countenance the Prelates in Church-Tyranny and Usurpation and invite them to go further and to make more burdens of Forms and Ceremonies to lay upon the Churches Answ. Without medling now with the question what guilt it is that lyeth on any Prelates in the points here mentioned I answer on your own supposition 1. That it is the King and his Laws which we obey herein and not the Diocesans 2. How openly and fully have we declared our utter dissent from the things which you suppose that we shall countenance them in Our Writings are yet visible Our Conferences were notorious And is not the loss of our Ministry and the loss of all Ecclesiastical Maintenance and the pinching wants of many poor Ministers and their numerous families and our suffering Volumes of reproach confinements c. a signification of our dissent The case is somewhat hard with abundance of godly faithful Ministers Few that never felt it themselves can judge aright what it is to want a house to dwell in a bed to lye on to have Wives that are weak natured to keep in yearly patience under all such necessities which the Husband can bear himself to have Children crying in hunger and rags and to have a Landlord calling for his Rent and Butchers and Brewers and Bakers and Drapers and Taylors and Shoo-makers calling for money when there is none to pay them there being no fifth part of Church-maintenance now allowed them in the Frost and Snow to have no fire nor money to but it And yet all this is little in comparison of their restraint from preaching the Gospel of Salvation and the displeasure of their Governours against them if they preach And is not all this yet an open signification of their Dissent from the things which they so far deny complyance with If some of their Accusers on both sides were but in the same condition they would think it should go for a sufficient notification of dissent 3. We perswade no man to any one sin for Communion with others no not to save their lives If the thing be proved unlawful to be used and not only unlawful to be so imposed we exhort all to avoid it 4. Yea if an over numerous aggregation of things which singly are lawful should make them become a snare and injury to the Church we would have all in their places sufficiently signifie their dissent or if the number shall turn them into a sin in the users we would have none to use them Though we would not have men censure or contemn one another much less destroy one another foâ— a matter of meats or dayes or shadows yet if any will by false doctrine or Imperiousness say Touch not Taste not handle not and will judge us in respect to Meat or Drink or Holy Dayes or the New Moon or Sabbaths Col. 2. 16. 21. We would have all men to bear a just testimony to the truth and to their Christian liberty 5. But if the defects of publick Worship be tolerable and if Providence necessity and Laws concurr to call us to use them when else we must use none or do worse here Communion doth become our duty And a Duty must not be cast off for fear of seeming to countenance the faults of others We have lawful means to signifie our dissent It is not in our power to express it how we please nor to go as far from the faulty as we can to avoid the countenancing of their faults But we must do Gods work in his own way And we must disown mens sins only by prudent lawful means and not by any that are contrary to Christian Love and Peace or a breach of any Law of God 6. Paul was not for countenancing any of the falsehoods and faults which he reproveth in any of the Churches especially partiality sensuality drunkenness at the very Sacrament or Love Feasts 1 Cor. 11 c. And yet he never bids them forsake the communion of the Church for it till they shall reform There were other wayes of testifying dislike 7. I must not countenance an honest weak Minister or Master of a family in the disorder or defects or errors of his prayer or instructing And yet if they be tolerable errors or defects I must not forsake either Church or family-Worship with him that I may discountenance him 8. There be Errors on the contrary side which are not without considerable danger which we are obliged also to take heed of countenancing I will instance but in two one in Doctrine and the other in Practice 1. There are men otherwise very honest and truly godly and of holy and unblameable lives who think that the Scripture is intended by God not only as a General but a particular Law or Rule for all the very Circumstances of Worship yea some say of the common business of our lives and that the second Commandment in particular condemneth all that is the product or invention of man in or about the Worship of God and that to deny this is to deny the perfection of the Scripture and that all written Books and Printed are Images there forbidden and that all studied or prepared Sermons as to Method or Words whether in Notes or memory are forbidden Images of Preaching and that all provided Words or Forms written or in memory of our own or other mens Contrivance or Composition are forbidden Images of Prayer and all prepared Metre and Tunes are forbidden Images of Praise or singing and that no man that useth any such preparation or form of words in preaching or prayer doth preach or pray by the help of Gods Spirit and that if Parents do but teach a Child a form of words to pray in they teach him this forbidden Imagery yea Idolatry I hope the number is but small that are of this Opinion and that it being commonly disowned by the Non-conformists no justice or Modesty can charge it on them but only on the few persons that are guilty of it But yet I must say that we are obliged to take heed of Countenancing this Error as well as of Countenancing Church-Usurpations For 1. When a few men of eminent integrity are of this mind it proveth to us that many more may be brought to it and are in danger of it Because meer Piety and Honesty is not enough to keep men from it Yea when men otherwise eminent also for Learning and great understanding are of that mind as they are poor ignorant unlearned persons though very godly are not out of the danger of it 2. And if it prevail what abundance of hurt will it do 1. You may read in the new Ecclesiastical Politician how it will exasperate the minds of others and give them matter of bitter reproach and for the sake of a very few how many that are blameless shall be aspersed with it and the cause of the Non-conformists yea with many the Protestant yea and the Christian Religion rendred contemptible and odious by it 2. It draweth men into
with all sound and sober Christians I ask you whether all these several parties are false worshippers save you alone Did not the Presbyterians and Independants agree in worship when you gathered Churches out of their Churches and when thousands separated from all the Parish Churches almost then existent Indeed the Anabaptists charged us also with false worship but it was not truly But the ordinary Dividerâ— had not that pretense 4. O how easie a thing is it Brother for a man without any supernatural Grace to reproach another mans Words in Worship and then to abhor it and avoid it and think I am one that keep my self Pure from false Worship But to keep our selves pure from pride censoriousness uncharitableness contention evil speaking and sensual vices is a harder work Others can as easily without mortification or humilitie keep themselves pure from your false worship as you can do from theirs EXCEPT ib. Since the crying sin this day is not separation but unjust and violent Persecution ½ which Mr. Baxter speakâ—eth very little against Answ. 1. A Las dear Brother that after so many years silencing and affliction after flames and Plagues and dreadful judgments after twenty years practice of the sin it self and when we are buried in the very ruines which it caused we should not yet know that our own uncharitable Divisions Alienations and Separations are a crying sin Yea the crying sin 〈◊〉 well as the uncharitableness and hurtfulness of others Alas will God leave us also even us to the obdurateness of Pharaoh Doth not judgment begin with us Is there not crying sin with us what have we done to Christs Kingdome to this Kingdoms to our friends dead and alive to our selves and alas to our enemies by our Divisions And do we not feel it Do we not know it Is it yet to us even to us a crime intolerable to call us to Repentance Wo to us Into what hard-heartedness have we sinned our selves Yea that we should continue in the sin and passionately defend it When will God give us Repentance unto life 2. And whither doth your passion carry you when you wrote so strange an untruth as this that I speak very little against it â— Was it possible for you to read the Book and gather Exceptions and yet to believe your self in this Doth not the Book speak against Church-Tyranny Unjust impositions Violence and taking away mens Liberty and rigor with Dissenters from end to end If any man that readeth but the Preface as page 14 15 16 17 18. and all the second part besides much more can possibly believe you I will never undertake to hinder him from believing any thing 3. But suppose I had said little against it will you charge me with Negatives or omissions before you know my Reasons Or would you have no better people hear of their sin and duty till Persecutors will endure to hear of theirs Exod. 6. 12. Behold the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me how then shall c. â— saith Moses Have most or many of the Separation said more against severities than I have done 4. But could you possibly be ignorant that a License is not to be expected for such a Discourse as you seem here to expect You deal by me as the late Perswasive to Conformity that vehemently calls to me to publish my Reasons for Nonconformity while he knew my hands were tied by the Laws and Licensers 5. But what if I had not in this Book spoken much against Persecution Is it not enough that I have done it in others I have not here written on many subjects which in other Volumes I have written of And why should I If I had would you not have blamed me for writing one thing so oft But you most unhappily chose this Instance for your quarrel I think in the judgment of all the Land that have read my writings Besides my five Disputations of Church Government how oft have I written against Persecution The few Publick Sermons that ever I Preached had somewhat against it Read our Papers to the Bishops in 1660. especially the Reply to their Exceptions and the Petition for Peace Enquire again of the long provoking Conference at the Savoy and the reason of the following indignation against me and afterwards read this Book again and then I modestly chalenge you 1 to name those men in England especially of the Separatists that have said and done more against that severity which you call Persecution than I have done 2. To name me one Licensed Book since the silencing of the Ministers and since the Printing Act That hath said so much against Severity and Persecution as the Book which you quarrel with hath done EXCEPT II. Mr. B. mentioneth with much bitterness what was formerly done in the time of the War which is in him a most unbecoming practice because first Mr. B. was as guilty of stirring up and fomenting that War as any one whatsoever and none ought to blame the effect who gave rise and encouragement to the Cause Answ. 1. IF you mean that my words taste bitterly to you I cannot deny it You know best But for my part any Reader may see in the Book which the Preface referreth to that I only lament our too open undeniable uncharitableness and divisions and the effects thereof and use the mention of some mens former faults with whom they and I can hold communion to prove by way of Argument that they ought not to avoid communion with others for the like or less And I know not how to convince men well if I must pass by all such experimental Arguments 2. Do you not mark your partialitie Brother In our Reply to them 1660. pag. 7 8. et alibi and in my 5 Disput. c. I tell the Bishops of faults past of Silencings and Suspendings c. of the excellent Ministers afflicted and laid by and how ordinarily are they told of the things charged on Bishop Laud Pierce Wren c. in their Articles to the Parliament And when did you blame me or others for so doing Can I believe that this offendeth you And is it sin to tell your selves of your former sins and none to tell the Bishops of it O that we could know what spirit we are of 3. Your third untruth in point of fact is that I was as guilty of stirring up and fomenting that war as any one whatsoever Could you possibly believe your self in this 1. I suppose you never saw me till above ten years after I had done with Wars 2. I suppose you lived far from me 3. If you know whom and what you speak of you know that I was never of the Assembly I never Preached to the Parliament till the day before the King was Voted home I was forced from home to Coventry There it was that I did speak my Opinion but refused their Commission as Chaplain to the Garrison In Shropshire my Father was twice imprisoned that
an exhortation and advice seem injurious or intolerable to you the Lord have mercy on your souls Is the matter of this prayer unlawful Or can he prove that I spake it jestingly when I took it to be the serious prayer of my grieved heart Or may we use no words as Lord have mercy on us c. which others use unreverently Or is it true doctrine that this is the foolish talk and jesting forbidden Eph. 5 What proof is there here of any one word of all this EXCEPT IV. p. 2. He doth very often and needlesly insist on many things that may tend to advance his own reputation The instances are added Answ. 1. I Confess Brother I am a great sinner and have more faults than you have yet found out But I pray you note that all this still is nothing to our Controversie whether we should advise men against Church divisions as contrary to Love 2. If a humble Physitian may put a probatum to his Receipt and say I have much experience of this or that I pray you why may not a humble Minister tell England that I and you have had experience of the hurt of divisions and of the healing uniting power of Love Did all the Independent Church-members whose Experiences are printed in a book take Experience to be a word of pride 3. And is it pride to thank the World for their Civilities to me in mixing commâ—ndations which I disown with their censures What! to confess the remnants of their moderation notorious in matter of fact the truth of which you durst not deny in the midst of their many false censures and calumnies 4. Or to tell you how unable I have â—ound back-biters to prove their accusations in doctrinals to my face 5. Or to tell you that some even Independents perswaded me when I was silenced to write sermons for some of the weaker Conformists such as are too many youths from the University to preach Where lieth the pride of these expressions Is it in supposing that there are any Conformists weaker than my self Whether think you this brother or I think meanlier of them Or set our selves at the greater distance from them 6. When I plead against charging forms with Idolatry I say that for my self it is twenty times harder to me to remember a form of words than to express what is in my mind without them If this be not true why did you not question the truth of it If it be why is it pride to utter it as a proof that I plead for Love and not for my own interest Is it pride to confess so openly the weakness of my memory I never learnt a Sermon without book in my life I think I could not learn an hours speech sufficiently to utter the very words by memory in a fortnights time And is it pride for a man to say that he can easier speak what is in his mind Truly brother I was so far from intending it as a boast that I meant it as a diminâ—tion of the over-valued honour of present extemporary expression and to tell you that I take it to be so far from proving that your prayers only are accepted of God before a form as signifying more grace that I take it to be an easier thing for an accustomed man that hath not a diseased hesitancy to speak extempore what is in his mind than to learn a form without book And that they thaâ— do this do serve God with as much labour and cost as you do Do I boast or do I not speak the common case of most Ministers when I truly say That when I take most pains for a Sermon I write every word when I take a little pains I write the heads but when business hindereth me from taking any pains I do neither but speak what is in my mind which I suppose others as well as I could do all the day and week together if weariness did not interrupt them I seek by these words but to abate their pride that think themselves spiritual because they can pray or preach without book Like some now neer me that account it formality and a sign that a Preacher speaketh not by the Spirit if he use notes or preach upon a text of Scripture but admire one neer them that cries dâ—wn such and useth neither 7. Is it pride to say that thâ—se darker persons whom I have been â—ain to rebuke for their over-valuing me and my understanding would yet as stiffly defend their most groundless opinions against me when I crost them as if they thought I had no understanding If you do think that you cannot be over-valued or are not so do not I. And I thought my rebuking men for it had been no sign of pride And brother I am confident if you your self did not believe that my understanding and consequently my Writings are over-valued you would never have written this book especially in such a stile against me yea in the end you profess this to be your design to undeceive those that had a good opinion of me If those on the other side had not thought the same my late Auditors at Kederminster had never had so many Sermons and that by persons so high nor would so many books have been written to the same end even to cure the people of this dangerous vice of over-valuing me The matter of fact being so publick invalidateth your exception 8. The last expression of my pride is that I give this testimony even to Christians inclined to divisions that if they think a man speaketh not to the depressing of true and serious religion they can bear that from him which they cannot bear from one that they think hath a malignant end and that on this account in my sharpest reproofs my own auditors have still been patient with me Enquire whether this be true or not Whether I have not preached twenty times more against Divisions to a people that never once quarrelled with it than I have written against it in the book with which you so much quarrel And is this probatum given against malignity a word of pride too You proceed in your Charge that I have great thoughts of my self and have learned little of Christian or moral ingenuity and am unfit to be a Teacher of it to others Answ. 1. Do you not yet perceive that you also have a silencing spirit when you and those that you separate from are agreed that we are unfit to be Teachers because we gainsay you why do you pretend so great a distance even in the point of imperious severity 2. O how hard is it still to know our selves and what manner of spirit we are of Is it pride in me to think that I am righter than you or to express it Why brother do not you think as confidently that you are righter than I and do you not as Confidently utter it I differ no further from you than you do from me And why is it not
partyes must build up the Church in Love and Peace And therefore the interest of the Protestant Religion must be much kept up by the means of the Parish Ministers and by the doctrine and worship there performed and not by the Non conformists alone And they that think and endeavour that which is contrary to this of which side soever shall have the hearty thanks and concurrence of the Papists Him therefore that is weak in the faith receive ye but not to doubtful disputations Let not him that eateth despise him that cateth not And let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth For God hath received him Who art thou that judgest another mans servant The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy-Ghost For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and the things wherewith one may edifie another And blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the children of God THE GENERAL PART OR INTRODUCTION TO THE DEFENCE OF MY CURE OF Church-Divisions Being a Narrative of those late Actions which have occasioned the Offence of men on both Extreams with the true Reasons of them And of these Writings which some account Unseasonable with the true stating of the Case of that Separation which my opposed Treatise medleth with And an Answer to several great Objections Printed in the Year 1671. I. THE GENERAL PART OR INTRODUCTION CAP. 1. The Narrative of those late Actions which have occasioned mens displeasure against me on both sides with the Reasons of them and of my Writing which I am now defending THE number of Books written against me is so great that if I should not be very suspicious of my self lest I had wronged the truth and the Church of God and given men just occasion of all this obloquy I should be very defective in humility and in that care which I am obliged to for the avoiding of such injuries And I find upon examination that if I could have let all sides alone and judged it consistent with my duty to be silent while the envious man sowed his tares and not to have contradicted any that I took to be injuring the Truth and Church nor to have sounded the trumpet against any error which arose before us I could as easily have escaped their wrath as others And I find that whereas our differences both in Doctrine and Worship and Discipline have engaged men of several minds in such writings against me Some Infidels diverse Quakers Papists Antinomians some Arminians some Anti-arminians Anabaptists Separatists Levellers Diocesans c. What one accuseth me of another doth not only acquit me of but ordinarily as sharply accuse me for the contrary and for going no further from the rest So that nothing but silence could put by their fiercest accusations And silence it self will not please the Imperious sect who think me criminal because I serve them not according to their own desire and way And silence was not that which I promised God at my ordination nor is it a doing of that work to which I was then consecrated and devoted But because some men speak in a more Sanguinary dialect than others and because the late charges of Disloyalty ought not to be disregarded by a loyal subject and because for the sakes of their own souls it hath often made me pitty Mr. Durel Dr. Boreman and many others like them who have published ugly falsehoods of me I once thought to have here exercised so much Charity to them as by a full Narrative of all those actions of my life which concern such matters as they accuse me of to have rectified all their mistakes at once and made them understand what it is which they wrote of before they understood it And the rather because this excepter followeth them in telling me how guilty I was of the wars and all the effects of them and also that I wrote a flattering book to Richard Cromwell And in this narrative I purposed to confess so much as had any truth in their accusations and to stop them in their falsifications and calumnies as to the rest But upon second thoâ—â—â—ts I cast it by perceiving by too long experience that they who are engaged against the Truth are unable to bear it and take all for an unsufferable wrong to them which detecteth the falsehood of their reports And when men do as Mr. Hinkley importune me to publish the reasons of my Non-conformity when they know that the Law forbiddeth it and there is no expectation of procuring a Licence or when the old stratagem is so visibly used of drawing us by their challenges into their Ambuscad'es or when I am eagerly provoked to gape against an oven while it is red or flaming hot If I crave their patience and exercise my own till it be grown more cool before I accept of such a challenge and suffer them to use their Art till repentance shall unteach it them and to make my name a stepping stone to those ends which they now aspire after methinks they should be content to talk on without a contradiction and to be free from the light of that Truth which they are not able to endure Or at least should pardon me if I imitate my Lord that was silent even when false accusers sought his defamation and his blood But God â—nabling me I promise them an answer as soon as they will procure me License and Indemnity In the mean time I shall now only 1. Tell you why I offended one side by saying so much against their impositions 2. And why I have since offended the other yea both sides by my late Book called The Cure of Church-Divisions Before the King was restored being then at London I was called to preach two publick sermons tâ—â— one before the Parliament the day before they voted the Kings return The other before the Lord Major and Aldermen on a day of thanksgiving for the hopes of his return In the latter I plainly shewed my sense of the case of the falling party and the Armies actions and gave as plain a warning to the then rising party with some prognosticks thereupon In the former the first that ever I preached to a Parliament and he last I spake some words of the facility of Concord with the sober godly moderate sort of the Episcopal Divines and how quickly Arch-Bishop Usher and I came to an Agreement of the termes on which they might Unite When this Sermon was Printed this passage caused many moderate Episcopal Divines to urge me to tell them the terms of that Agreement And they all professed their great desires and hopes of Concord upon such termes viz. Dr. Gulston Dr. Allen Dr. Bernard Dr. Fuller Dr. Gauden and several others Dr. Gauden desired a meeting to that end of the several parties but none came at the day appointed but he
never tell any of their sins nor preach repentance to them whilst I lived and that I must not deny my duty and Charity to one sort because another sort will not receive it and seeing also necessity increase and having already writen and said so much to the other party I resolved to imitate those two excellent faithful Tractates viz. 1. Mr. M. Pool's Vox clamantis in deserto in Latine calling the Non-conformable Ministers to Repentance and Mr. Lewis Stukeley's a worthy Congregational Minister in Exeter and a kinsman of the late General Monkes enumerating copiously most of the Common sins of Religious Professors and calling them earnestly and faithfully to repentance which since the writing of this I find excellently done in a book called Englands danger and only Remedy And therefore I first published some old notes written eleven or twelve years ago called Directions for weak Christians and annexed to it The Character of a sound Christian In both which I wrote that which was as like to have exasperated the impatient as this book is And yet I heard of no complaints And afterward I wrote this which I now defend and sent it to the Licenser who upon perusal refused to License it And so it lay by and I purposed to meddle with it no more But leaving it in the Booksellers hands that had offered it to be Licensed after a long time he got it done and so unexpectedly it revived The Reasons of my writing it were no fewer than all these following which I now submit to the judgement of all men truly peaceable and impartial who value the interest of Christianity and of the universal Church above their own 1. To make up my foregoing Directions to weak Christians more compleat Having directed them about the private matters of their souls I intended this as another Part to Direct them in order to the Churches Peace 2. Many good people of tender Consciences and weak judgements desiring my advice about Communion in the publick Assemblies I found it meetest to publish this general Advice for all to save me the labour of speaking to particular persons and to serve those that lived further off 3. I saw those Principles growing up apace in this time of prevocation which will certainly increase or continue our divisions if they continue and increase I am sure that our wounds are made by wounding principles of doctrine And it must be healing doctrines that must heal us And I know that we cannot be healed till doctrinal principles be healed To give way to the prevalency of dividing Opinions is to give up our hopes of future unity and peace And to give up our hopes of Unity and Peace is to despair of all true Reformation and happiness of the Church on earth If ever the Church be reduced to that Concord Strength and Beauty which all true Christians do desire I am past doubt that it must be by such principles as I have here laid down 4. But my grand reason was that I might serve the Church of Christ in the reviving and preservation of Christian Love As it was an extraordinary measure of the Spirit which Christ made his Witness in the Gospel Church so is it as extraordinary a measure of Love which he maketh the New Commandment and the mark of all his true Disciples And whether afflicting on one side and unmerciful and unjust censures on the other side one driving away and the other flying away be either a sign or means of Love And whether taking others to be intolerable in the Church and unworthy of our Communion and separating from or avoiding the Worship where they are present be likely to kindle Love or to kill it let any man judge that hath himself the exercise of Reason and unfeigned Love I know that this is the hour of Temptation to the sufferers to stir up passion and distaste and that men have need of more than ordinary grace and watchfulness and therefore of more than ordinary helps warning to preserve due Love and keep out an undue hatred of those by whom they suffer And how great a temptation also their censures and discontents will prove to their Superiours and others by whom they suffer and what unspeakable hurt it may do their sâ—uls may easily be conjectured This sin will prove our greatest loss 5. Hereupon men will be engaged in sinful Actions of injustice and uncharitableness against each other They will be glad to hear and forward to believe hard and false reports of one another And too forward to vent such behind one anothers backs And there is no doubt but many of each party already think worse of the other commonly than they are Though alas we are all too bad and some egregiously wicked And those Persons and Churches that would censure a man for Curses or Oaths should also censure men for slanders and backbitings And should I not do my best to prevent such a course of daily sin 6. Both violence and separation tend to divide the builders themselves and keep the Ministers in contending with and Preaching and Writing against each other which should be employed in an unanimous opposition to the Kingdom of Satan in the world And when all their united wisdom and strength is too little against the common Ignorance and Prophaneness of the world their division will disable them and give sin and Satan opportunity to prevail 7. It may engage them on both sides in the dreadful fin of persecuting each other one party by the Hand and the other by the Tongue even while they cry out of persecution And on both sides to hinder the Gospel and mens salvation on one side by hindering the Preachers from their work and on the other side yea on both by hindring the success For what can be more done to make men despise the word than to teach them to despise or abhor the Preacher And what more can be done to destroy mens souls than to harden them against the Word Is there any sâ—bâ—r man on either extream that dare say I would have none of the people saved that are not or will not be the hearers of our party If you dare not say that you would have all the rest to be damâ—ed dare you say you would not have them be taught by others Or that you would not have them profit by the Word they hear If not how dare you tempt them to vilifie and despise their Teachers If they will not learn of you be glad if they will learn of any other and do not hinder them 8. By these means they will cherish an hypocritical sort of Religiousness in the people which is more employed in Sidings Opinions and Censurings of others than in humble self-judging and in a holy heavenly mind and life A man need not the Spirit of God and supernatural Grace nor much Self-denyal nor Mortification of the flesh to make him choose a certain fashion of external Worship and think that now he
and those that are of that fashion are the only people and to reproach all of other fashions as ungodly and to think that he is therefore a better Christian than the other because his fashion of outward Worship seemeth the better to him Not that any thing in Gods Worship should be denyed its due regard But its pity that by an unproportionable estimation of mens several outward fashions words and gestures poor souls should be tempted to deceive themselves and to forget that he is the best Christian that hath most Faith Humility Love and Heavenliness which is the true Holiness and Beauty of the soul. 9. When men think a Lawful Communion yea a duty to be unlawful it will both keep them in the sin of omitting it and cause them to add their sinful Censures of all those that use that Communion which they avoid They do not only think that they are holier because they hear not and pray not and communicate not in the Parish Churches but they look down with a supercilious pity upon those that do And how many parties have I thus been pitied by As I go along the Streets the Quakers say Poor man thou art in darkness The Papists pity me for not being one of them The Anabaptists pity me for not being one of them The Separatists pity or disdain me because I forbear not the Worship that they forbear And this Excepter lamenteth my condition as passionately as any It is not for Not Worshipping with them that they censure me for I am ready to do it but for Worshipping with others in Words which they like not And whereas holiness was wont to be expressed most by Worship actions now it must be characterized more by Negatives even in external adjuncts And if he be the best man that avoideth most the Communion of others which he taketh to be bad I have and have had neighbours better than you all that never communicate with any Church nor ever publickly hear or pray or Worship God at all because they think all your wayes of Worship to be bad I remember Rivet marketh out Grotius by this that while he forsook the Protestant Churches and called us to unite with the Church of Rome that is with the Pope ruling not arbitrarily but by the Laws of a General Council not excluding that of Trent he did actually communicate with none at all 10. When mens judgements are thus mistaken about Church Communion their Worship of God will be corrupted They will in their hearts earnestly desiee that all others may be of their mind and they will complain to God of that as a sin which is mens duty Especially among those of their own mind And this offering up of their mistakes to God in earnestness as an acceptable service is a sad polluting of holy things So he that is famed to have written this Antidote is said to have made my Book which was written for Christian Love to be the matter of his publick Humiliation And another of my friends in dayes of prayer maketh it his lamentation Lord here are those that are one day here and another day at Common-prayer As if the exercise of Knowledge and Love in impartial Communion with all Christs Churches not forcing us to sin were a sin to be lamented But I need not go further for instance than this Antidote where the Reverend Author taketh it for a service of God to write against those necessary Precepts of Love and Unity which he mistakingly opposeth And so did Mr. Iohnson and Mr. Canne who most confidently presented their Writings for separation to God as a service which he had commanded them and would own 11. This narrow judgement tempteth men on one side to Anathematize all that say There are any other true Churches in England save of one form and fashion and it tempteth others to deny the Parish Churches to be at all true Churches and so to narrow the possessions of Christ. And hereupon it tempteth them to endeavour to disgrace and dissolve each other It draweth many to think that it is the Interest of Religion now in England to have the Parish Churches to be brought low in reputation and deserted and Gods publick Worship which they would have all Religious people use to be only that of tolerated or more private Churches By which they little know what they wiâ—â— against the interest of the Christian and Pro 〈…〉 nt Religion in this Land Nor what hurt they would do if in this they had their wills 12. These dividing Principles and Spirits which I oppose will on one side give shelter to all the prophane malignant minds that itch to be afflicting others that fear God more than they And on the other side it will give shelter to all kind of Heresies and Sects of which experience is too full a proof 13. Yea before our eyes the most pernicious Heresies even those of Quakers are still not only continued but increase And we see men that to day condemn Communion with the Parish Churches and then with the Presbyterians do shortly fly from Communion with the Independents too And mens passions in sufferings pervert their judgements And frequently men are overcome by tryal when they think they are most constant and have overcome It s commonly known how many of late are turned Quakers And what considerable persons lately in prison fell to that unhappy Heresie Yet they that by a Prison lost their Religion no doubt thought themselves more honourable by their sufferings than those that go to Common-prayer And shall we stand by and see this work go on and neither lament their sin that drive men to this nor warn them of the Passions and Principles that lead to it 14. Separation will ruine the separated Churches themselves at last By separation I mean the same thing that the old Non-conformists wrote against by that name It will admit of no consistency Parties will arise in the separated Churches and separate again from them till they are dissolved I beseech my deer brethren that are otherwise minded to open their eyes so far as to regard experience Brethren what now Comparatively are all the separated Churches or parties upon Earth Would you have all Christs Churches and all the interest of the Christian Religion to be as short lived and to stand upon no more certain terms than they do How few separated Churches do now exist that were in being an hundred years ago Can you name any And would you have had all the Churches of Christ on Earth to be dissolved when they were dissolved Or do you think that all were dissolved with them This would make us all seekers indeed 15. Separating and narrow principles befriend not Godliness as they pretend to do but lamentably undermine it If it were but by driving off and disaffecting the lower sort of Christians whose Communion you reject The Case of three or four Churches in New-England grieve my heart But the Case of the Summer Islands as
related to me by Mr. Vaughan a worthy Minister lately discouraged and come from thence would make a Christian heart to bleed To hear how strict and regular and hopeful that plantation once was And how one Godly Mininister by separation selecting a few to be his Church and rejecting all the rest from the sacrament the rejected party are grown to doleful estrangedness from Religion and the selected party much turned Quakers and between both how wofull are the fruits But the Case of England Scotland and Ireland which I foretold in my book of Infant Baptisme is yet a more lamentable proof what separation hath done against Religion so full a proof that it is my wonder that any good man can overlook it 16. Yea it tendeth to make Religiousness contemptible and the professors of it a common scorn when we are perceived to place it in unwarrantable separations and singularities and when we make men think that the greatest difference between those that they call Precise or Religious and others is but this that one of them prayeth without book and the other by the book that one of them will not joyn with those that use the Liturgie and the other will If we let men see that in indifferent things we are indifferent and that lesser evils we avoid as lesser and greater evils as greater and that the great difference between us and the ungodly is in our seriousness in our Christian profession and in our heavenlyness and true obedience to Christ it would much convince them of their misery and honour Religion in the world But when they perceive that the greatest contention which our houses and our streets do ring of is whether we shall hear a man that conformeth or not Or whether we shall pray with them that use the Liturgie Or whether we may sometimes Communicate with a Parish Church or not This turneth the thoughts of the careless and carnal the worldling and the sensualist from the necessary condemning of himself for his ungodliness and sets him on thinking that these stricter people do differ from him in things of no importance and that they are but an erroneous self conceited sort of persons and that he is much the wiser man Thousands in England are hardened into a neglect of Godliness to our suffering and the apparent danger of their own damnation by occasion of the unwarrantable singularities and the scandalous sins especially of those professors that have been most addicted to sinful separations 17. I am not causelesly afraid lest if we suffer the principles and practices which I write against to proceed without our contradiction Popery will get by it so great advantage as may hazzard us all and we may lose that which the several parties do contend about Three waies especially Popery will grow out of our divisions 1. By the odium and scorn of our disagreements inconsistency and multiplied sects they will perswade people that we must either come for Unity to them or else all run mad and crumble into dust and individuals Thousands have been drawn to Popery or confirmed in it by this argument already And I am perswaded that all the arguments else in Bellarmine and all other books that ever were written have not done so much to make Papists in England as the multitude of sects among our selves Yea some Professors of Religious strictness of great esteem for Godliness have turned Papists themselves when they were giddy and wearied with turnings and when they had run from sect to sect and found no consistency in any For when they see so many they say How can I tell that this or that is in the right rather than the other This it is that they ring continually in our ears Which of all these sects is in the right And what assurance have they of it more than all the rest that are as confident And how small a Church doth any one sect make And â—f hâ—w late original for the most But the poor deluded souls consider not that in going to the Papists they go but to another sect that is worse than any of the rest And though greater yet not past the third part of the Christians in the world And that Christianity is but one And that the way to rest is to unite upon the common terms of simple Christianity 2. And who knoweth not how fair a game the Papists have to play by the means of our divisions Methinks I hear them hissing on each party and saying to one side Lay more upon them and and abate them nothing and to the other stand it out and yield to nothing And who is so blind then as not to see their double game and hopes viz. that either our divisions and alienations will carry men to such distances and practices as shall make us accounted seditious rebellious and dangerous to the publick peace and so they may pass for better subjects than we or else that when so many parties under sufferings are constrained to beg and wait for liberty the Papists may not be shut out alone but have Toleration with the rest And shall they use our hands to do their works and pull their freedom out of the fire We have already unspeakably served them both in this and in abating the odium of the Gun powder plot and their other Treasons Insurrections and Spanish invasion of which read Thuanus himself that openeth all the mystery 3. And it is not the least of our danger nor which doth least affect me lest by our follies extremities and rigors we should so exasperate the Common people as to make them readier to joyn with the Papists than with us in Case of any competitions or their invasions or insurrections against the King and Kingdoms peace Sure I am that the Parliaments and peoples resolutions against them after the late fire and in the time of the last war when they were so much feared did discourage and depress them more than all the rest of their opposers And though we cannot rationally believe that the people of England much less wise and sober Governors will ever be such enemies to themselves as to subject themselves to the Romish Tyranny and to forget what Ireland and England have seen and felt yet because it is not only oppression that maketh wise men mad let us do nothing by unlawful alienations and singularities or fierce and disobedint oppositions which tend to make the people like better of the Papists than of us 18. I am not able to bear the thoughts of separating from almost all Christs Churches upon Earth But he that separateth from one or many upon a reason common to almost all doth virtually separate from almost all And he that separateth from all among us upon the account of the unlawfulness of our Liturgie and the badness of all our Ministry doth separate from them upon a reason common to almost all or the far greatest part as I conceive 19. Though Ministerial Conformity be to us another
thing by reason of the new impositions than it was to our predecessors yet to the people conformite is the same if not easier especially to them that I now speak to For it is the Liturgie Ceremonies and Ministry that most alienate them as I said before and not so much the subscription against the obligation of the Covenant And the Liturgie is a little amended as to them by the change of the Translation and some little words and by someâ—onger prayers And the Ceremonies are the same and thirty years ago there was many bare Reading not Preaching Ministers for one that there is now Therefore our case of separation being the same with what it was of old I take it to be fully confuted by the antient Non-conformists And I have so great a veneration for the worthy names much more an estimation of the Reasonings of Mr. Cartwright Egerton Hildersham Dod Amesius Parker Baines Brightman Ball Bradshaw Paget Langley Nichols Hering and many other such that I shall not think they knew not why they chose this subject and wrote more against separation than the Conformists did Nor do I think that the reasons of Mr. Iohnson and Mr. Canne can stand before them And it pittieth me to hear now many that differ from them say we are grown wiser and have more light than they when as our writings upon the same subjects shew that we are far in that below them And in other parts of knowledge alâ—s what are we to Reignolds Ames Parker and several of the rest But the world knoweth that the turn of the times put most of us into the sudden possession of our opinions without one half of the study it may be with most not the hundredth part which Cartwright Ames Parker c. bestowed upon these points And I never yet saw cause to believe that our present Dividers do learn more in a days study than those learned holy men did in twenty Nor do they shew more wisdom or holiness in the main I am very glad that the Pious Lectures of Mr. Hildersham Mr. R. Rogers and such other old Non-conformists are in so good esteem among good people where they will read them urging the people not only against separation but to come to the very beginning of the publick worship and preferring it before their private duties As for them that say If Dod Ames Hildersham c. had lived till now they would have been of our mind I desire them to prove it or not affirm it Is not the Liturgie Ceremonies and Ministery the same And what signs of such mutability did they shew Could your Reasons have conquered them more than Mr. Ainsworths Iohnsons or Cannes They were not so Light to be changed causelesly And I pray you mark that if you are wiser in this point of separation than all these old Non-conformists were than Iohnson and Canne and Howe were wiser also in that than they which doth not appear to us by their writings And then for all the greater Light that you think you have yet Iohnson Canne and Howe had as great Light and were in this as wise as you though Ames and the rest of the Nonconformists were not O that our brethren would but seriously read over the writings of these men especially Iacob Paget Ball and Bradshaw and Gifford against the separatists and try whether the case was not the same 20. Yea I must confess that when I think what Learned Holy Incomparable men abundance of the old Cenformits were my heart riseth against the thoughts of separating from them If I had come to their Churches when they used the Common-prayer and administred the Sacrament could I have departed and said It is not lawful for any Christian here to Communicate with you What! to such men as Mr. Bolton Mr. Whateley Mr. Fenner Mr. Dent Mr. Crook Mr. Dike Mr. Stocke Mr. Smith Dr. Preston Dr. Siâ—bes Dr. Stoughton Dr. Taylor and abundance other such yea such as Bishop Iewel Bishop Grindal Bishop Hall Bishop Potter Bishop Davenant Bishop Carlâ—tâ—n c. Dr. Field Dr. Smith Dr Iohn White Dr. Willet c. yea and the Martyrs too as Cranmer Ridley Hooper himself Farrar Bradford Philpot Sanders c. To say nothing of Luther Melanebthon Bucer and the rest of the forreign worthies Could I separate from all these on the reasons now in question Yea Calvin himself and the Churches of his way were all separated from by the separatists of their times 21. At least I cannot easily condemn the ancient Independents who were against separation as well as the Presbyterians Mr. Henry Iacob is accounted the Father of the English Independents And he hath wrote a book against Mr. Iohnson the separatist or thâ—s Title A Defence of the Churches and Ministery of England written in two Treatises against the Reasons and Objections of Mr. Francis Johnson and â—thers of the separation Commonly called Browâ—â—â—s And in the end he hath A short Treatise concerning the truness of a Pastoral Calling in Pastors made by Prelates And I intreat the Reader to note that Mr. Iohnson there chargeth the Church of England and their worship with no fewer than 91. Antichristian abominations And I would ask any of the dividers whether they have more than 91. Antichristian abominations to charge upon it now I am content that those I write to now will cast by my book if they will but read Mr. Iacobs And Dr. Ames was half an Independent and yet against separation I need not mention the great moderation of New-England where their late healing endeavors greatly tend to increase our hopes of reconciliation O that the rest of the Churches were as wise and happy Whose experience hath possessed them with a deep dislike of the spirit of separation and division Yea if any thing may be believed which I have not seen Mr. Ph. Nie himself hath writen to prove the Lawfulness of hearing the Preachers in the Parish assemblies And yet it is as confidently confuted by another of the Brethren as my book is by this Excepter And he that proveth it Lawful to joyn with them that profess themselves a Church in their ordinary Doctrine and pulpit prayers and Psalms of praise I think can never prove it unlawful at all times to joyn with them in the use of the Liturgie or in the Sacrament supposing the scruple of Kneeling removed For the most of the Liturgie is the reading of the Scripture it self and the rest is sound matter though in an imperfect mode and fashion of words 22. Is sects and heresies increase among us the blame of all will be laid upon the Non-conformists And so it now is They commonly say It is you that open the door to them all And how injuriously soever this be said it becometh our duty not only to see that it be not true but also to do our part against them And this was one great reason why the old Nonconformists wrote and preached so much more thâ—â— the Bishops
it be remembred that we never Vowed that God should not bring us back to the same case which had been blasphemy And therefore it had been bad enough if we had vowed not to do what was our duty in that state if God should return us to it 2. I earnestly intreat the doubting Reader that thinketh his duty and the Churches peace to be worth so much labour but to read over some of the old Non-conformists books against separation And if you there find the very same objections answered or more and greater than judge your selves whether their case and ours was as to this cause the same The books I would desire you to read are Mr. Iacobs the Independent against Iohnson Mr. Bradshaws against Iohnson with Mr. Gatakers defence of it against Canne Mr. Gifford Mr. Darrel Mr. Paget Mr. Hildersham Dr. Ames Mr. Cartwright Mr. Brightman and last of all and fulliest at the beginning of our troubles Mr. Iohn Ball in three books But of this having spoken already I shall repeat no more but only to profess my judgement that our ordinary boasters that think they know more in this Controversie than the old Non-conformists did as far as I am able to discern are as far below them almost as they are below either Chamier Sadeel Whitaker or such others in dealing with a Papist which of them can say that about Episcopacy as Gersom Bucer Didoclaue Blondell Salmasius have done and so of the rest QUEST IIII. Quest. 4. IS it not a shameful receding from our Reformation now to use an unreformed Liturgie and a pulling down of what we have been building Answ. 1. It is not fit here to enquire who it is that hath pulled down and destroyed Reformation though it be easie to discern it But this is certain that God hath set up the Government that is over us and that our Governours take down by their Laws that which we accounted Reformation This is not our worke but theirs And that they permit us not otherwise publickly to worship God And that a man in Goal doth ordinarily joyn in no publick worship at all And where men do venture on other manner of worship in forbidden assemblies the fears of some and the passionate discontent of others and the disturbances by souldiers and officers and such like do take off much of the edification and hinder us from such a frame of mind as is most agreeable to the work and day And to worship God no where is to go farther from Reformation than to worship him by the Liturgie 2. To do it of choice is one thing and to do it as a duty put upon us by Gods providence and our Governours when we can do no better is another thing It is God that hath pulled down our liberty and opportunity to serve him otherwise and we must obey him It is no faulty mutability to change our practice when God by changing our condition doth change our duty No more than it was in Paul who to the Jews became a Jew and circumcised Timothy and shaved his head for his Vow c. and became all things to all men And no more than it was in Augustine who professeth that he would worship God as to formes and ceremonies according as the Church did with which he joyned where ever he came Nor no more than it is in a traveller or merchant to joyn in several Countries in several fashions and ceremonies or rites of outward worship QUEST V. Quest. 5. WIll it not strengthen and encourage the adversaries of Reformation Answ. 1. We must not make such carnal policies our guides as to forbear that which God doth make our duty for fear of encouraging other men If we take this to be uncharitable factiousness in others to desire rather all these distractions in the Church than that the Non-conformists should be encouraged and strengthned by seeming to have justly desired a Reformation let us not be guilty of what we blame 2. If you will believe themselves it is the unwilling Conformists that they are most in danger of who profess that they conform of necessity and desire a Reformation As Dr. William Smith hath shewed in a book written to that end The Assembly of Westminster that set up the Presbytery were such Conformists 3. It is sinful pride and tenderness of their own honour which maketh some men avoid their duty and wrathfully grudge at them that speak for it because those that are against them thence take occasion to insult over them or reproach them If men do but say you are now turncòats and time servers and where is your reformation now and you are now glad to do as we do they think this reason enough why they should forbear that Communion and worship which is their duty Are these beseeming self denying humble persons Could they suffer death for their duty sake that cannot bear a little reproach for it Object If we knew it were our duty we would suffer for it Answ. But is it not this very suffering and reproach and insulting of others which maketh you think that it is not your duty And so carnal persons use to do They will believe nothing to be their duty which they must suffer by Let Gods honour be all to you and your own be nothing and you will not much stick at such things as these QUEST VI. Quest. 6. BUT will not this course divide us among our selves while one goeth to the Parish Churches and another doth not Answ. 1. Mr. Tombes did not stick at dividing the Anabaptists when he wrote for Parish Communion And Mr. Philip Nye did not stick at the fear of dividing the Independents when he wrote a M. S. as I am credibly informed for the hearing of the Parish Preachers though another wrote against it presently after And if an ordinary attendance on their publick doctrine be lawful this will go further than many think to prove the rest of the Communion lawful 2. We are already so far divided in our judgements as for one to hold it to be lawful and another to be unlawful And who can cure this division And why should it divide us more if mens practice be according to their judgements rather than for them to sin against their Consciences 3. The great thing in which we differ from the Prelatists yea and Papists too is that we would have our Union laid only upon Necessary things and liberty and Charity maintained in the rest And shall we now contradict our selves and say that things necessary are not sufficient for our union Cannot we hold union among our selves if some go to the publick assemblies and some do not What is this but to have the imposing domineering Spirit which we speak so much against We cannot better confute the uncharitable dividing Spirit of the world than by shewing them that we can hold Love and Union notwithstanding as great differences as this yea and much greater QUEST VII Quest. 7. SHall we not hereby
consented not to this at all Are we made by it the by-word and hissing of the Nations and the shame and pitty of all our friends And yet is all this to be justified or silenced and name of it at all to be openly repented of I openly profess to you that I believe till this be done we are never like to be healed and restored and that it is heinous gross impenitence that keepeth Ministers and people under their distress And I take it for the sad Prognostick of our future woe and at best our lengthened affliction to read such writings against Repentance and to hear so little open profession of Repentance even for unquestionable heinous crimes for the saving of those that are undone by these scandals and for the reparation of the honour of Religion which is most notoriously injured To see men still think that their Repentance is the dishonour of their party and Cause whose honour can no other way be repaired To see men so blind as to think that the silencing of these things will hide them as if they were not known to the World That man or party that will justifie all these heinous Crimes and still plead Conscience or Religion for them doth grievous injury to Conscience and Religion I have told you truly in the book which is bitter to you that Gods way of vindicating the honour of Religion is for us by open free Confession to take all the shame to our selves that it be not injuriously cast upon Religion And the Devils way of preserving the honour of the Godly is by justifying their sins and pleading Religion for them that so Religiousness it self may be taken to be hypocrisie and wickedness as maintaining and befriending wickedness For my own part I thought when I wasted my strength and hazarded my life in the Army against these fore-named Crimes and afterwards preached and wrote against them so openly and so many years that I had not been so much guilty of them as you here affirm But if I was I do openly confess that if I lay in sackcloth and in tears and did lament my sins before the World beg pardon both of God and man and intreat all men not to impute it to Religion but to me and to take warning by my fall which had done such unspeakable wrong to Christ and men I should do no more than the plain light of nature assureth me to be my great and needful duty EXCEPT II. ib. There is daily much greater prophaneness and the Consequent of prophaneness Immorality acted by those 4 whom yet Mr. Baxter never mentioneth but with honour As if no sins or miscarriages were to be blamed but theirs who are unable to defend themselves Answ. 1. IF this were true I were much too blame it being the very usage of others against my self which I have great reason to complain of 2. But if it was possible for you to believe your own words that I never mention them but with honour I shall think that there are few things that you may not possibly believe Reader if thou peruse the book and yet believe this Author I am not capable of satisfying thee in this nor will I undertake it in any thing else Are these terms of honour Pref. p. 18. How long Lord must thy Church and Cause be in the hands of unexperienced furious fools c. Do I honour them when I so much display their sin And when in the scheme in the conclusion I describe it And when I tell you of many of such Ministers and that it is a duty to separate from them or disown them And when in the history of Martin I tell you how neer it I am my self as to such as Martin separated from And when I cite Gildas calling such no Ministers but enemies and traytors c. Were you not very rash in this 3. But what if in this book I write neither against the prophane nor the Iews nor the Mahometans Is it nothing that I have written the greater part of above fifty books besides against them 4. What if there be Prophaneness to be reproved doth it sollow that we must not be reproved also Must we not repent because they must repent 5. O how hard is it to please all men What man in Eagland hath been less suspected to be a flatterer of such as he moaneth than my self or more accused of the contrary that hath any reputation of ministerial sobriety Ask the Bishops that Conferred with us at the Savoy 1660 Ask your self that read our Reply then Ask any that ever did Converse with me whether ever I was suspected of flattery or dawbing with men sins 6. But seeing you so far honour me as to vindicate me from other mens accusations I shall confess that it is my judgement both that we should honour all men 1 Pet. 2. 17. especially our superiors and also that in our eyes a vile person should be contemned while we honour them that fear the Lord Psal. 15. 4. EXCEPT III. He alloweth himself a great and masterly liberty to call his brethren fierce self-conceited dividers feaverish persons c. Answ. IF there be none such or but a few I will joyfully confess my error But if all ages of the Church have had such and if this Kingdom have been so troubled by such as all men know and if they yet live in this sin to their own trouble and ours why should it be contrary to meekness to mention it Should I hate my Brother in suffering sin to lie upon him Every paragraph almost inviteth me to remember Christs words to the two fierie Disciples and to say O how hard is it to know what manner of spirit we are of Tell me Reader whether this be not true that if I had called the Bishops sacrilegious silencers of a faithful Ministry murderers of many hundred thousand souls perjurious proud tyrannical covetous formal hypocrites malignant haters of good men c. I might not very easily have come off with many of these angry brethren without any blame for want of Meekness Nay whether they would not have liked it as my zeal when as such a gentle touch upon themselves doth intollerably hurt them Is there not gross partialitie in this Note also that these brethren that plead for Libertie do call it a masterly Libertie in me thus to name their faults And do you think that they would not have silenced my book if it had been in their power Note then whether the silencing imperious Spirit be not common to both extreams EXCEPT Ib. He useth the same frothy and unsavoury words that others prophane Prayer and the name of God by and which at the best is that foolish talking or jesting which we are commanded not so much as to mention Eph. 5. 3 4. Answ. THE words are I am only perswading all dissenters to Love one another and to forbear but all that is contrary to love And if such
as much sign of pride in you to think you know more than I as in me to think that I know more in this than you The truth is Pride is not a true valuing but an over-valuing our selves and our own understandings If either you or I be in the right and both think our selves confidently to be so he is the Proud person which ever he be that is in the wrong For it is he that over-valueth his own understanding Here therefore the Evidence must decide the Case EXCEPT V. p. 3. Answered Your 5th Exception implieth more Untruths The first is that I did not consider that fault of the Imposers which I have written in that very book so much against and elsewhere and before said more against than any man that I know in England This was not considerately spoken The second is that all or most of those that you separate from made tearing engines and dividing impositions If this be not implied you speak not to the point But you may easily know that in all the Parish-Churches of England there is not one man or woman no not one Minister of very many that ever made or imposed such Engines The third implied untruth is that I plead either for subscribing Assent or for such Communion as cannot be had without subscribing Assent to what you know is sinful when you may joyn as far as I desire you without subscribing any Assent at all EXCEPT VI. Answered 1. As to the sense of 2 Cor. 6. 14 15 16. and Rev. 18. 6. You confess that the Texts do directly and properly concern only Infidels and Idolaters there mentioned 2. You say It belongs to others that are guilty of the same Crimes under the name of Christians proportionally Answ. Very true If it be not a contradiction If any called Christians be notorious Infidels and Idolaters they are not Christians and so not fit for Christian Communion But from the Societies of such we must flie our selves But not from the societies of Christians alwaies when some such shall intrude 3. You say We are commanded strictly to separate from every one that is called a brother if he be covetous or a railer c. Answ. The Church and not a private man must exclude such a one from Church-Communion And you your self must exclude him from your private familiarity But you are not commanded to separate from the Church if they exclude him not I am not bound to separate from the Church where you are for this Book which you have written though I could prove it railing How few separated Churches know you on earth that have no Covetous person or railer Or at least where the people hold it their dutie to separate from their own Church if any Covetous person or railer be there 4. You add that if notwithstanding all admonition any Church will still retain them we are not to own such a Church as a Spouse of Christ and therefore must come out of it c. Answ. 1. I have in that Book proved the contrarie by abundant Scripture instances And in the next exception you your self confess the primitive corruptions and lay the stress of your Separation only on Imposed Conditions of Communion 2. You give us no proof of this naked assertion If a Scolding woman or a Covetous Professor be reteined in a Church otherwise pure you are not therefore bound to separate much less to take it for no Church For that is a true Church which hath the true essentials of a Church But so may one that reteineth a Covetous man or a Scold Ergo By your rule you must Separate not only from Parish Churches but from most of the Separated Churches that ever I was acquainted with I find no particular Church called A Spouse of Christ but the universal only As a Corporation is not a Kingdome but a part of a Kingdome 5. Above twenty Arguments in my book for Infant Baptism shew that you did not truly say that the best argument that all learned men have ever defended it by is the proportion it hath to Circumcision EXCEPT VII Answered You say that I impertinently recite the Corruptions of the Scripture Churches to prove that we are not to separate c. your reason is Because many Errors in Doctrine and life were formerly admitted yet none of them were imposed as conditions of Communion Answ. Do you not see that here you seem to deny what you said so confidently in the last Exception There you say We must come out if they will receive such for members after all admonition and retein them Here you seem plainlie to yield that up and to lay all on imposed Conditions of Communion as if else you could communicate with Churches so corrupt You can bear your own contradiction better than mine 2. What is imposed on you as a condition to your Communion in the Doctrine and Prayers of the Parish Churches but your actual Communion it self If you will say that their bad Minister and their imperfect form is imposed as a Condition because you must be present so they may say that you also impose your imperfect manner and expressions on them as Conditions of their Communion in your Churches And thus you are all Imposers EXCEPT VIII Answered First you say I said that I met with many Conscientious Professors c. That 's your fifth untruth I said no such thing but only many Censorious professors 2. You say It is hardly possible to believe it But that is possible to men that use to be more careful of speaking truth themselves and that are acquainted with the people of England by such means as Conference which is hardly possible to others 3. You ask Ought not such things to be concealed And you abuse Scripture to confirm it But 1. Are you not here partial Is it your judgement that we should conceal the faults or ignorance or errors of the Bishops Conformists and Parish members Or be they not commonly multiplied and aggravated And yet must the Separatists ignorance and error be concealed 2. Do you desire their Repentance and humiliation whose faults you would have concealed And do you imitate Nehemiah and others of Gods Servants that use to Confess the sins of all ranks and sorts of men 3. Do you use in publick humiliations to confess this ignorance of Professors or not If not what a kind of humiliation do you make If you do do not you publickly reveal this secret 4. How grosly are you unacquainted with England that take this for a secret or for hardly to be believed when we have Congregations and multitudes of such and the land and world ringeth of them 5. Do you not thus harden them that charge us with factiousness when you shew your self so solicitous for the Concealment of the ignorance of your party while you have no such care for others 4. But it is your sixth Untruth in point of fact when you say
motion of God and as if this bringing it to their mind would warrant their exposition Whereupon I advise men to know the necessity of the spirits ordinary sanctifying work and not to despise mens pretences of revelation but yet to believe none against Scripture As to the ground of this passage it is such as is not disputable with me being matter of sense so impossible is it for me to escape all the heinous accusations of this brother It is not many years since I have had several persons with me two or three out of one County that brought me books written for the Press and urged me to procure them printed and shewed to the King in which were abundance of Scriptures abused to many daring predictions of things presently to come to pass and all upon pretence of Visions and Revelations and the setting of such an exposition on their hearts And the men were ignorant melancholy and crazâ—d persons and the Scriptures almost all falâ—ly interpreted and the predictions fail And all of them had the fifth Monarchy notion without conference that I could learn with any about it When I lived in Coventrey Major Wilkies a Learned Scot lived in the house with me who professed to have lived many years in a Course of Visions and Revelations and had abundance of Texts set upon his heart and expounded to him by Vision most for the Millenary way and for Prophecies about our times and changes and some against preciseness many of his expositions were considerable some palpably false some of his predictions came to pass and some proved false He was of a hot melancholy temper and as I heard after distracted If this brother had known how many if not many score of deeply melancholy persons have been with me that have had some of them prophecies most of them almost in desperation and some of them comforted by such or such a Text brought to their mind which was of a quite different sense and impertinent to that which they fetcht from it and some of their Collections contrary to the rest he would take heed of doing Gods spirit so much wrong as to father poor crazed peoples deliratioâ—s on it And this is as common I think among the Papists themselves that meddle less with Scripture than we do What abundance of Books be there of the phantasmes of their Fryers and Nuns as Prophecies Visions and Revelations which the judicious Reader may perceive are but the effects of melancholy and hysterical passions improved by ignorant or deceitful Priests But what is the Charge against me here Why he saith He calls them poor fanciful women and melancholy persons that ordinarily receive comfort by suggested Texts of Scripture Answ. This is the 16th visible Untruth Indeed here are are two gross untruths together 1. He changeth the subject into the predicate and then affirmeth me so to have spoken I said It is ordinary for such fanciful and melancholy persons to take deep apprehensions for Revelations and if a Text come into their mind to think it is by an extraordinary motion of the spirit And he feigneth me to say that they that ordinarily receive comfort by suggested texts are melancholy Is it all one to say It is ordinary for melancholy persons to pray to fear to erre c. And They that ordinarily pray fear erre are melancholy Again Brother this is not well 2. He feigneth me to speak of them that ordinarily receive Comfort when I have no such word but speak of them that would draw others into error and separation by confident asserting false expositions of Scripture as set on their mind by revelâ—tion from the spirit This is not well neither He addeth If this be not to sit in the Chair of Scorners what is This needeth no answer For saith he is not this the very language of holy men Answ. Alas brother how impertinent is your question The question is Whether this be the language of no melancholy person or of none but holy men and that as holy Is it not the language of many â— Popish Nun and Fryer that pretend to Revelation Have not I heard it with these ears from multitudes in melancholy and other weakness that have perverted the Texts which they alledged Have I not read it many books of Experiences Is he a scorner that saith that a man may speak the same words mistakingly in melancholy which another speaketh truly Do you well brother to trouble the World at this rate of discourse For charges on me I pass them by And for his saying that the bare recital of their usual words is fitter for a Iester than a judicious Divine and when he hath done to be so angry that they be not all ascribed to Gods spirit I will not denominate such passages as they deserve lest I offend him Lest you deny belief to me I intreat you and the Reader to get and read a book published by Mr. Brown as is uncontrolledly affirmed who lately wrote against Mr. Tombes against the lawfulness of Communion in the Parish Churches concerning the experiences and strange work of God on a Gentlewoman in Worcester whom I will not name because yet living and God may recover her but is there well known This Gentlewoman having been long vain and a constant neglecter of publick worship was suddenly moved to go into the Church while I was there preaching on Rom. 6. 21. The very Text struck her to the heart but before the Sermon was done she could hardly forbear crying out in the Congregation She went home a changed person resolved for a holy life But her affection or passion being strong and her nature tender and her knowledge small she quickly thought that the Quakers lived strictlier than we and fell in among them At last perceiving them vilifie the Ministry and the Scripture her heart smote her and she forsook them as speaking against that which by experience she had found to do her good And desiring to speak with me who lived far off opened this much to me But all these deep workings and troubles between the several waies did so affect her that she fell into a very strong melancholy Insomuch that she imposed such an abstinence from meat upon her self that she was much consumed and so debilitated as to keep her bed and almost famished Mr. Brown and others were her instructers who were very zealous for the way called The Fifth Monarchy and having instructed her in those opinions published the whole story in print which else I would not have mentioned I shall say nothing of any thing which is otherwise known but desire the Reader that doth but understand what melancholy is better than the Writers did to read that book and observe with sorrow and pitty what a number of plain effects of Melancholy as to thoughts and Scriptures and actions are there ascribed to meâ—r Temptations on one side and to Gods unusual or notable operations on the other side In the end he saith And
and Universities and humane Learning And Mr. Norton of New England told me that with them A Church separated from a Church or was gathered out of it rejecting their Pastors and choosing unlearned men and would receive and endure none that had humane Learning and that Moses and Aaron as his words were Magistrates and Ministers went down on their knees to them with tears and could not move them to relent unto unity or to receive a learned Minister nor get any answer from them but that is your judgement and this is ours I speak his very words as neer as I can possibly spoken to old Mr. Ash and me before his yet living companion Mr. Broadstreet a Magistrate of New England Now all this the common people are against Must we therefore be against Magistrates Ministers Ordinances and all because the common people are for them How commonly are they against the Quakers and the Familists and the Infidels and Heathens and with us the Papists Are all these therefore in the right Let any Familist deny the Scripture or the immortality of the soul and the common people will be against them Must we deny God and Christ because we live in a land where they are owned Brother consider 1. That some truths the light of nature teacheth all 2. And some common illumination teacheth multitudes of bad men 3. And some good education and the tradition of their fathers and the Laws of the Countrey teacheth 4. And some are better persons among those that you separate from than many are that separate from them Let not us then be bad and more erroneous than those whom you account the worse and all because they are no worse The Text which you wish me to read on my knees I have done so and I thank you for that advice but I answer not your hope of retracting what I have written in that but contrarily 1. On my knees I pray God to forgive you such abuse of Scripture 2. And to give you a sounder mind For the Text speaketh of Infidels or denyers of Christs incarnation and maketh this the differencing Character Every spirit that confesseth that Iesus is come in the flesh is of God and so on the contrary But are all these Christians that you plead for separation from and charge with Idolatry Infidels and denyers of Christ And all the Churches on earth that use a Liturgie O brother you use not Scripture oâ— the Church aright We grant that in professed Christians also the carnal mind is enmity to God and they that are most carnal are likest to reject the truth But yeâ— we would not wish you to measure Truth by the quality of the Receiver For Christ is truly Christ though many workers of iniquity shall say we have prophesied in thy name Many hereticks have been strict and temperate when the greater part of the Orthodox have been too loose Yet that did not prove the Christian doctrine to be false EXCEPT XXXI Answered I have little here to do but number your visible Untruths in matter of fact One is 21th Untruth He flyes upon all sides that are for order in any kind When I speak not a word against Order nor against any side but the instances of some mens extreams which all that are for Order hold not Your 22d Untruth is Without expressing himself whether he is for Papal Presbyterian or Independent Government in the Church And if this were not crime enough to seem unsetled in so necessary a point What signification have I given of unsetledness When I have long ago publickly told the World my judgement about all this to the full in my five Disputations of Church Government and in a Book called Christian Concord and another called Universal Concord another of Confirmation besides many more But might not a man be setled that were as I am in the main of the same judgement as is expressed in the Waldenses or Bohemian Government described by Laseitius and Commenius which taketh in the best of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency and leaveth out the worst and the unnecessary parts Are all the Hungarian and Transilvanian and old Polonian Protestants that come neer this order withour Order or unsetled 3. It is your 23d Untruth that I write very dubiously about Iustification whether we are to take it to be by Faith or by works When as all that I was here to say of it is spoken very plainly I have written many books to make my mind as plain as it is possible for me to speak As in my Confession my Disputations of Iustification my Apologies my Answer to Dr. Barlow and in my Life of Faith which was printed before this where I have detected a multitude of errors about Justification and many more And if you expect every time I name Justification I should write the summ of all those books over again I shall fail your expectation though I incur your censure who no doubt ' had I done it would justly have censured such repetition for tedious vanity You adde We fear he is not sound in that point Answ. Your fear is your best confutation and the best assistance that you afford to make me as wise and judicious as your self The Lord say you We hope in mercy to his Church and particularly to those who have been deceived into a good opinion of him will bring this man upon his knees that he may make a publick acknowledgement of his folly Answ. If that be your work it is the same with his that it is said you sometime wrote against so many Volumes have been written already by Papists Prelatists Anabaptists Quakers Seekers and many other Sects for this very end to cure mens good opinion of me as if a man that could but think ill of me were in a fairer hope of his Salvation that if all these have not yet accomplish'd it nor all the famous Sermons that have been preach'd against me I doubt brother that your endeavours come too late You may perswade some few factioâ—s credulous souls into hatred but still those that love God will love one another And I confess of all that ever I saw I least sear your book as to the bringing men out of a good opinion of me unless your name and back-bitings can do it When you say that I say that The presumptuous do boast of being Righteous by Christs imputed Righteousness in conscience and honesty you should not have left out without any fulfilling of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace on their part Is this just dealing Are there no such presumptuous boasters Or will you justifie them all that you may but vent your wrath on me My judgement in the foresaid point of Imputation of Christs Righteousness I have opened at large in the foresaid writings The Life of Faith Confession Disp. of Iustif c. EXCEPT XXXII p. 18. Answered I said The good of nature is lovely in all men as men even in
party when you preach to them of the tendency and effects of sin and error you would easily see the fault in them Your talk of a prostituted Conscience I forgive But if you must not be told of the dangerous tendency of an unsound doctrine lest you seem to be reproached you will leave your selves in a sad condition when your cure is rejected as a reproach EXCEPT XXXIX Answered Very good You grant that if the same spirit be restored to the same words they will be as good as they were at the beginning But what spirit was that brother that first took up the forms and words that now we speak of It was not only a spirit of miracles tongues or supernatural inspiration Why do you say then that no man can restore the same spirit to them and we cannot believingly expect that God will do it because we have no promise for it It was but the spirit of Illumination and Sanctification And have not all Christs members this same spirit Judge by Rom. 8. 9. 1 Cor. 12. Eph. 4. 3 4 5 to 16. You have here then by consequence given up your whole cause You grant that If the same spirit be restored which first used the prayers and responses and praises of the Liturgie it is very true that they may be used now But the same spirit is in all the truly faithful Ergo by all the truly faithful they may be used now EXCEPT XL. p. 20. Answered You say It is unbecomingly done in Mr. Baxter to compare Cromwell to the Tyrant Maximus who dedicated a flattering book to his son Answ. 1. Maximus is by most Historians made so good a man of himself that I more feared lest many would have made me a praiser of Cromwell by the comparison 2. He is called a Tyrant because he was a Usurper And do you think that Cromwell was not so when he pull'd down both King Parliament and Rump Nay Maximus was chosen in England by the Souldiers at a time when pulling down and setting up by Souldiers was too common and when his predecessors had little better Title than himself Therefore I pray you judge not too roughly of Maximus But Cromwell did usurp at a time when the case was otherwise Our Monarchy was hereditary by the undoubted Constitution and Laws of the Land and our Parliament by an Act was to sit till they had dissolved themselves and he had by solemn promises obliged himself to the Parliament as their servant and had fought against and kill'd the King among other things on this pretence that he fought against his Parliament and would have pulled them down which thing he actually and finally did himself Sir God is not well pleased with the justifying or palliating of these things though men may be tempted to do it in faction and for a divided interest 3. It is publickly known that I did openly and constantly speak the same things all the time of Cromwell's Usurpation Why then is it unbecoming now Among other places see my book of Infant Baptisme pag. 147 to 152. and 269 270 c. Where the passages spoke with caution are yet fuller than all these that displease you If Cromwell's party endured me then cannot you endure me to say one quarter as much now 4. What if I had done otherwise Shall such a suffering Preacher as you teach us all that its unbecoming to Repent 5. That I dedicated a flattering book to his son is your 31st Untruth For common sense here will discern that you distinguish between the Book and the Dedication And two books at once I directed to him The books were one against Popery and the other against the English Prelacy and Re-ordination and the imposing of the Liturgie and Ceremonies And there is not one syllable of his son in all the book save in that Dedication Nor did I ever see him speak to him or write to him else nor hear from him But only hearing that he was disposed to peace and against such turbulent Church-destroying waies as you here plead for I thought it my duty then to urge him to do that which was right and just EXCEPT XLI Answered Having my self been bred up under some Tutors and with acquaintance that kept up a reputation of great learning and wisdom by crying down the Puritans as unlearned fellows when themselves were more unlearned than I will here express on the by I said that I had known such and also that there were some such now who having clumsie wits that cannot feel so fine a thred nor are capable of mastering difficulties do censure what they understand not And that many that should be conscious of the dulness and ignorance of their fumbling unfurnished brains have no way to keep up the reputation of their wisdom but to tell men O such a one hath dangerous errors c. To this he saith that if Ben. Johnson or Hudibras had writ it but for Learned Mr. B. mortified Mr. B. judicious Mr. Baxter to fall into such levity will I hope warn all to take heed how they over-value themselves left God in judgement leave them to themselves as he hath evidently done this poor man c. And he concludeth with an invitation of me to a second and more seasonable retractation Answ. I heartily thank you for your pity and for any zeal of God though it be not according to knowledg And for my retractation I suppose you would have called it a third You quarrelled not with my suspension of my Aphorisms of Justification And for my retractation of my Political Aphorisms I have no more to say to you and others of your mind but that you would better consult your own peace and other mens and your innocency too if you would meddle with your own matters or with that only which concerneth you And to conclude 1. I unfeignedly forgive you all the revilings and other injuries of this your Book 2. I intreat you to review what is against God and his Church against Faith Love and Peace and to repent of it in time 3. I beseech you to give over this pernicious flattery of Professors and daubing over their ignorance injudiciousness pride and divisions 4. I intreat you to be more impartial towards dissenters and let not your Judgment be blinded by your passions 5. To help you to impartiality I beseech you consider how you tempt the Bishops to think it no harm to silence men that bold and do such things as you have vented and done in this book 6. I beseech you to that end better to study your self and to know what manner of spirit you are of Besides all the intimated Untruths here are 30 or 31 gross Untruths in matter of fact which I have set before you For my self it is not the least part of my Non-conformity That I dare not lie by publick Declaration to say I Assent and Consent where I do not Now shall a man aggravate the crime of such things