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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27046	A third defence of the cause of peace proving 1. the need of our concord, 2. the impossibility of it, on the terms of the present impositions against the accusations and storms of, viz., Mr. John Hinckley, a nameless impleader, a nameless reflector, or Speculum, &c., Mr. John Cheny's second accusation, Mr. Roger L'Strange, justice, &c., the Dialogue between the Pope and a fanatic, J. Varney's phanatic Prophesie / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1419; ESTC R647	161,764	297

Colledge though in the great remote end they both agree But you fly to that poor shift of bidding me take heed of absurd and ridiculous Suppositions not argumentative c. As if you had shewed any absurdity in these Suppositions Or as if plain undeniable Instances had no place in Arguments or Answers but were ridiculous Suppositions and he that would say that a Kingdom is greater than a Family and the King than a Master or Major used a ridiculous Supposition Just thus the poor Nonconformists are perswaded by your Pithonalogy to subscribe swear c. But I seem you say to assert this my self by saying there is a small difference between Bishop Usher's Model and the present Answ It 's tedious disputing with one that must have still another Writing to help him to understand that which he will first confute yea and seemeth not willing to understand It is a fallacy A dicte secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter I only askt you What Farthing doth it take from their Estates What Title from their Honour Power Negative voice even their Lordships and Parliament places But is this the Question We then laboured to satisfie the unsatisfied Ministers that not only Bishop Usher's Reduction but even the King's Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs had changed the very species of Prelacy without any of those Abatements If you would know it is by one word Consent restoring the inferiour Pastors and Churches though not to their Integrals yet to their Essentials And we were so inclinable to Conformity that on that supposition we had Conformed had but that Declaration stood though some of the Sects are of another mind whom you Arguments would confirm For we judge that a Bishop of one only Church consisting of five hundred or a thousand Chappels or Congregations that are strictly no Churches as having no Bishops doth specifically differ from a Bishop of a thousand Churches which have every one their proper Bishop and so he is truly an Archbishop or General Bishop But I am not to trouble you with this And now how impertinent was it to bid me Rub up my Philosophy about Maximum quod sic minimum quod non Know you not that the common use of those Writers are to intimate the same thing that I am saying against you That there is a subjective maximum minimum which only are capable of the relative form But I am next turned to Vossius de invoc sanct of which he hath there disputed and one Histor Thes and I am not told which of them but the words are in the first Thes 49. to prove that the Saint in Heaven and those on Earth make one Society Quare cum nihil obstat quo minus unius civitatis cives dicamur nec causae quicquam erit quo minus aeque civilis honos dicatur qui civibus coelestibus exhibetur quam qui civibus terrenis Nam grad● quidem honores isti differunt sed uterque tamen est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And was it possible that you should think that this made for you Because the world or Universe of Rationals are one Body or Society and so civil honour is the same thing as such in genere to them in Heaven as to them on Earth doth it follow that in this universal Society there are no Kingdoms Cities or Families specifically different Nor no different species of the civil honour what not to Kings Parents Masters What a thing is factions Interest Vossius only proveth Generical Identity of civil honour and the specifical difference of it from the honour of Religious Adoration The Church universal is one and the love and honour which we owe to the Saints in Heaven and Earth is Generically of the same kind But do you believe therefore that there are no subordinate Species of Churches and Honour on Earth What not the Honour due to the King the Bishop the Chancellor the Parish Curates the Deacons and the Beggars Yet all this with you are Premises sufficient to conclude And then it may be you may give leave to Magis minus non variant speciem to be a Maxim still See what Evidence it is that must perswade us to Nonconformity Are they not worthy to be silenced and branded as you have done that can resist such Light But you come to the quick and say Is there no Communion but personal Answ Yes else they could not be two ends to make two Societies You add Many of the Kings Subjects never saw his face yet they have many Hands and Eyes in respect of their subordinate Officers so have Diocesans in their Curates Answ Very true And that proveth that a Kingdom is one Society and a whole Diocess also one Ignoras Elenchum But doth that prove that there are no subordinate Societies in these Which though subordinate in point of Power yet specifically differ Is there no such thing as Personal Communion in presence because there is such a thing as distant Communion of another sort For all that your terms of Hands and Eyes would hide it I scarce think you are ignorant that under the King there are Heads as well as Hands and Eyes Heads of Families Schools Colledges Universities Corporations Cities who are constitutive parts of real Societies which are not of the same species with a Kingdom though in it And if Archbishops be of God's appointment so it should be with Archbishops and Bishops and every Church should have a Bishop But if you will not have it so but we must only have a Bishop and Curates and a Diocesan Church and Chappels you betray our Cause to the Brownists who easily prove No Bishop or Pastor no Church in sensu politico And so when you have granted them that we have no true Parish Churches there are few of them whose Wit is so weak as not to disprove the pretended right of such Diocesan Churches as consist of the Carkasses of many hundred mortified Parish Churches § 50. My Answer I must not repeat take it how you will you here come to the very Controversie I will not begin it with you because I cannot prosecute it I have so much to say on it as at these rates may engage you and me in dispute for many years if we lived so long which I find no reason allowing me to undertake Get me leave to Write and Publish it and I will write you a just Volume of it since it is published till then I again tell you I have said enough though too negligently in my Dispute of Church Government though one hath nibled at the Forms of some Arguments in it If you would have more answer Gers Bucer Parker and Ames's fresh Suit to name no other § 50. I shewed the invalidity 1. Of your Licitis honestis 2. And of former Obedience sub poena anathematis as nothing to our case in hand and do you deny what I said and disprove it 2. I tell you that so far as Bishops or

account of the Reasons of his Non-conformity This one man tells him that no Licenser will license it That he hath not Printed without License before his importunity since the Act That some few Printers through poverty have ventured on a few Sheets which they could quickly slip out of the way But now severity having encreased their penalty he knoweth not of one man that will venture so far That if they would it will do him no good who hath so much to say against Conformity as a few sheets will not contain and he knoweth not of that man living that would Print And that should he do it he must look for such an Imprisonment as is likely to be his death And therefore he thinketh that his Time and Life may be more usefully employed especially when Experience assureth him that such a Writing would passionately displease the Prelates of the Church and such as call for it And therefore that he did not ingenuously that clamoured thus for an account when he knew that all these Manacles were on our Hands Yet will not this man be convinced but his Clamour was reasonable and innocent because in a few Sheets that accidentally had an advantage to see the light being both for the Kings and the Churches Government he met with a few words which he thought were not to be licensed And if this were published without License it was most long of himself since his foresaid urgency no such thing being done before nor do I know how to procure the like again This is the true Case And now let any sober Person Christian or Heathen judge betwen us whether any thing could have hardned you into an impossibility of Conviction but the great aversness to Humiliation and Repentance and selfish inclination to be righteous in your own eyes No wonder if no man be justified as Legally innocent when a bare Confession of a deliberate printed sin as visible as a beam in the eye as Christ meant it is so hardly obtained with some men And because with what measure men meet it shall be measured to them again Wonder not if you meet with Auditors like your self Suppose that You whose Office is to Preach Men to Repentance do hear the Perjured the Drunkards Blasphemers the F●rnicators say This man is a Rayler he drops smarting poyson upon us in his Sermons When we hear him we deal with a Woolf and put our hands into a Hornets nest bitterness and reviling is his Dialect We are innocent and all that he saith doth not convince us What would you say to such returns But too many think that it is their work to preach Repentance and other mens to Repent As for Magistrates forbidding faithful Ministers to preach the Christian Faith where there are not enough more to do the Work Cannot you be content with the Honour Comfort and Reward of approving it and suffer such to be without it as refuse it But when you say Alas Church censures without the Magistrate are but brutum fulmen I will presume to tell you 1. That you seem to me to come near to Blasphemy to intimate that Christ ordained so vain a Discipline What and yet be the Infallibe Teacher and King of the Church But if you think that He did not Institute it tell us so plainly and pretend not more to an unalterable Divine Institution which all of us must swear never to endeavour an alteration of Or if you think that Christ did institute Church Discipline to be exercised only when the Sword will second it say so that we may know your mind And then 2ly Do you not make the Apostles and the Primitive Church for above 300 years to have abused the World with this brutum fulmen If you talk of the Apostles power of seconding it by miraculous Penalties I answer 1. It cannot be proved that they did so ordinarily but only extraordinarily 2. All Pastors and Churches then had not that power that yet were obliged to exercise Discipline 3. The Church for 300 years had not that power every where 4. And Discipline was to operate propria virtute and not only by Miracles So that you reproach the Apostles and all the ancient Churches 3. Do you not reproach all the ancient Councils and Canons of those times as making such a stir in the World about a brutum fulmen 4. Do you not reproach Constantine and other Christian Emperors who for a considerable time adjoyned not the Sword at all to the Churches Keys except to remove some great Patriarch that had influence on the State and long after did only force them to a quiet submission to the Discipline without the addition of another Penalty or constraining any to say they did repent How long was it before the Church took a man to be meet for her Communion in the Lords Supper that had but rather say that he repented than have all taken from him and lie in Prison 5. Do you not here tell us what you trust to even the Magistrates Sword alone And do you not disgrace your Cause and Function in telling the World in plain English that without the Sword Prelatical Discipline is but brutum fulmen What then would your Church be should the King leave it only to an equal Toleration with all other Parties 6. And do you not highly honour us Non-conformists that desire no greater matters than bare Leave to Exercise Christs Discipline without the Sword on Volunteers we would have no more If any have formerly desired more we disown it The Scots indeed had more but when Cromwell left them but their Liberty their Discipline proved not brutum fulmen And truly I see not how those few among them that are against the Supremacy of the King Circa sacra if there be any such can expect any further protection or help by his Sword than a bare Toleration Let us but Preach and use this brutum fulmen and then enjoy your Lordships Honours and all that is desired And why are you so greatly afraid of a brutum fulmen in our hands when you confess it to be no better in your own § 4. If you cannot see your Contradictions repeating them will not open your Eyes As for Valentine and Orson and Knights Errant I give you the honour of being better acquainted with them than I am 2. And next you teach us that according to your School a Question may be false Well! so let it be you shall there have the better also I knew no more but that some kind of Questioning might imply a Proposition which is false But I will not strive with you if you are wiser The Question was How many of these Ministers have little more Learning than the English Books have taught them If this Question be false false let it be I cannot make it true I would I knew what How many fignifieth And what could I do more to detect your falshood than Name you many that dwell about you Seven neare

proprietor and that they were determinately devoted to him for this use to maintain a lawful Minister there to officiate and they thought that when the then Ruling Parliament had cast out some under the Notion of Insufficient and Scandalous it was lawfull nevertheless for others to keep up a Church and teaching and Worship of God and therefore to Eat the Dedicated Bread And as for the turning out of any for the Kings Cause that were not utterly Insufficient or Drunkards or such like we Printed our judgment against it and many would not succeed such men which gave advantage to some that were Sectarians to succeed them And what got the People by that scruple As for the fifth part you know it was ordinarily paid and now nothing and Mr. Lea's Book made no alteration Your talk of medling with Temporals in ordine ad spiritualia is a meer impertinency But if you ask Bishops and Chancellors whether it be lawfull to meddle with spiritual things in ordine ad temporalia yea and Priests too it will be a seasonable question if set home I am glad to read that they did but threaten to silence you By which I perceived you were not then so scrupulous as to lose all to escape Conformity to those times And I also was threatned to be silenced as well as you and virtually sequestred by an Ordor against such as would not keep their Fasts and Thanksgivings and that spake against their Authority which I openly did and that would not take the Engagement and yet I was never silenced by them but only as to one Assize Sermon that work being fitter for Men whose proper Office it is and that jure divino And my life was frequently threatned by the Souldiers as well as yours But I must tell you truly should I reassume my Chair would I continue in this Courteous Mood Ans You have proved already that a Question may be false may you not as easily prove that it may be Malignant 1. What is my Chair Had I any but the Pulpit or Reading place at Kederminster 2. Why do you question my Courtesie when I both Printed my desires and reasons against hindring any worthy Men from Preaching the Gospel upon pretence of the Cause of the King or Prelacy heretofore and when I have in Three or Four Books this very Year maintained the same Impartiality and Principles Yea most of all my Writings and Preaching for 25 Years have been much against Faction and for the Union Concord and Concurrence of all Ministers and Christians who are agreed but in Christianity it self and the Essentials of Church Communion in carrying on Gods Work with mutual forbearance And when I never had a hand in putting any such men out and have kept many of your Party in What room after this for such a Question Next you carp at me for telling you in reputation of your Calumnies by a Comparison what Ministers were in my time and in the Places where I lived You marvel at my Praecox ingenium that could judge before I was ten years old Who were ignorant Who learned Preachers You fear it is still the greatest part of some mens Devotion to censure the Parts and Gifts of the Preacher Answer O what relief are poor Souls like to have from such uncompassionate Shepherds I conjecture you believe me not I will do what I can to cure you But remember I open not my Fathers Nakedness while I speak nothing but what Congregations saw and heard and that to you alone now in secret and that upon your urgency I was not bred in Wales nor Ireland but first in Shropshire At six and seven years old my first Master was a Reader never at University and Preached once a Month I name him not because he was as●ied to me and mended My next Master Mr. Heyward was a Lay-man publickly read the Common Prayer but never Preached but proved after an honest Lay-man though no Scholar My next Master Mr. Cope Read and never Preached My next Master Mr. Yale B. D. Preached once a Month and drank himself Wife and Children to be stark Beggars These at Rowton And still note that we had no other I then came to live at Eaton Constantine the Vicar of the Parish Mr. Richard Wolley never Preached The Parson of the Town Sir William Rogers above fourscore had two Livings and never Preached in his life as was said When his Eye-sight failed him he said Common Prayer by Memory and John Colly a Day-labourer one year and Thomas Gaynam a Taylor another year read the Scriptures but none Preached Having two Places when he was absent his Curate was first his Son Francis Rogers rarely if ever Preached a famous Stage-player One of his Sports was on the open Stage to let his Pudenda nudata per restem laceratam quasi neglecta se ostentare ad risum populi movendum His next Curate my Master John Rogers his Grand-child was unlearned and never Preached His next Curate Richard Bathoe was a Lawyers Clerk broken by drinking who was wont to our smart to let us know when he was drunk and never Preached there but once which was in my hearing when he was drunk as I told you If he be not lately dead he is yet a Minister very near you at Patshill In the same Village another Neighbours Son turned Priest Mr. Thomas Rock who being detected to be vicious and have forged Orders fled So much for our Parish Leighton The next Eastward Bildwas had a Minister that never Preached nor could I learn that ever they had before a Preacher since the Reformation The next to that was Madeley whose Minister preached not and was as famous for Debauchery as the Madmen of Madeley for Folly On the other side us the next Church Cressage had no Preaching The next Kenley had Mr. Bennet a Reading Curate that Preached not Mr. Bent at Harley my Kinsman Mr. Wood B. D. at Cund seldom And the same I may say of too many other Places round about us At Kederminster Mr. Dance Preached as some call'd it once a Quarter or Half-year Mr. Turner at Mitton sometime when sober once a day of whom I told you that I knew by Examination his intollerable Ignorance of the Creed At Dowles our foresaid Sir William Rogers was Parson In the two Chappels in the Rock Parish which I confess had small Maintenance one Reading Curate made Ropes for his living and another cut Faggots I will add no more and this is only private to your self to excuse my self and the poor people who you think place our Devotion in judging of the Ministers Parts Alas poor Souls Into such hands are you fallen The Lord be more merciful to you than such Pastors who if for Bread they give you a Stone will reproach you as Censurers of your Teachers if you find fault And when the first Work needful to save Sinners is to awaken them to a care of their own Souls and a love to

for my Cure the reading of Bilson and Hooker and named no others I now recited the words of Bilson and Hooker the first as asserting the Principles of the Parliament the second as going quite beyond them on the Principles of them that pull'd down the Parliament I cited page and words at large To all this I have nothing but that you will cover your Fathers nakedness and not own all that they say But doth not this yield that this was their doctrine What need you disown or cover it if it were not so Yet nothing will make some men confess But still Mr. Hooker you admire and so did Camden Usher Morton Hales Gawden King James King Charles I dare not joyn my self to so great Names as one of his Admirers lest I seem too much to value my self I will come far behind them supposing that a long tedious Discourse in him hath as much substance as one might put into a Syllogism of six Lines I said but that it was theirs and such Prelatist's Principles that led me into what I did and wrote His Principles might do it and not he as they were managed by other men But these are Niceties to men that heed not what they read or say What is written Line 1. p. 24. § 10. you seem to defend and 1. you say What is this more than some that writ for the Kings Cause in the late Wars professed Answ And will you defend or own all that then was confessed by them Have you read the Kings Answer to the 19 Propositions Do you know that the Parliaments Adherents drew up a Catechism out of that Answer as pretending to justifie all their Cause by it Know you not that in Fountains Letter answered by Dr. Steward and in Sir Nethersole's Writings for the King and many others those things are supposed or asserted which I would not counsel you now to assert Your Instance is That as to making of Laws our Kings have not challenged a Power without Parliaments Answer God be thanked but that 's none of our Question But what you will not know you cannot understand Seeing you seem to justifie Hooker here who saith That Laws they are not which publick Approbation hath not made so Which I believe of those Countries where such publick Senates have part in the Legislation By this you must say that in the Turks Dominions or any the like there are no Laws But if you say that the Original Grant of the Legislative Power to one is equivalent to an Approbation of his Laws I maintain that Hooker's Principle is false That by the natural Law whereto God hath made all subject the natural power of making Laws to command whole publick Societies of men belongeth so properly to the same entire Societies that for any Prince or Potentate of what kindsoever upon earth to exercise the same himself and not either by express Commission immediately and personally received from God or else by Authority derived at first from their Consent upon whose persons they impose Laws it is no better than meer Tyranny How hard a task then do you put Kings upon to excuse themselves from Tyranny when ever such Prelatists will accuse them of it For 1. I hope you will not put them to prove That they have their Power by an express Commission immediately and personally from God as Saul and David had Shall we obey none but those that fanatically can pretend to a Revelation or immediate personal Commission from Heaven And 2. prove if you can that the People have Regal power to use or to give I grant that originally their Consent may be necessary to the designation of the Person or Family that shall receive it from God But it is God that giveth the power though the people choose the Person or Family no man giveth that which he hath not The People have not legal or governing Power Ergo they cannot give it The Wife chooseth her Husband but Gods Institution giveth him his power If that it be certain as Doctor Hammond hath proved against John Goodwin that the Peoples consent doth give no power but onely let in the person that shall receive it from God and not from them how dare you thus conclude all Kings on earth to be but Tyrants as Hooker plainly doth For no King on Earth hath an immediate personal Commission from Heaven And no King that I know of can receive power from the People that never had it to give Ergo you make all Kings to be no Kings but Tyrants but falsly Will you defend this because Hooker wrote it Were not these the Levellers and Democratists Principles higher than the old Parliament owned Must a Clergy of such Principles put men upon banishing the Non-conformists five Miles from a Corporation as men of seditious Principles Terras astraea reliquit You tell me I take what is for my purpose and leave out the rest Ans Semper idem Do I mai many Sentence Do I pervert any Is the rest contradictory to this What in the great Hooker No not at all I suppose the rest Unrighteous man If you require me to write out all his Book when ever I transcribe a part I own that which you transcribe What would you have more But next you say that I have found other Doctrine in Hookers other Books Answ A silly pretence of which anon You ask Was you led aside by Hooker c. yet you quote passages out of the 8th Book that came out since Ans A man that would turn us to Conformity must be able himself to heed what he readeth 1. I said not that Hooker but such Principles led me 2. I never said that I was led by every word that I now cite but that these words contain the Principles which missed me that is so far and so long as I followed those Principles Do you not see that your heedlesness tempted you to this Error and yet your Ex post liminio and first building the Roof seemed sence to you or you would have them seem such at least to me But it 's well that you disown these three Book of Hookers also But 1. is not this forecited in the first the very sum of all that you are afraid of 2. Will you so give away the sixth and seventh which say far more for Episcopacy than all the rest 3. Will you thus reproach all Bishop Gauden's triumphant Vindication and Dedication to the King 4. Did he not tell you that the Copy was interlined with Hookers own hand as approving it What would you have more 5. I again tell you I can bring you proof of a Concordant Copy the Scribes Errates excepted 6. Mr. Walton could not deny it 7. Dr. Bernard cited by you confirmeth it For to say that a Sentence or two were left doth intimate that the Book was his and leaving out is not putting in And I cited nothing that was left out nor any thing in it that is maimed for want of

and many Adulteries with Citizens Wives And it is most to be noted That they who after his flight reformed the Civil Government were strong Papists and mainly opposed the reformation of Religion I shall recite no more out of this Episcopal Doctor Prebend of Canterbury but desire you again to read page 23 24. What changed Luther's mind to own the Protestants Arms against the Emperour And page 32 33. What King James saith to vindicate the French Protestants I never knew yet that the French Protestants took Arms against their King c. And that Cap. 3. pag. 64 to 73. He cites the Confessions of all the Churches the Augustane the French the Belgick the Helvetian the Bohemian the Saxonian the Swevian the English as consenting for Obedience to their Soveraigns But all this is nothing to you that can say nothing of worth against it Neither the Vindication of their Principles or Practice But unrighteous Judge I am with you partial and unequal 1. Because I told you that you should not have set down the bare Names of T. C. and Travers as a Charge without citing what they say And is not that true Is that an unequal expectation And what if I had added That had you proved them guilty it had not concerned any of us or our Discipline or Principles till you had proved that we had owned the same And is that unequal O Justice 2. Because I said I will no further believe Bancroft or Sir Th. Aston then they prove what they say No nor you neither Must I believe Adversaries accusing Parties without proof and such Adversaries too Why must I believe them more than Heylin or more than Doctor Moulin afore-cited believed the English Tradition against Geneva Is this the equality of your way § 37. It 's tedious disputing with a man that cannot or will not understand what is said no not the Question no not the Subject of it You cite my words out of the Saints Rest that say not any thing to the Question The Question is not What were the final Motives of the War But what was the Controversie of the warranting Cause and Foundation that must decide the Case whether it was lawful or unlawful The Bonum publicum and the Gospel and Religion and mens Salvations are the great moving ends and Reasons of a lawful War But it is not these Ends that will serve to prove a War lawful Could that be the Cause or Controversie which they were both agreed in Did not the King profess to be for Religion Liberty c. as well as they See yet his Shrewsbury Half-crowns if Coin be any evidence with you private men may not raise War for Religion but the King may The Finis and the Fundamentum are not the same I there talkt but of the Finis and Motives I now speak of the Fundamentum and Controversie which is well known to be whether the King or Parliament then had the power of the Militia rebus sic stantibus and whether the Parliament had true Authority to raise an Army against the Army Commissioned by the King for that Defence and executing the Law upon Delinquents which they then pretended to Now I say still I know no Theological Controversie herein I know no Scripture but Policy and Law and Contract that will tell us whether the King of Spain or the States be the rightful Governours of the Low Countries Or whether the King of France be absolute If you can out of Scripture prove that all Republicks must have the same Form and Degree of Government or how Forms and Degrees must be varied in each Land I resist you not but only confess my weakness that so high a performance is beyond my power Had you understood the Question you might have spared your Citation of my words § 41. You come again to our swearing Conformity and you say That it must reasonably be understood of a tumultuous and armed endeavour Answ 1. And it is publickly known that we are ready to swear against a tumultuous and armed endeavour unless by the King's Command If you would not endeavour it even with Arms if the King commanded you accuse us not of Disloyalty for being more Loyal than you If you would we are of the same judgment as to the thing And so while the thousands of ignorant Souls are untaught men of the same judgment on our part openly professed out must some be Teachers and some silenced some preferred and some in Prison and banished from Corporations c. even while they hold the same thing And why Because one part of them dare take an Oath in a more stretching sence than the others dare And that 1. Because they are taught not only by Amesius where you cite him but by all consciencious judicious Casuists That an Oath is to be taken strictly and not stretchingly in the common sense of the words unless the Law-givers will otherwise explain themselves 2. And the words are universal Not endeavour at any time without the least limitation or exception of any sort of endeavour I should have broke that Oath by this writing to you had I taken it Et non est distinguendum aut limitandum fine lege 3. The Law-makers are to be supposed wise considerate men especially the Bishops and able to distinguish between an universal and a particular or limited enunciation and to express their minds in congruous words 4. The Law-makers knew before and since that we would take the Oath if Endeavouring had been limited as you do and yet they never would limit it by one syllable 5. The Reasons used for that Clause and our acquaintance with the Bishops and other Authors of it leave our Consciences perswaded that their meaning was against all Endeavours and not tumultuous military or illegal only as in the Et caetera Oath 1640. It was that I will not consent which is less than Endeavouring And we are not ignorant what relation this Oath hath to that And we take it to be a sin to deceive our Rulers by taking an Oath in that sence which we believe was not by them intended and seeming to them to swear what we do not mean 6. When twenty London Ministers took the Oath because Doctor Bates told them that the Lord Keeper promised him at the giving it to put in the words Endeavour by any seditious or unlawful means or to that sense the said limiting words were not only left out but when old Mr. Sam. Clark said My Lord we mean only unlawful endeavour Judge Keeling asked Will you take the Oath as it is offered you and refused to add any such Explication and told them when they had done they had renounced the Covenant 7. The Justices tell us when they offer us the Oath That we must take it according to the plain sense of the words 8. The Parliament in the Act for regulating Corporations in the Declaration there imposed and the Oath doth fully satisfie us what is their

may see that his Charity and his Veracity are proportionable he hence inferrs p. 57. Did ever any Bishop aspire to such Tyranny as this the Pope only excepted Is not the King and whole Nation greatly culpable not to trust themselves with the ingenuity of this people c. Answ Reader which is liker to be guilty of Tyranny 1. We that desire no power but to plead God's Law to mens Consciences 2. And that but with one Congregation And 3. with no constrained unwilling persons but only voluntary Consenters 4. And to rule over none of our Fellow-Ministers 5. And only to be but Freemen as Schoolmasters and Philosophers be in their Schools of Volunteers that we may not against our Consciences be the Pastors of the unwilling or such as we judge uncapable according to God's Laws but to use the Keys of Admission and Exclusion as to that particular Church 6. And to do all under the Government of the Magistrate who may punish us as he may do Physicians Schoolmasters or others for proved mal-administration and drive us not from but to our Duty 7. And to be ready to give an account of our Actions to any Synod or Brethren that demand it and to hear their Admonitions and Advice Yea and to live in peaceable submission where Archbishops or General-Visitors are set over us and upon any Appeals or Complaints to hear and obey them in any lawful thing belonging to their Trust and Power 9. And if we be judged to have worngfully denied our Ministerial help and Communion to any we pretend to no power to hinder any other Church or Pastor from receiving him 10. And if we be by Magistrates cast out or afficted for our Duty we shall quietly give up the Temples and publick Church-maintenance of which the Magistrate may dispose and without resisting or dishonouring him endure what he shall inflict upon us for our obedience to God This is our odious Tyranny 2. On the other side our Accusers 1. Some of them are for power in themselves to force men by the Sword that is by Mulcts and corporal Penalties to be subject to them or be of their Church and Communion 2. Others are for the Magistrate thus forcing them when the Bishop Excommunicates them 3. They thus make the Church like a prison when no man knoweth whether the people be willing Members or only seem so to escape the Jail 4. They would be such forcing Rulers over many score or hundred Parishes 5. They would have power to Rule Suspend and Silence the Pastors of all these Parishes when they think meet 6. They hinder the Pastors of the Parish-Churches from that exercise of the Keys aforesaid in their own Parish-Churches which belongs to the Pastors Office 7. They would compel the Parish-Ministers to Admit Absolve or Excommunicate at least as declaring other mens Sentences when it is against their Consciences 8. They would make Ministers swear Obedience to them and Bishops swear Obedience to Archbishops 9. Some of them are for their power to Excommunicate Princes and greatest Magistrates though contrary to the fifth Commandment it dishonour them 10. Some of them say that if the King command one Church-Order or Form or Ceremony and the Bishop another the Bishop is to be obeyed before the King As also if the King bid us Preach and the Bishop forbid us 11. And they say that their Censures even Clave errante must be obeyed 12. And that he whom a Bishop cuts off from one Church is thereby cut off from all and none may receive him 13. And that it is lawful to set up Patriarchs Metropolitans c. to rule the Church according to the state and distribution of Civil Government Look over these two Cases and judge which party is liker to Church-Tyrants and then judge what Credit is due to such Accusers of the Non-Conformists in this Age. § 43. II. As to Reordination I have answer'd to Mr. Cheny what he saith He deceitfully avoideth determining the first Question whether they intend a Reordination or not Whereas I have proved 1. That the Church of England is against twice Ordaining 2. That they call it and take it for a true Ordination which is to be received from them by such as Presbyters had Ordained 3. And therefore that they suppose the former Null 4. And this is much of the reason of mens doubting whether they should receive the second which is given on such a Supposition But this man is little concerned in the true stating of the case § 44. III. What he saith of the Ministers power for Discipline is answered already to Mr. Cheney that hath the same § 45. About the Covenant 1. he falsly makes me say that the King took it Whereas whether he did or not I only say that he was injuriously and unlawfully drawn to seem to owne it and declare for it 2. Next he aggravates this Injury And who contradicteth him 3. He pleadeth That the King is not obliged by it to make any alteration in the Government of the Church Answ I will not examine your Reasons The King never made me his Confessor nor put the question to me Why then should I make my self a Judge of it And why must my Ministry lie on a thing beyond my knowledge But am I sure that no Parliament-man that took that Vow is bound there in his place to endeavour a Reforming Alteration when I am past doubt that much is needful He would 1. make it doubtful Whether it was a Vow to God I think it not worth the labour to prove it to him that doubteth of it after deliberate reading it 2. He saith Any lawful endeavours are not denied Answ But the Obligation to lawful endeavours are denied Are not the words universal 3. He saith The Covenant condemned as unlawful cannot lay an Obligation Answ A Vow to God unlawfully imposed and taken may binde to a Lawful Act. 4. He calls it unnecessary alterations against the Law of the Land Answ I suppose I shall prove some reforming alteration necessary And it is not against Law for a Subject to petition for it or a Parliament-man to speak for it Yet when the man seems to me to be pleading Conscience out of the Land he saith Would not this cause the Christian Religion in a short time to be exploded out of all Kingdoms Alas poor people what uncertain Guides have you 5. He concludes that the power of Reforming being in the King the Vow was null Answ The Regal Power of Reforming is only in the King To change Laws without him is Usurpation But Parliament-men may speak for it and Subjects petition and on just causes write and speak for needful Reformation And I speak for no other § 45. IV. About not taking Arms against those Commissioned by the King He plainly professeth that we must not distinguish where the Law doth not And if it be an unlimited Universal Negative it will quite go beyond Mainwaring or Sibthorpe And for all