according to the legal establishment thereof of so sound so healthful so orderly and so well compacted a constitution as it is and which by long experience we have found so agreeable to the established Government of the State that we cannot make any alteration in the one without great disordering of the other Let us not give ear to any of those Church and State Mountebanks or Empericks who if we let them alone a little longer will never leave mending till they have marr'd all Mr. BAXTER'S Recantation referred to page of the Conclusion Printed 1670. at the end of a Book of His called The Life of Faith after a Catalogue of Books Written and Published by the same Author LET the Reader know that whereas the Bookseller hath in the Catalogue of my Books named my Holy-Commonwealth or Political Aphorisms I do hereby recall the said Book and profess my Repentance that ever I published it and that not only for some by-passages but in respect of the secondary part of the very scope Though the first Part of it which is the defence of God and Reason I recant not But this Revocation I make with these Proviso's 1. That I reverse not all the Matter of that Book nor all that more than ONE have accused As e. g. the Assertion that all Humane Powers are limited by God And if I may not be pardoned for not defying DEITY and HUMANITY I shall prefer that ignominy before their present Fastus and Triumph who defie them 2. That I make not this Recantation to the Military fury and rebellious pride and tumult against which I wrote it nor would have them hence take any encouragement for impenitence 3. That though I dislike the Roman Clergies writing so much of Politicks and detest Ministers medling in State matters without necessity or a certain call yet I hold it not simply unbeseeming a Divine to expound the fifth Commandment nor to shew the dependance of humane Powers on the Divine nor to instruct Subjects to obey with judgment and for Conscience sake 4. That I protest against the judgment of Posterity and all others that were not of the same TIME and PLACE as to the mental censure either of the BOOK or the REVOCATION as being ignorant of the true reasons of them both Which things Provided I hereby under my hand as much as in me lyeth reverse the Book and desire the World to take it as non Scriptum April 15. 1670. R. B. ACT Anent Religion and the TEST August 31. 1681. Made in the Third PARLIAMENT of Our Most High and Dread Sovereign CHARLES the Second Holden at EDINBURGH the 28 day of July 1681. By his Royal Highness JAMES Duke of Albany and York c. His MAJESTIES High Commissioner for holding the same Referred to Section V. OUR SOVERAIGNE LORD With His Estates of Parliament Considering That albeit by many wholsom Laws made by his Royall Grand-father and Father of glorious memory and by himself in this and His other Parliaments since His happy Restauration the Protestant Religion is carefully asserted established and secured against Popery and Phanaticism Yet the restless Adversaries of our Religion doe not cease to propagat their errours and to seduce His Majesties Subjects from their duty to God and Loyalty to his Vice-gerent and to overturn the established Religion by introducing their Superstions and delusions into this Church and Kingdom And knowing that nothing can more encrease the numbers and confidence of Papists and Schismatical dissenters from the Established Church than the supine neglect of putting in Execution the good Laws provided against them together with their hopes to infinuat themselves into Offices and places of trust and publick Imployment THEREFORE His Majesty from His Princely and pious zeal to maintain and preserve the true Protestant Religion contained in the Confession of Faith recorded in the first Parliament of King James the Sixth which is founded on and agreeable to the written word of GOD DOETH with advise and consent of His Estates of Parliament Require and Command all his Officers Judges and Magistrats to put the Laws made against Popery and Papists Priests Jesuits and all persons of any other Order in the Popish Church especially against sayers and hearers of Mass Venders and dispersers of forbidden Books And Ressetters of Popish Priests and excommunicat Papists As also against all Phanatick Separatists from this National Church Against Preachers at House or Field-Conventicles and the Ressetters and harbourers of Preachers who are Intercommuned Against disorderly Baptisms and Marriages and irregular Ordinations and all other Schismaticall disorders To full and vigorous execution according to the Tenour of the Respective Acts of Parliament thereanent provided And that his Majesties Princely care to have these Laws put in Execution against those Enemies of the Protestant Religion may the more clearly appear HE DOETH with advise and consent foresaid STATUT and ORDAIN That the Ministers of each Paroch give up in October Yearly to their respective Ordinaries true and exact Lists of all Papists and Schismatical-withdrawers from the publick Worship in their respective Paroches which Lists are to be subscribed by them and that the Bishops give in a double of the saids Lists Subscribed by them to the respective Sheriffs Stewards Bailies of Royalty and Regalitie and Magistrats of Burghs To the effect the said Judges may proceed against them according to Law As also the Sheriffs and other Magistrats foresaids are hereby ordained to give an account to his Majesties Privy-Council in December yearly of their proceedings against those Papists and Phanatical Separatists as they will be answerable at their highest peril And that the diligences done by the Sheriffs Bailies of Regalities and other Magistrats foresaids may be the better enquired into by the Council the Bishops of the respective Diocesses are to send exact doubles of the Lists of the Papists and Phanaticks to the Clerks of Privy Council whereby the diligences of the Sheriffs and other Judges foresaids may be controlled and examined And to cut of all hopes from Papists and Phanaticks of their being imployed in Offices and Places of publick Trust. IT IS HEREBY STATUT and ORDAINED that the following Oath shall be taken by all Persons in Offices and places of publick Trust Civil Ecclesiastical and Military especially by all Members of Parliament and all Electors of Members of Parliament all Privy-Counsellors Lords of Session Members of the Exchequer Lords of Justiciary and all other Members of these Courts all Officers of the Crown and State all Arch-Bishops and Bishops and all Preachers and Ministers of the Gospel whatsoever all Persons of this Kingdom named or to be named Commissioners for the Borders all Members of the Commission for Church Affairs all Sheriffs Stewards Bailies of Royalties and Regalities Justices of the Peace Officers of the Mint Commissars and their Deputs their Clerks and Fiscals all Advocats and Procurators before any of these Courts all Writters to the Signet all Publick Nottars and
not to take notice of any thing Mr. Baxter had said of me because as they said his tongue is no slander nor his pen neither especially when he whets either the one or the other against Bishops and because I had already long ago both answered and prevented all the Objections he had then or hath since made against the truth of what I had said of him in relation to the Conference at the Savoy and of the justice of what I had done to him when I was Bishop of Worcester which is now above 20 years ago These perswasions and reasons together with the consideration of the little time I had left for better employment prevaild with me to lay aside some few Observations and Animadversions I had begun to make upon some particulars relating to me in some of Mr. Baxter's late Writings untill some other of my Learned and Reverend Brethren did very lately let me know that in their opinion I was obliged for the Churches sake as well as for mine own not to suffer it to be said hereafter that a Bishop of the Church of England having been told and told in Print that he was a Preacher of untruths and consequently a liar in the pulpit a slanderer of all the Non-conformists nay a blasphemer or a defier not of Humanity onely but of the Deity it self had nothing to say because he did say nothing to the contrary though I could have replied that I thought and some others of my Reverend Brethren thought also that the Letter I had written and printed so long ago with the Testimony annexed to it was enough and more than enough to vindicate me from the two first of those Reproaches and to prevent the last of them also yet because they have been again repeated and because there hath been since a Book written and written on purpose as Mr. Baxter the Authour of it saith to prove Bishop Morley to have been grosly mistaken in the relation he hath made in the aforesaid Letter of what was asserted by Mr. Baxter in the aforesaid Conference at the Savoy and because it was since the writing of that Letter also that he makes me a defier of Deity and Humanity because I am not of his opinion that all unlimited Governours are Tyrants and have no right to their Governments for these reasons I say and for the satisfaction of some of my friends rather than out of any inclination of mine own who love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be quiet and to doe mine own business as well as Mr. Baxter doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have an Oar in every man's Boat and thereby quieta movere to disquiet both himself and others I have adventured to launch forth once more though I have reason to fear I may not live to finish what I have begun not because I foresee any difficulty at all in the work I have to doe I mean the justifying of my self against any thing Mr. Baxter hath laid unto my charge but because humanely speaking there is so little of the sand in the Hour-glass of my life left which yet if it last but a month or two longer before it be run out with the continuance of that mediocrity of health of body and soundness of mind which by God's great goodness and mercy I do yet enjoy I hope it will by God's gracious assistance be long enough to make the impartial part of the world see that Mr. Baxter is not a man of that sincerity ingenuity or integrity as he would be thought and perhaps he is by those who have his person in admiration but one that will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to serve his turn for the present and to keep up his reputation with his party say or unsay affirm or deny any thing either in matter of right or of fact and juggle one proposition into the room of another as if it were identically the same or at least equipollent or equivalent to the other when there is nothing of likeness either in sound or of sense betwixt them Which that it may the more clearly appear and that the impartial Reader may the better judge both of what I have said of him and what he hath said of me and whether I or he have dealt more difingenuously or injuriously with one another I have caused all that I printed before to be reprinted viz. Mr. Baxter's own report of the Conference at the Savoy and my Letter in reply to that report of his together with the Collection of Aphorisms out of that Book which he calls his Holy Commonwealth and all these verbatim in the same words without any the least addition diminution or alteration onely I have added thereunto another Paper of Mr. Baxter's which I met with since and which he calls a Revocation or Recantation of his Book of the Holy Commonwealth or Political Aphorisms which whether it be indeed a Recantation or such a Recantation as it ought to have been or no we shall examine in due place But I have added I say that because it was printed by him since the printing of what I have now reprinted and because it is in that paper that Mr. Baxter hath been pleased to expose me as a Defier of Deity and Humanity This Advertisement I thought fit to premise and withall to desire the impartial Reader first to peruse what I have reprinted I mean Mr. Baxter's Narrative to his Kidderminster friends and my Letter in answer thereunto together with Mr. Baxter's Political Aphorisms annexed to that Letter and then to take notice of the time when that Narrative of his and Letter of mine were first printed which was 10 years before the publishing of his pretended Recantation of all or any of his aforesaid Aphorisms and lastly when he hath done this to proceed to the perusing of what upon another provocation of Mr. Baxter's I now write to justifie what I writ before and after mature deliberation to pronounce sentence for me or against me as he shall see cause Reader You are desired to take notice that this work was prepared designed and expected to have come forth before Easter-Term last THE Bishop of Worcester's LETTER To a Friend For VINDICATION of himself FROM Mr. BAXTER'S Calumny Together with The ATTESTATION of Dr. GVNNING and Dr. PEARSON AND A Collection of Mr. Baxter's Theses and Doctrine concerning Government Reprinted Tenet insanabile multos Scribendi Cacoethes LONDON Printed for Joanna Brome 1683. Mr. Baxter hath lately printed a Book called The Mischiefs of Self-Ignorance and the Benefits of Self-Acquaintance in the Address of which Book to his dearly beloved the Inhabitants of Kidderminster he hath this ensuing passage relating to the Bishop of Worcester IN a disputation by writing those of the other part formed an Argument whose Major Proposition was to this sense for I have no Copy Whatsoever Book enjoyneth nothing but what is of it self lawfull and by lawfull Authority enjoyneth nothing that is sinfull We denied this
because as he saith in the same place a full and free Parliament had owned him thereby implying That a maimed and a manacled House of Commons without King and Lords and notwithstanding the violent expulsion of the secluded Members were a full and free Parliament and consequently that if such a Parliament should have taken Arms against the King he must have sided with them Yea though they had been never so much in fault and though they had been the beginners of the War for he tells us in plain and express terms VIII That if he had known the Parliament had been the beginners of the War and in most fault yet the ruine of the Trustees and Representatives and so of all the security of the Nation being a punishment greater than any faults of theirs against the King could deserve from him their faults could not disoblige him meaning himself from defending the Commonwealth Pag. 480. And that he might doe this lawfully and with a good Conscience he seems to be so confident that in his Preface he makes as it were a challenge saying that if any man can prove that the King was the highest power in the time of those Divisions and that he had power to make that war which he made he will offer his head to Justice as a Rebel As if in those times of Division the King had lost or forfeited his Sovereignty and the Parliament had not onely a part but the whole Sovereignty in themselves IX Finally Mr. Baxter tells us Pag. 486. That having often searched into his heart whether he did lawfully engage into the War or not and whether he did lawfully encourage so many thousands to it he tells us I say that the issue of all his search was but this That he cannot yet see that he was mistaken in the main cause nor dares he repent of it nor forbear doing the same if it were to doe again in the same state of things He tells us indeed in the same place that if he could be convinc'd he had sinned in this matter he would as gladly make a publick recantation as he would eat or drink which seeing he hath not yet done it is evident he is still of the same mind and consequently would upon the same occasion doe the same things viz. fight and encourage as many thousands as he could to fight against the King for any thing that calls it self or which he is pleased to call a full and free Parliament as likewise that he would own and submit to any Vsurper of the Sovereignty as set up by God although he came to it by the murther of his Master and by trampling upon the Parliament Lastly That he would hinder as much as possibly he could the restoring of the rightfull Heir unto the Crown And now whether a man of this Judgment and of these affections ought to be permitted to Preach or no Let any but himself judge THE Bishop of Winchester's VINDICATION Of Himself from divers False Scandalous and Injurious Reflexions made upon him by Mr. RICHARD BAXTER in several of his Writings As likewise A Vindication of the Rights and Sovereignty of all Kings properly so called and particularly of the King of England's being sole Soveraign over all persons in all capacities within his own Realms and Dominions from What Mr. Baxter to justifie the Rebellion against our late King of ever blessed Memory hath in many of his False Factious and Seditious Aphorisms asserted to the contrary Together with A Proposal of a more Legal and more effectual Expedient for the keeping Popery and Arbitrary Government for ever out of England than the passing of an Act to exclude the right Heir from Succession to the Crown either now or hereafter is will be or can be LONDON Printed for Joanna Brome 1683. SECTION I. Mr. BAXTER'S Assertion at the Savoy undeniably proved upon him and consequently his Charge against the Bishop of many mistakes in his Letter in matter of fact and of his Gross mistaking charge viz. Concerning the judgment of the Nonconformists of things sinfull by Accident cleared The Bishop of Winchester's Vindication of himself from divers false scandalous and injurious Reflexions made upon him by Mr. Richard Baxter in several of his Writings CHAP. I. Mr. Baxter 's Charge against the Bishop gathered out of several Writings of his and set down in his own words MAster Baxter in his Preface to his Book called by him The true and onely way of Concord of all Christian Churches reflecting upon a Letter of mine Written and Printed near 20 years before saith There are so many Mistakes in matter of fact in it that although he had made an Answer to it yet he cast it aside for Peace sake believing that the opening of the aforesaid so many mistakes would not easily be born the rather because as he says in the words immediately foregoing he knew he had greatly incurr'd both our displeasures already to wit the Bishop of Ely's and mine for what he had said and done against our Way and that as to my particular the aforesaid Letter of mine was a proof of it Again in the same Preface to the same Book he saith You meaning the Bishop of Ely and Me to whom he addresseth that Preface have above all men I know effectually helped to bring us meaning himself and the rest of his Party under These are Mr. Baxter's complements when he speaks to me and therefore I am not to expect more Civility from him when he speaks of me as he doth in divers of his Books which I have seen and perhaps in many more of them which I have not seen for I hope all men are not bound to reade all Mr. Baxter writes But in those I have seen when he speaks of me it is neither Honoris nor Charitatis gratiâ but to reproach me either directly and in express terms or covertly and by the bye as when in his Preface to the second part of his Plea for Nonconformists he saith It was Bishop Morley 's gross mistaking charge that made him write one whole Tract or Treatise namely That of things sinfull per Accidens or by accident Again in the former part of the aforesaid Plea for Nonconformists he saith Bishop Morley advised him to reade Bilson and Hooker in whom saith he I found more than he approv'd for resisting and restraining of Kings Again in another of his printed Papers I mean that Paper which he would have taken for a Recantation of some of those Political Aphorisms I had laid to his charge though he do not name me yet he points directly at me as if I had accused him for asserting That all humane powers are limited by God which to deny as he there insinuates I do and elsewhere plainly tells me I do is to defy Deity and Humanity and consequently makes me a defyer of them both Lastly with the same ingenuity and candour he aims at me more obscurely and more obliquely indeed
untill he hath done it is to be supposed forthe reasons before by me alledged he cannot doe And consequently that the Charge itself is a mere Calumny Which that it may be made more evidently to appear I have caused the self same Letter wherein he saith there are so many mistakes without any the least addition subtraction or alteration to be reprinted and publish'd to the end that such as will vouchsafe to reade it without prejudice may judge betwixt us whether there be indeed so many or any such mistakes in matter of Fact in it as Mr. Baxter saith there are as likewise whether I did well or ill in restraining him from preaching in my Diocese which that all men may the better judge of I have reprinted likewise those Political Aphorisms of his which were at first annexed to that Letter not as accusing him for holding them now but as remembring him of his holding them then which though it was not the cause as the Letter tells him of my Silencing him at first yet that together with what he had asserted at the Conference in the Savoy was the cause as the Letter tells him also why I continued and resolved to continue that restraint and Suspension untill he should make a publick Recantation as well of what he had affirmed in the aforesaid Conference namely The unlawfulness of lawfull Commands by lawfull Authority if by accident they might be the cause or occasion of sin as likewise of those not onely false and erroneous but dangerous seditious and rebellious Maxims of his which howsoever he may have since repented and recanted I am sure he had not recanted them then at least not publickly or so as I or the World could take notice of it They therefore that reade the Letter with the Aphorisms annexed to it and reprinted with it are to consider them rebus sic stantibus I mean as things were then when they were first printed And if Mr. Baxter himself would consider them so too he must needs confess if at least he will stand to what he hath written since even in this very Book of which he would have me give him my opinion he must needs confess I say that he was justly Silenced or restrained from Preaching as being then one of Those who he himself saith are intolerabiles that is such as ought not to be suffered to Preach as being disturbers of the publick peace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul calls them that is Seducers of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 overturning or turning upside down whole Houses or Families 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose mouths St. Paul saith in the same place ought to be stopped And if those mens mouths ought to be stopped that by Seditious Preaching disturb Families how much more ought they to be silenced that by Printing and Publishing seditious and rebellious Books and Maxims doe what they can not onely to disturb but overthrow whole Churches and Kingdomes But Mr. Baxter will say he doth not own any of those Maxims now I do not say he does but I do say he did own them at least he had not disown'd them then when I silenced him and consequently when he was one of those whom he himself calls intolerabiles or such as ought not to be permitted to Preach which is enough to justifie what I said or did then But whether he hath since made or published any declaration whereby he hath clearly and fully disown'd all those Seditious Maxims of his We shall see hereafter CHAP. III. One Particular Gross mistake as he calls it charged in a late Treatise of his upon the Bishop about the Nonconformists judgment of things sinfull by accident taken to task ANd now I should proceed to the consideration of some particulars which Mr. Baxter is pleased to charge me with in his aforesaid Preface to his aforesaid Book of Concord having I suppose said enough if not more than enough already to his general Charge without witness or proof relating to my aforesaid Letter had not Mr. Baxter himself sent me by my friend Mr. Isaac Walton another Book of his called The second part of the Nonconformists Plea for peace which he calls an extorted and distorted Treatise or rather a bundle of Treatises bound up together And distorted enough indeed it is but how or by whom it was extorted from him I know not he seems by the many Books he hath written to be so ready a Writer that he needed not to have any thing he writes to be extorted from him For indeed he is rather one of those quibus difficile est non scribere who are as hardly to be restrained from Writing as others are from Preaching But in this bundle of Treatises whether extorted or not extorted there is one wherein I am particularly concerned He calls it The judgment of Nonconformists of things sinfull by accident and in his Preface to that whole bundle of Treatises he saith This Treatise in particular was written purposely to answer the gross mistaking charge of Bishop Morley And truly if he had not said so or if that Treatise had been Printed by it self I should neither by the Title of it nor by the Book it self have suspected it to have been purposely written against me or against any mistake of mine For neither in the Title nor in the Book it self do I find Bishop Morley so much as once named or any way so characterized by any thing I have said or done as to conclude my self to be understood by it Nay I verily believe that if I should grant all and every one of the sixty four Propositions asserted in that Treatise to be true yet nevertheless whatsoever I have laid to Mr. Baxter's charge in that Letter of mine would be true also so that I cannot chuse but wonder that he should say as he does in the aforesaid Preface That this particular Treatise of scandal or evil by accident was purposely written to answer the gross mistaking charge of Bishop Morley whereas the Title page to that Treatise saith no such thing neither is that wherein he saith the Bishop is so grosly mistaken to be found either in terminis terminantibus or oequipollentibus either in downright terms or in words that imply as much in the whole Treatise If it be replyed that as the general Preface to the whole bundle of Treatises called The second Part of the Nonconformists Plea tells me that I am the man that am guilty of so gross a mistake so that the Title page to that particular Treatise We are now speaking of though not explicitly and formally yet implicitly and intelligibly enough tells me what it was wherein I was so grosly mistaken namely in misreporting the Nonconformists judgment of things sinfull by accident I rejoyn first that unless Mr. Baxter thinks that every body is obliged to reade all that he Writes he could not rationally presume that a man of my age and
one that had so little time left to spare from his more pressing and more important concerns was likely to enquire after every Book that came out in Print and to see whether he was concerned in it or no and it seems Mr. Baxter thought so and therefore sent me by Mr. Walton that Book in the Preface whereunto he saith he did purposely write that Treatise in answer to the gross mistaking charge of Bishop Morley which I had never seen nor heard of before nor perhaps should ever have seen or heard of it at all if Mr. Baxter himself had not sent it to me and which if he had sent me sooner I would not have said as I have done in the foregoing Chapter that he had not given so much as any one Instance of the many mistakes he saith there were in my printed Letter as indeed he did not where he speaks of them to me nay he saith he had laid aside an Answer he had written to that Letter for peace sake that he might not by opening or publishing so many mistakes of mine give me any farther cause of being displeased with him And yet two years before mark the ingenuity of the man he had published a whole Book consisting of sixty four Propositions besides Quoeries purposely intended then though he doth not say so in plain terms till two years after for an Answer to Bishop Morley 's gross mistaking charge though neither then nor since neither there nor any where else hath he yet told us what that gross mistaking charge is but leaves it to be guessed at or collected out of the Title page to that Treatise which he saith he purposely writ for an Answer to it wherein whether he hath dealt justly and candidly either with me or with his readers I am now to consider and examine after I have premised out of what I have already said two or three short preliminary Observations Whereof the first is this That it was not nor could not be for peace sake nor because he would not give me any farther provocation as in his Preface to his Book of Concord he pretends it was that he laid aside the Answer he saith he had made to my printed Letter for then he would not without any farther provocation on my part have afterwards printed a whole Book on purpose to convince me of one of the many mistakes in that Letter or rather to expose me to the World for having been guilty of so gross a mistake as he calls it A second observation is this That naming but one of those many mistakes he saith there were in that Letter of mine he doth implicitly confess that he could name no more because by aggravating that as much as he can he declares he would not have forborn to specifie the rest if there had been any more to be specified And consequently which I would have to be observed in the third place That if this which he calls a gross mistake be no mistake at all of mine but a very great Mistake or rather a very great Calumny of his as I doubt not but I shall prove it is Mr. Baxter had no reason to charge that Letter of mine with so many mistakes nor I any reason to thank him for concealing of them CHAP. IV. His dreadfull Title page wherein he ushers in this Charge examined and retorted upon himself NOw whether that which Mr. Baxter calls a gross mistaking charge be indeed such a charge as he would have it to be believed it is he should in the first place have in plain and express terms set down that charge of mine as I have set it down my self in that Letter wherein he saith that gross mistaking charge is For in all debates betwixt rational and ingenuous men whether in point of opinion or in matter of fact the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or thing in question ought to be clearly stated and agreed on betwixt the differing Parties before they can proceed to the proving or disproving of any thing that is in difference betwixt them But this as I said before Mr. Baxter hath not done but onely affirmed that such a gross mistaking charge there is of Bishop Morley's and that he hath written and published such a Treatise in answer to it leaving his Readers as I said before to guess at what that Charge is or rather what he would have it thought to be and that is as may be collected from the Title page to that Treatise which he calls an Answer to that charge the Bishop's misreporting the judgment of Nonconformists of things sinfull by Accident to make men believe that the Nonconformists Asserted That whatsoever may be the occasion of sin to any must be taken away or that nothing may be imposed which men may take scandal at or by Accident turn to sin And he adds That to save mens Souls from the guilt of believing this misreport the Treatise following saith the Title page was published as likewise to help those to repentance who have polluted their Souls with falshood and uncharitableness by believing and seconding such reports This I say is the Title page prefixed to the aforesaid Treatise and a very notable one it is Never any Pope's Bull came forth with a more dreadfull bellowing against all that shall say write preach print or report or that shall believe any thing that is said written printed preached or reported by any body else concerning any of the Nonconformists though never so truly or never so well attested if any Nonconformist especially such a one as Mr. Baxter one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of those who seem to be Pillars shall please to disown it For in that case saith Mr. Baxter not onely the reporting any such thing is a gross mistake but the believing such a report doth so pollute mens Souls with falshood and uncharitableness that they cannot be saved from the guilt thereof unless that ensuing Treatise of his do help them to repent of it So dangerous a thing it seems it is not onely to report but to give credit to any thing that is reported to the prejudice either of the doctrine or practice of any of the Godly party as if they could not err in either which is in effect to assume unto themselves a more than Popish Infallibility which is the worst of the Popish errours as being the ground and foundation of all other heresies or errours that are held by them And yet they that would be thought the most zealous Antipapists do really though not professedly sympathize with the Papists in this which is the Root and in several of the most pernicious Branches and false doctrines growing out of this Root as appears speculatively by Mr. Baxter's Politick Aphorisms and practically by what was acted by the Nonconformists before and in and after the late Rebellion against the best of Kings by the worst of Subjects I mean during the Vsurpation of the
with it truly and consequently that all his Instances to the contrary are frivolous and impertinent and fraudulent I am now to make it appear that they are scandalously if not maliciously injurious also For first as nothing can be more fraudulent than for a man when he is charged with an Assertion that is false and in its consequences impious and blasphemous to substitute a true one instead of it and by giving many instances of the latter to indeavour to make it to be believed he is not guilty of the former so nothing can be more provoking and injurious than to charge another falsly with what himself may be charged truly And does not Mr. Baxter doe so by producing those aforesaid instances of his which no man can reade that hath any opinion of Mr. Baxter's veracity and sincerity but must needs conclude Bishop Morley or those that disputed with Mr. Baxter had affirmed That the Command of that which is lawfull in it self is a lawfull Command though it be commanded under never so unjust a penalty which is more than insinuated by the last of his instances before specified namely the Command of Kneeling when we receive the Sacrament as likewise that I or they or some of us had affirmed the Command of a thing lawfull in it self to be a lawfull Command though the Commander did foresee it would be the cause of some great evil or mischief which he was bound to prevent and this is not onely insinuated but necessarily implyed in all the rest of the instances produced by him as in that of sending of a Navy to Sea foreseeing it will fall into the Enemie's hand and that of selling of Poyson knowing he that buyes it will poyson himself or some body else with it concerning which and the like damnable actions he doth in effect plainly enough tell me that I allow such things to be lawfull when in his libellous Narrative to his Kidderminster Friends he tells them he must crave the Bishop's pardon for believing those or any of the like commands to be sinfull as if the Bishop had asserted all or any of them to be lawfull which if it can be proved the Bishop did either expresly or implicitly formally or virtually dogmatically or consequentially say there or any where any thing which can grammatically be construed or logically inferr'd to tend towards the asserting or approving of any of the aforesaid instances the Bishop himself doth hereby acknowledge himself to be utterly unworthy to be called a Bishop or a Priest or a Christian or a Man but rather a Devil incarnate or an utter and professed Enemy to all Mankind But if the Bishop did never affirm or say any such thing nay if he and the Disputants of the Episcopal party did not by that Proposition which Mr. Baxter frequently and finally denied assert the contradictory to this calumny namely that what the Church injoined in the Common-Prayer-Book or publick service of God and the Sectaries refused to obey were therefore lawfull injunctions and commands not onely because they were lawfull in themselves and commanded by lawfull Authority but because they were not commanded under any unjust penalty or might so much as by accident be the cause of any such evil or sin as they by whom they were injoyn'd ought to provide against if this I say be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth of what was then affirmed by Bishop Morley or by the Disputants or any other of the Episcopal party as really it is and I defie Mr. Baxter or any of his party to prove the contrary what then doth Master Baxter deserve for indeavouring by his impertinently fallaciously and injuriously at least if not maliciously alledged Instances to make so notoriously-impious unchristian and inhumane a Calumny to be believed not onely of Bishop Morley but of all the Episcopal party that were there present for sure Bishop Morley did not differ from the rest of his party nor the rest of his party from him in this or any other particular at that Conference And to this very purpose it is in the 48th proposition of the Book which he saith was purposely written to answer Bishop Morley 's grossly mistaken charge that Mr. Baxter resumes his instance of an Apothecary's selling Poyson to one who he knows will kill his Neighbour or himself or his Prince with it as of a thing thought lawfull and justified by us because as he makes us speak the selling of Poyson is lawfull per se of it self and unlawfull onely per accidens by accident Whereunto he adds in the same place That he hopes that our Casuists meaning the Casuists of the Conforming party shall never see a Law made to command or tolerate all Apothecaries to sell Poyson to those that they know mean to use it to treason or murther As if we had any such amongst us I mean of the Episcopal party that not onely justifie the selling of Poyson by those that know it will be used for Murther or Treason but would have a Law made to command or tolerate the doing of it If there be any such Casuists amongst us I will readily acknowledge they are as bad if not worse than the worst of the Jesuites but let Mr. Baxter name any at least one such Casuist of ours if he can or if he cannot if he have any thing of Ingenuity left in him let him confess his fraudulent and injurious dealing with us and repent of it For as for that passage which he quotes out of Ecclesiastical Polity to prove the Authour of that Book such a Casuist as he speaks of it is so illogical and unconcluding that none but one that cares not what he says or that thinks his Ipse dixit his own bare saying is enough to conclude quidlibet ex quolibet any thing from any thing would have quoted it upon such an occasion In the mean time I do not I cannot deny but there be some nay many Casuists among us but they are not of us as bad as any of the Jesuits especially in that Casuistical doctrine which is most Jesuitical I mean that of the lawfulness of Subjects taking Arms against their Sovereign nay of selling buying imprisoning deposing and murthering of Kings by their Subjects I need not name those Casuists Mr. Baxter knows whom I mean But of this no more at this time neither should there have been so much if Mr. Baxter had not forgotten what he might have learned at School without going to the University that Qui alterum accusat probri ipsum se intueri oportet He who chargeth another with a crime ought to look home to himself and it is but just Vt qui ex maledicendo voluptatem capit malè audiendo amittat That he who takes pleasure in speaking ill of others should lose that pleasure by having his own faults told him And indeed I have very often and very much wondred that
necessary consequences of their blasphemous Doctrine of Transubstantiation and as I believe Mr. Baxter doth the necessary consequences of that Assertion I charged him with Nay I am apt to believe that Mr. Baxter himself now he sees what will necessarily follow upon that Assertion of his is sorry and ashamed that ever he did assert it and wishes with all his heart he had never asserted it but his heart is too great to suffer him to confess it and he values his reputation with his Party at too high a rate to acknowledge that ever he was guilty of so much weakness as to have denied what he did deny and consequently to have asserted what he did assert And therefore as I said before he would fain have it to be believed that it was another thing that he denied and asserted than indeed it was But all that he hath done hitherto or can doe hereafter to that end will be all in vain and to no purpose as long as two such Witnesses as the Bishop of Ely and the Bishop of Chester who disputed with him have attested it under their hands presently after the matter of fact and when it was fresh in every man's memory without having been contradicted or excepted against either by Mr. Baxter himself or any of his party in his behalf though it be above twenty years ago since this Attestation of theirs was first printed And therefore whatsoever Mr. Baxter hath said since or doth say now or shall say hereafter it will never make what he did say then to be non dictum not to have been said or what he writ then to be non scriptum not to have been written so that he may as well call back yesterday as unsay what he had said repent it he may but recall it he cannot If therefore that Pamphlet of his concerning sinfulness per accidens was purposely written as he saith it was to prove Bishop Morley was grossly mistaken in charging him with what he did assert then because he doth not assert it now or because he now doth assert the contrary the publishing of it to that end is not onely vain and useless but absurd and ridiculous unless Mr. Baxter thinks his own Party does believe of him as the Bygott-Papists do of their Pope namely that he never erred because he cannot err which is Blasphemy to be said of any but of God For Errare labi decipi suit eritque semper humanum to err to slip to be deceived and mistaken hath been and will always be the effect and character of Humane frailty And therefore Mr. Baxter ought not to have taken it so heinously to be charged and to be charged ashe was with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with that which is but an humane infirmity for so and no more but so is all Errour But the denying of it and much more the persisting in it and defending of it and most of all the defending of it by disguising it and making a false representation of it seems to have somewhat of a much worse principle in it and makes the Errour to be much more culpable than otherwise it would have been for Causa Patrocinio non bona pejor erit A bad cause will but prove worse by standing out in it and endeavouring to make it good It would have been therefore much more ingenuously and much more excusably too done of Mr. Baxter if as when he speaks of his Political Aphorisms he saith he would have some part at least of that Book to be taken pro non scripto as if it had never been written so in speaking of what I say he said in the Conference at the Savoy he would not have said it was non dictum a thing that he had not said but that he would have it taken pro non dicto as a thing he wished he had not said and so he might have saved all the pains he hath taken and all the trouble he hath given his Readers in his Metaphysical Casuistical Treatise of things sinfull per accidens wherein there is nothing to prove Mr. Baxter did not say what I say he did at the Conference in the Savoy nor consequently to prove that I was grossly mistaken in charging him with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which is the thing I was to make out Which being the onely Instance he hath given of the many mistakes in matter of fact which he saith there are in that long ago printed and now reprinted Letter of mine They that observe how notwithstanding all the disingenuous fraudulent scandalous and injurious Artifices he hath made use of he foully fails in the proof of this one mistake onely will I hope hardly take his own bare word for proof enough that there are many or indeed any other mistakes in matter of fact in that Letter of mine as he pretends there are and no doubt would not have omitted to specifie if he could have proved any of them The End of the First Section SECTION II. A Confutation at large of Mr. Baxter's Aphorism concerning Governours wherein having said that Governours are some Limited some de facto Vnlimited he affirms that The unlimited are Tyrants and have no right to that unlimited Government CHAP. I. A calumnious Charge of Mr. Baxter in some late writings of his against the Bishop making him to be a defier of Deity and Humanity answered One of his Aphorisms concerning Governours limited and unlimited taxed and censured The Bishop's solemn declaration in the point ANd now having as I suppose sufficiently vindicated my self from what Mr. Baxter hath excepted against as a gross mistake of mine in matter of Fact in my so long ago printed and now reprinted Letter I am if I can and I doubt not but I can to vindicate my self from a much higher charge of Mr. Baxter's against me which is no less than That I am a defier of Deity and Humanity An horrible and a diabolical Crime if true and therefore an horrible and diabolical Slander if false which whether it be or no I am now to examine But first I must make it appear that Mr. Baxter doth indeed and in totidem verbis in plain terms charge me to be so For proof whereof I refer my self to a printed Paper of his now before me subscribed R. B. and pretended to be a Recantation or Revocation of some of his Political Aphorijms in his Holy Common wealth in which Paper which together with some of his Aphorisms I have caused to be reprinted he saith He doth not reverse all the matter of that Book nor all that more than ONE hath accused him of which he saith he cannot without defying Deity and Humanity as they saith he meaning his accusers defie them both In which words it is observable that the word One is printed in a different Character from any of the rest on purpose no doubt that the Readers of that pretended curtail'd Recantation may take
notice of whom he means by that One which it was easy for any that had read my Collection of some of his Aphorisms to guess at but this is certain that whomsoever he means by that One he saith of him in express terms that he is a defier of Deity and Humanity Now that he means me by that One though it be not clearly and plainly exprest in that Paper yet it is more than intimated in Mr. Baxter's Answer to a Letter of Dr. Hinckley's wherein he doth repeat what the Doctor had said touching those Aphorisms of his which I had collected and printed so as though neither of them name me yet it cannot be doubted but both of them mean me the rather because Mr. Baxter doth there and in that place of his Letter set down the very words of the first of those Aphorisms I have collected from denial of which Aphorism or rather from the denial of another Proposition substituted by him in the place or instead of that Aphorism he doth in the aforesaid Paper infer and conclude that One he speaks of to be a defier of Deity and Humanity But to put it out of question that I am the man he means by that One in the aforesaid Paper and whom he there makes to be a defier of Deity and Humanity There is a late I will not say the last Book of his for he may have writ two or three since for ought I know wherein he saith He wonders that Bishop Morley there you have whom he means in words at length and not in figures or figurative intimations onely did put the denial of this amongst the accused passages of his Political Aphorisms where saith he I expressly speak of God's limitation But what or of what was that denial of Mr. Baxter which he wonders the Bishop puts among the accused passages of his Aphorisms Why It was saith he my denial that there was any such thing in the World as a lawfull unlimited Monarchy or humane Power expressly speaking of limitation by God But where doth Bishop Morley accuse Mr. Baxter for denying there is any lawfull Monarchy or humane Power unlimited by God He doth it saith Mr. Baxter among the Passages of my accused Aphorisms But why doth not he name the passage where or the particular Aphorism wherein I do accuse him for his denying the aforesaid Proposition or for his denying there is any lawfull Monarchy or any other humane Power unlimited or not limited by God I will tell you why he doth not because indeed he cannot there being no such Aphorism nor any such Passage in any of those Aphorisms of his which I question him for or accuse him of There is indeed an Aphorism of his viz. the first of those which I have collected and exposed wherein he saith That of Governours some are limited and some are unlimited and those which are de facto unlimited are Tyrants and have no right to their unlimited Governments And the reason why I put this Aphorism of his into the catalogue of those which I except against is his affirming that such Governours I presume he means all such Governours as are de facto unlimited are Tyrants and have no right to their unlimited Governments It is I say his affirming of this and not his denying the lawfulness of a Monarchy or any other power or species of Government that is not limited by God that I question him for or accuse him of For if he thinks the affirming of that and the denying of this to be all one he is very much mistaken but the truth is that he is not at all mistaken as to this particular he knows well enough that it is not all one to affirm the one and deny the other for if he had thought it had been so why did he not specifie the Aphorism it self which I except against in terminis as it is set down in my Collection and as he sets it down himself in his aforesaid Letter to Dr. Hinckley It had been much more fairly and ingenuously done of him if he had done so and much more pertinently too as to the business in hand there being no question betwixt him and me in relation to the truth or falshood of the aforesaid Aphorism whether all lawfull Monarchies or humane Powers are limited by God or no but whether all such Governours as are de facto unlimited not by God but by Men are Tyrants and such as have no Right to their unlimited Governments The former I never did nor no man that is not a downright professed Atheist can deny to be true The latter I affirm to be false and not false and erroneous onely but dangerous and seditious also and I doubt not but by God's assistance to prove it to be so In the mean time let no man think it was the not discerning or not animadverting the difference betwixt what Mr. Baxter affirms in his Aphorism and what he denies in his Paraphrase of it that makes him substitute the one for the other Non sic notus Vlysses The cunning man is better known than so No he doth it artificially and designingly that he might the more probably and plausibly infer from the one what he knew he could not with any colour of consequence infer from the other and thereby to vent the overflowing of his Gall against me in revenge of my publishing of those Aphorisms of his whereby he seems to be so much galled And hence it is that as in the aforesaid recanting or rather canting Paper of his instead of my denying all unlimited Governours to be Tyrants and to have no right to their unlimited Governments which he affirms in his Aphorism he saith I deny all humane Powers to be limited by God and thence infers that I am a defier of Deity and Humanity So here again in that aforesaid late printed Book of his instead of my denial of what he affirms in the aforesaid Aphorism he saith that I accuse him for denying that there is any lawfull Monarchy or humane Power unlimited by God and then infers That he who asserteth the contrary as he implies I do is 1. saith he an Enemy to God because he denies God to be the universal Sovereign which is Atheism 2. He is an Enemy to Kings because he renders them odious to Mankind by drawing such a picture or description of them as to say a King is absolutely unlimited in his power and therefore may deny or blaspheme God and may destroy City and Kingdom and kill all the innocent People when he pleaseth 3. He is an Enemy to all Mankind who would bring them all into such a slavery to such a Monster By which large and indeed monstrous Paraphrase of his not upon what I do indeed assert but upon what he would have his Readers believe I do assert he explains what he means when he said I was a defier of Deity and Humanity Sed ne soevi
People that were then under an obligation of obedience to a lawfull Sovereign and consequently had no power to dispose of themselves or to become Subjects to another no more than he had a right to become their King untill he that promised him he should be so had made him so which he could and infallibly would have done in his own good time without any thing done on Jeroboam's part but the relying upon the promise of God onely which he distrusting or being too impatiently ambitious to stay for the performance of it took his own seditious and rebellious way for the hastening as he did afterwards for the keeping of himself to be a King For as he caused the ten Tribes to revolt from Rehoboam in order to the making himself their King so he caused them to revolt from God also by setting up other Gods and other Priests and other places of worship thereby making a formal Schism in the Church to prevent a possibility of re-union in the State So that as he sinned and made Israel to sin for the getting so he sinned and made Israel to sin much more for the holding and keeping of the Kingdom which he might have had and kept much longer than he did if he had stayed God's leisure for the having and done nothing to displease God for the holding of it Whereas if he would have done as David did he should have had the success that David had without sinning himself or making so many Thousands to sin with him and for him as hedid David was not onely told by the Propet Samuel that he should be King as Jeroboam was by the Prophet Ahijah but he was anointed too which Jeroboam was not And yet when it was twice in his power to have stept up into the Throne by destroying Saul whom the men of these times would have said as Abishai did that God had delivered into his hand to be destroyed by him he would not doe it nor suffer it to be done but said God forbid that I should lay my hand on the Lord's anointed as the Lord liveth the Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into battel and perish howsoever the Lord forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lord's anointed This was David's resolution and this should have been Jeroboam's resolution also to have expected God's performance of his promise in his own time and in his own way and not have snatched the Crown out of God's hand and put it himself upon his own head before God had anointed his head for it Moreover it is observable that is was not that for which Ahijah the Prophet told Jeroboam God was so angry with Solomon that he would rend away ten Tribes of the twelve from his Son which was Idolatry it was not that I say which Jeroboam pretended to be the cause of his rising and rebelling and his stirring up the ten Tribes to rebell against Rehoboam but it was a more popular pretence and such a one as the generality of the People is usually most concerned in and concerned for namely the publick grievance by Taxes and Tributes which how necessary soever for their own defence and safety do always seem an insupportable burthen to the Subjects And therefore the ambitious Aspirers of all times have always made use of this Topick first to discontent the People with their present condition though it be never so tolerable nay never so good a one and then to promise them a relief of all their imaginary grievances if they will be ruled by them which the foolish People believing first call them their Patriots and afterwards if they can make them their Princes who commonly prove the greatest of Tyrants and then the People that raised them find and feel the fruits of their own folly and when it is too late to help it repent of it And yet such is the incorrigible madness as well as folly of the multitude that though it hath been never so often entrapp'd it always hath been and still is and ever will be apt to be taken with the same bait how dear soever it hath cost them formerly It was not long before this that Absalom by the counsel of Achitophel made use of the same artifice to stir up the people and to make them to rebell against their King and his Father by making them believe first that they were oppressed by David and had not justice done them and secondly if he were in power every man should have right done him and no man should have cause to complain amongst them This they were so foolish as to believe though their condition then was better than ever it had been before or ever it was afterwards for it was David a man after God's own heart that was then their King and who as himself or rather God's Spirit by his mouth tells us fed them with a faithfull and true heart and ruled them prudently with all his power and if prudently then justly no doubt also and yet it was his not doing of justice that was made the pretence of the rebellion against him and by whom by Absalom one whom the People knew to have been a murtherer of his own brother and therefore not to be a very likely man to govern them either more justly or more mercifully than his Father did so that as the pretence of their rising up against David was groundless so their setting up of Absalom in his stead was folly and madness And now one would have thought the ill success they had in that action would have made them more wary than to be tempted and prevailed with again so soon at least as afterwards they were to another rebellion against the Grandchild of David upon another and that perhaps upon as groundless a pretence as the former I mean this of Jeroboam which we are now speaking of For the pretence of Jeroboam and the ten Tribes rebellion against Rehoboam was because he would not ease them of the heavy yoke which they pretended Solomon his Father had laid upon them which had it been true to never so great a degree would have been no just cause of the Rebellion of Subjects against their Sovereign as is already shewn But I do not find in the History of Solomon's Reign from the beginning to the end of it as it is very particularly recorded in the first book of Kings and in the second of Chronicles any mention of so heavy a yoke or indeed of any yoke at all that was laid upon any of the Complainants I mean upon any of the ten Tribes of Israel I reade indeed in the fourth Chapter of the first book of Kings Verses 20 21. That there was a great Tribute or Levy made by Solomon for the building of that glorious Temple of God in Jerusalem which was the wonder of the World and for other his many and magnificent
legally accountable for all their actions and by whom they were legally punishable even with death it self for their delinquencies whereas the Ephori were accountable to none nor punishable by any and therefore the Sovereign Power of the State was in them and consequently their Kings were Kings and no Kings that is Kings in name and title only but really and indeed no more than Subjects So that the Government of Lacedaemon was not Regal or Monarchical but Aristocratical and so Thucydides calls it For as speaking of the Athenians he calls them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Multitude or Populace because their Government was Democratical so speaking of the Lacedaemonians he calls them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Best sort of People or the Nobless because their Government was Aristocratical whereas if it had been truly Regal or their Kings had been truly and properly called Kings he should have called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Royalists or Kings-men or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Subjects of Monarchs because their Government would then have been Monarchical For a Government to be Regal and to be Monarchical is all one there being no King properly so called but he is a Monarch that is one that governs all and is subject to none and consequentially accountable to none for any thing he doth in his own Kingdom And this is true of all Kings properly so called whether they be greater or less Successive or Elective and whether they be Despoticall or Politicall for both Successive and Elective Kings properly so called may be either Despoticall or Politicall for as the Successive Kings in the three first Monarchies were Successive and Despoticall and are so still in the East and South parts of the World and in both the Indies so those of the fourth and last Monarchy also I mean the Roman Emperors whether Successive or Elective were all of them Despoticall and so in Europe are the successive Emperors of Turky and Russia and Tartary at this day that is such as are not only Monarchs that is such as have the whole Sovereign Power solely in themselves as all Kings or Monarchs properly so called have also but have and exercise that Sovereignty or Sovereign Power without being bounded or limited by any Laws or Rules to govern by but as Lords over their Vassals absolutely and arbitrarily according to their own Will and Pleasures Whereas Politicall Kings and Princes whether Successive as the Kings of England and of France and of Spain or Elective as the Emperor of Germany and the King of Poland are obliged to govern according to the Political Constitutions and Laws of their several respective Seigniories and Dominions but not so as to forfeit their right to their Crowns or to be accountable to any judicatory or punishable by any Power here on Earth if they do not do so no though they be Kings but by Election only so they be elected to be Kings indeed and not in name and title only as the aforesaid Kings of Lacedaemon were and as the Dukes of Venice now are who are Subjects to the Senate there as the Kings of Lacedaemon were to the Ephori in Sparta though those were Successive and these Elective For it is not their succeeding or being elected or being called Kings that makes them to be Kings indeed but their being invested with Kingly Power that is to be over all and under none whether they be born or elected to be so or by what name or title soever they be called whether Kings Emperors Sophies Sultans or but Dukes only For the Duke of Florence is as much a Monarch in his own Dominions as any of the former are in theirs He therefore that is born or chosen to be such a King is not nor cannot after he is such a King be accountable or punishable for any thing he does how unjustly or how much against Law soever it may be but to God only and by God because all within his own Dominions are his Subjects and none without his own Kingdoms and Dominions though they be never so much greater or more powerful Kings than he have any thing to do with him and much less have They any authority over him which they must have that can justly pretend to punish any man how great a Delinquent soever he may be or what wrong soever he hath done against others or against themselves CHAP. IV. A Query resolved whether a King Elective may not be Deposed upon non-performance of conditions Our King proved from Mr. B 's own Principles to be a sole Sovereign BUT may not the People that chuse one to be their King upon such or such conditions upon his non-performance of such conditions Depose him or take away that Power over them they gave unto him I answer that if they chuse him to be their King indeed and not in name and title only then he did thereby become their King indeed that is their Monarch or Sovereign Lord over all of them and consequently they did all of them become his Subjects without any Power Civil or Military left in themselves but subordinate to him or derived from him and consequently such as could not lawfully in any case or upon any provocation be used against him The People having by such an Election parted with all the Power they formerly had without any reservation and much less power of resumption And this was well understood by Valerian the next Successor but one to Julian the Apostate who being chosen by the Army to be their Emperor and they crying out to him to name another to be Consors imperii a Partner in the Empire or one to govern with him he gave them this notable Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was in your Power O my Soldiers said he to chuse me to reign over you but now you have chosen me that which you demand belongs not to you but to me and it becomes you as Subjects to be quiet or not to meddle with matters of Government and to me as your King and Emperor to consider what is fit to be done Again I answer that even in Elective Kingdoms he that is chosen by the People to be their King hath not his Kingly Power from them that chose him but from God which is in express terms not only granted but asserted by Mr. Baxter and he values himself upon it as being upon that account a better friend to Kings than as he saith some Episcopall men are and indeed if he were always and in all he saith consistent with himself he would not be so great an Enemy to Kings as in this and many other of his Aphorisms which I have collected out of his Book of a Holy Commonwealth he hath shewed himself to be For if it be not the People who chuse him to be their King that give him his Kingly Power but that he hath it
therefore I am sure he cannot forget it or at least will remember it assoon as he is put in mind of it And to him I appeal for the verifying of what I have said as to this particular But if any man shall notwithstanding Sir Philip Warwick's attestation think it to be incredible that the two Houses of Parliament being then in their Zenith should indure any such thing to be said so much to their reproach and condemnation of their cause and of all their proceedings without any animadversion upon him that said it I answer it was partly because they were then in their Zenith so high advanced and so highly elevated with the success God had for our sins and for their obduration permitted them to have that they despised what any man did or could say against them and partly because they could not have taken notice of it without inflicting some punishment or other upon him for it which they could not have done he being a man of such eminency not only in regard of his quality but much more in regard of his learning and sanctity and in regard of the very great reputation he had thereby acquired both at home and abroad without exposing themselves to the envy and hatred of the whole World and without doing themselves any good by it and therefore all things considered they thought it best to take no notice at all of it as for ought I ever heard they did not Howsoever what I affirm that pious and learned Arch-Bishop said whether he said it or no is true namely that the Power of the Sword or the Power of making War though for their own defence only or for never so good an end was not in the two Houses but in the King and in the King only as they did themselves acknowledg because at that very time and at that very Treaty one of the prime Articles which they mainly insisted on was to have the Sword for so many years to be put into their hands by the Kings passing of an Act of Parliament to that purpose and for their raising of mony during that time for the support and exercise of that Power in what proportion they thought or should think fit upon their Fellow-Subjects all which they had done before by virtue of their Ordinances only which either they did or did not think to be a legal and sufficient Authority for their taking of the Sword and using it as they did If they did think so why might not the same authority have been sufficient for the continuance of it and if so what need was there of an Act for the trusting them with it but for a time only But if they did not think their own Ordinances to be a legal and sufficient Authority for their taking of the Sword and taxing of the People and the exercising all those other Acts of Arbitrary Power which they did for so many years together by vertue of their own Ordinances only why then habemus confitentes reos We have their own confession not only that they took the Sword which neither the Law nor the King had put into their hands and therefore were Vsurpers of the Regal Authority but had made use of it against the King or which is all one against those that were commissioned by the King and therefore were Traytors and Rebels as likewise that their own Ordinances were not legally sufficient to justifie their so doing and consequently that they have not such a Legislative Power as Mr. Baxter saith they have and which he is so confident of as that he offers his head to the Block if the reasons he gives for the proof of it be disproved which I am now in the last place to try whether I can do or not The end of the third Section SECT IV. England a Monarchy and the Soveraignty solely in the KING prov'd against Mr. Baxter as also that neither the Parliaments concurrence as the Peoples Representatives to the making Laws nor their being Trustees for the Peoples Rights gives them any share in the Soveraignty CHAP. I. The mischief of Schismatical Books Mr. Baxter 's Anti-episcopal and Anti-monarchical Aphorisms The Soveraignty not divided as Mr. B. saith betwixt KING and Parliament Prov'd by the Parliaments acknowledgments and by the Oath of Supremacy AND first thanks be to God and the King that Mr. Baxter is not Lugdunensem causam dicturus ad aram that he is not to plead his cause at the Kings-Bench Barr. For God knows that all the hurt I wish him is that no more hurt may be done by Him and for this end and for this end only it was that I silenced him from preaching and for this end and for this end only it is that I would have him prohibited from writing or at least from publishing what he writes until he is licensed by Authority to do so For when he hath published such pernicious Principles against the legal constitution of the Church and State as he hath done in divers of his Books especially in that of the Holy Commonwealth it is too late and to very little purpose to say as he doth say of some of them that he would have them taken pro non scriptis as if they had not been written For Serò medicina paratur Cùm mala per long as invaluêre moras that is Physick comes too late when ill humors through long delays have got too great a head An Arch-Heretick may by Gods mercy be himself reconcil'd to the Truth and become Orthodox and an Arch-Schismatick may by the same mercy be reconciled to the Church and become Conformable and yet that Heresie that was broached by the one and that Schism that was introduced by the other may be propagated and perpetuated by their Books and by their Disciples from Generation to Generation to the Worlds end and if Master Baxter will needs have a secondary Original sin I think this is that which may most properly be so called Our Countryman Brown who would needs have our Church of England to be no Church was himself convinced of this error so that he not only became a Member but a Minister of the Church of England and as I have been informed died Parson of a Parish called A-Church in Northamptonshire But did Brownism dye with him No there are Brownists still and will be God knows how long perhaps till Doom's day put an end to the World and all the Divisions that have been are or shall be in it So that as nothing can be more criminal than to be the Author of a Schism Sect or Heresie so nothing can be more dangerous than to suffer the spreading and growth of them especially of such of them as are destructive in their natural tendency whatsoever the intention of the Authors and Abettors may be to the peace and welfare of the established Government either in Church or State And such say I are Mr. Baxter's Anti-episcopal Aphorisms in
supposing I was mistaken in thinking him to be a Presbyterian I know not why he should take it as an affront to be thought to be so for being evidently and confessedly a Dissenter from the Government and publick way of Worship as it is established by Law in the Church of England I thought it was more for his Honour to be thought and treated with as a Presbyterian than as one of any other of the more novel and more ignoble Sects which though they all of them have Presbytery for their Mother yet they had not all of them Calvin for their Father but are the bastard issue of unknown Sires Besides I had reason to think that Mr. Baxter was of the same persuasion that his Commilitones his Fellow-Souldiers in the Dispute at the Savoy were who were always taken for Presbyterians and did not take it for a Reproach but rather for an Honour to be thought to be so And if it be honourable to be of such or such a party it is much more honourable to be the Antesignanus or leader of such a party And therefore thinking as I did for the reasons aforesaid Mr. Baxter to be a Presbyterian and hearing he had been a Souldier in the late War and having observed how he had behaved himself as a Leader in the aforesaid Dispute at the Savoy I thought I could not call him a more proper name in relation to both his Professions I mean that of a Warriour and that of a Disputer than that of Antesignanus a Standard-bearer But perhaps I may be mistaken all this while in thinking Mr. Baxter takes it ill to be called either Antesignanus or Antesignanus Presbyterianorum Whereas it is his being called Antesignanus of the Presbyterians onely and not of the other Sects as well as of that which offends it being a diminution of his just Title to be the Antesignanus but of one Sect onely whereas he undertakes the defence of all the Nonconformists so far forth at least as they refuse to conform to the Church of England how much soever they may differ among themselves as appears by the Title page of one of his last Books published last Year but written as he saith many Years before and called An Apology for the Nonconformists Ministry containing their Reasons for their Preaching and an Answer to the Accusations urged as Reasons for the silencing about 2000 by Bishop Morley Dr. Saywell Mr. Durell c. From which Title of that Book of his it is manifest that he owns himself an Apologist for all the Nonconformists at least for all their Preachers and especially for all those that were silenced which were all that had been Preachers before of what Sect or denomination soever which would not subscribe and submit to the Act of Vniformity after the King's Restauration And those were Anabaptists Antinomians Quakers Fifth monarchy men as well as Presbyterians and Independents for all these were Nonconformists and every of these Sects had their Preachers who were all of them equally silenced by the Act of Vniformity and therefore must be reckoned amongst those for whom Mr. Baxter professeth himself to be an Apologist and indeed if they be not I think he will hardly make up one of his 2000 silenced Preachers If he say that in the aforesaid Title to that Book of his it is the Nonconformists Ministry or the Ministers of the Nonconformists that he pleads for I demand whether by the Ministry he means onely such as have an outward Call by publick Authority to the Work of the Ministry or to the teaching of others whether that calling be by the Episcopal or Presbyterian way of Ordination If so then not onely all those gifted men that pretend to no other but an inward calling are excluded from being any of his 2000 whom he pleads for but the Congregational or Independent Preachers also who have no outward calling but from their own Congregations onely and so perhaps have the Gifted men whether Anabaptists or Quakers or any other of the Fanatical holders-forth from those that are their own Auditours also so that Mr. Baxter must either leave out those I mean the Independents or take in these I mean all the rest of the Sectaries into the number of those he calls the Nonconformist Ministry and for whom he professeth he maketh the aforesaid Apology and whom he would have restored to the same liberty or licence of preaching which they had formerly in the time of the Rebellion and Usurpation A very sober and seasonable Proposal to be made to Bishops and those Bishops whom he makes it to are very much beholding to him for the good opinion he hath of them as the onely men of their Order that are likely to hearken to such a proposal In the mean time we may learn from hence whom he means by the word Vs when he tells the Bishop of Ely and Me that We two of all he knows have most effectually helped to bring Vs that is all the Nonconformists of all kinds under CHAP. V. How Mr. B. and his party have been brought under and how they brought in the King WE are therefore now in the second place to guess as well as we can at what he means by bringing him and the rest of the Nonconformists Vnder There is none of them I believe but would be uppermost if they could for Pride is inseparable from Schism and it is the downfall of Pride to be brought under The Two chief Sects of the Nonconformists the Presbyterians and Independents have had their turns in being uppermost the Presbyterians whilst the Parliament and the Independents whilst the Army and Cromwell had the power of which two Sects it may be said as it was of Caesar and Pompey the one to wit the Independents like Caesar could not ferre priorem could endure none to be above them and the other to wit the Presbyterians like Pompey could not ferre parem must needs have all to be under them and therefore each of them having been uppermost before they must needs be very angry with all those who have helped to bring them both under after they had domineered so long as they had done And of those that have helped to bring them under Mr. Baxter tells the Bishop of Ely and Me that We two of all men he knows have been the chief But under whom or under what is it that We have helped to bring them Sure it must be under some Person or some Thing that they would not willingly have been brought under otherwise they would not have been angry with us or complained of us for so doing Vnder whom is it therefore that We have helped to bring them Is it not He under whom they ought always to have been under namely the KING their natural Liege-Lord and Sovereign But they had brought his Father under them and therefore were the more unwilling to be brought under his Son for fear he might remember
AND now I am come at last to the consideration of the last of those injurious Reflexions which in the beginning of this Book I observed to have been made upon me by Mr. Baxter and for the confutation of which I principally intended all that I have written though many other things which I thought not of at first occasionally falling in have made that which I meant should be but a small Tract to swell into a large Volume but now I am in and have gone so far I must go through with it The Reflexion therefore which I am now to speak of is in Mr. Baxter's Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's Sermon towards the end of it the words are these I must say that when some Prelates made it their great business to silence shame and ruine us and drive us far enough from persons of power undertaking to preserve the Protestant Religion better without us than with us and after all cry out themselves that we are in danger of Popery by their own Pupils and Disciples whose instruction they undertook men will have leave to think of this awake and to judge of Causes by Effects These I say are the words of that Reflexion which I complain of as intentionally aimed at me though obliquely and by circumlocution onely especially in the latter part of it For as for the former part of that saying of his where he speaks of some Prelates that made it their great business to silence shame and ruine them that is him and the rest of the Dissenters though I doubt not but he means me for one of those Prelates and one of the chief of them because he tells me and the Bishop of Ely in plain terms that we two of all he knows have effectually helped to bring them under yet I do not take my self to be peculiarly concern'd in this whether it be truly or falsly averr'd by him and therefore though I could tell him and tell him truly and prove it too that I never made it any of my business to shame or ruine him or any of the Dissenters or to silence any more of them than by Law I was not onely allowed but obliged to silence though I could say this I say and more too to prove that I never did any the least injury to any of them but have shewed kindness to some that had dealt hardly with me namely to Mr. Langley of Pembroke College who having gotten into my Canonry of Christ's Church in Oxford never allowed me one penny out of it during above 12 years I was abroad nor after I came home made me any recompence yet thinking I was one would doe good for evil he had the confidence to write to me and to intreat me to befriend him for the renewing of a Lease he held of Magdalen College as being their Visitor I did it for him Though I say I could make proof of this yet I will not insist upon it that which I except against is a false and injurious reflexion upon me particularly being contained in the words that follow viz. driving us that is him and those of his Party far enough from Persons of power undertaking to preserve the Protestant Religion better without us than with us and after cry out themselves that we are in danger of Popery by their own Pupils and Disciples whose instruction they undertook themselves and then concludes men will have leave to think of this awake and to judge of causes by effects This I say is the Reflexion I complain of as false and injurious and as being my self more particularly aimed at in it than any other of the Prelates he before spake of For though here as well as there he makes use of the plural number as if he meant what he saith of more than one yet that which he saith of them he knew would be understood by those by whom he would have it to be understood to be meant of me or if not of me onely yet of me principally and especially because he and others perhaps of his Party had heard from Mr. JONES and others from them that I had caused the said Mr. Jones to be put out of the Duke of York's service having been before a Chaplain to his Royal Highnesses Family to his Family I say for he was never any of the four that were properly and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of eminence called the Duke's Chaplains but onely one of the two who were daily to efficiate in the Duke's Chapel to the Houshold whether He or the Dutchess were there or no so that Mr. Jones was not so great a man either in place of attendance or in grace and favour with either of their Highnesses that either his stay could hinder or his remove could further any design that I or any man else might have had upon the Duke or Dutchess in order to the seducing or perverting both or either of them in matter of Religion And yet this Mr. Jones was the man and I verily believe the onely man Mr. Baxter thought of though he speaks in the plural number here also as if we the Prelates had driven them that is all or many of them far enough from persons of Power Now I would fain know of Mr. Baxter what one man of their Party was ever driven away by any of the Prelates from any person of Power or was ever said to be so but this Mr. Jones onely who was never thought to be one of their Party whilst he was in the Duke's service I am sure he profess'd the contrary and if he had not I am sure he could not have been admitted into the Duke's service as no man else could either into the Duke's or into any other persons of power the Law not made by the Prelates but by the King in Parliament I mean the Act of Vniformity having made all of that Party as long as they were of that Party uncapable of being Chaplains or Schoolmasters in Noblemens or in any great mens Houses and therefore there was no need of the Prelates driving them farther from persons of power than the Law had driven them already Neither was it for his being one of them though perhaps he was one of them in his heart that Mr. Jones was put out of the Duke's service but for behaving himself otherwise than he ought to have done in it but how that was I forbear to say because he is dead onely I must say that I was neither Judge nor Witness nor Plaintiff nor Defendant nor any way a party in the case no nor knew not any thing of the matter it self or of the cause of it untill after it was done as Dr. Killigrew then Clerk of the Closet to the Duke and Dr. Turner then and now one of the Duke's Chaplains will I doubt not be ready to testify if it were tanti worth the while to call them to it But first that it was this Mr. Jones
that Mr. Baxter means for one and as I verily believe the onely one though he speaks in the plural number that was driven away from a Person of power by any of the Prelates is more than probable because it is true as I said before that Mr. Jones was once in the Duke's service and because it is true likewise that he was put out of the place he had there and thereupon growing angry and discontented it is very likely that he applied himself to the discontented Party and to Mr. Baxter as one of the most eminent of that Party and told him that it was the Bishop of Winchester that had caused him to be turn'd out of the Duke's service for that there was a good correspondence betwixt Mr. Baxter and him after he was turn'd out of the Duke's service appears by the great Encomium Mr. Baxter gives to a Book of his which he calls An Excellent Historical Treatise and saith he is sorry that Book is not more commonly bought and read and so I believe is the Printer of it also Again as for the aforesaid reasons Mr. Baxter must needs mean Mr. Jones for one at least if not the onely one that was driven away from a Person in power so secondly by the Prelate that drove him away he must needs mean me because speaking of the Persons of power from whom he was driven he calls them the Pupils and Disciples of that Prelate or Person whosoever he was that drove him away from them Now though I never had the honour to be Tutour to the Duke yet it is true that I had undertaken the instruction of the Dutchess even almost from her Childhood and therefore she might properly enough be called my Pupil and my Disciple as long as she continued in the way which I had instructed her to walk in which I am sure she did with an extraordinary zeal to make others to walk in it also as long as I continued with her But of this I have given the world a large and I hope a satisfactory account already That for which I speak of it now is onely to prove that as Mr. Baxter means Mr. Jones by him that was driven away from the Duke and Dutchess so he means me by him that drove him away from them For farther proof whereof I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself and desire him to name one man more if he can that he thinks to have been of their Party that was driven away by me or any other Prelate from any Person of power since the King's return which if he cannot as I am confident he cannot as he must needs mean Mr. Jones and Mr. Jones onely by the party driven away so he must needs mean me by the Prelate that did drive him away as likewise by the Persons of power he must needs mean the Duke and Dutchess of York from whom he was driven or removed But neither by me nor for that cause which Mr. Baxter would have it thought to be was Mr. Jones discharg'd from officiating in the Duke's Family for as I said before he was not then thought to be one of that Party but professed himself to be a great zealot for the Church of England as it is by Law established and therefore his help to keep out Popery could not be refused upon the account of his being a Dissenter if it had been so necessary and efficacious as Mr. Baxter would have it thought to have been And much less was that the cause of his removal which Mr. Jones in that most false and scandalous Pamphlet of his call'd ELTMAS the Sorcerer pretends it was namely That he the said Jones was removed and removed by the Bishop of Winchester to the end that he might not hinder the said Bishop's design which was the more easily to work upon the Duke and Dutchess in order to their quitting of the Protestant Religion which it seems the Bishop thought he could not effect as long as so able and zealous a Champion for the True Protestant Religion as Mr. Jones was was suffered to continue either in their Highnesses grace and favour or in their Family and therefore did artificially contrive the putting him out of both And to make this to be believed was the scope and end of the writing and publishing of the aforesaid libellous Pamphlet of which I doubt not but Mr. Baxter had the perusal before it was published and perhaps was the Godfather that gave it the name of Elymas the Sorcerer thereby implying that as Elymas the Sorcerer withstood Saint Paul and sought to turn away Sergius Paulus the deputy Governour from the Faith which Saint Paul preached so the Bishop of Winchester removed Mr. Jones that he might not hinder him from perverting the Duke and the Dutchess which though Mr. Baxter doth not say in plain terms yet he insinuates and intimates as much when he concludes the Reflexion I am now speaking of with these words Men that are awake must have leave to judge of causes by their effects thereby implying that if the Pupils and Disciples were perverted He whose Pupils and Disciples they were must needs be the Perverter of them And then taking it for granted that the Duke and Dutchess were my Pupils and Disciples or at least one if not both of them he leaves it to be concluded from their change which he takes for granted also what is to be thought of me who am supposed to have been their Tutour and Instructour So that I think I may without breach of Charity take Mr. Jones his Libel called Elymas the Sorcerer to be a Comment upon or an Explanation of Mr. Baxter's Text in this otherwise somewhat obscure and oblique Reflexion and therefore what I have published in answer to that may serve to clear me from the imputation of this also And yet there is one thing in this Reflexion of Mr. Baxter's which I will not deny to be true so far at least as I am concern'd in it viz. That some I think he might have said all of the Prelates nay and all of the Prelatical Party also do believe that the Protestant Religion may be preserved better without them than with them For if by the Protestant Religion he means the Protestant Religion as it is by Law established here in England which is the Protestant Religion we would have to be preserved nothing can be truer than that we were better undertake the preservation of it even against the Papists themselves without than with the Dissenters from us who the more and stronger they are the more are we weakned rather than strengthned by them being forced to defend our selves against them with one hand as well as against the Papists with the other and sometimes to defend our selves against them both at once For though I doubt not but the Papists and schismatical Protestants here amongst us do mortally hate and mean to doe what they can to destroy one another at
last yet that which both of them agree in to be done first is the pulling down of us in order to the setting up of themselves afterwards And hence it is that the Papists who are much the cunninger Gamesters do make the Sectaries to play their Game for them by making as many divisions as they can amongst us to the end that dum singuli pugnant universi vincantur while we fight in single parties we may all the whole body of us be beaten and worsted And I pray God it prove not to be so at last In the mean time the aid and assistance which Mr. Baxter thinks we of the Church of England have from the Nonconformists for the inabling us to defend our selves against the common Enemy the Papists puts me in mind of what the ingenious Boccalini saith of Spain that when it was weighed by it self the weight that is the power wealth and strength thereof was very considerable but when they put the Kingdom of Naples first and then the Dutchy of Millain into the Scale thinking thereby to add much to the weightiness of the Spanish Monarchy they found it to be much lighter and the less considerable both in strength power and wealth than it was before And so no doubt the Church of England of it self alone would be more healthfull more strong more vigorous and every way more able than it is to preserve the Protestant Religion and to defend it self against Popery and all other heretical opposition or invasion from without if there were neither Presbyterians nor Independents nor Baxterians or any other Dissenters from it lurking in it who whilst they seem to be zealous to keep out Popery do effectually though not intentionally make way for the bringing of it in And therefore as a great Statesman in Queen Elizabeth's time was wont to say That England would be the best Island in the World if Scotland and Ireland were drown'd in the bottom of the Sea speaking I suppose of Scotland and Ireland as they then were the one at enmity with us and the other in rebellion against us and therefore that it would be better for us that they were not at all than to be so near in place to us and so far off in affection from us so may I say of the Church of England That as it is the best so it would be the happiest of all Churches in the Christian world if there were not so many tam propè tam procúlque nobis That are so near to us and so far off from us I mean so many among us that are not of us who have been and are and will be always thorns in our Eyes and goads in our Sides unless they be either wholly as the Irish Rebels were suppressed by us or of Enemies become our Friends as the Scotch are by being united to us and that not onely as the Scots are by becoming Subjects to the same King but Subject to the same Laws also The End of the Sixth Section THE CONCLUSION Wherein two possible Objections against the whole Design of this Writing are Answered Mr. Baxter 's Recantation examined his professions of Loyalty censured and his Way of Concord disapproved AND now having sufficiently and as I hope satisfactorily to all indifferent and impartial Readers justified what I have truly said of Mr. BAXTER in that Letter of mine with the Appendices thereunto so long ago Printed and vindicated my self from all those false and injurious reflections which in diverse passages of several of his Books he hath either plainly and directly or obscurely and obliquely made on me which was all I intended to do I should here make an end of giving my self or the World any more trouble did I not foresee that there might one or two Objections more de novo anew be made against me which I think I ought to prevent The former of which is That supposing I have sufficiently proved that Mr. Baxter did at the Conference at the Savoy assert and maintain what I in my long ago Printed and now reprinted Letter do affirm he did assert and maintain concerning things sinful by Accident yet seeing that since then he hath in a Treatise purposely written upon that subject declared himself to be otherwise minded than I say he was at that Conference I ought in Charity to have forborn upbraiding him with what he said then Whereunto I answer that the difference betwixt me and Mr. Baxter as to that particular being whether I had falsly charged him or no with what he had said at the aforesaid Conference as he in an Address to his Parishioners at Kidderminster pretends I had I was necessitated in mine own defence to prove I had not charged him falsly but that howsoever his mind be changed since he did then assert and maintain what I in my Sermon at Kidderminster did affirm he had asserted and maintained at that Conference as it was presently after that Conference attested in Print by the subscriptions of the now Bishops of Ely and Chester who were two of the three Disputants on our part and are yet God be thanked alive to confirm and justifie the truth of their Attestation if need be which hath never yet though it was Printed above 20 years ago been excepted against either by Mr. Baxter himself or by any of his Party and consequently is as good as acknowledged and confessed to be true And if that Attestation of theirs be true all that I affirm to have been asserted by Mr. Baxter of things sinful by Accident at that Conference must needs be true also whatsoever he hath said and published in any of his Books since to the contrary Which I take for a sufficient answer to the former of the aforesaid objections if any such shall be made by Mr. Baxter or by any other in his behalf hereafter Now as to the latter of the aforesaid Objections which I foresee may be made against me also and which is of much more moment than the former namely that it was uncharitably done of me to publish such a Collection of Mr. Baxter's Aphorisms against all Monarchies in general and this Monarchy of ours in particular as I did at first with that Letter of mine above 20 years since and much more uncharitably done of me now not only to reprint and publish those Aphorisms again with some others of the same kind out of the same forge but to aggravate the hainousness and dangerousness of them in relation to Kingly Government as I have done in this Book of mine to make him more and more odious to those that are in Power at present as one that is not only not to be suffered to Preach or Write but to Live in a Monarchy and all this after he hath disclaimed and recanted what he writ before and what I except against in those Aphorisms of his My answer therefore hereunto is 1. That Mr. Baxter having been silenced by me when I was
add one more That he might be allowed whensoever he saw cause for it or had need of it to substitute one Proposition instead of another a false one instead of a true one or a true one instead of a false one and then to infer what he pleased from it for so as he hath done often in other places so he hath done once in this scrap of a Recantation also making me to say that there were some lawful Governors unlimited by God and thence inferring that I was a defier of Deity and Humanity when what I said was that of lawful Governors some were unlimited by men but of this I have said enough before and as I think I have said enough now touching the insufficiency of this recantation to prove that Mr. Baxter is really and seriously otherwise minded in point of judgment than he was when he published these Aphorisms which I have now Reprinted Neither can the contrary hereunto be concluded from any or all of those glorious or rather vain-glorious professions of Loyalty he makes in behalf of himself and of his own Party in the fourth Chapter of the second Part of his Non-Conformists Plea for Peace which can signifie nothing unless he and they do renounce those disloyal and seditious Principles which in his Book of the Holy Commonwealth he makes use of to justifie the War made by the two Houses of Parliament against the late King as first That this Kingdom of England is not a Monarchy and consequently that the Sovereignty is not wholly in the King Secondly That the Sovereignty is divided betwixt the King and the two Houses of Parliament Thirdly that the two Houses of Parliament may lawfully take Arms and make War with the King in defence of their own part of the Sovereignty and of the trust reposed in them by the People and that the People may and ought to assist them when they do so Fourthly That the People are represented in Parliament not only as Subjects for so he confesseth their Representatives are only to complain and supplicate for them but as Contractors before they were Subjects with him that was to be their King before he was King for the reservation of such or such rights franchises and priviledges to be for ever exempted from the Kings and his Successors jurisdiction for the preservation of which if they were invaded or indeavour'd to be taken away by the King or any of his Successors the Parliament not only as Representatives but Trustees also for the People might by force if they could not do it otherwise resist and restrain the King from so doing Finally there be many other cases specified by Mr. Baxter in that Book of the Holy Commonwealth wherein Kings may as he saith be lawfully resisted by their Subjects whence he concludes the War made by the Parliament against the late King to have been purum piumque Duellum a just and a lawful War and consequently such a War as may be made at any time hereafter upon the same Premisses or by vertue of the same Principles and therefore he tells us in plain terms not only that he did not but that he durst not repent of having been engaged in it himself nor for having engaged so many thousands as he confesseth he did in it not then perhaps but hath he not repented of it since Videtur quòd non because not having yet renounced any of those Principles or Premises from whence he infers the Conclusion he is still to be supposed to hold the conclusion he infers from them nay and that he will hold it still and do as he did then upon the like occasion for so he tells us himself in the place before quoted where he saith that as he durst not repent of what he had done in the aforesaid War so he could not forbear the doing of the same if it were to do again in the same state of things 'T is true indeed he tells us in the same place that if he were convinced he had sinned in what he had done he would as willingly make a publick Recantation as he would eat and drink when he is hungry or thirsty But neither he nor any of the Non-Conformists that ever I heard of hath as yet made any such a publick Recantation and therefore we may rationally and charitably enough too conclude that they are still of the same Judgment they were then and consequently that their Practice will be the same it was then when the like opportunity invites them to it which though I hope it will never be yet we are not sure but it may be and therefore ought not to be too confident and secure that no such thing will be For mine own part I must confess as I always have been so I am still of this opinion that ever since the Reformation there have been and are two Plots carrying on sometimes more openly and sometimes more secretly the one by those that call themselves the only true Catholicks the other by those that call themselves the only true Protestants and both of them against the Government as it is established by Law both in Church and State And as there always hath been so there ever will be Plotting by both these Parties until both of them be utterly disabled and suppressed for as for making Peace with either of them I take it by reason of the perverseness of the one and peevishness of the other and the pride of both to be a thing not to be hoped for I am sure the way proposed by Mr. Baxter in his Book called The true and only way of Concord of all Christian Churches will never do it which Book of his though as I said in my Preface I did not intend to answer as being abundantly and superabundantly confuted before it was written yet because in his Address of it to the Bishop of Ely and me he seems desirous to know what we think of it in reference to the end proposed by it I will tell him plainly and in a few words what is my opinion of it viz. that it is so far from being what he saith it is The true and only way of Concord in all Churches that I verily believe that if all the Churches in the World were actually in as perfect Peace and Concord both in themselves and with one another as ever they were or ever can be humanly speaking here in this World that which he calls the true and only way of Concord if it were or could be admitted would in a very short time introduce such and so many unavoidable and irreconcileable differences and dissentions both speculative and practical as well in matter of belief as in manner of worship that there would be no such thing to be seen as order or unity or peace in all the Churches of any one Province or Kingdom and much less in all the Churches of the Christian World This National Church of ours therefore being