisdome and sanctification shall the enlightned complain of Darkness because to others the light shineth in darknesse and the darkness comprehendeth it not If Sr. H. Vane had opened his mouth in parables how should he have been called an Hider And may not Mr. Br. be called an Hider that he obscures the light of the Gospell by intricate disputes is there any thing more hid then the Aphorismes which if no man should be justified but who understand them upon Mr. Brs. proposal the redeemed of the Lord will make up a lesse flock then is conceived Might not he also be called an Hider because under a pretended zeal he hides the malice of others in his slaunderous books He tells his Highnesse in the dedication that the Vani have been confounded by God by wonders in New England but have here prevailed farre in the dark As for their prevailing in the Dark I am not acquainted therewith I am sure Sr. H. never hid his candle under a bushell what he hath taught he hath done it openly before great Auditories and as great personages for spirituall discernings as this nation affordes He may almost reply in Christ's words I sat daily with you teaching in the Temple and ye laid no hold of me But suppose the Vani had encreased in the darke ought that to prejudice a good case Or is it not a reflection upon the iniquity of such Governours as forced truth into corners Truth and errour may encrease in the darke but the former brings a light to dispell darkness which the other augmenteth or doth onely vary As for the wonders wherewith God hath witnessed against them in New England I am a stranger to the transactions of that land yet I may very well suppose Mr. Br. hath not omitted any thing that might tend to their disrepute in that digression which he on purpose framed against them p. 330. The principall of these Hiders are the Vani whose game was first played openly in America in New England where God gave in his testimony against them from Heaven upon their two prophetesses Mrs. Hutchinson and Mrs. Dyer the latter brought forth a monster with the parts of a bird beast fish and man which you may see described in Mr. Welds's narrative with their discovery the concomitants and consequents The former brought forth many near 30 monstrous births at once and was after slain by the Indians This providence should at least have awakned England to such a Godly jealously as to have better tryed the doctrines which God thus seemed to cast out before they had so greedily entertained them as in part of Lincolne-shire Cambridg-shire and many other parts they have done At least it should have wakened the Parliament to a wise and godly jealously of the councels and designes of him that was in New England the master of the game and to have carefully searched how much of his doctrine and design were from Heaven how much of them he brought with him from Italy or at least was begotten by the progenitour of monsters Such extraordinary providences ought not to be despised I am not in a place where I can either informe my self of those accidents in New England and how farre what Mr. Br. saith out of Mr. Weld's is true nor can I meet with Mr. Weld's narrative that I might see whither Mr. Br. do more truly vouch him then the word of God or Greek writers I would therefore grant his Assertions did not that passage of Sr. H. Vane's bringing his doctrines with him out of Italy where he never was make me tender of crediting all Mr. Br. sayes I have since the writing hereof spoken with Mr. Clerke of New England who was there at the time of these monstrous births As for Mrs. ●yer he could not say any thing of his own knowledg but that she was privatly delivered two women onely being by of a falsebirth which was buryed