not am I bound to dedicate my Book to such By what Obligation But he saith so voluminous and embost a Title will deter the Readers But do you not know the Dedication from the Title only because it is printed on the Title Page Is that unusual But the odious Arrogance followeth Could any thing easily be said with more appearance of Arrogance in the very Title Page too than that his Book is above all others of the same Subject I know not how otherwise to interpret his supra omnes viz. Methodus Theologiae Christianae c. framed disposed and hallowed to the propagation and growth of Holiness to the Peace and Honour of the Church I will now for ever acquit him of hypocritical Modesty Ans I desire Mr. Morrice to compare this Ld. Bp's Translation with that oversight of Theodoret's words which he fasteneth on in me What if I had said that this Bishop knoweth not how to interpret a plain Latine Sentence as he saith it of himself That which I most expresly say of pious ingenious Youth he feigneth me to say of my Book Reader look on the Book and judge whether Methodus the Nominative Case singular agree with natae dispositae consecratae the Dative Case when Juventutis Parti studiosae sedulae with many other Datives went before it There are no less than Twelve Adjectives joined to Parti in the Dative Case and yet he construeth the three last a agreeing with the very first Title-name in the Nominative Case And is this the way to make me lament my want of his Academical Education Is it any wonder if these men prove us Liars and proud and if they sentence us for lesser Crimes Yea here he concludeth that I write so pievishly so variously and unconstantly to my self so blindly as if willfully blind and not penitent of my own guilt and so arrogantly and disdainfully c. You have heard the proof § 34. Pag. 99. He proveth my unpeaceableness from the Petition for Peace and Additions to the Liturgy The Crime here is There 's not one Office no not one Prayer of the old Liturgy and is stiled A Reformation of the Liturgy and little more than a Directory Ans O miserable World What cure is there for thy Deceits This good man talks as he hath heard and so all goes on But 1. he knoweth not it seems what Title our Copy had but judgeth by that which some body printed 2. It seems he knoweth not that this Draught was only offered to debate expecting abundance of Alterations We openly declared that it was done on supposition of obliterating and altering all that they had any just exception against were it but as needless And for the clauses These or the like words we profest that we expected an Obliteration of them but had rather the Bishops did the imposing part if it must be done than we 3. He knew not it seems that ours were offered but as additional Forms that such of them as both sides agreed on might be mixt as Alias's with the old Liturgy And doth his Lordship then exclaim with reason that Not one Office not one Prayer of the old was in when all after correction was to be in and none left out Oh what is History and what men are its corrupters And that his work may be homogeneal p. 100 101. having recited my Commendation of their Liturgy as better than any in the Biblioth Patrum he addeth as an Accusation Yet p. 219. he complains of such failings in it that IT IS A WORSHIP which we cannot in faith be assured God accepteth Reader This is one of the lesser sort of deceiving Accusations I said that among greater sins which we fear in our Conformity we fear least by Assent and Consent to all things contained and prescribed c. we should be guilty of justifying all the failings in that worship and also of offering to God a Worship that we cannot in faith be assured that he accepteth This Lord so wordeth it that the Reader who peruseth not my words would verily think that I had said this of the Liturgy in the substance of Worship there prescribed which I said only as to the things which we dare not conform to And I explained it by saying We dare not justifie the best Prayer we put up to God in all things E. g. To dedicate Infants to God without their Parents exprest Dedication or consent or their promise to educate them as Christians and this upon the false covenanting of Godfathers that never owned them nor ever mean to educate them as promised as is known by constant experience neither they nor the Parents intending any such trust in the undertakers and to dedicate them by the sacramental Sign of the Cross or a badge of Christianity and to refuse all that will not be thus baptised This we fear is a worship that God will not accept But is this therefore said of the substance of the Liturgy And if the Lord Bp. be wiser or bolder than we and be beyond all such fears should he not suffer Fools gladly seeing he himself is wise And if he like not our fearing an Oath Subscription Declaration Covenant or Practice which he thinks to be true and good and we think to be false and evil why may he not endure our timorousness while he may rush on himself and venture should he not rather pitty us while St. Paul saith He that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not in Faith § 35. P. 108. He questions whether their communion be my practice and p. 110. giveth me two friendly Councils 1. To peruse my Books and retract what 's amiss 2. To tell the World now my sober Thoughts what I could and would do were I to begin the World again I heartily thank him for his Counsel for it is good and honest But alas what a thing is it to write of things which men know not 1. He knoweth not that I have retracted much already partly by disowning and partly by large Obliterations Of the first sort are my Aphor. of Justification and my Polit. Aphorisms though not all that 's in them Of the 2d he may see many and large Obliterations in my Saints Rest my Key for Catholicks c. 2. He seemeth not to know what bloody Books to prove me one of the worst men living their Church Advocates have written against me fetcht mainly from these retracted Books and Words Nor how they that commend Augustine reproach me as mutable for those Retractations 3. It seemeth he knoweth not that I have already performed his second Advice in my Cure for Church-Divisions my Second Plea for Peace about Government Yea Bishop Morley before the King Lords and Bishops at Worcester-house speaking of Ceremonies and Forms caused my Disputations of Church-Government produced and said No man hath written better than Mr. Baxter as if it were against my self And in Doctrinals my Cathol Theol. and Methodus Theol. and Christian Directory have expressed my maturest calmest thoughts But he that counsels me to it knows not that it is already done And more for Revising and Retractation I would do if necessity did not divert me even the want of time and strength § 36. P. 115. You say That Reverend and great man Bp. Morley tells us The generality of Nonconforming Divines shewed themselves unwilling to enter on Dispute and seemed to like much better another way tending to an amicable and fair compliance which was wholly frustrated by a certain persons furious eagerness to engage in a Disputation This was it seems the sense of both sides at that time Ans How far from Truth It was the sense and Resolution of the reconciling Party called by them Presbyterians We all desired nothing but an amicable Treaty We were promised by they should meet us half way When we met Bishop Sheldon declared the Agreement of his Party that till we had brought in all our Exceptions against the Liturgies and our additional Forms they would not treat with us Mr. Calamy Mr. Clark and others would have taken that as a final Refusal and meddled no more lest Dispute should do more harm than good I was against such an untimely end and said They will report that we had nothing to say It 's better let the case be seen in writing than so break off The rest wrote the Exceptions about the Liturgies some Agent of the Bishops answered them without the least concession for alteration at all I wrote a Reply and the Additional Forms and a Petition to the Bishops and they would treat of never a one of them But at the end put us to dispute to prove any Alteration necessary they maintaining that none at all was necessary to the ease of tender Consciences Of which before § 37. I had thought to have proceeded but truly the work which the Bishop maketh me is so unpleasant almost all about the truth or Falshood of notorious matter of Fact that I have more Patience to bear his Accusations whatever his learned Friend said of my impatience than to follow him any further at this rate But whereas he saith that some will think that many things in his Book want truth I am one of those and leave it to the Readers Judgment whether they judge not truly And whereas he lays so much stress on Bp. Morley's words if any Printer shall be at the charge of Printing it I purpose while he and the Witneesss are yet alive to publish the Answer to his Letter which I cast by to avoid Displeasure And if they will still be deceived let them be deceived I cannot help it It is no wonder that he that is described Joh. 8. 44. should carry on his Kingdom accordingly in the World But must his Dial be set on the Steeple of Christs Church and have a consecrated Finger for its Index O lamentable Case FINIS Had I said what is this Week published as one of their chief Dr's Elegy upon Oliver Cromwell with two others what should I have heard What abundance of Conformists flattered Oliver while I openly disowâ—nd him as a Usurper but now their malice hath got the handle * Diad since the writing of this
which was simple Christianity we returned to it by Reformation Besides the Dectrine of Two Natures about which they saw they agreed in sense while the Jesuites Hereticated them three things much alienated the Habassines 1. Denying them the Sacrament of the Eucharist in both kinds 2. Rebaptising their Children 3. Reordaining their Priests This much being done the Papists were by degrees soon overcome 1. The Patriarch is accused for preaching Sedition 2. Then the Temples are taken from them and they break their own Images lest the Habassines should do it in seorn 3. On Sept. 16. 1632. the King died and his Son Basilides was against them 4. Ras-Seelaxus their most powerful friend is banished and others after him 5. Upon more Accusations their Farmes Goods and Guns are seised on 6. They are confined to Fremona Thence they petition again for new Disputations The King Basilides answereth them thus by writing What I did heretofore was done by my Fathers command whom I must needs obey so that by his conduct I made War against my Kindred and Subjects But after the last Battle in Wainadega both learned and unlearned Clergy and Laity Civil and Military men great and small fearlesly said to my Father the King How long shall we be vexed tired with unprofitable things How long shall we fight against our Brethren and near Friends cutting off our Right Hand with our Left How long shall we turn our Swords against our own Bowels when yet by the Roman Belief we know nothing but what we knew before For what the Romanes call two Natures in Christ the Divinity and Humanity we knew it long ago from the beginning even unto this day For we all believe that the same Christ our Lord is perfect God and perfect Man perfect God in his Divinity and perfect Man in his Humanity But whereas those Natures are not separated nor divided for each of them subsisteth not by itself but conjunct with the other therefore we say not that they are two things for one is made of two yet so as that the Natures are not confounded or mixed in his Being This Controversie therefore is of small moment among us Nor did we fight much for this but specially for this cause that the Blood was denied the Laity in the Lucharist whenas Christ himself said in the Gospel except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye shall not have eternal Life But they detested nothing more than the Reiteration of Baptisms as if before the Fathers rebaptized us we had been Heathens or Publicanes And that they Reordained our Priests and Deacons You too late offer us now that which might have been yielded at the first for there is now no returning to that which all look at with the greatest horrour and detestation and therefore all further Conferences will be in vain In short the Patriarch and all the rest were utterly banished out of the Empire Ludolph l. 3. c. 13. I add one but thing ex cap. 14. to end the story As the new Alexandrian Abuna was coming out of Egypt the foresaid Dr. Peter Heyling of Lubeck being then in Egypt took that opportunity to see Habassia and went with him On the Borders at Suagena they met the departing Roman Patriarch where Peter Heyling enters the List with him so handled him as made it appear that it was only the poor Habassine Priests unlearnedness which had given the Jesuits their Success And the Patriarch at the parting sighing said to his Company If this Doctor come into Habassia he will precipitate them into the extreamest Heresie But what became of him is yet unknown And so much for this History of the Roman Conquest in Habassia by the Calcedon Council and the Hereticating the Habassines about the one or two Natures and the Eight years possession Popery got by it and the many bloody Battles fought for it the Prelates powerful Oratory for it and the Peoples more powerful against it the Kings mind changed by sad experience and the Papists finally Extirpated And it is exceeding observable that their very Victories were their Ruine and the last and greatest which killed 8000 was it that overcame them when they thought they had done their work And those that conquered for them drove them out when they considered what they had done But had it not been better known at a cheaper rate This Tragedy is but the fruit of the Council which Mr. Morrice justifieth The fruit of a Church determination above 1200 years ago If you had seen the Fields of blood in Habassia would it not have inclined you to my Opinion against Mr. M. Or if he had seen it would it not have changed his mind I doubt it would not because the Silencings and Calamities in England no more move such men and because they still call for Execution against those that obey not all their Oaths and Ceremonies and will abate nothing what ever it may ost the Land by the strengthening of them that are for our Division And because the 1200 years experience hath not yet been enough to make them see the faultiness of such Bishops Councils â—ay because they yet take not all Gods Laws in Nature and Scripture for sufficient to Rule the Catholick Church in Religion without the Laws of these same Councils which have had such effects But some Bishops and Cleâ—â—gâ— Men yet stand to it that All must be taken as Schismaticks who obey noâ— these same Councils Decrees as the Laws of the Universal Church And if Ludâ—lpâ—â—s and the Abassines can say so much against Here 〈…〉 g those called Eutychians much more may be said for the Nestorians to prove that the Contro vâ—â—sâ— was but verbal There is in Biblioth Pat. To. 6. p. 131. the Missa quâ utuntur antiqui Christiani Episcopatus Angamallensis in Montanis Mallabarici Regni apud Indos Orientales emendata ab erroribus blasphemiisque Nestorianorum expurgata per Alexium Menesium Archiepiscopum Goanum an 1599. I had rather have had it with all its Errours that we might have truly known how much is genuine But it being one of the most Scriptural rational and well composed Liturgies of all there published It would make one think 1. That these Nestorians were not so bad a people as their Anathematisers would have made the world believe them 2. That the Banishment of the Nestorians and Eutychians accidentally proved a great means of the Churches enlargement beyond the bounds of the Romane Empire whither they were banished And this is plain in current History I have given you this account of my Design in both the Books The History of Councils with its Vindication and the following Treatise I add an Answer to a Lord Bishop of Corke and Rosse who hath written many Historical Untruths by his credulity believing false Reporters As to his and others Reprehension of my sharp unpeaceable words my Case is hard My own Conscience at once forbids me to justifie my
them where and when and with what success the aspiring humour did begin If we have small visible probability of escaping we must yet before we come to Smithfield satisfy our Consciences that we betrayed not the Church CHAP. III. Of Mr. M's notice that I am Unlearned § 1. MR. M's Preface Contracteth the Chief things which he hath to say against me in his book that the Reader may find them there all together And of these that I am unlearned is not the least And if that be any of his question I assure him it shall be none of mine I am not yet so vain as to plead for my Learning Yea I will gratify him though he accuse me of being against repentance with an unfeigned confession that my ignorance is far greater than his accusation of unlearnedness doth import Alas I want the knowledge of far more excellent things than languages I do but imperfectly know my self my own soul my own thoughts and understanding I scarce well know what knowing is Verily if no knowledge be properly true that is not adequate to the object I know nothing And subscribe to Zanchez quod nihil Scitur by such as I. Alas Sir I groan in darkness from day to day I know not how to be delivered How little do I know of that God whom the whole Creation preacheth and of that Society which I hope to be joyned with for ever and that world which must be my hope and portion or I am undone Many whom I am Constrained to dissent from upbraid me with my ignorance and I suppose it is that for which they silence me reproach hate and prosecute me even because I have not knowledge enough to discern that all their impositions are lawful or else I know not what it is for But none of them all can and will tell me how I should be delivered from this ignorance If they say It must be by hard study I can study no harder than I have done If they say I must be willing to know the truth I take my self for sure that I am so If in that also I am ignorant in thinking that I know my own mind when I do not what else then can I hope to know If they say You must be impartial I think I am so saving that I must not deny or cast away the truths already received If they say You should read the same books which have convinced us I read far more of the Papists and Prelatists and other sects that write against me than of those that are for me And the more I read the more I am confirmed And when these men preach and write against the Calvinists they render them odious as holding that men are necessitated to sin and to be damned and that it is long of Gods Decree which cannot be resisted Therefore I suppose they will not lay the Cause on God I do then confess my Ignorance of matters a thousandfold greater and more needful than those which they mention in their accusations I confess my self unlearned But I intreat them that tell me of my disease which I know to my daily grief much better than they to tell me also how I may be cured If they say that it must be by Fines and Imprisonment it hath been tryed I am yet uncured I hope they will not pronounce me remediless and not tell me why who use themselves to speak against those that preach men into desperation would they but tell me the secret how so many thousands of them came to be so much wiser than I in far shorter time and with far less study it would be if true an acceptable deed of Charity rather than to tell me of the Ignorance which I cannot help Could I but know needful truth in English I would joyfully allow them to glory of being more skilful in all the Oriental Tongues and also in French Irish Spanish and Italian than I am CHAP. IV. Of his Accusation that I vainly name Historians which I never saw or read § 1. I Must profess that it never was my purpose to tell the world how many Historians I have read nor to abridge all that I have read And those that I have most read I have there made no mention of as not being for my intended end And multitudes that stood by me I never opened to the writing of this history my design being chiefly against the Papists and those Protestants who most esteem their writings and had rather unite with the French Papist Church than with us Nonconformists Therefore when I was past the first 400 or 500 years it was the greatest and most flattering Popish historians that I abriged as ad hominem being likest not to be denyed I told the reader that I made not use of Luther the Magdeburgenses nor the Collections of Goldastus Marquardus Freherus Reuberus Pistorius c. And the Printer having put a Comma between Marquardus and Freherus he Conjectures that I took him for two men because I added not the Christian names of the rest And he concludes that whoever this mistake belongs to it 's plain that M. B. had but little acquaintance with those Collections For I name some of the Authors therein Ans Seeing these things are thought just matter for our accusers turn I will crave the Readers patience with such little things while I tell him the truth It is about 25 years since I read the Germa History in the Collections of Freherus Reuberus and Pistâ—rius and about 30 years since I read the Collections of Goldastus The Magdeburgenses Osiander Sleidan or any such Protestants I thought vain to alledge to Papists About seven or eight years ago as I remember I was accused for Preaching and Fined by Sir Thomas Davis and the Warrant was sent by him to Sir Edm. Bury Godfrey to levy it on me by Distress I had no way to avoid it but bona fide to make away all that I had Among the rest I made away my Library only borrowing part of it for my use I purposed to have given it almost all to Cambridge in New-England But Mr. Knowles yet living who knew their Library told me that Sir Kenelme Digby had already given them the Fathers Councils and Schoolmen but it was History and Commentators which they wanted Whereupon I sent them some of my Commentators and some Historians among which were Freherus Reuberus and Pistorius Collections and Nauclerus Sabellicus Thuanus Jos Scaliger de Emendat Temp. But Goldastus I kept by me as borrowed and many more which I could not spare and the Fathers and Councils and Schoolmen I was stopt from sending Now whether I was unacquainted with those that partly stand yet at my Elbow and which I had read so long ago must depend on the Credit of my Memory and I confess my Memory is of late grown weak but not so weak as to think that Marquardus Freherus was not one man and a Palatinate Councillor though it be
none of their virtues though it was not my work to record them While I am confuting the Errours of your book do I wrong you unless I write a Catalogue of your good works Morney Illyricus and many others have gathered a Catalogue of old witnesses for Protestant Verities And Bishop Morton hath cited multitudes of Papists against their party Have they wronged them because they have not also cited all that the same said for the Roman cause I have mentioned the virtues of some of the Popes even of Greg. 7. but of many others I have only mentioned their vices This is not to deny any good that is in them Nor do you accuse your selves of any injustice when you tell the world how bad men the Parliaments have bin and how bad Cromwell and the Armies and how bad the Nonconformists are and I in particular without naming any of their good deeds or virtues Because it is not your business CHAP. XII Of his Accusation that I do all in spite and malice against Bishops and as using ill language of them § 1. ANsw 1. Spite and Malice are heart sins If the same effect may come from other Causes how know you that these are the Cause Ans 2. Is it from Spight and Malice that Protestants commonly describe the vices of the Popes such as Greg. 7. Sergius Alexandr 3. Boniface 8. Joh. 12. and 13. 22 23. Eugen. 4. c. And also that they so hardly speak of the Jesuites Yea and Papists commonly Sure it may come from some other cause Ans 3. Is it from Spight and Malice that you recite the tumults of the German Anabaptists the faults of those at Munster the Errours of David George the many Enthusiastick Sects described by Beckman Exercit. of whom many as Thaulerus Kempis Behmen had much very commendable and Grotius praised Job Arâ—dt Is it from Malice that the Familists Seekers Quakers Anabaptists c. are usually by your party described by their faults without any mention of their goodness Ans 4. Is it from Spight and Malice that your Party have written what they have done of the great faultiness of the Nonconformists both former and latter and that Calvinists are so odiously represented that the Reformation by them is described by Heylin and others as Rebellious That such books are written as Heylins Aerius Redivivus H. Fowlis the Evangel Armatum The Eccles Polit. the Friendly Debate the Counterminer the Vindicaâ— of Dr. Stillingfleet the pretended second part which is a continued Calumny against my self so full of particular falshoods as are not to be without a tedious Volume answered And a multitude such written to render the Nonconformists odious and unsufferable If all these be not written in Malice how know you that mine were Ans 5. And whereas some pretending moderation accuse me of too bad provoking language 1. Is there any Comparison between the language of any of these books or yours and Dr. Sherlock's and mine Read but Learned Godly moderate Bishop Downam his Defence of his Visit sermon his frequent charges of shameless impudent Lying and much more against a Nonconformist that gave him no such language Read but the ordinary Writings of such as Bishop Bancroft Dr. Sutcliff and most others against the Old Nonconformists and of the Lutherans against the Calvinists even men that I am persuaded meant honestly but by Faction were exasperated as Hunnius Brentius Morlinus Mâ—rbackius Snepfius Wigandus Heshusius Andreas Seâ—necerus Heerbrand Caloviâ—s and many such Read but our Grammarians such as you may find in the many Volumes of the Collections of Janus Gruterâ—s even those of Cramer and Phil. Paraeus and others against himself where Fools Knaves Lyars Sots and worse make up much of the style Read but our Old Grammarian Reformers against the Popish Priests and Schoolmen I mean Erasmus Hutten Faber and the rest what Scorns their Writings do abound with I will not refer you to the Queen of Navarrâ— and Stephanus his World of Wonders against the Priests lest you think I approve of the excess Yea read but the Writings of our famous Learned Criticks Jul. and Joseph Scaliger Heinsius Salmasius c. from whom the railing Jesuite Labbe took advantage to say Tom. 1. p. 820. Rivâ—â—o praeâ—vâ—â—at Josephus Scaliger homo utique modestissimus qui Editores S. Iraeâ—aeâ— vocat clamosos maledicentissimos Câ—rcopâ—s Tartareos Pyriphlegetâ—oâ—tas virâ—lentiae probrorum coâ—câ—â—nâ—tores editionem coloniensem cloacam Sycophantiarum lâ—â—â—inâ—m convâ—tiâ—â—â—m staâ—â—lâ—m inscitiae Through God's great mercy while Malignity is the Complexion of the Serpent's Seed and Lying is their Breath and Murder is their Work the names of all these sins are odious in the world and guilt is impatient and cannot endure its own name Should I but mention the Language of Papists how they represent the holiest Protestants as Lyars Deceivers Devils intollerable whom it is as lawful to kill as Dogs Foxes or Toads it would concern none but those of you that use to say I had rather be a Papist than a Puritane or Presbyterian oâ— those that renounce Communion with us and own it with the Church of Rome who are alas too many Such Language as â—aâ—â—â—'s Vol. 1 p. 819. is of the sweeter sort viz. Quisquis es sâ—lutis tâ—â— amans Omnes illicâ— Calvinistas Lutheranos Socinianos Anabaptistas similesque generis humani pestes Cacodamonâ—m instar execrabere This is but what we daily hear But while we hear it in a Language so very like from the Papists and the Pulpits and Press and Roger Le Strange is become the Church's Advocate and Mouth it will harden them that did ill joyn together Popery and Prelacy in their rejections Honest Thuanus is amiable and honourable for Speaking well of all that deserved it without partiality But Gerb. Vossius is put to defend his Father-in-law Junius against his unjust censure Indeed Junius was a man of Eminent peaceableness and moderation I would Arminius and he had been the utmost prosecutors of that Controversie notwithstanding Dr. Twisses undervaluing his skill in School Divinity And few men were more unlike Thuanus his ill Character than Junius But Dr Manton hath told me that he hath been fully informed that it was not Junius that Thuanus meant but another that dyed that year which Junius did not and that by some ill chance a wrong name was put in Contrary to Thuanus intent § 2. Dr. Burnet is a man whom I much value and honour and pleadeth much for peace and moderation and therefore much the more amiable to me I thank him for his reproof of me to my face but because he goeth on to vend it as just behind my back where I cannot answer him I must do it here He saith that I began and that with unchristian provoking language against the Conformists in my first Plea for peace which caused all the succeeding heats Ans 1. I have to him and oft in print appealed to humanity and common sence
and renounced Arius and pretended Reconciliation 3. And they were the Oriental part of the Council at Sardica called General by the Papists 4. And they were believed against Marcellus by Basil and Chrysostom But all that I cite it for is to tell the Reader what a doleful case the Church was faln into by the depravation of the Bishops Did none of these profess before to be Orthodox I do not say that it was quatenus Bishops that they did all this but that multitudes of Bishops were then become the shame and calamity of the Church § 13. Next he scorningly accuseth me for giving too soft a Character of the Circumcellians and saith My Moderation and Charity may extend to John of Leyden And he calls them The Most barbarous and desperate Villains that ever defamed Christianity by assuming the Title Ans 1. This is the man that saith I rail I named so many and great sins of theirs that I little thought any Reader would have thought that I spared them too much 2. Yet they were Donatists and of them Optatus himself saith lib. 5. Apud vos apud nos Una est Ecclesiastica conversatio Communes Lectiones Eadem Fides ipsa Fidei Sacramenta eadem mysteria that is saith Albaspine Una Ecclesiastica disciplina Eodem modo Scripturas Explicamus Ipsa Regula Fidei Idem Mysterium quod confertur significatur eadem res visibilis per quam res spiritualis datur in lib. 5. p. 153. And saith Optatus lib. 1. Nequis dicat me inconsiderate eos fratres appellare qui tales sunt Quamvis illi non negent omnibus notum sit quod nos odio habeant execrentur nolunt se dioi fratres nostros tamen nos recedere à timore Dei non possumus sunt igitur sine dubio fratres quamvis non boni Quare nemo miretur eos me appellare fratres qui non possant non esse fratres Obj. But the Circumcellians were worse than the rest Answ They were of the same Religion but the unruly furious part in their practice And Optatus saith Though they would rail in words sed unum quidem vix inveuimus cum quo pâ—r literas vel hoc modo loquatur And so goes on to call Parmenian his Brother And it 's worth the consideration how much Albaspine includeth in Fraternity note first in Observat 3. And they were Orthodox fierce Prelatists doing all this for the preheminence of their Bishops And what if some Prelatists now should hurt their Brethren more than the Circumcellians did must I call them therefore the most barbarous Villains that ever defamed Christianity Angustine saith They made a Water of some Salt or sharp thing and cast in mens Eyes in the night in the streets No man can think that this barbarous action was done by the most or any but some furious fools They say that they would wound themselves to bring hatred on the Catholicks as if they had done it or drove them to it He that knoweth what Self-love is will believe that this was the case but of a few and an easier wrong than some that abhor them do to their Brethren And must we needs Rail indeed against such numbers of hurtful Prelatists What if any rude persons of your Church should be Whoremongers Drunkards Blasphemers and seek the Imprisonment of their Brethren yea their Defamation and Blood by Perjury should the Church be for their sakes so called as you call them I speak them no fairer than Optatus did § 14. When p. 57. I commend the many good Canons of the African Councils and the faithfulness of the Bishops he noteth none of this because it proveth the untruth of his former Accusations And when I name twenty five or twenty six more Councils of Bishops some General and some less which were for Arianism or a compliance with them he defendeth none of them but excuseth them and saith that they were not much to the honour of the Church Yet the evil Edicts and Consequences of them are rather to be charged on the Arian Emperour than the Bishops Answ 1. This is the same man that elsewhere so overdoes me in accusing the Arians 2. The Emperour was Erroneous but said to be otherwise very commendable And is it not more culpable for Bishops to Err in the Mysteries of Divinity than a Lay-man And for many hundred to Err than for One Man And do you think that the Bishops Erring did not more to seduce the Flocks than the Emperour's But he saith that If many fell in the Day of Tryal they are rather to be pitied than insulted over for we have all the same infirmities c. Answ I wrote in pity of them and the Church without any insulting purpose If any now to avoid lying in Prison and starving their Families by Famine should surrender their Consciences to sinful Subscriptions after a Siege of Nineteen years I shall pity them and not insult over them Nay if I speak of those that lay the Siege and call out for more Execution I do it not insultingly but with a grieved heart for the Church and them But when I largely recited Hillary's words of them he saith The Account is very sad and what said I more But saith he yet such as shews rather the Calamity than the Fault of the Bishops Answ Nay then no doubt it 's no fault to Conform Hillary then and all that kept their ground were in a great fault for so heavily accusing them And so the World turned Arians in shew as Hierom and Hillary speak is much acquit and the Nonconformists are the faulty Railers for accusing them It had been enough to say It was no Crime but to say no Fault is too gentle for the same man that so talkt of Perjured Arians before § 15. Yet because he is forced to confess that it was most by far of all the Bishops even in Councils he of Rome not excepted that thus fell he must shew how it offended him to be forced to it by telling the world how contentious I have been against all sorts and Sects the first is false and he knows it I think and the latter is true formally of a Sect as such even his own Sect. And some judge me such a stranger to Peace as to need a Moderator to stand between me and the Contradictions of my own Books Answ Yes the Bishops Advocate Roger L'Estrange where nothing but gross ignorance or malice or negligence could have found Contradictions were the whole places perused And where I am sure my self that there is none I have somewhat else to do than to write more to shew the Calumnies of such Readers Who most seeks Peace you or those that you prosecute One would think it should not be hard to know if men be willing CHAP. XX. Of the first General Council at Constantinople His Cap. 4. § 1. HE begins with accusing me of imitating the Devil Doth Job serve God
think that so great a Patriarchate Diocess would not find a conscionable Pastor work enough without joyning with it the Magistrates Office 2. Was not the Church greatly changed even so early from what it was a little before in the daies of Martin and Sulpitius when even Ithacius durst not own being so much as a seeker to the Magistrate to draw the Sword against gross Hereticks and the best Bishops denied Communion with them that sought it And now a Bishop himself becomes the striker not of gross Hereticks but such as peaceable Bishops bore with I remember not to have read that Cyril had any Commission for the Sword from the Emperour Others then had not But I deny it not § 6. He saith that elsewhere I say I shall not dishonour such nor disobey them Answ I say and do so If a Bishop will take another Calling from the King's Grant when he hath undertaken already 40 times more work as a Diocesan than he can do I le honour and obey him as a Magistrate But I would be loth to stand before God under the guilt of his undertaking and omissions § 7. As to all the rest of the History about Cyril's Executions and the wounding of Orestes the Governour I leave it between the Credit of Mr. M. and Socrates And he very much suspects the Story of Cyril ' s making a Martyr of him that was executed for it I leave all to the Reader 's Judgment I think I may transcribe Socrates without slandering Cyril Here his spleen rising saith There are men in the world that honour such as Martyrs for murdering a King Answ You may smell what he insinuates I think he will not say that he ever did more against them than those that they call Presbyterians have done We Wrote and Preacht against them when he did not I know not the Presbyterian living to my remembrance that was not against the Murder of the King and Prin. whom the Bishops had cropt and stigmatized for being against them as an Erastian was the hottest in the Parliament for the Execution of the King's Judges But I knew divers Conformists that have written or spoken to justifie or excuse that Fact § 8. As for the Murder of Hypatia I leave him to his scuffle with Socrates and Damascius in which I interess not my self § 9. I thank Pope Innocent Mr. M. durst not deny Cyril's faults in his Enmity to the memory of Chrysostom and yet he calls my reciting the matter of Fact a reproach He is constrained to confess That the Quarrel was it seems hereditary to him so is Original Sin and he did prosecute it beyond all equity or decency against the memory of a dead man This was a fault and and he that is without any or without any particular animosity specially if he be in any eminent place let him â—ast the first stone Answ Thanks to Conscience We feel your Animosities But is not this man a Railing Accuser of Cyril if I am such What saith he less in the main Yea he now renews his Accusation of his Predecessor saying It was hereditary To prosecute malice against the very name of a holy extraordinary Bishop beyond all equity and decency what will Christianity or Humanity call it But Faction saith it was a fault and he that is without any c. Thus talkt Eli to his Sons So one may say To Silence 2000 Ministers or to hate the best men and seek their ruine is a fault a Prelatical peccadillo and so was Bonner's usage of the Martyrs and let him that is without any cast the first stone And St. John saith He that hateth his Brother is a murderer and none such hath Eternal Life abiding in him and that as Cain he is of the Evil One the Devil And I believe him § 10. But he saith I injuriously charge him with calling Alexander a bold faced man when Atticus was the first Author of that word Answ Atticus mentioned Alexander's confident true and necessary Counsel Cyril contradicting it calls the man A man of a confident face or mouth If another Bishop said the first words before him do I wrong him in saying he said the second O tender men His urging the keeping up the names of such as Nectarius and Arsacius and casting out Chrysostomus is so like our Canons about Readers and Nonconformists and our Canoneers descriptions of their Country Parsons and the Puritanes that I wonder not that you defend him § 11. But he saith that It 's a little unchristian to blast his memory with the faults which he corrected in his life-time Answ 1. It 's necessary to tell that truth which blasteth the Reputation of such sin as was growing up towards Papacy Ans 2. Then Christ was unchristian to tell the Jews of their very Fathers murders of the Prophets while they disclaimed it and built their Sepulchres Mat. 23. And then it was unchristian in the Holy Ghost to blast the memory of Adam Noe Lot David Solomon Peter yea or Manasseh with sins repented of 3. History must speak truth about things repented of or else it will but deceive the world 4. The Honour of God and Goodness and Truth must be preferred before our own Honour Repentance if true will most freely confess a mans own sin and most fully shame it § 12. Whether all his far-fetcht Conjectures that Cyril repented be true or no is nothing to me I will hope he did though I never saw it proved The very last Sentence of Death might do it His retortion is I know no man deeper engaged in the Contentions of the Church than I The writing of his Eighty Books being but like so many pitcht Battels he has fought and most commonly in the dark when he was hardly able to discover friend from foe Answ It 's too true that being all written for Peace the Enemies of Peace have fought against them Nimis diu habitavit anima mea inter osores pacis But pro captu Lectoris c. All men take not the words of such as he for Oracles How much I have written and done for Peace let others read and judge I long laboured and begg'd for Peace in vain with such as he defendeth And it 's admirable if this pittiless Enemy of Sects and Errours can be for all the Sects and Errours that I have written against Have I in the dark taken for foes by Errour the Atheists the Infidels the Sadduces the Hobbists the Quakers the Ranters the Papists the Socinians the Libertines called Antinomians the Anabaptists the Separatists and Sects as Sects Be of good comfort all These Prelatists that accuse us for too dark and sharp Writings against you seem to tell you that they will more hate persecuting or distressing you Yes when they agree with themselves His Prayer that I may have a more honorable opinion of Repentance he calls me to speak to in the End § 13. Whether good Isidore Pelusiota were a man very easy to
us and keep us six Months in Gaol for every Sermon and so on for the next and for the next Or to pay 40 l. a Sermon and to banish us five Miles from Corporations and must not be told of any such thing He was not unpeaceable that said He that seeth his Brother have need and shutteth up the Bowels of Compassion from him how dwelleth the Love of God in him Nor for saying He that hateth his Brother is a Murtherer Nor Christ for telling us how he will judge them that did not relieve and visit him in his little ones and how he will use him that beat his Fellow-Servants It is with you and not with your sins that we would have peace Not only Massonius and Platina but even Genebrard and Baronius speak far sharplier of the faults of many Popes themselves and all Historians of their Prelates and yet are taken to be peaceable men Either those that I mentioned will repent here or hereafter and then will say far worse of themselves than I do And may I not foretel it them when it is but in necessitated deprecation of the miseries of the Land § 23. One of their Champions wrote that he was not bound to deny his own Liberty because others would pievishly take scandal at it I shewed the sinfulness of that Conclusion and that a mans Liberty often lay in as small a matter as a game at Chess a Pipe of Tobacco or a Cup of Sack and most scandal is taken by pievish persons and yet even a pievish mans Soul is not to be set as light by as such things Christ and Paul made more of Scandal And this very arguing of mine is numbred with my unpeaceable distempered words § 24. As to his talk about our Controversies of passages in Conformity he confesseth that he hath not read my Plea for Peace in which I have partly opened them And much less what I have said since of them to divers others and I consess I have neither mind or leisure to say all over again in Print upon the occasions of such words as his which have been oft answered § 25. I named the Martyr-Bishops Hooper Ridley c. as Nonconformists to the Laws of their Persecutors to shew that such Sufferers leave a sweeter name than their Persecutors and he feigneth me to have made them Nonconformists to our Laws and saith Ingenuity and Christian Veracity would blush to own this Art Thus still false History is that which assaulteth us But I humbly ask his Lordship 1. Whether he think that Cranmer Ridley and Latimer were more for Conformity than Jewel Bilson and Hooker and Abbot And 2. Whether he will so far reproach these men as to say that Jewel Bilson and Hooker would have conformed by approving that which they most expresly wrote against I have oft enough transcribed their words § 26. To shew that since my explusion I drew not the People of Kiderminster from the Bishops I said that I never since came near them nor except very rarely sent them one Line which he pretends I contradict by saying I sent them all the Books I wrote One might have found historical errours enough in his words without a Rack or Quibble 1. Sure Books are somwhat rarelier written than Letters 2. An ordinary Wit would have understood that I spoke of one Line of Manuscript or one Letter and not of Printed Books I delivered them to Mr Simmons or their Neighbours to send them without Letters And few of those Books were written before this Apology § 27. As a Self-contradicter he saith of me somtime I am against all Subscribing as p. 60 113. c. and sometimes not Ans Still untruth p. 60. The words are If men were not driven so much to subscribe and swear as they are at this day Reader is it true that this is against All Subscribing Pag. 113. The words are If we had learned the trick of speaking writing and swearing in universal terms and meaning not universally but particularly as many do we could say or subscribe orswear as far as you desire us And Take off the penalty of subscribing declaring crossing c. what good doth subscribing a Sentence which he believeth not Is this against All Subscribing § 28. Whether to profess our tenderness of other mens Reputation and yet to name the nature and aggravations of the sin which we fear our selves when we are importuned to it be contradictory let the impartial judge § 29. P. 92. He saith as my judgment To subscribe and declare that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King or that an unlawful Oath cannot bind men to unlawful Actions is Perjury some of the greatest that Hell suggesteth Ans Not one true word I believe all this to be as he saith Both in my first and second Plea for Peace I have largly told him what it is and what it is not which I own but he hath seen neither and yet feigneth me to say or hold what I have so oft renounced § 30. P. 94. He might have known how oft in Print I have retracted the Book called The Holy Common-Wealth wishing the Reader to take it as Non-scriptum Yet he saith as far as is generally known I have not done it And how should I make it generally known more than by oft Printing it § 31. P. 95. He pittieth me for calling the Author of the friendly Debate the Debate maker And I pitty England for such pittiers § 32. P. 96. Whereas the Convocation hath imposed on all Ministers a Profession of undoubted certainty of the Salvation of dying baptized Infants without excepting those of Atheists or Infidels I ask whether all the young unstudied sort of Ministers have arrived at this certainty any more than I and how they came by it and crave their Communication of the ascertaining Evidence And what doth his Lordship but pretend that I call the Convocation these young unstudied men as if they had made this Rubrick for none but themselves § 33. And he hath found another fault which exceedeth all and that is the Title and Dedication of my Methodus Theologiae where I say that I dedicate it not to the slothful hasty tired Sectaries c. but to studious ingenious humble c. young men as being the persons that are above all others born disposed consecrated to Truth Holiness and the Churches Peace c. Exceeding bad Will you hear the proof that this is excessive Pride 1. The Book in the frront indirectly and slily calls the Reader slothful rash foolish c. Ans Is this true 1. It is only those that I would not have to be the Readers Yea 2. Only those that I say it is not dedicated to And do you think there are none such in the world Will not his foresaid Debater and Dr. Parker and Dr. Sherlock and abundance more tell you that the Nonconformists are many of them such and will you now deny it If
Stile or Passion and also tells me that if making odious Gods servants silencing and persecuting faithful Ministers and Perjury should prove as great a guilt and danger of Destruction to the Land as is feared I cannot justifie my long Silence nor that I use no more plainness and fervency in calling the guilty to Repent The CONTENTS I. A Specimen of the Way by which this Generation confuteth their Adversaries in several Instances II. In the General Part § 1. Hard for young men to know what Teachers or History to believe § 7. Tempting Reasons for Papacy § 8. Evident against it § 9. The Steps by which Bishops ascended to Papacy § 15. The different Opinions of Popery in the English § 18. The Case of Fact discerned what Judgment I settled in about Church-Power § 20. For what Mr. M. hath wrote with so much displeasure against me § 22. Instances of above an Hundred Councils besides particular Bishops all before An. 1050. of whom I appeal to the Consciences of all sober Men whether they have not been the Tearers of the Church General Instances of the greater Schisms since then by popish Bps. Some Questions put to Mr. M. and some Reasons to abate his displeasure § 22. Of a late Book of the History of my Life to prove me the worst of men § 24. Whether I be guilty of falsifying History III. The particular Answer to Mr. M's Vindication Ch. 1. The Reason and Design of my History of the Schisms of Bishops and Councils Ch. 2. Whether we ought to tell of the Bishops and Councils Church-corrupting Ways Ch. 3. Of Mr. M's Industry to shew me to be unlearned Ch. 4. Whether I vainly name Historians which I never read Ch. 5. Of my use of Translations and following Binnius Ch. 6. His charge of my own mistranslations and mistakes Ch. 7. His false Supposition that I am only for a Church of one Congregation Ch. 8. His false Supposition that I am against Diocesanes when it 's only the ill species Ch. 9. And that I am a Independent and yet plead for Presbyterians Ch. 10. His false Accusation that I make the Bishops the cause of all Heresies and Schisms Ch. 11. And that I mention all the Bishops Faults and none of their Goodness Ch. 12. His Accusation of Spite Malice and Railing examined Dr. Burnet satisfied Ch. 13. His Supposition that I speak against all Bishops Councils Ch. 14. Some mens Credit about ancient History tried by their History of this Age. Twenty Instances of the History of our times My own experience of it Whether I hate compliance with Superiours or to preach by Licence Ch. 15. Mr. M. Magisterial authorising or rejecting what Historians he pleases His Accusation of Socrates and Sozomene and valuing Valesius Simond c. Ch. 16. His Observation on my Notes of credible and incredible History His Instances of my Railing particularly considered Whether the word Hereticating be railing or causeless An Instance of Fifty five of Bp. St. Philastrius's accused Heresses by which I desire any sober man to judge Other Instances Whether St. Theophilus or Socrates and Sozomene were the Criminals Even Pope Honorius and Vigilius hereticated for being wiser than other Popes Ch. 17. Of his Censure of my Design and Church Principles Whether I be guilty of exposing Christianity more than Julian Lucian Ch. 18. Of his 2d Chap. Who is most against Discipline Of Anathematising Whether Novatus was a Bishop or an ordaining Presbyter Councils for rebaptising His Self-contradictions Some Questions to him Whether the Diocesane Party as Mr. Dodwel who nullifie our Sacraments are Hereticks if the Re-baptisers were such The old qu. was not of Rebaptising Hereticks but of such as Hereticks had baptised Of the Donatists and many Councils Of our Liturgy's Rule to find Easter-day What the Novatians held Petavius and Albaspineus Testimony of them His quarrels about Epiphanius the Arians the Audians divers Synods Antioch Of the Circumcellians Optatus of the Donatists as Brethren His Excuse of the Bishops Ch. 19. Of the 1st General Council at C. P. Whether Bishops followed Emperours Their usage of Greg. Nazianz. Of the Priscillianists the Bishops and Martin Of my Letter to Dr. Hill Of the Council at Capua Jovinian Easter African Bps. Donatists Theophilus Aliars Ch. 20. His 5 Chap. Of the 1st Ephes Council His reviling Socrates and Sozomene as against Cyril Cyrils Story Of the Presbyterians Cruelty Nestorius Case His cavils against my Translations The effects of that Council at this day considered Ch. 21. Of the 2d Ephes Council Of Cyril the Eutychians and Dioscorus Ch. 22. Of the Calcedon Council Pulcheria and Eudocia What one sound man can do in a Council Whether our late Conciliatory Endeavours about Arminianism have been as vain as these Councils Of Theodos 2. and the Eutychians The whole story of that Council Luther as well as I makes the Controversie verbal Of the Bishops Peccavimus Many Accusations refelled More of the Councils Successes and late Conciliators The Westminster Synod Mr. M's way of Concord Of the old Conformity and ours Mr. Edwards Gangrena and the late Sects and Heresies Ch. 24. Of his 7th Chapter Of the old Heresies Whether Projects for Moderation have been the chief distracters of the Church He ost falsly saith that I charge the Bishops with all the heresies in the world What it is that I say of them The true cause of Schism confessed His misreports of the cause and Bishops His false saying of me that I compared Oliver and his son to David and Solomon My profest Repentance which he seigneth me an Enemy to What Nonconformity is and what his misreports of it An explitatory profession of the meaning of this Book against Misinterpreters THE Ready Way OF Confuting Mr. Baxter A SPECIMEN OF THE PRESENT MODE OF Controversie in England Joh. 8. 44. 1 King 22. 22. Prov. 29. 12. 19. 5 9. Rev. 21. 8. 22. 15. IN 1662. Dr. Boreman of Trinity-Colledge in Cambridge Published a Book against me as having written to Dr. Hill against Physical-Predetermination to Sin and in it saith That it is reported That I kill'd a Man with my own Hand in cold Blood and if it be not true I am not the first that have been wronged The Man though promoted to the Charge of this Parish St. Giles in the Fields was accounted so weak forbearing his Ministry and saying he was suspended some Years before he died that I thought it vain to take publick Notice of his Words neither imagining whence he had them nor ever hearing of them before But a few Weeks before the late Plot was reported one Mr. P. came to me and told me That at the Coffee-House in Fullers-Rents where Papists and Protectants used familiarly to meet he provoking the Papists to Answer my Books or to Dispute with me was answered by a Gentleman of this Parish said to be of the Church of England That Mr. Baxter had kill'd a Man in cold Blood with his
and tell the one Schoolmaster as a Monitor what they did amiss but might correct none nor put them out 21. By this time they began to live on blood and even as they swelled in the beginning cruelty grew up equally with Pride For Reason and Scripture were not on their side nor would justifie their Cause and them and therefore violence must do it They desired not the bare title of Power but the exercise of it to promote the Issues of their Wit and Will They began with rash silencing ejecting and deposing Dissenters and thence to anathematizing them and thence to banishing till at last it grew up to tormenting in the Inquisition and burning them 22. And whereas notwithstanding the petty Heresies among Christians too early the glory of the Antient persecuted Christians was their entire Love and Concord and the shame of the Philosophers was their discord it came to that pass that whereas a Heresie of old did start up among a few for a small time like our Ranters and Quakers who shame Religion no more than Bedlams shame Reason Now the great Continents of the Earth have been the Seats of the millions of those called Hereticks and Schismaticks by each other about 1400 or 1300 years Eusebius in Praepar Demonstr copiously sheweth that the Philosophers were all confounded in dissention and yet did not persecute each other but that the Christians were all of one Religion cleaving to one Sacred Word of God Of which also see Raym. Breganium in Theol. Gent. de Cogn Dei Enar. 5. cap. 8. To be Lovers of good men was the character of the old Bishops To be dividers and haters and slanderers and silencers and persecutors and murderers of them grew up with corrupters Pride 23. And with these did gradually grow up corruptions of Doctrine even while they pretended a burning Zeal against Heresie and corruption of God's publick Worship till it grew up to all the Mass and Roman Impurities 24. And to secure all this against Reformation ridiculous Legends and falsification of Church-History made it hard for posterity what to believe or whom § 15. Being thus far sure of the matter of fact by what degrees Prelacy grew up to the height that it hath now attained in the World abroad I considered what men thought of it now at home I am speaking yet but of matter of fact and I found great diversity in mens thoughts of it 1. As to the Roman height I found that the Church of England since the Reformation till A. B. Laud's time took the Pope to be the Antichrist It was in their church-Church-books Many other Bishops as well as Bishop Downam have written for it What Bishop Morton and Hall and Abbot and abundance such have written against Popery I need not name 2. I found that then the stream began to turn and the name of Antichrist was put out and our Reconciliation with Rome was taken to be a hopeful work and actually endeavoured which by their conversion all good men desire 3. I found that many among us of greatest reverence and name had laid down such tearms as these That the Catholick Church is one Visible Society under one humane Governing Soveraignty That this Universal Soveraign hath power of Universal Legislation and Judgment That the Colledge of Bishops through all the World are this one Supreme Universal Soveraign That they exercise it in General Councils when they sit That every Bishop is by Office the Representative of his Diocesan Church and these Bishops may or must have Metropolitans and Patriarchs and by these Patriarchs and Metropolitans per literas formatas and their Nuntii the Universal Supreme Colledge may exercise their Power over all the World And what they do thus the Church or Colledge doth in the intervals of General Councils That the Pope of Rome is to be acknowledged the Principium Unitatis to this Universal Church and Colledge of Bishops and the Ordinary President of General Councils ex Officio That Councils called without the President who hath the sole power are unlawful Assemblies and punishable Routs That the approbation of the President if not of the most of the Patriarchs is the note by which an authoriz'd obliging Council is to be known from others That the Pope is to be obeyed accordingly as Prime Patriarch Principium Unitatis President of General Councils and Patriarch of the West That all that will not unite with the Church of Rome on these tearms are Schismaticks and so to be accounted and used That those that thus unite with the Church of Rome are no Papists But a Papist is only one that holdeth all to be just and good that is done by Popes or at least one that is for the Pope's Absolute Power of Governing above Canon-Laws and Church-Parliaments or Councils And that if they will but abate their last 400 years Innovations or at least not impose them on others we may unite with the Church of Rome though they claim as Peter's Successors the Universal Supremacy at least to be exercised according to the Canons of Councils And that it is not the Church of Rome but the Court of Rome which at present we may not unite with That the Church of Rome is a true Church and hath had an uninterrupted Succession and its Sacraments true Sacraments But none of those Protestant Churches are true Churches that have not Diocesan Bishops nor any of their Pastors true Ministers of Christ who have not Diocesan Episcopal Ordination nor any that have such unless it hath as such been conveyed down from the Apostles by uninterrupted Succession by such Diocesans That such men have no true Sacraments God not owning what is done by any not so ordained That therefore they have no Covenant-promise of or right to Pardon and Salvation because such right is given only by the Sacrament That therefore all such Protestants Sacraments are but nullities and a prophanation of holy things And that the Holy Ghost being the Instituter of these sacred things it is the sin against the Holy Ghost to undertake and exercise the Ministry celebrate Sacraments without such uninterrupted successive Ordination That an Ordained Minister hath no more power than was intended him by his Ordainers That in such Presbyterians or Episcopal Churches which have their power from the Ordainers and so far for want of Succession are nullities it is safe for men as e. g. in France to be rather of the Roman Church than theirs § 16. And as I found this Doctrine in the ascendent in England so I met with such as were for using Protestants accordingly even for the silencing of them by thousands if they would not swear profess promise and do all that And for using the People accordingly And abating neither big nor little an Oath or a Ceremony to unite or save them And I lived in an Age where these things were no idle speculations § 17. Being thus far sure of the Matter of Fact I studied as well as
verbo discedimus omnia limatius subtilius scrutamur quam ipse vult nos scrutari Whether you reverence Luther any more than Calvin I know not 11. To conclude this matter two things I desire you or at least the Reader to consider 1. Whether it be not a dreadful thing for a man to make the Church corrupting dividing and confounding sin◠to be all his own by defending or excusing them on a false pretence of Vindicating the Primitive Church Government which was contrary to them 2. Whether you trust to Truth and Evidence or to Interest and depraved Judgments if you think men shall believe that you have confuted all this undoubted History and the present experience of all the woful Christian World by a general Cry that I write falsly and maliciously or by saying that I am unlearned or that I trusted to a Translation or Binnius or that Binnius mistook the year things that I will not turn over my Books to try or that I misplaced or misunderstood a word of Theodorite or mistranslated Calami or such like Such Believers of you are guilty of their own deceit § 22. There is lately published by a nameless Prelatist to shew the World what Spirit he is of a Book pretending by the description of my Life from 1640. till 1681. to prove me one of the worst men alive To that I will now say but these few words 1. That let them take me to be as bad as they will so they would have some mercy on their own and others Souls and the Church of God 2. That it 's no wonder that we differ about Antient Times and History and present Impositions when the main difference in our Times is who are godly yea tolerable Christians and who are intollerable Rogues and those that as before God by long and intimate acquaintance I judge to be the most serious conscionable humble holy Ministers and People that were ever known to me are the Persons that the Prelatists prosecute silence and cry out against as the most intollerable wicked Enemies of Piety Truth and Peace What is it that is the root of this 3. That this foresaid Book is one continued Calumny unworthy of an Answer partly making my duty my sin as that I disliked the many drunken Readers that were the Teachers of my Youth c. and partly perverting scraps of sentences and partly reciting one revoked Book and a few retracted sentences of another when Augustin is commended for retracting far more and filling it with a multitude of most gross untruths of his own fiction 4. That as to his and Mr. Morrice and others talk of the Wars I say 1. That I never thought the Parliament blameles◠2. That yet on Bilson's grounds I was in my Judgment and Speech and Action comparatively for them while they made their Commissions to Essex for King and Parliament 3. That from Naseby Fight I wholly laboured to have drawn off their Souldiers from Errour and Rebellion and Usurpation in which I did and suffered more than multitudes of my Accusers 4. That I never went so far against the Power of the King as R. Hooker whom I have long ago confuted 5. That I never struck or hurt man in the wars 6. That I will consent to be silenced and imprisoned if they will but give those Ministers leave to preach Christs Gospel that never had to do with wars unless for the King 7. That when our beginning Concord had restored the King the Scots though unsuccessfully fought for him Monk his Army that had bloodily at Dundee c. fought against him had with the Concurrence of Sir Tho. Allen the Londoners and Presbyterians restored him when the King by them came in Triumph Honoured Monk and others of them confest them the Cause of his Restoration past an Act of Oblivion that we might all live in future Peace I say If after all this it be Prelacy and Clergy Interest and Spirit that will rub over all the healed wounds and strive again what ever it cost us to ulcerate the peoples minds and resolve that the Land and Church shall have no Peace but by the destruction of such as restored the King I shall think never the better of Prelacy for this But ask them why did you not Speak it out in 1660 to Monk and his Army or till now § 23. And whereas that Advocate described Job 8. and you are still deceiving the ignorant by facing men down with Confidence that I lie in saying that Two Episcopal Parties began the War in England and the Papists and Presbyterians came in but as Auxiliaries I again say 1. Allow me but reasonable leave and I will prove it to the shame of you if you deny it 2. At present I will but recite one clause in Whitlocks Memorials pag. 45. even after they thought themselves under a necessity to please the Scots as far as they could Anno 1640. The Commons had debate about a new Form of Ecclesiastical Government and July 17. agreed That every Shire shall be a several Diocess a Presbytery of Twelve Divines in each Shire and a President as a Bishop over them and he with the assistance of some of the Presbytery to ordain suspend deprive degrade and excommunicate To have a Diocesan Synod once a year and every third year a National Synod and they to make Canons but none to be binding till confirmed by Parliament The Primate of Armagh offered an expedient for conjunction in point of Discipline that Episcopal and Presbyterian Government might not be at a far distance but reducing Episcopacy to the Form of Synodical Government in the Primitive Church Were not these men Episcopal It 's much like Mr. Thorndike's own motions saving his Opinion for Forein Jurisdiction § 24. As to your first and last Chapters and about the Antient Extent of Churches while my Treatise of Episcopacy which fully confuteth you is unanswered if I repeat it again it will not be read by weary men And another hath answered those parts of your Book which is ready for the Press I after tell you where Chrysostom even in his time numbers the Christians in that great Imperial City to be an hundred thousand that is as many as in Martins and Stepney Parishes and perhaps in Giles Cripplegate too § 25. To conclude whereas Mr. M. in general chargeth me as falsifying History I still call my self a HATER of FALSE HISTORY and loath Mr. Morrice's History because it is false But if he will instead of falsifying and trifling shew me any false History that I have owned I will thank him unfeignedly and retract it But factious reproaching of good men and painting the deformed face of Vice go not with me for convincing proof If I am not near of kin to Erasmus I am a stranger to my self even as Merula and M. Adamus describe him Ingenio erat simplex adeo abhorrens a mendacio ut puellus etiam odisset pueros mentientes
senex ad illorum adspectum etiam corpore commoveretur Dignitatum magnarum divitiarum contumax contemptor neque quicquam prius otio habuit ac libertate And I think as it is said of Cuspinian Ratus se satisfacturum ingenuo Lectori siquae verissima esse comperisset simplicissima oratione mandaret posteritati satis enim est historico ut praeclare dixit apud Ciceronem Catullus non esse Mendacem And as to my ends and expectations I am not so vain as to write with any great hope of persuading many if any who are possest of large Diocess Wealth and Power to forsake them much less to cure the common Thirst that corrupted Nature is possest with and to be the means of a Publick Reformation If I may satisfie my Conscience and save some from being deceived by false History about the Causes of the Antient Schisms it 's all that I can hope for Had I lived in Alb. Crantzius daies I might perhaps have said as he of Luther Frater Frater abi in cellam tuam dic Miserere mei Deus Et de Canonicis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dictis Nunquam posse eos reduci ad meliorem srugem nisi prius a viris doctis expugnata arce i. e. Papatu And for my self none of the Interested mens reproaches are unexpected to me Anger will speak I know what the Papists say of the Reformers and all the Protestants And yet I expect that all at last will turn to the disgrace of falshood by putting men to search Church-History for the Truth The case of Capnio is worth a brief recital A covetous Jew pretending Conversion contrived with the Fryers and Inquisitors to get a great deal of money from the Jews by procuring an Edict from the Emperour to burn all the Jews Books that so they might purchase them of the Fryers The Emperour will first hear what Capnio a great Hebrician saith Capnio adviseth to spare all that only promoted the Hebrew Literature and burn only those that were written against Christ Hockstrate and the Fryers were vext thus to lose the prey and accused Capnio of Heresie The cause is oft tryed especially at Rome All the Learned Hebricians were for Capnio The Fryers raged the more This awakened many Learned men to search into the Cause and armed them against the Fryers Galatinus Hutten Erasmus c. are for Capnio The Fryers accuse them also of Heresie But by this they stirred up such a Party of the most Learned men against them that when Tezelius came to vend his Indulgencies Luther had so many ready to joyn against the Inquisitors and Mercenary cheating Fryers as greatly furthered the Reformation And two or three ingenuous Conformists who have lately written against the violent battering Canoneers do tell us that some are like to be excited by the Overdoing of the Accusing silencing Party to search better into the matter of Fact and Right till they can distinguish between an Eucrasie and a Tympanite Or if this world be incurable they cannot keep us out of the heavenly Jerusalem where there is no Errour Schism nor Persecution because no Ignorance Malignity or Pride but the General Assembly of perfect Spirits are united in one perfect Head in perfect Life and Light and Love The particular Defence of the History of Councils and Schisms An Account to Mr. Morrice why my mentioning the Church-distracting sins of the Clergy when worldly grandeur corrupted them is not a Dishonouring but a Honouring of the Primitive Church And to vindicate those sins is no Vindicat ion of the Primitive Church CHAP. I. The Reason and Design of my History of Bishops and Councils § 1. THEY that know the men with whom I have to do and the Cause which I have in Controversie with them will easily understand my purpose The Persons with whom I am to deal are such as hold 1. That a General Council of Bishops or the Colledge of Bishops Governing per Literas formatas out of Council are the Supreme Governing Power over the Universal Church on Earth having the Power of Universal Legislation and Judgment 2. That among these the Pope is justly the Patriarch of the West and the Principium unitatis to the whole and the ordinary President in such Councils And say some It belongs only to the President to call them and they are but rebellious Routs that assemble without a just call 3. That there is no concord to be had but in the Obedience to this Universal Governing Church But all Persons and all National Churches are Schismaticks who live not in such Subjection and obedience 4. That such as the Diocesan Episcopacy which is over one lowest Church containing hundreds or multitudes of Parishes and Altars without any other Bishop but the said Diocesan is that Episcopacy which all must be subject to while it is subject to the Universal supreme 5. That every Christian must hold subjective Communion with the Bishop of the place where he liveth And say some must not practise contrary to his Commands nor appeal for such practice to Scripture or to God 6. That if this supreme Power silence the Diocesans or these Diocesans silence all the Ministers in City or Country they must Cease their Ministry and forsake the Flocks 7. And say divers of them They are no true Churches or Ministers that have not ordination from such Diocesans yea by an uninterrupted succession from the Apostles And for want of this the Forein reformed Churches are no true Churches but the Church of Rome is Much more of this Nature I have already transcribed and confuted out of A. Bishop Bromhall Dr. Heylins Life of A. Bishop Laud Mr Thorndike Mr Dodwell and divers others § 2. The first thing then in my intention is to shew that the Roman Grandeur which is thought to be the Glory of the Church on Earth and the necessary means of its Unity safety and true prosperity hath proved clean contrary even the means of Church corruption in Doctrine Worship Discipline Conversation the Soil of the most odious crimes the means of tyranny suppression of true piety and persecution of Gods faithful Servants and of rebellious War and cruel bloodshed § 3. To this end I described the steps by which the Clergy ascended to the Papal height For as all Protestants justly maintain that their Corruption of Doctrine Worship came not in at once but by slow degrees so do they also of the Papal Government and discipline And they commonly shew the vanity of the Papists demand who ask us who was the man and which was the year as if the world had gone to bed in simple Christianity and awaked Papists the next morning Whereas it is most evident in all Church history that the Clergy leaving the Christian Purity Simplicity and Love did climb the ladder step by step till they ascended to the Papal height And it 's a meer dream of them that think it was the Bp. of Rome alone
names that I most forget why I gave not the Christen names of Reuberus and Pistorius whether because I forgat them or because I minded not so small a thing not dreaming what would be inferred from it I remember not But when I wrote that abridgment I made use of none that I thought the Papists would except against For the first ages I gathered what I remembred out of the Fathers and out of Eusebius Socrates Sozomen Evagrius Theodoret the Tripartite Nicephorus Liberatus Brev. Victor Utic Beda and such others as are by them received Besides which I principally followed and Epiâ—omized Binnius and Crab and partly Baronius with Platina Onuphrius Panunius Stella Petavius and others of their own And I resolved I would not so much as open Goldastus or any Protestant Collector that they might not except against their Credit and reject them as malicious cursed Hereticks as Labbe doth Melchior Goldastus and almost all such others as he mentions and as Gretser Sanders and other Papists commonly do Therefore even those Histories which be in Goldastus I would not take as out of him but some of them from the books published by others and some as cited by Binnius Petavius or other such And this is now the proof of my Vanity § 2. It is a mistake if he think that I intended as he speaks to be a Compiler of General Church History When I professed but to acquaint the English Reader with the true matter of fact out of the Papists themselves what the ambitious part of Bishops and Councils have done and by what degrees the Papacy sprang up and whether subjection to the ascendent exort Prelacy be absolutely necessary to Concord and Salvation § 3. As to his saying I am the first that ever reckoned Nazianzen among Historians I take the writings of the Fathers especially Justin Clemens Alex. Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Basil Nazianzen Hierom Chrysostom Augustin to be the best part of Church History especially their Epistles And of this opinion I am not the first CHAP. V. Of his Accusation of my citing Hanmer and other Translators and being deceived by Binnius and such others § 1. 1. HE accuseth me for not using Valesius his Edition of Eusebius and those Editions of the Councils which he accounteth the best To which I say 1. I am not Rich Enough to buy them nor can keep them if I had them Must none write but Rich men The French Councils would cost more than many of us are worth We have had no Ecclesiastical maintenance these 19 years and we cannot keep the books we have Luther wrote his book de Conciliis when it seems he had never read many of the Councils Acts but as related by Eusebius Socrates Sozomen and the Tripartite History 2. Dr. James hath long ago warned all Scholars to make much of Crab and other old ones and the Fathers as Printed at Basil by Erasmus Amerbachius c. and not to trust much to new Editions as coming through untrusty hands 3. Is Valesius a man of so much credit with you Do you believe what he saith of Grotius as being in judgment for the Papal Church and only in prudence delaying his visible Communion with them that he might draw in many with him Vales in Orat. de Petavio If he lye in this and the success of Petavius on Grotius why should he be more trusted than others If not I need not tell you what to think of those Bishops and Drs. who profess to be of the same mind and Church as Grotius nor again to tell you who they be 4. My design led me not to make use of Criticks but only to tell the world what the Papists themselves confess such as I have throughout cited § 2. As for my using Hanmers Translation of Eusebius and Socrates my case was â—s before described Valesius I had not Grineus I made use of heretofore But since I was by constraint deprived both of my books and money to buy more when I wrote that Abridgment I had only Hanmers Translation left me And if that sort of men that forced me to give away my books to keep them from being distreined on will make use of this to prove me ignorant of them the matter is very small to me If you say I should not then have written I answer could they so have silenced us in the Pulpit they had more answered their own judgment than mine I had no use for Criticks nor for any thing in Eusebius and Socrates that depends on the credit of the Translator § 3. As to his oft noting that in Translations and sometime in Chronology I err by following Binnius I answer had I written a full Church History I should better have examined him and others But I lay no stress of my cause of any of Binnius his Translations nor will I undertake for any Historian that I cite My business was but to tell those that believe Binnius and Baronius and such other what they say Nor do I yet intend to bestow any time in examining whether he wrong Binnius or not it being nothing to my cause nor me whether he mistook a year or the meaning of a word of the Authors whom he citeth § 4. He saith I use an old uncorrect Edition of Binnius 1606. Ans It is that which is in most common use entituled Recognita Aucta notis Illustrata dedicated to the Pope and to C. Baronius ejus monitu scripta qui veterem illam mendosam mutilam confusam compilationem mille locis illustravit c. commonly Preferred before Crab Surius Nicolinus c. But any quarrel serveth some men CHAP. VI. Of his Accusations of my own Mistranslations and Mistakes § 1. OF these are two real Oversights which he nameth committed by too much hast and heedlesness The one is that I misplaced Vere in the Translation of a Speech of Theodorets a gross oversight I confess The other that I put Episcopi as if it had been the 〈…〉 tive case when it was the Nominative plural which also was a heedless oversight And about the death of Stephanus he noteth my mistranslating Calami and I imagine yet he is scarce certain what it signified himself As for his note of my use of Scripture about the Ephesine Council I purposely kept to the literal Translation that none might say I did mistranslate it but I never said that by the Scriptures was meant the Bible § 2. This Accuser puts too great an honour on such a History as mine which goeth through so many Ages and Acts in noting so few and such little things I never pretended to be as good an Historian as he is yet I do not think that it was any thing but a slip of memory that made him put Eustathius instead of Flavian as kickt to death at Ephesus And me thinks he that thus begins his Errata of his own Book The faults that have escaped are almost infinite should not for one false Comma of the
Death I confess I understand not Latine I thought the Council meant Death by Lex perimi jubet but they would be more merciful which I blamed them not for but noted here what many other Canons instance where they also punish murder but with keeping men from Communion that this agreeth with some Sectaries Opinion I leave Mr. M's great skill in expounding Councils here to any equal Judge But if I ignorantly mistake in all this and neither Capitis sententia feriantur nor Vivas in terra desossas signifie Death but Excommunication yet many other Canons after cited fully tell us of the Bishops Clemency CHAP. VII Mr M's Exposition of Church History tryed by his Exposition of my own words And 1. Of his false supposition that I am only for a Church of one Congregation meeting in one place § 1. IF so many repetitions of my Opinion cannot save Mr M. from so untrue a supposition of my self I must not too far trust him of the sence of those that he is as distant from as I. Yet this supposition running through all his book shews that he wrote it against he knew not whom nor what His foundation is because I define a single Church by Personal present Communion § 2. I do so And 1. Doth he think there is no such thing as Christians conjoyned for assembling in Gods ordinary worship under the Conduct of their Proper Pastors I will not censure him so hardly as to think he will deny it 2. Are these Churches or not I suppose he will say Yea. 3. But is there no Personal Presâ—nt Communion but in publick worship Yes sure Neighbours who worship God in divers places may yet live in the Knowledge and conversation of each other and may meet for Election of Officers and other Church businesses and may frequently exhort reprove and admonish each other and relieve each other in daily wants and many meet sometimes by turns in the same place where they all cannot meet at once We have great Towns like Ipswich Plymouth Shrewsbury c. which have many Parishes and yet Neighbourhood maketh them capable of Personal Communion in Presence as distinct from Communion by Letters or Delegats with those that we neither see nor know And we have many great Parishes which have several Chappels where the People ordinarily meet yet per vices some one time and some another come to the Parish Churches Have these no Parochial Personal Communion To the well-being of a Church I confess I would not have a single Church of the lowest species have too many nor too few No more than whose Personal Communion should be frequent in Gods publick worship Nor so few as should not fully employ more Ministers of Christ than one But to the Being of a Church I only require that the End of their Association be Personal Communion as distinct from distant Communion by Letters and delegates And by Communion I mean not only the Sacrament § 2. It is in vain therefore to answer a book that goeth on such false suppositions and a man that will face down the world that I plead for that which I never owned and so frequently disclaim CHAP. VIII Of his false supposition that I am against Diocesan Bishops because I am against that species of them which puts down all the Bishops of single Churches and those Churches themselves § 1. THis supposition goeth through almost all the book In his preface he saith The superiority of Bishops over Presbyters is acknowledged by Catholicks and Schismaticks Hereticks c. and yet this Church history would have us believe the Contrary And so throughout § 2. And yet to shew that he knew the Contrary in one place he confesseth it and described part of my judgment and saith that none will be of my mind in it but it is singular to my self Yea I had in my Disput of Church Government which he taketh on him in part to answer and in my Treat of Episcopacy which he also pretends to answer in part told them of more sorts of Bishops than one that I oppose not no not A. Bishops themselves And one of them hereupon notes it as if I differed but about the name submitting to Diocesans so they may but be called A. Bishops To whom I answered that A. Bishops have Bishops under them so that though I over and over even to tediousness tell them it is the dâ—posing of all the first or lowest Species of Bishops and Churches and Consequently all Possibility of true Disâ—ipline that I opposâ— and submit to any that oversee many such Churches without destroying them and their priviledges instituted by Christ I speak â—ill in vain to them These true Historians face down the world that I write whole books to the clean contrary CHAP. IX Of his supposition that I am an Independent and yet that I plead for the cause of the Presbyterians § 1. THis is also a supposition that is part of the Stamina of his Book and how far he is to be believed herein judge by the evidence following 1. He knew what I said before for three sorts of Bishops 1. Episcopi Gregis Overseers of single lowest Churches as of Divine Institution 2. For Episcopi Episcoporum or Presidents-Bishops ejusdem Ordinis non ejusdem Gradus in the same Churches as of early Humane Institution which I resist not 3. Episcopi Episcoporum Overseers of many Churches which I suspect to be Successors of the Apostles and of such as Timothy Titus c. in the continued ordinary part of their work exercising no other Power than they did Insomuch that Dr. Sherlock would be thought so much less Episcopal than I as that he saith It is Antichristian to assert Episcopos Episcoporum § 2. And Dr. Parker hath newly written a Book for Episcopacy which I hear many despise but for my part I take to be the strongest that I have seen written for it these twenty years but to no purpose against me for it is but for Episcopacy in general which I oppose not It excellent well improveth the Arguments of the K. and Bishops at the Isle of Wight even that one Argument that a Superiority of some over others being settled by Christ and his Apostles that Form must be supposed to continue unless we have clear proof of the Repeal or Cessation I have ost said the same I could never answer that Argument But this will not justifie the deposing of thousands of Bishops and Churches and of their Discipline to turn them all into two or three Diocesans § 3. Also he knoweth that I have written these 35 years against Lay. Elders believing that the Colledge of Elders which of old assisted the Bishops were none of them Lay-men nor unordained but of the same Order though not Degree with the Bishop himself § 4. And I have also written that Synods of Bishops or Presbyters are but for Concord and have not as such by a major Vote a proper Government of the minor part
or absent Much less that Classes and other Assemblies are the stated Church-Government which all must obey And are the Presbyterians of any of the three forementioned Opinions § 5. I ever held a necessity of manifold dependance of all Christians and Churches As all depend on Christ as their Head so do all the People on the Pastors as their authorized Guides whom they must not Rule but be Ruled by 1 Thes 5. 12 13. Heb. 13. 17 24. And all these Churches depend on each other for Communion and Mutual Help as many Corporations in one Kingdom And frequent Synods well used are greatly helpful to these ends And the Command of doing as much as we can in Love and Concord doth bind all the particular persons to concur with the Synods in all things that tend to the Peace and Edification of the Church or are not against it And more than so if the general Visitors or Bishops that take care of many Churches do by God's Word direct instruct reprove admonish the particular Bishops and Churches they ought with reverence to hear them and obey them And if Independents really are for all this why do these Accusers represent them odiously as if it were no such matter but they were meerly for Church-Democracy Either you are not to believed in what you say of them or of me § 6. I know we have men that say that on pretence of acknowledging all this Episcopacy I put down all because I take from them the power of the Sword and leave all to despise them if they please Ans This indeed is the power that under the name of Episcopacy now too many mean Bishop Bilson knew no Power but Magistrates by the Sword and Ministers by the Word But why name I one man It is the common Opinion of Protestants and most sober Papists that Bishops as such have no power of force on Body or Purse But we deny not the forcing Power of the Magistrate 3. But we heartily wish that they would keep it in their own hands and never use it to force unwilling men into the Church or to Church-Communion high Priviledges which no unwilling person hath any right to This is my Independency CHAP. X. Of his Accusation That I make the Bishops the Authors of all Heresies and Schisms as distinct from Presbyters Monks and People § 1. THis also runs throughout his Book and must such Books be answered or believed I never denyed the guilt and concurrence of others with them I only say That as Bishops were the Chief so they had the chief hand as far as I can yet learn in Heresies and Schisms since they came to their height of Power and specially in those grand Heresies and Schisms which have broken and keep the Churches in those great Sects and Parties which in East and West it consisteth of to this day I never doubted or denyed but that 1. The Heresies that were raised before the Church had any Patriarchs or the turgent sort of Bishops were certainly raised without them 2. And afterward sometime a Presbyter began a Heresie 3. And the Bishops were but as the Generals of the Army in all the Church Civil Wars But I never denyed but the Prelatical Priests Monks and multitude were their obsequiâ—us Army § 2. Mr. M. saith That those Bishops that were Hereticks were mostly such or inclined to it before Answ 1. Was there then a good Succession of Ordination when the World groaned to find it self Arian Were all these Arians before their Consecration Answ 2. Were they not all Prelatical Presbyters that aspired to be Bishops and so as they say had a Pope or Bishop in their bellies I never thought that Prelatical Priests that studied Preserment and longed to be Bishops had no hand in Heresies nor Schisms no more than that the Roman Clergy are innocent herein and the fault is in the Pope alone What a deal then of this man's Book is lost and worse on such suppositions CHAP. XI Of his confident Accusation that I mention all the faults of the Bishops and none of their Goodness or Good Deeds § 1. THis also is a chief part of the Warp or Stamen of his Book In his Preface he saith This History of Bishops is nothing else but an Account of all the faults that Bishops have committed in the several Ages of the Church without Any Mention of their Good Actions of their Piety and Severity of their Lives of their Zeal for the Faith c. Answ 1. Whether this Fundamental Accusation be true or false let the Reader who loveth Truth see 1. In the very first Chapt. from § 41. to the end 2. Through all the Book where I oft praise good Bishops good Councels and good Canons and good Books and Deeds 3. In the two last Chapters of the Book written purposely to hinder an ill use of the Bishops faults In the first Chapter Very many of the Bishops themselves were humble holâ— faithful men that grieved for the miscarriages of the rest Though such excellent persons as Gregory of Neocaesarea Greg. Nazianz. Greg. Nyssen Basil Chrysostom Augustine Hillary Prosper Fulgentius c. were not very common no doubt but there were many that wrote not Books nor came so much into the notice of the World but avoided contentions and factious stirs that quietly and honestly conducted the Flocks in the waies of Piety Love and Justice And some of them as St. Martin separated from the Councils and Communion of the prevailing turbulent sort of the Prelates to signifie the disowning of their sins Of the Antients before the world crowded into the Church I never made question Such as Clemens Polycarp Ignatius Irenaeus and the rest How oft I have praised holy Cyprian and the African Bishops and Councils he sometime confesseth What I say of Atticus Proclus and other peaceable Bishops you may see p. 17. and very oft Yea of the Bishops of many Sects much of the Albigenses c. p. 17 18. Yea of the good that was done by the very worldly sort p. 18 19 20. Yea of the Papists Bishops that were pious p. 20. § 46. And § 47. I vindicate the excellency of the Sacred Office And § 53 58 59 60. I plead for Episcopacy it self in the justifiable species of it § 2. But perhaps he will say that at least I say more of their faults than their 〈◊〉 I answer of such good Bishops as Cyprian Basil Greg. Nazianzen Chrysostom Augustin Hillary Martin c. I speak of their virtues and nothing at all that I remember of their faults Of such as Theophilus and Cyril Alexandri and Epiphanius c. I speak of their virtues and some of their faults as the scripture doth of many good mens Of the more ambitious turbulent sort I speak only or mostly of their faults For I profess not to write a History of their lives but to inform the ignorant what Spirit it is that brought in Church tyranny and divisions I denyed
take all you have do not say you hâ—rt us much less you wrong us take not on you to know or feel when you are hurt else we will have an Action of railing against you § 8. That wâ—iâ—h followeth I answered before But after he finds a notable piece of my ignorance The Pope inviting the King of Denmark to conquer a Province of Hereticks I know not who they were unless they were the Waldenses Well guest saith Mr. M. Waldo was in 1160 80 Years after Ans This will serve for men willing to be deceived It was the Persons and Religion and not the name that I spoke of Doth not he know that Rainerius himself saith that those Persons called Albigenses Waldenses and other such names professed that their way of Religion was Apostolical and they derived it down from Silvesters that is Constantines time If I did not guess well I wrong no Bishops by iâ— and I confessed my Ignorance that I knew not whom the Pope meant And why did not this callent Historian tell us who they were § 9. Next he hath met with my Ignorance for saying Vienna near France which is in the Borders of France Aâ—s 1. Is that any slander of Bishops or Councils 2 Truly I had many a time read in Councils that Vienna was in France and had not forgot it if Ferrarius and Chenu had not also told it me And whether it was the fault of the Printer or of my Hand or my Memory that put near for in I leave it freely to his Judgment for I remember it not And if the manner of Binnius naming it made me call Ordo Prophetarum in Gelasius a Book it 's no wrong to Episcopacy CHAP. XVII His Censure of my Design and Church-Principles considered § 1. AS to this his first Chapter I have before shewed how falsly he reporteth my design He saith he never saw any thing which more reflecteth on Religion Lucian and Julian have left nothing haâ—f so scandalous in all their Libels against Christians as this Church-History has raked up Here is nothing to be seen in his Book but the Avarice Ignorance Mistakes and furious Contentions of the Governours of the Church Ans How false that is the Reader may see in all the beginning the two Chapters in the end and much in the midst which are written contrarily to obviate such false thoughts 2. Is the ascendent sort of Prelates that were growing up to maturity till Gregory the Seventh's daies the whole Church of God Are there no other Christians Is all that is written against the Pope and such Ascendents written against Christianity Did Christ speak against Christianity when he reproved them for striving who should be greatest or Peter when he counselled them as 1 Pet. 5. And Paul when he said I have no man like minded for they all seek their own things and not the things that are Jesus Christ's Or when he said Demas hath forsaken me c Or John when he said Diotrephes loved to have the preheminence Or all those Councils of Bishops which condemned each other far deeplier than I judge any of them What have I said of Fact or Canons which Binnius and their other Flatterers say not Was it not there extant to the sight of all And that I Recorded not all their Virtues 1. The History of Councils saith little of them 2. Must no man shew the hurt of Drunkenness Gluttony c. and so of Ambition and Church-corruption unless he will write so Voluminous a History as to contain also all the good done by all the persons whom he blameth I have oft said that I wondered that instead of so greedy gathering up all the scraps of Councils the Papists did not burn them all as they have done many better Books which made against them § 2. I was about to answer all his first Chapter but I find it so useless a work that I shall ease my self and the Reader of that labour 1. He takes on him to answer a Piece of a Disputation written about 23 years ago whereas I have lately written a Treatise of Episcopacy with fuller proof of the same things which he nameth and takes on him to answer some part of it and answers not Till he or some other shew me the mistakes of that let them talk on for me in their little Velitations 2. Most that is considerable which he saith is answered already in that Book As his fiction that Unum Alt are in Ignatius signifieth not an ordinary Communion Table c. And much more out of Ignatius and many more is added which he saith nothing to 3. I have before shewed that he goeth on false Suppositions that I am only for a Bishop of a single Congregation or against all and many such when yet he himself confesseth the contrary yea derideth me for making Twelve sorts of Bishops and being for such as no Party is like to be pleased with 4 The contradictions and mistakes are so many as would tire the Reader to peruse an answer to them And when he hath all done with the numbring of Churches over-passing the full proof of the Primitive Form of them which I gave as before he confesseth that even his great esteemed Jesuite Valesius believes that the City Church was but One even in Alexandria and in Dionysius ' s time p. 64. And while p. 65. he makes Petavius and Valesius so much to differ as to gather their contrary Opinions from the same words and consequently one of them at least understood them not I that profess my self not comparable to either of them specially Petavius in such things am taken for a falsifier if I misunderstand a word that concerneth not the matter of the History This therefore being not about Church-History so much as against my Opinion of the Antient Government when he hath answered the foresaid Treatise of Episcopacy if I live not some one may reply if he deal no better than in this CHAP. XVIII Of his Second Chapter § 1. PAg. 78. He would have men believe that it is Discipline against real Heresie that I find so much fault with and ascribe all mischief to Answ Utterly contrary to my most open Profession It is only making those things to seem Heresie that are none either Truth or meer difference of words or small mistakes or curing Heresies by rash Anathema's without necessary precedent means of Conviction or by Banishment or Blood § 2. Is this it that you defend the Church for and we oppose it for When we would have none in our Churches whom we know not and that have not personally if at Age profest understandingly their Faith And what is the Discipline that you exercise on Hereticks It 's enough that you know them not and so never trouble them Your Talk and Pamphlets truly complain what swarms of Hobbists Sadduces Infidels Atheists are among us Do they not all live in the Parishes and Diocesses Doth the Bishop know them Are any of
troubled at any one that did turn Quaker or against Infant Baptism than some indifferent Persons are at Multitudes And I was one that disputed most against them and wrote against some distant Antinomians mostly Souldiers But our Disputes satisfied and confirmed all our Neighbours more than Prisons would have done We punished none of them and none of our People there turned to them But I confess we were commonly too little sensible how much hurtful Violence hindereth Concord more than loving forbearance of tolerable differences As too many were how much for Peace they should have abated of the Zeal for their private Opinions which they thought to be better than they were We were much like the days that followed the Apostles which had some troublesome Sectaries but the main Body of Christians did cleave together in Love till success had puft up a rebellious Army to make themselves Rulers to the Confusion of themselves and others § 35. At last mentioning the common Dissentions of the Churches he seems to resolve the Question What then must be done But he puts us off only with the Negative Answer that the Rule i. e. of our Uniformity is not to be altered And why We have no assurance that we shall find any Conformity to it more than we have now Ans I must not call this Answer as it deserveth 1. You were about dealing otherwise with the Papists Dr. Heylin tells us how much they were to have altered for Concord Mr. Thorndike threatens the Land if you alter not the Oath of Supremacy for them The name of the Pope and Anti-Christ hath been expunged for them yet you said not We know not that they will come any nearer us 2. By these measures a Rag or a Ceremony should never be abated for the Peace and Concord of any Church or Kingdom You may still say we are not sure that this will serve them The Pope may say so where he refuseth to abate the shaving of the Priests Beards or the least of his Impositions yea he knows that would not serve They said so to the Bohemians four Demands They concluded so at first against Luther This very Argument hath kept them from all Reformation 3. Can you find nothing in your Impositions that in the nature of the thing is worthy to be altered If not you have more or less Wisdom than Bishop Morton and the rest of the Church Doctors who at Westminster motioned so many Alterations â—â— one should but then move you to correct your known false Rule for finding Easterday or to give Parents leave to be the first Promisers for their own Children and Godfathers but their seconds or not to deny Christendom and Communion for that or a Ceremony No come on it what will nothing must be altered lest men ask more And yet you preach against Clergy Infallibility or subscribe at least 4 But if you are so much against altering why did you alter to our greater suffering and add as much more yea five times more to the former Task and Burden You can no doubt say somewhat for all this 5. And when it is the same things that the old Nonconformists still asked and we since 1660 askt yet less what reason had you to raise that suspicion that we will not be satisfied with what we ask Have we given you any cause If you mean that perhaps there be some still that may be unsatisfied will you deny Peace to so many that beg it of you because others will not accept it on their Terms Or will you never agree with any lest some disagreement should arise hereafter Some Travellers were assaulted by the high way by a Captain of Souldiers who took all their Money Swords and Horses and swore he would kill them if they would not take an Oath to conceal him One took the Oath to save his Life another scrupled it They begg'd his Mercy to restore so much as would bring them home He askt them what would satisfie them One would have his Horse another his Sword another part of his Money He told them You are a Company of Rogues that can neither agree what to ask nor give me assurance if I give you this you will ask no more I compare not the Authority but the Reasons of the Denial § 36. But seeing no abatement of their Canons c. must be granted what is it that must cause our Concord He would not tell you but it 's discernible what 's left It must be no Concord but what Punishment can procure And what punishment Sharper than is yet tried for that hath not done it Such Concord as Tertullian nameth Solitudinem faciunt pacem vocant The Concord in Spain is worse than the Amsterdam toleration Again I remember the great Fish-Pond mentioned by Judge Hale that had multitudes of Fish and frie and at last two small Pikes put in when the Pond was drawn there was never a Fish but the two Tyrants as he calls them grown to a huge bigness The fear least Popery and Prelacy should be the two Pikes tempted men irregularly to covenant against them To have such variety as Roch Dace Pierch Tench Carp made it a Schismatical Pond The two Pikes were against Schism and Toleration and for ending the Division by reducing all to unity of Species § 37. As to his Question of Qu. Elizabeths days the Intimation may seduce the ignorant but none else 1. If he know not that it was the Subscription required in the Canons that nothing in the Books is contrary to the Word of God scrupled which broke the Peace and Concord of England he is unfit by his Ignorance to be an Informer of others I have known many that would have yielded to come into the Conforming Church if that one word had been but forborn For when any practice against their Consciences about baptizing Communion or Burials had faln in their way they would have silently shifted it off or been from home and have ventured to answer it so they could but conscionably have got in But our Canoneers are for all or nothing 2. He is sure no English Clergy-man if he know not how much is laid on us that was not known in the days of Qu. Elizabeth Is it to inform men or deceive them that he makes the difference to be between 36 and 39 Articles and saith nothing of all the new Covenants Declarationâ— Oaths Subscriptions Doctrine and Practises § 38. Many make use of Mr. Edwards Gangrena and the London Ministers Testimony against errours to prove the Heresies and Confusions of the late times No doubt all sin is odious But few men living are more competent Witnesses of those things than I. The Errours that sprung up were much more tenderly resented then than now You now have many called Wits and Persons of Quality who at a Club dispute against the Providence of God the immortality of the Soul and a future Life and there is neither Church-Admonition Excommunication nor any great
an Interdict till the Bishops and King were restored and that Christs Gospel was no more to be preached in England till Diocesanes returned but all Souls be given up to Damnation unless Christ would save them without the preaching of his Gospel and the Land was to be left to the Devil and Paganism And who can deny now but the Diocesane Species is essential to the Church IV. When I spake only of the silencing and ejecting Act of Aug. 24. 1662. he would make the Reader believe that this Change was to restore the Churches to their ejected Pastors or cast out Usurpers whereas unless Ignorance or worse hinder him he knoweth that all that were cast out and were alive laid claim to their Benefices and were restored before that and their Livings resigned quietly to them to say nothing of the rest that were supposed to be at the Lord Chancellors disposal Those that were put out that the sequestred might re-enter were none of them silenced nor made uncapable of other Livings till August 24. 1662. V. He would insinuate that it was only the Nonconformists that were cast out of such sequestrations Whereas in the Countries that I either lived in or heard of it was as many or more of the Conformists that had sequestred Livings and were cast out and took new presentations VI. And this is evident by his Intimation as if it were a very great number of the Church Livings that were so possest Whereas of Nine Thousand or Ten Thousand Ministers then in Possession Seven or Eight Thousand Conformed Therefore it 's likely that the Conformists had most of the Sequestrations VII He tells you that the Ejected Ministers were brought in to instruct the People in the Lawfulness of Rebellion Doth not this intimate that this was the case only or chiefly of the silenced Nonconformists But I have oft cited Jewel defending the French Protestants Was not he a Bishop I have oft cited Bilson affirming it no Rebellion if the Nobles and People defend their Legal Constitution against one that will I will not recite the rest I have oft cited Ri. Hooker whose popular Principles I have conâ—ured and goeth higher against absolute Monarchy than I or any of my Correspendency did in all the Wars Heylin is for Conciliation with the Papists He knoweth not their Writings who knoweth not that the Papists are more for popular Election and Power towards Princes far than ever such as I were And had he not put his Head and Eyes into a Bag he could hardly have denied but that they were Episcopal Conformists on both sides that began the War But being got into the dark he loudly denieth it VIII He saith There were many others that himself would not have thought fit to have continued Ans I thought I was more likely to know them than he I remember not one such of an hundred that did not conform I confess that when the Prelatical party intreated me no longer to refuse the Westminster Commissioners Letters deputing me with others to try and judge of some Episcopal Conformists that stood then for Livings to avoid all seeming opposition to that way I did stretch as far as I durst to approve and keep in some Conformists of very low parts who knew not a quarter so much as some Lay People did But none of these were Nonconformists IX He saith All the rest were such as would not submit to the Rule then established in the Church This is true And what was that Rule Did Peter or Paul make it or submit to it Did they refuse any thing that God commanded in Nature or Scripture Or any Circumstantials necessary in genere left in specie to the Magistrates determination They were guilty of believing that God is above man and that there is no Power but of God and none against him and that we must please him whoever be displeased They were guilty of so much Self-love as to be unwilling to be damned for a Benefice or for a Bishops Will. They did not consent to profess Assent and Consent to all things contained in and prescribed by three Books written by such as declare themselves to be fallible and such as not one of Fourty ever saw before they declared the said Assent and Consent to them They did not consent to cast out all Infants from Christendom whose Parents durst not offer them to Baptism under the Sacramental Symbol of the Cross nor unless they might have themselves been Covenanters Undertakers or Promisers for them as well as the Godfathers Or that scrupled getting Strangers to undertake that perfidiously for their Children which they never intended to perform They durst not read Excommunications against Christs true Servants nor repel those from Christian Communion who scruple kneeling in the reception of the Sacrament They durst not swear that many Thousands whom they never knew are not obliged by the Covenant when they know not in what sence they took it For they are not willing to believe that the compounding Lords and Knights did not put a good sence on it before they took it They durst not say that all is so well in our Church Government by Diocesanes Lay-Chancellours Power of the Keys Archdeacons Officials Commissaries c. that we may swear against all endeavours to amend it by any alteration They do believe that the Law of Nature is Gods Law and that as it alloweth a single Person only private desence so it alloweth every Nation publick defence against Enemies notorious destroying assaults And they dare not swear or covenant that if any should from the Lord Chancellour c. get a Commission to seize on the Kings Navy Treasures Forts Guards Person and to seize on the Lives and Estates of all his Innocent Subjects that it is unlawful to resist any that execute such a Commission They find it so hard a Controversie what God doth with the dying Infants of Atheists Infidels Mahometanes and Persecutors that they dare not declare that if any of their Children be baptized and die it is certain by the word of God that they are undoubtedly saved We say not that the Law binds us to any of the evil which we fear But we dare not take Oaths and Promises which we understand not Abundance I preâ—ermâ—t He is extreamly censorious if he think that Mr. R. Hooker Bp. Bilson Bp. Grindal A. Bp. Abbot Bp. Rob. Abbot Bp. Jewel c. would have been Conformists had they been now alive X. He saith They chose rather to leave their Livings Ans They chose not to conform but submitted only to leave their Livings Eligere est agere They were passive in this they refused to conform as supposed by them a heinous Sin but they chose not to be silenced or cast out but they chose to endure it when the Bishops chose it for them XI He saith that the Bishops could not help it any otherwise than as they were Members of Parliament Ans 1. I confess Scripture useth the like Phrase
Ignorant World which is abused by such Historians as you and yours § 10. As for your assuring me that you look one day to answer for all you say it minds me of the words of your Dr. Ashâ—ton Chaplain to the Duke of Ormond who as going to the Bar of God undertakes to prove that it is through Pride and Covetousness that we conform not The Inquisitors also believe a day of Judgment And what is it that some men do not confidently ascribe to the most holy God § 11. Your praises of me are above my desert I am worse than you are aware of But mens sins against Christs Church and Servants in England Scotland and Ireland are never the less for that § 12. You shew us that you are deceived before you deceive You do but lead others into the way of falshood which you were led into your self when you say I am said to have asserted that a man might live without any actual Sin A Lord Bishop Morley p. 13. told it you and you a Lord Bishop tell it others and thus the poor World hath been long used so that of such Historians men at last may grow to take it for a valid Consequence It is written by them Ergo it is incredible I tell you first in general that I have seen few Books in all my Life which in so few Sheets have so many Falshoods in matters of Fact done before many as that Letter of Bishop Morley's which upon your Provocation I would manifest by Printing my Answer to him were it not for the charges of the Press 2. And as to your Instance the case was this Dr. Lany impertinently talkt of our being justified only by the Act of Faith and not the Habit I askt him whether we are unjustified in our sleep which led us further and occasioned me to say to some Objection of his that men were not always doing moral Acts good or evil and thence that a man is not always actually sinning viz. In a mans sleep he may live sometimes and not actually sin as also in an Apoplexy and other loss of Reason Hence the credible Bishop Morley printed that I said A man may live without any actual Sin Yea and such other Reasons are given for his forbidding me to preach the Gospel And now another pious L. Bp. going to answer it at Judgment publisheth it as from him O what a World is this and by what hands are we cast down Is my Assertion false or doubtful Dr. Bates and Dr. Jacombe who were present are yet both living By such men and means is the Church as it is Arise O Lord and save it from them § 13. You tell me as Bp. Morley of being the top of a faction of my own making neither Episcopal Presbyterian Independent or Erastian Ans So to be against all Faction is to be the top of a Faction I am neither an Arian nor a Sabellian nor an Apollinarian nor a Macedonian nor a Nestorian or Eutychian or Monothelite or a Papist c. Conclude ergo I am the top of a new Heresie and silence and imprison me for it and your Diocesane Conformity will be past all suspicion even at the heart But you will one day know that to be against all Faction and yet to bear with the Infirmities of the weak and love all Christians as such is a way that had a better Author § 14. P. 73 74. As to your extolled Friend a Nonconformist who you say told you that I am not able to bear being gainsaid in any thing for want of Academick Disputes c. Ans 1. Was your great Friend so excellent a man and was it a good work to silence him with which in your Conscience you think God is pleased 2. Now you name him not he cannot contradict you Mr. Bagshaw said somthing like it of Mr. Herle Prolocutor of the Assemblie which his Acquaintance contradict 3. I justifie not my Patience it is too little But verily if you had silenced me alone and Gods Church and Thousands of Souls had been spared I think you had never heard me twice complain Judge you whether I can endure to be gainsaid when I think there are Forty Books written against me by Infidels Socinians Papists Prelatists Quakers Seekers Antinomians Anabaptists Sabbatarians Separatists and some Presbyterians Independents Erastians Politicians c. which for the far greatest part I never answered though some of them written by Prelatists and Papists have spoken fire and Sword Nor to my Remembrance did any or all these Books by troubling me ever break one hour of my sleep nor ever grieve me so much as my own sin and pain which yet was never extream have grieved me one day Alas Sir How light a thing is the contradiction or reproach of man who is speaking and dying almost at once § 15. P. 75. As to my Political Aphorisms I have oft told you I wish they had never been written But all in them is not wrong which Bishops are against The first passage challenged by your Bishop Morley is My calling a pretence to unlimited Monarchy by the name of Tyranny adding my reason because they are limited by God who is over all Ministers were never under Turks thought worthy of punishment for such an Assertion But Bishop Morley is no Turk If Monarchs be not limited by God they may command all their Subjects to deny God or blaspheme him to take Perjury Murder and Adultery for Duties and they are unwise if ever they will be sick die or come to Judgment § 16. You say I was told by a Reverend Prelate that at the Conference at the Savoy Mr. Baxter being demanded what would satisfie him replied All or Nothing On this I reflected on what that gave Divine told me Ans Alas good man if for all other your historical notices you are faln into such hands what a mass of Untruths is in your Brain But why will you dishonour Reverend Prelates so much as to father them on such I never heard the question put What will satisfie you nor any such answer as All or Nothing When the King commissioned us to treat of such Alterations as were necessary to tender Consciences the Bishops 1. Would not treat till we would give them in writing all that we blamed in the Liturgy and all the Alterations we would have and all the additional Forms we desired 2. When thus constrained we offered these on supposition that on Debate much of it would be denied us or altered but they would not vouchsafe us any Debate on what we offered nor a word against our additional Forms Reply or Petition for Peace 3. To the last hour they maintained that No alteration at all was necessary to tender Consciences And so they ended and the Convocation doubled and trebled our Burden and the Bishops in Parliament together Once Bishop Cousins desired us to lay by Inconveniences and name only what we took for downright Sin I gave him a
Paper describing Eight such We did but begin to debate one of them Casting such from the Communion of Christs Church that dare not take the Sacrament kneeling though they be mistaken and our time ended Dr. Pierce undertook to prove it a Mercy to them to deny them the Sacrament and he made a motion to me that he and I might go about the Land to preach men into satisfaction and Conformity I asked him how I could do that when they intended to silence me For though I scrupled not kneeling at the Sacrament if they made any one Sin the condition of my Ministry I should be silenced though they abated all the rest It may be this went for All or Nothing And I am sorry that the Bishops be not of the same mind St. James was that said He that breaketh one is guilty of all And Christ was who said He that breaketh one of the least of these commands and teacheth men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of God So that it was not All Inconveniences but All flat Sins that we craved in vain to have been exempted from Much less was it the Establishment of all that we proposed to have been treated of openly professing our selves ready to alter any thing amiss or needless upon treaty and supposing there would be many such words But they would not touch our offered additions nor entertain any treaty about them And now pitty your self who have been drawn to believe such Reverend Prelates as you say and pitty such as your Writings will deceive § 17. That you take it to be contrary to a Christian temper to be sensible of the Sufferings of the Church and to name and describe the sin that causeth them and that but in a necessitated Apology for the Sufferers is no wonder the Reasons and your Answer I gave you before § 4. and 5. I think it no breach of Peace with Persecutors or Silencers to tell them what they do especially when the Sufferers are feigned to deserve it all and not to sin and that deliberately is made a sin deserving all that we suffer and the Nation by it § 18. But p. 77. tells us yet more whence your Errours come even by believing false Reports and then reporting what you believe You say Some People have talked of a Combination or Pact amongst themselves that except they might have their own Will throughout they would make the World know what a breach they could make and how considerable they were Ans 1. Do you not think that Rogers Bradford Philpot and the rest did so in Qu. Maries days and that it was they that made the Breach by being burnt What is it that such Historians may not say So Luther was taught by the Devil Bucer was killed by the Devil so was Oeclampadius Calvin was a stigmatized Sodomite and what not And even the most publick things are yet uncertain before our Eyes Godfrey killed himself The Papists had no Plot The Presbyterians have a Plot against the King The Nonconformists silenced themselves And did not the Citizens of London burn their own Houses When you that are a Bishop cite other great Bishops for such things as you do may it not come in time to be the Faith of the Church and thence to be necessary to all 2. But how do you think all these that were scattered all over England and knew not one another by name or Dwelling should so confederate 3. Do but think of it as a man There were Nine or Ten Thousand Ministers that had conformed to the Parliaments way in possession They were all to conform or be cast out The Book and Act of Uniformity came not out of the Press till about that very day Aug. 24 Neither Conformists nor after Nonconformists could see it but those in or near London What time was there to tell them all over England in one day How knew we who would conform and who would not when Nine Thousand were equally in Possession If we had written to them all would not One Thousand of our Letters have detected it Or at least some of those that conformed with whom we prevailed not 4. What was it that moved them all to this Confederacy To suffer Ruine in the World To make themselves considerable you say and shew what a Breach they could make And for what Unless they might have all their own Wills And what was their Will Was it to be Lord Bishops Or domineer over any Or to get great Benefices I think no high-way Robbers do any Villanies meerly to shew what mischief they can do much less ruine themselves to shew that they can do Mischief by Suffering Some such thing is said of some odd Circumcellians that they killed themselves to make others thought their Persecutors But Persecution was more hated then than now Did the former Life and Doctrine of these Two Thousand men signifie a Spirit so much worse than the rest 5. And do you think that the other Seven Thousand or Eight Thousand that conformed did confederate beforehand to conform How could they do it who declared Assent and Consent to every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book which they never saw unless they confederated at a venture to do whatever was imposed And if Seven Thousand could agree without confederating why not Two Thousand I could not then have my Post Letters pass without Interception And it 's a wonder that no Letter of this Confederacy was taken And I 'le tell not you but those that believe me how far we were from it When we were all cast out and some new motion was made for our service one weak man moved here that we might draw up a consenting Judgment to how much we could yield that we might not differ I answered that it was not our business to make a Faction or to strengthen a Party nor were we all of one judgment about every Ceremony and therefore no man must go against his judgment for a Combination with the rest If they would abate but so much as any one mans Conscience would be satisfied in that one man must serve the Church accordingly And if any were taken in the rest would rejoyce This Answer silenced that motion and I never heard any move it more And I am fully assured there was never such a Combination But with this exception How far any thought the Covenant bound them against our Prelacy I cannot tell Those that I convers'd with said it bound them to no more than they were bound to before But I confess we did all confederate in our Baptism against willful sin And I know of no other Confederacies but these which indeed was enough to make all men forbear what they judged to be sinful § 19. You add But yet it is not fair to over-reckon knowingly and in ordinary course Two Hundred in the sum as Mr. Baxter and others do p. 155 210. thereby to swell the account to the greater odium by
complaining roundly Two Thousand This I must conclude to be done knowingly for somtimes he only mentions One Thousand Eight Hundred p. 151 c. Ans I am persuaded that it is not knowingly that you speak so much besides the truth but for want of knowing what and whom you talk of I never medled with gathering the number Mr. Calamy did and shewed us a List of 1800 upon which I long mentioned no more and seldom saw him afterward But Mr. Ennis who was more with him assuring me that they had after an account of at least 200 more who were omitted I sometime to speak the least mention the 1800 and sometime say about 2000 and by his last account that was the least Yet with a Lord Bishop that knoweth nothing of all this I knowingly over reckon But if God be pleased with their silencing why do you take this ill § 20. The next and great Accusation is my extenuating the Bishops Clemency and aggravating our Sufferings and that against my Conscience I impute to the Bishops that bloodiness which they never intended but abhor And he will not believe what I say of the death of any by Imprisonment or want Ans The good Lady that pittied the Beggars when she came in out of the Frost and Snow when she had warmed her self chid them away and said it was warm enough I could name you those in London that travelled out of the North in great want and took up with such cold Lodgings here in great want of all things that they were past cure before their misery was known How many poor Quakers have dyed in Prison many know It 's like you never heard of the death of Mr. Field a worthy Minister in the Gate-house nor of Mr. Thompson in the noisome Prison at Bristol nor of Reverend Mr. Hughes of Plimouth's Death caused by his Prison sickness perhaps you never read the Life Sufferings and Death of excellent Joseph Allen of Taunton I will not be the gatherer of a larger Catalogue But I believe some others will But these you know not of § 21. The words in my Book which I speak argumentatively shewing clearly whither their cause will lead them if they trust to bring us to Unity by force you unworthily feign that I speak as accusing the Bishops Inclinations My Argument was If you think by violence to effect your ends it must be either by changing mens judgments or by forcing them as Hypocrites to go against their judgments or else by utter destroying them till there are no Dissenters But none of these three ways will do it Ergo Violence will not do it 1. I prove that force will not change their Judgments 2. I prove they are such men as will rather suffer death than sin against their Consciences and so less Sufferings which cure not do but exasperate the Disease 3. I prove that if when less doth no good you would destroy them that would not do your work but cross it And doth this signifie that I charge the Bishops with bloody purposes They openly tell us that it 's punishing us that must bring us to Concord I tell them Lesser will not do it and greater will but hurt themselves A man would think that I hereby rather infer that Bishops will not be bloody than that they will when I argue ab incommodo Truly Sir I see nothing in your Book which tempted me to lament that I mist the happiness of your Academical Education or Disputes Nor do I envy those that now enjoy it God save his Church from the worser part of them § 21. You say P. 79. You must needs look on my aggravating my own and the Dissenters Sufferings beyond Truth you are sure beyond Probability to have proceeded from want of temper As for saying that some have lived on brown Bread and Water Ans I find still that our difference lieth in matter of Fact done in the open sight of the World And if it were whether we are English-men I have no hope of ending it O what is History My own Sufferings by them are very small save the hindering of my Labour Leave to work is all the Preferment that ever I desired of them What I have had hath been against their Wills who have called out for my greater restraint God hath enabled me by the Charity of others to send some small relief to a few of those whose Case he will not believe Some of them have Seven or Eight Children and nothing at all of their own to maintain them and live in Countries where scarce two Gentlemen of Estates within their reach do befriend them and the People are generally poor and many of these have none to preach to being not permitted And when they attempted to meet with some few secretly to fast and pray in some case of need have had their few Goods carryed away by Distress Good Alderman Ashhurst now with Christ took care of many and hath shewed me Letters and Certificates of undoubted credit in the very words which I named One is now near us that was put to get his Living by Spinning Mr. Chadwick was the last of whom I read those words in a just certificate that he and his Children had long lived on meer brown Rye Bread and Water It is now above a dozen Years since Dr. Vermuxden told me that Mr. Matthew Hill was his Patient with Hydropical swell'd Legs with drinking Water and using answerable Food through meer Poverty But God turned it to good for necessity drove him when a little strengthened to Mary-Land where he hath been almost the only able Minister they have We that know them our selves and beg Money to relieve them are supposed to be Lyars for telling that which all their Neighbours know Through Gods Mercy few in London suffer so much though divers are in great streights But great numbers in the Countrys who live among the poor had not some of them now and then a little Relief from London were like to beg for Bread or fall into mortal Diseases by Food unfit for Nature Even in London they that knew Mr. Farnworth Mr. Spinage and some others and how they lived and dyed understand me I 'le name Mr. Martin formerly of Weedon very poor in London to tell you of your impartiality though he lost one Arm in the Kings Army he had not a day abated him in Warwick Gaol for preaching § 22. As to his repeating all my mention of their dealings and my blaming the Bishops at the Savoy for our present divisions and my aggravating the evils which Violence will produce if they trust to that way I judge it all necessary to be spoken Unknown sin will not be repented of nor forborn nor unknown danger prevented nor the unknown needs of the Peoples Souls relieved He asketh Is this the way to be at Peace with us I answer There is no other way What Peace can we have with them that think they are bound to silence