THE Bishop of Worcester's LETTER To a Friend For VINDICATION of Himself FROM Mr. BAXTER'S Calumny Tenet insanabile multos Scribendi Cacoethes London Printed by R. Norton for Timothy Garthwait at the Little North-door of St. Pauls Church 1662. Mr. Baxter hath lately printed a Book called The Mischiefs of Self-Ignorance and the Benefits of Self-Acquaintance in the Address of which Book to his dearly beloved the Inhabitants of Kidderminster he hath this ensuing passage relating to the Bishop of Worcester IN a disputation by writing those of the other part formed an Argument whose Major Proposition was to this sense for I have no Copy Whatsoever Book enjoyneth nothing but what is of it self lawful and by lawful authority enjoyneth nothing that is sinful We denied this Proposition and at last gave divers Reasons of our denial amongst which one was that It may be unlawful by Accident and therefore sinful You now know my Crime it is my concurring with Learned Reverend Brethren to give this reason of our denial of a Proposition yet they are not forbidden to Preach for it and I hope shall not be but only I. You have publickly heard from a mouth that should speak nothing but the words of Charity Truth and Soberness especially there that this was a desperate shift that men at the last are forced to and inferring that then neither God nor man can enjoyn without sin In City and Countrey this soundeth forth to my reproach I should take it for an Act of Clemency to have been smitten professedly for nothing and that it might not have been thought necessary to afflict me by a defamation that so I might seem justly afflicted by a prohibition to Preach the Gospel But indeed is there in these words of ours so great a Crime though we doubted not but they knew that our Assertion made not Every Evil Accident to be such as made an Imposition unlawful yet we expressed this by word to them at that time for fear of being misreported and I told it to the Right Reverend Bishop when he forbad me to Preach and gave this as a reason And I must confess I am still guilty of so much weakness as to be confident that Some things not Evil of themselves may have Accidents so Evil as may make it a sin to him that shall Command them Is this opinion inconsistent with all Government yea I must confess my self guilty of so much greater weakness as that I thought I should never have found a man on Earth that had the ordinary reason of a Man that had made question of it yea I shall say more then that which hath offended viz. That whensoever the commanding or forbidding of a thing indifferent is like to occasion more hurt than good and this may be foreseen the commanding or forbidding it is a sin But yet this is not the Assertion that I am chargeable with but that Some Accidents there may be that may make the Imposition sinful If I may ask it without accusing of others how would my Crime have been denominated if I had said the contrary should I not have been judged unmeet to live in any governed Society It is not unlawful of it self to Command out a Navy to Sea but if it were foreseen that they would fall into the Enemies hands or were like to perish by any Accident and the necessity of sending them were small or none it were a sin to send them It is not unlawful of it self to sell poyson or give a knife to another or to bid another to do it but if it were foreseen that they will be used to poyson or kill the buyer it is unlawful and I think the Law would make him believe it that were guilty It is not of it self unlawful to light a candle or set fire on a straw but if it may be foreknown that by anothers negligence or wilfulness it is like to set fire on the City or give fire to a train or store of Gun-powder that is under the Parliament House when the King and Parliament are there I crave the Bishops pardon for believing that it were sinful to do it or command it yea or not to hinder it in any such case when Qui non vetat peccare cum potest jubet yea though going to Gods publick worship be of it self so far from being a sin that it is a Duty yet I think it is a sin to command it to all in time of a raging Pestilence or when they should be defending the City against the assault of an Enemy it may rather then be a duty to proâ—ibit it I think Paul spake not any thing inconsistent with the Government of God or Man when he bid both the Ruleâ—s and the People of the Church not to destroy him with their meaâ— for whom Christ dyed and when he saith he hath not his power to destruction but to edification yea there are evil Accidents of a thing not evil of it self that are caused by the Commander and it is my opinion that they may prove his command unlawful But what need I use any other Instances then that which was the matter of our dispute Suppose it never so lawful of it self to kneel in the Reception of the Sacrament if it be imposed by a penalty that is incomparably beyond the proportion of the offence that penalty is an Accident of the Command and maketh it by Accident sinful in the Commander If a Prince should have Subjects so weak as that all of them thought it a sin against the example of Christ and the Canons of the General Councels and many hundred years practice of the Church to kneel in the Act of Receiving on the Lords Day if he should make a Law that all should be put to death that would not kneel when he foreknew that their Consciences would command them all or most of them to dye rather then obey would any man deny his command to be unlawful by this Accident Whether the penalty of ejecting Ministers that dare not put away all that do not kneel and of casting out all the people that scruple it from the Church be too great for such a circumstance and so in the rest and whether this with the lamentable estate of many Congregations and the divisions that will follow being all foreseen do prove the impositions unlawful which were then in Question is a Case that I had then a clearer call to speak to then I have now only I may say That the Ejecting of the Servants of Christ from the Communion of his Church and of his faithful Ministers from their Sacred Work when too many Congregations have none but insufficient or scandalous Teachers or no Preaching Ministers at all will appear a matter of very great moment in the day of our accounts and such as should not be done upon any but a necessary cause where the benefit is greater then this hurt and all the rest amounts to Having given you to whom I owe it
their piae frandes or holy artifices of speaking more or less then the truth as it makes more or less for their purpose or advantage as likewise of putting non causam pro causa or a part and a less principal part of the cause for the whole cause For who would not think that knows not Mr. Baxter that when he tels his Disciples of Kidderminster You now know my Crime with reference to the aforesaid assertion and to that only who would not think I say that either there was nothing else objected against him or at least nothing of moment or that could be any just and reasonable cause of my forbidding him to Preach in my Diocess especially when he adds that the Right Reverend Bishop gave him this as a reason for his forbidding him to Preach where if he means that the Bishop gave him this as the only or the principal reason he speaks without truth and against his Conscience for the first and principal reason the Bishop gave him for his forbidding him to preach was as he well knows and as the Dean of Worcester will witness against him His Preaching before without License having no Cure of his own to Preach to whereunto when he replyed I had promised to give him such a License as the Bishop of London had given him viz. Quà m diu se bene gereret durante beneplacito I rejoyn'd That it was true indeed I had once promised to give him such a License but withal that it was as true that first I had never promised to give him a License if he took it before I gave it him and that for this presumption of his I had now forbidden him to Preach any more Secondly That I knew more of him since then I did at that time for first I had been credibly informed that he had abused the Bishop of London 's favour by preaching factiously though not in the City yet in the Diocess of London and I named the place to him Secondly that since that promise of mine which cannot be supposed to be other then Conditional I my self had heard him at a Conference in the Savoy maintaining such a Position as was destructive to Legislative Power both in God and Man meaning the Assertion before spoken of viz. That the enjoyning of things lawful by lawful Authority if they might by Accident be the cause of sin was sinful which Assertion of his with the horrible consequences of it I told him then at Worcester I had formerly told him of at the Savoy openly and before all the company that was at the Conference whereunto all that he replyed at my second telling him at Worcester was that he had used some distinctions to salve that Assertion from those consequences but what those distinctions were he did not then mention as Dr. Warmstry can witness though in this printed address of his to his friends of Kidderminster he saith he did tell the Bishop in what a limited and restrained sense he and his brethren understood that Assertion which whether they did or no will appear by and by when we shall more nearly examine his printed Narrative as to that particular In the mean time though I said indeed that one that held and was likely to teach such Doctrines was not to be suffered to Preach unto the People yet this was not then alledged by me as the cause or crime for which I had forbidden him to Preach for that as I said before was His presuming to Preach without a License but only as a reason why I should have thought my self not obliged by the promise I had formerly made him to give him a License though he had not otherwise forfeited his Claim to that promise by Preaching without or before he had it Lastly He might have remembred another reason I gave him why I could not have made good that promise namely those principles of Treason and Rebellion publickly extant in his Books which I had not taken notice of till after the making of that promise and which till he should recant in as publick a manner I thought my self obliged in Conscience not to suffer him to Preach in my Diocess whereunto his Answer was That whatsoever he had said or done in that kind was pardoned by the Act of Indempnity True said I so far as the King can pardon it that is in regard of its corporal punishment here in this world but it is God that must pardon the guilt or obligation to punishment in the world to come which he will not without Repentance and it is the Church that must pardon the scandal which she cannot do neither without an honourable amends made her by publick Confession and Recantation I could tell Mr. Baxter in his ear likewise that in excuse of his Rebellious Principles formerly published he said That now the Parliament had Declared where the Soveraign Power was he should acknowledge it and submit to it as if the King owed his Soveraignty to the declaration of a Parliament which is as false as Rebellious and as dangerous a principle as any of his former however by what hath been said it appears that Mr. Baxter meant to impose upon his credulous friends at Kidderminster and upon his unwary Readers by making them believe that was the only cause for which the Bishop forbad him to Preach which was neither the only nor the principal cause why the Bishop did so nor indeed to speak properly any cause of it at all for the only proper cause for which the Bishop forbad him to Preach was His Preaching before without the Bishops License the other which he pretends together with the third which he conceals were properly and professedly the Causes why the Bishop would not take off that prohibition or why he would not give him a License to Preach for the future either at Kidderminster or in any other place of his Diocess until he should publickly retract that Position which he had openly asserted at the Conference and should publickly renounce likewise those seditious and rebellious principles which are published in his Books And this is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth of what passed betwixt me and Mr. Baxter at Worcester before I preached at Kidderminster where whether I defamed him or he by saying so hath not grosly defamed me will appear by that which follows wherein that I might neither be deceived my self nor deceive others I have not trusted to my own memory only as Mr. Baxter saith he doth to his but I have consulted with Dr. Gunning and Dr. Pearson two of the three that managed that Conference with Mr. Baxter and his Assistants and have seen that Assertion in the same sense that I object it and Mr. Baxter disclaimes it affirmed by Mr. Baxter himself under his own hand I found Mr. Baxter at the Savoy engaged in a Dispute and I perceived that to keep himself off from that part of the argument which would press near to
enough as joyned to Gods Laws to oblige us to consent and obey him as our Governour Thes. 153. XII When God doth not notably declare any person or persons qualified above others there the people must judge as well as they are able according to Gods general rules Thes. 157. XIII And yet All the people have not this right of choosing their Governours but commonly a part of every Nation must be compelled to consent c. XIV Those that are known enemies of the Common Good in the chiefest parts of it are unmeet to Govern or choose Governours but such are multitudes of ungodly vicious men Pag. 174. So that if those that are strongest though fewest call themselves the Godly Party all others besides themselves are to be excluded from Governing or choosing of Governours And amongst the ungodly that are to be thus excluded he reckons all those that will not hearken to their Pastors he means the Presbyterian Classis or that are despisers of the Lords-Day that is all such as are not Sabbatarians or will not keep the Lords-Day after the Jewish manner which they prescribe and which is condemned for Judaism by all even of the Presbyterian perswasion in the world but those of England and Scotland only XV. If a People that by Oath and Duty are obliged to a Soveraign shall sinfully dispossess him and contrary to their Covenants choose and Covenant with another they may be obliged by their latter Covenant notwithstanding their former and particular subjects that consented not in the breaking of their former Covenants may yet be obliged by occasion of their latter choice to the person whom they choose Thes. 181. XVI If a Nation injuriously deprive themselves of a worthy Prince the hurt will be their own and they punish themselves but if it be necessarily to their welfare it is no injury to him But a King that by war will seek reparations from the body of the People doth put himself into an hostile State and tells them actually that he looks to his own good more then theirs and bids them take him for their Enemy and so defend themselves if they can Pag. 424. XVII Though a Nation wrong their King and so quoad Meritum causae they are on the worser side yet may he not lawfully war against the publick good on that account nor any help him in such a war because propter finem he hath the worser cause Thes. 352. And yet as he tels us pag. 476. we were to believe the Parliaments Declarations and professions which they made that the war which they raised was not against the King either in respect of his Authority or of his Person but only against Delinquent Subjects and yet they actually fought against the King in person and we are to believe saith Mr. Baxter pag. 422. that men would kill them whom they fight against Mr. Baxter's Doctrine concerning the Government of England in particular HE denies the government of England to be Monarchical in these words I. The real Soveraignty here amongst us was in King Lords and Commons Pag. 72. II. As to them that argue from the Oath of Supremacy and the title given the King I refer them saith Mr. Baxter to Mr. Lawson's answer to Hobb's Politicks where he sheweth that the Title is often given to the single Person for the honour of the Commonwealth and his encouragement because he hath an eminent interest but will not prove the whole Soveraignty to be in him and the Oath excludeth all others from without not those whose interest is implied as conjunct with his The eminent dignity and interest of the King above others allowed the name of a Monarchy or Kingdome to the Commonwealth though indeed the Soveraignty was mix'd in the hands of the Lords and Commons Pag. 88. III. He calls it a false supposition 1. That the Soveraign power was only in the King and so that it was an absolute Monarchy 2. That the Parliament had but only the proposing of Lawes and that they were Enacted only by the Kings Authority upon their request 3. That the power of Armes and of War and Peace was in the King alone And therefore saith he those that argue from these false suppositions conclude that the Parliament being Subjects may not take up Arms without him and that it is Rebellion to resist him and most of this they gather from the Oath of Supremacy and from the Parliaments calling of themselves his Subjects but their grounds saith he are sandy and their superstructure false Pag. 459 460. And therefore Mr. Baxter tells us that though the Parliament are Subjects in one capacity yet have they their part in the Soveraignty also in their higher capacity Ibid. And upon this false and trayterous supposition he endeavours to justifie the late Rebellion and his own more then ordinary activeness in it For IV. Where the Soveraignty saith he is distributed into several hands as the Kings and Parliaments and the King invades the others part they may lawfully defend their own by war and the Subject lawfully assist them yea though the power of the Militia be expresly given to the King unless it be also exprest that it shall not be in the other Thes. 363. The conclusion saith he needs no proof because Soveraignty as such hath the power of Arms and of the Laws themselves The Law that saith the King shall have the Militia supposeth it to be against Enemies and not against the Common-wealth nor them that have part of the Soveraignty with him To resist him here is not to resist power but usurpation and private will in such a case the Parliament is no more to be resisted then he Ibid. V. If the King raise Warre against such a Parliament upon their Declaration of the dangers of the Common-wealth the people are to take it as raised against the Common-wealth Thes. 358. And in that case saith he the King may not only be resisted but ceaseth to be a King and entreth into a state of Warre with the people Thes. 368. VI. Again if a Prince that hath not the whole Soveraignty be conquered by a Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive Warre that Senate cannot assume the whole Soveraignty but supposeth that government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen if the former be incapable Thes. 374. as he tells us he is by ceasing to be King in the immediately precedent Thes. VII And yet in the Preface to this Book he tells us that the King withdrawing so he calls the murdering of one King and the casting off of another the Lords and Commons ruled alone was not this to change the species of the Government Which in the immediate words before he had affirmed to be in King Lords and Commons which constitution saith he we were sworn and sworn and sworn again to be faithful to and to defend And yet speaking of that Parliament which contrary to their