them and some leading Fanaticks had private Encouragement to say no more to set up a mighty cry of Persecution to cast all the odium on a persecuting Church and Diocesan Canoneers Dr. Owen noses this hint Some have reported says he that some of the Non-conformists at least do receive or have received Money from the Papists to act their Affairs and promote their interest which he very angrily calls a putrid Calumny a malicious Falshood a frontless Lye and for himself he avows that never any Person in Authority Dignity or Power in the Nation or any that had any relation to Publick Affairs nor from them Papist or Protestant did once speak one word to him or advise with him about any Indulgence or Toleration to be granted to the Papists He says not that he never received any Money to promote a general Toleration which he thinking himself particularly reflected on might have done in few words And my Author desires Dr. O. to resolve him Why a Fast was appointed by a certain Independent Pastor at that time on the fifth of November which as he notes is no Popish Festival 'T is a miserable shift which the Doctor useth speaking at large of the plain open uncontroulable Evidence which the Non-conformists always gave and continue to give of their faithful cordial adherence to the Protestant Religion and Interest in the Nation whereas ever since Forty one they have notoriously scandalized and as much as in them lay ruined the Protestant Religion and National Interest His dealing with Mr. Cheney is most unchristian for in the Preface of his third Defence he judgeth him a godly serious Man yet saith he his Book is so dismal a piece in its extraordinary privation of common Reason Truth Charity Tenderness and Modesty that I am constrained to think that honest Man is diseasedly Melancholy and reports that his Book is 〈◊〉 away as a fardle of dotage and shameless lyes p. 2. of Second Part. Yet if a sober Reader be admitted to judge this melancholy Man hath so provoked Mr. Baxter's choler that he seems quite to have lost his Reason and betakes himself to Railing One Argument Mr. Cheney may well boast of which Mr. Baxter calls his Catholicon concerning a confident Tenet of Mr. Baxter That the Acts for Vniformity and Prefaces are parts of the Book of Common Prayer to which we are to declare our Assent c. Now it is said in a Preface concerning the Service of the Church That forasmuch as nothing can be so plainly set forth but doubts may arise in the use and practice of the same to appease all such diversity if any arise and for the resolution of all doubts concerning the manner how to understand do and execute the things contained in this Book the parties that so doubt or diversly take any thing as do now the Conformists and Non-conformists for Mr. Baxter says they could do and declare as the Conformists do if they could get the sence of the Acts c. to be expounded so as the Conformists understand them N.B. shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocess who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same so that the same Order be not contrary to any thing contained in this Book And if the Bishop of the Diocess be in doubt then he may send for the Resolution of the Archbishop Mr. Baxter answers That the words make not the Bishops Expositors of the Law or Book as Judge but as a Teacher only Mr. Cheney replies Any intelligent Man may help the ignorant to understand the things in the Book but the Bishops are made decisive Judges to order in what manner to understand do and execute all doubtful things in the Book p. 212. And p. 213. he tells Mr. Baxter The late Covenanters had not such Security for their Consciences in taking that Oath in a sense varying from the precise Letter as the Conformists have for their Subscriptions c. And thus the melancholy Man beat the Conjurer out of his Circle and in his third Defence he takes no notice of it As for Mr. Hooker how contemptibly doth he speak of him p. 74. saying That a long tedious Discourse in him hath as much substance as one might put into a Syllogism of six Lines And in his Preface to the Answer of the Bishop of Worcester I am says Mr. Baxter past doubt that Richard Hooker Bp. Hall Bp. Usher were they now alive would be Non-conformists In the year 1681. comes forth Mr. Baxter's Apology for the Non-conformist Ministers in justification of their preaching against Law This he directs to the Right Reverend Bishops of London Lincoln Hereford Carlisle St. Davids and Peterborough and others of their moderation in some hope though evil Men and Deceivers wax worse and worse What his hope is he tells them If the ancient Christians might present their Apology in hope to Heathen Emperours may I not so much more to Christian Bishops You are more sensible than we with what deep sense Men will shortly hear Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my Brethren you did it unto me See his Charity to those whom he calls our best Bishops But in p. 233. he thus concludes And now we humbly lay these Petitions at your feet and beseech you for the souls of many hundred thousands that you who call your selves their Pastors and the Fathers of the Church will not deny them the bread of Life We beseech you to come out of your Palaces a while and be familiar with the People and confer with all the Poor of the Parish and dwell in some Country Village as we have done who choose the greatest Cities and Towns that you may not see many hundred thousands damned by your means and you have nothing to say when it is to late but a non putaram That the Instances of the Obduration of Pharaoh and the Pharisees make you not afraid lest wrath come upon you to the utmost while you please not God and are contrary to all Men forbidding Christ's Labourers to preach to the Ignorant and Impenitent that they may be saved 1 Thess 2.15 And O that God would make them sensible how many thousand Persons damnation is like to be charged upon them for what they have already done for seventeen years hindring so many faithful Ministers I must profess if it were the last word that I should speak in the world that I had rather be the basest Scavenger yea and suffer many deaths than be found at the Judgment Seat of Christ in the place and guilt of those of you who have done what is done against the Gospel and Church of Christ in this Land Doth not the Reader blush for Mr. Baxter to read such arrogant Censures from a dying Man concerning his betters and all this too causelesly as I shall prove out of his own words He asks the Question p. 236. Why I write all this to you
Laws â—…ainst Dissenters which yet says he all did not Yet Mr. Baxter spares none nor doth Dr. Maurice in his Vindication of the Primitive Church and Diocesan Episcopacy in answer to Mr. Baxter's Church History of Bishops c. spare him for whoever reads the Preface to that Answer and Chap. 8. p. 276. where he abundantly proves Mr. Baxter's ignorance and scandalous imputation of the Heresies Schisms and Troubles which were raised by several Presbyters against their Orthodox Bishops to those Primitive Fathers he will be of the same mind that I am That there never was any School-boy more justly though severely chastised for any Fault than Mr. Baxter is for that Treatise which he says is very elaborate and unconfuted Mr. Baxter in a Preface to his Penitent Confession Sect. 9. hath this Question and Answer Quest How should one have the better of any Adversary that blamed him Answ Speak and do things that are most odious as Perjury Lying Persecution c. and cover them with Sacred Pretences and then all that accuse thee will be taken for uncharitable Railers This method Mr. Baxter useth for Confutation of his Adversaries Thus he answered the Bishop of Worcester's Sermon against Separation calling it A Schismatical Sermon in his Preface to his second Defence p. 12 and says That the Bishop's Book is made up 1. Of untrue Accusations 2. Vntrue Historical Relations 3. Fallacious Reasonings And that in writing that Book against the Bishop he felt so little Passion that he thought verily that he sinned all the while for want of a livelier sence of the sin and hurt which he was detecting by his Confutation And which is to be noted in an Epistle Dedicatory to the Bishop he confesseth That he answered him in a manner that required his Patience and if it was too provoking he beggs his pardon But afterwards adds I doubt that I took advantage of his temerity and confuted him in too provoking terms and that some meer impertinent noise was made to his Answer by some one that is confuted But the Bishop sheweth what kind of Confutation it was p. 59. of the History of Separation Mr. Baxter discovered so much anger and unbecoming Passion that I truly pitied him and was so far from being transported by it that it was enough to cure an indecent Passion to see how ill it became a Man of his Age Profession and Reputation for he seems to have written the whole Book in one continued fit of anger For which and the scurrility of his Preface wherein having in twenty particulars described the most unskilful proud partial obstinate cruel and impertinent Adversaries he could think of places of Scripture or Similitudes for he thus concludes Though all this be not the Case of the Reverend Bishop c. which the Bishop notes to be a malicious way of Reproaching to name so many very ill things and leave the Reader to apply as much as he pleaseth And in p. 63. the Bishop complains that Mr. Baxter says That his Principles overthrow all Religion and that he was a secret Vnderminer of the Proofs of a Deity p. 63. of the Bishop's Preface After the same manner he confutes Bishop Morley's Letter concerning him saying It is most shameless for untruths in publick matters of fact and adds Ironically the Accuser is a Member of the best Church in the World but is this bundle of his gross untruths a proof that he is one of the best men in the World In the like manner he reflects on Bishop Patrick's Friendly Debate That his Book was so disingenious and virulent as caused most religious People to abhor it for the strain and tendency and probable effects Baxter's Life part 2. p. 39. As for Dr. Sherlock he thinks it Confutation enough of his former and latter Writings that they were virulent and ignorant p. 198. of his Life part 3. But Dr. Sherlock's Practical Treatises whereof we have many are as sound pious and useful I need not say as any of Mr. Baxter's but as any other on such Subjects as he hath written on as of Death and Judgment of Providence c. Dr. Fulwood though Mr. Baxter had formerly commended him for a Learned Man yet for some Reflections on his Book called Sacrilegious Desertion he calls him railing Russian p. 6. and his Reflections are a few confident silly Reasonings And p. 60. tells him of his want of common sence and modesty P. 113. part 1. of his Life he says That Dr. Pierce wrote a bitter Book against him full of malignant bitterness against godly men and breathing out blood-thirsty malice in a fluent stile abundance of lies are also in it against the old Puritans and me And that he wrote a much more railing malicious Volume than the former the liveliest express of Satan's image malignity bloody malice and falshood cover'd in handsom railing Rhetorick I have not heard saith he of three such railing men in England as Tylenus junior Pierce and Gunning of the Jesuits Opinion in Doctrinals and of the old Dominical complexion the ablest men that their Party hath in all the Land of great diligence in study and reading of excellent oratory and temperate lives but all their parts so sharpned with a furious persecuting Zeal against those that dislike Arminianism high Prelacy or full Conformity that they are like Bryars and Thorns not to be handled but by a fenced hand breathing out threatnings against God's Servants better than themselves and seem unsatisfied with blood and ruins and still cry Give Give bidding as loud Defiance to Christian Charity as every Arius or any Heretick did to Faith I fear I have offended my Reader by spreading before him such heaps of putrid and noisome Garbage But Mr. Baxter offering no matter of Argument for how could he against his own Relations and undeniable Matters of Fact except he had given himself the lye I thought nothing else needful but to shew the temper of the Man and the usual manner of his Communication to convince the Reader that he too often calls evil good and good evil and supplies the want of Argument and Reason with Invectives and Railing As to his Charge that my Book was full of Falshood half Sentences none was more concerned or better able to have shewn a few instances if the Book had been so full And for quoting any retracted Lines I never heard much of Mr. Baxter's Retractations though he had reason enough to have written as largely upon that Subject as St. Augustine did I do not think that his expunging out of his Kalender of Saints the names of Brook Pym White c. amounted to a Retractation because he told us that he did it not as altering his judgment of them but because it gave offence Yet Mr. Baxter shews reason enough to have expunged the Lord Brook for p. 63. of Mr. Baxter's Life part 1. he says That the Lord Brook was known and noted as a gross Sectary in the House of Peers
in a way that should make their hearts to ake I think saith Mr. Baxter their hearts have aked by this time and as they judged him to the Gallows for his Prediction so hath Christ executed them by Thousands for their Rebellion against him Now it is evident what Discipline Vdal meant by his Confederacy with Coppinger Penry c. of which Cambden p. 420. of his Eliz. Angl. says Some of those Men who were great Admirers of the Geneva Discipline thought there was no better way for establishing it in England than by railing against the English Hierarchy and stirring up the People to a dislike of Bishops They therefore set forth scandalous Books against the Government of the Church and Prelates as Martin Mar-Prelate Minerals Diotrephes A Demonstration of Discipline c. In which Libels they set forth virulent Calumnies and opprobrious Taunts and Reproaches in such manner as the Authours seemed rather Scullions out of the Kitchin than pious and godly Men yet the Authours were Penry and Vdal Ministers of the Word Bishop Bancroft quoteth a Pamphlet of Mr. Vdal's called A Dialogue where he says That the Bishops Callings are meer Antichristian p. 59. of Dangerous Positions and p. 45. he says They were very devilish and infamous Dialogues and that there was a Conspiracy between Coppinger Wigginton c. by some extraordinary means such as Vdal had prophesied should make their hearts to ake for releasing of some that stood in danger of their lives meaning as I suppose says the Bishop Vdal Newman c. The dangers threatned by such extraordinary means to disturb the Goverment hastned the Trial of Vdal who with three others took occasion from the intended Invasion in 88 to alarm the Nation at home as also they did on the Powder Plot and to this day do by scattering seditious Pamphlets Vdal was charged with a Book called A Demonstration of Discipline which Christ hath prescribed in his Word for the government of his Church in all times and places to the Worlds end The Preface was directed To the supposed Governours of the Church of England to whom he says Who can deny you without blushing to be the cause of all ungodliness seeing your Government is that which giveth leave to a Man to be any thing save a sound Christian for certainly it's more free in these days to be a Papist Anabaptist of the Family of Love yea as any most wicked rather than what we should be And I could live these Twenty years as well as any such in England yea in a Bishop's House it may be and never be molested for it So true is that you are charged with in a Dialogue lately come forth and by you burnt that you care for nothing but the Maintenance of your Dignities be it to the damnation of your own Souls and infinite millions more The whole Book being like this Preface he was indicted at the Assizes held at Croyden and found guilty He pleaded That he was indicted on the Statute of 23 of Eliz. c. 2. for publishing seditious words against the Queen but that the Book charged on him contained no seditious words against the Queen but the Bishops only But it was answered by the Judges N.B. That they who spake against her Majesty's Government in Cases Ecclesiastical her Laws Proceedings or Ecclesiastical Officers which ruled under her did defame the Queen And on clear proof that he was the Authour of that Libel he was found guilty and received Sentence of Death but by intercession of Archbishop Whitgift was Reprieved Mr. Baxter's actings have been so like Mr. Vdal's that it is no wonder to find him labouring to justifie him in a Cause wherein himself is so nearly concerned In 1659. came forth Mr. Baxter's Key for Catholicks dedicated To his Highness Richard Lord Protector p. 323. where he asserts That if the Body of a Commonwealth or those that have part in the Legislative Power and so in the Supremacy should be unwillingly engaged in a War with the Prince suppose the Long Parliament or the Commonwealth under Oliver against King Charles the First and after many years Blood and Desolations judiciously take away his Life as guilty of all this Blood and not to be trusted any more with Government as the Parliaments Vote for Non-address to the King And all this they do not as Private Men but as the remaining Soveraign Power and say they do it according to Law undoubtedly this case doth very much differ from the Powder Plot or Papists murdering of Kings With much more to the same evil purpose And doubtless the difference is great it is more horrid for Subjects to pretend Justice than for the Pope to attempt by secret Plots to destroy a Protestant Prince In the year 58. he prints his Five Disputations of Church Government which were designed against restoring the extruded Episcopacy and Liturgy and to justifie the Presbyterian Ordination where as also in his Method for Peace p. 389. he saith We have taken down the superfluous honour of Bishops viz. their power over Presbyters as Antichristian This disputatious Book he says was written against Dr. Hammond who was then his Neighbour and he dealt very friendly with him for he scarce touched one of his Arguments but the design of the Book was to destroy the whole Order as Optatus said of a Donatist Dei Episcopos linguae gladio jugulasti fundens sanguinem non corporis sed honoris Opt. Milevit l. 2. And because after No Bishop follows No King in 1659. he sets forth his Holy Common-wealth which was no other than a Plot to keep out the King as the other was to keep out the Bishops for there being great hopes that upon so many Revolutions of Government we should settle again on our ancient Foundations he says He suited that Book to the demands and doubts of those times And his endeavour is to prove That the King being secluded and his Subjects discharged of their Obedience ought not to be readmitted Thus in the Preface That a Succession of wise and godly Men may be secured to the Nation in the highest Power is that I have directed you the way to in this Book And thus he explains himself First as to the higher Powers Prove saith he that the King was the highest Power in the times of Division and that he had power to make that War that he made and I will offer my Head to Justice as a Rebel These confident Assertions of his were such as brought a far better Head to the Block But what would Mr. Baxter have My wish is saith he that our Parliaments may be holy and this ascertained from Generation to Generation by such a necessary Regulation of Elections that all those who by wickedness have forfeited their Liberties i.e. the King and Loyal Party may neither choose nor be chosen And the reducing Elections to faithful honest upright men such as he says were then in Richard Cromwel 's Parliament is the only
Rabble are stirred up to Petition against them Mr. Baxter himself having in Anno 1640. conceived a dislike of them began to write his History of Bishops to represent them as the Lords of Misrule twelve Bishops are sent to the Tower the Archbishop beheaded the rest-sequestred the Nation drawn into a Covenant against them their Revenues imployed to maintain a War against the King and to gratifie such Presbyters as had defamed and opposed them Under those grew up the several Factions of Independents Anabaptists Quakers and a Fanatical Army that set the whole Nation into a Flame that continued to devour for 20 years together Now suppose the Supream Power i.e. the Parliament as Mr. Baxter says had advanced some of the most active Presbyters as Superintendents or Bishops and Archbishops for Mr. Baxter approves of this last Order as Overseers of Bishops would it become a true Historian to impute all the Disorders and Confusions that were acted by and under the several Factions and thus made Bishops to that Order which were deposed prescribed and driven into Corners or exposed to innumerable Affronts and Sufferings during all that time and yet this is the manner of Mr. Baxter's dealing with those more ancient Bishops which he mentioneth as a true Historian throughout his History of Bishops Mr. Baxter Did you know or not that Novatus was an ill chosen Bishop of Rome and Novatian a promoter of his Prelacy Answ I doubt not but Mr. Baxter knew that Novatus was meerly a Presbyter and that in his time Cornelius was Bishop of Rome with whom Novatus had a quarrel for admitting such to his Communion as in the days of Persecution under Decius had denied the Faith Novatus affirming That they could not repent after their Fall and hereupon he calls his Faction the Cathari This pure Presbyter being at Rome se sends for three Rustick Bishops as my Author calls them to come to him from Italy to Rome where he caresseth them with plenty of good Victuals and Wine and when they had well drank some of Novatus his Party prevail with those Bishops to lay their hands on Novatus and make him a Bishop but whether a Bishop of Rome as Mr. Baxter says I have not read but that Novatus and Novatian who espoused his Opinion and promoted his Faction to the great disturbance of Cornelius the lawful Bishop is notorious in Ecclesiastical History Mr. Baxter As for Donatus there were two of them one of them a Bishop and the Donatist Schism was meerly and basely Prelatical Answ Here I question your Fidelity and have proved at large in my History of the Donatists that the Schism was wholly Presbyterial for the Bishoprick of Carthage being void Botrus and Celesius two Presbyters sought to supplant Cecilian a Person of known Integrity who was chosen Bishop of that Church But Lucilla a Woman descended from a Noble Family of Spain abets their quarrel and by great Gifts prevail with Botrus and Celesius who had been defeated to appear for Majorinus who was Domestick Chaplain to Lucilla and had been Deacon to Cecilian these gather a great number of persons whom they had drawn from the Communion of Cecilian to meet at Cirta where they pronounce Cecilian deposed as a Traditor and set up Majorinus to be Bp. of Carthage who dying shortly after Donatus is by his Party chosen to succeed him whom Cecilian accused for re-baptizing those that came to his Party from the Catholick Church and for degrading Bishops and Priests And this was the rise of the Sect of the Donatists under whom the Arian Heresie spread it self and the Crew of Circumcellians arose as may be seen at large in the History of the Donatists This is a second Instance of the Schism begun by Presbyters and of Mr. Baxter's fidelity in relating Church History and imputing the Troubles caused and continued by Presbyters to the Bishops The third instance is Arius a Presbyter of Alexandria in Egypt who was bred up under Melitus another Presbyter from whom Arius was taught That Christ was not the Eternal Son of God but meer Man from both his Parents This Meletius held it lawful in times of Persecution to deny Christ as he had done and pleaded That he had not denied God but Man For these Tenets Peter Bp. of Alexandria Excommunicated them both but Peter dying Achillus succeeded him under whom Arius reading Lectures in Alexandria began to publish his Heresie and infected great numbers insomuch that Achillus dying he became Competitor for that Bishoprick with Alexander who being a Person of known Abilities and Integrity was chosen by a general Suffrage of that Church by this good Bishop Arius was Excommunicated for opposing the Divinity of Christ and teaching that he was not from Eternity nor did partake of the Substance of the Father being created in time and was indeed more excellent than other Creatures but not equal with the Father He challenged to dispute these his heretical Opinions with Alexander and a time and place was appointed but as Arius was come to the place an extream pain in his Bowels seiz'd on him and going aside to ease himself his very Bowels fell from him But his Name and Heresie survived in another Arius or as History stiles him Arianus homo potius quam Arius who opposed Athanasius in the Council of Nice but upon a full discussion of the Arian Doctrines by that Council his Heresie was condemned the Books written for it were burnt and an Edict set forth by Constantine threatning Death to such as should conceal any of their Books Now how long this Heresie prevailed how many Catholick Bishops were banisht and murthered for opposing it how it spread like a Gangreen through all the Members of the Church as you have set forth in your History of Bishops is mostly true but your imputing those Confusions to the Catholick Bishops who were the Sufferers in all that time being the defensive Party I am bold to say is false for under the Arian Schism and by such as took part with them as the Donatists Nestorians Eutychians Macedonians Acephalites Monothelites who often made havock of one another and all united to distress the true Bishops all those Mischiefs which you mention in this Letter and more largely in your Hist of Bishops were put in Execution for 140 years together i.e. from the days of Constantine to the days of Constantius nec dum finitus Orestes Mr. Baxter Were it not for entering on an unpleasing and unprofitable task I would ask you Who that Juncto of Presbyters was that dethroned the King Answ They were such as the Westminster Assembly that dispersed their Members into the Country to animate the People to ingage in the War against the King and with Mr. Baxter assisted in carrying on the War from the beginning to the end and drew many thousands to ingage in that War Those that incouraged the Rabble of London to go to Westminster and demand Justice of him in such