other Persons imployed in Writing or Agenting The Lyon King at Arms Heraulds Pursevants and Messengers at Arms all Collectours Sub-collectours and Farmourers of His Majesties Customs and Excise all Magistrats Deans of Gild Counsellers and Clerks of Burghs Royall and Regality all Deacons of Trades and Deacon-Conveeners in the said Burghs all Masters and Doctors in Universities Colledges or Schools all Chaiplains in Families Pedagogues to Children and all Officers and Souldiers in Armies Forts or Militia and all other Persons in publick Trust or Office within this Kingdom Who shall publickly swear and subscribe the said Oath as follows viz. The Arch-Bishops Chief Commander of the Forces and Officers of the Crown and State and Counsellers before the Secret Council All the Lords of Session and all Members of the Colledge of Justice and others depending upon them before the Session The Lords of Justiciary and those depending upon that Court in the Justice Court The Lords and other Members of Exchequer before the Exchequer All Bishops before the Arch-Bishops All the inferior Clergy Commissars Masters and Doctors of Universities and Schools Chaiplains and Pedagogues before the Bishops of the respective Diocesses Sheriffs Stewards Bailies of Royalty and Regality and those depending on these Jurisdictions before these respective Courts And Provests Bailies and others of the Burgh before the Town Councill All Collectors and Farmourers of the King's Customs and Excise before the Exchequer The Commissioners of the Borders before the Privy Council All Justices of Peace before their Conveener And the Officers of the Mint before the General of the Mint And the Officers of the Forces before the Commander in Chief and common Souldiers before their respective Officers The Lyon before the Privy Council and Heraulds Pursevants and Messengers at Arms before the Lyon And His Majesty with consent foresaid STATUTS and ORDAINS that all those who presently possess or enjoy any of the foresaids Offices publick Trusts or Imployments shall take and subscribe the following Oath in one of the foresaids Offices in manner before prescribed betwixt and the first of January next which is to be recorded in the Registers of the respective Courts and Extracts thereof under the Clerks hands to be reported to His Majesties Privy Council betwixt and the first of March next One thousand six hundred eighty two and thereafter in any other Courts whereof they are Judges or Members the first time they shall sit or exerce in any of these respective Courts AND ORDAINS that all who shall hereafter be promoted to or imployed in any of the foresaids Offices Trusts or Imployments shall at their entry into and before their exercing thereof take and subscribe the said Oath in manner foresaid to be recorded in the Registers of the respective Courts and reported to His Majesties Privy Council within the space of forty dayes after their taking the same And if any shall presume to exercise any of the saids Offices or Imployments or any publick Office or Trust within this Kingdom the King 's lawful Brothers and Sons only excepted until they take the Oath foresaid and subscribe it to be recorded in the Registers of the respective Courts They shall be declared incapable of all publick Trust thereafter and be further punished with the loss of their Moveables and Liferent-Escheat the one half whereof to be given to the Informer and the other half to belong to His Majesty And His Majesty with Advice foresaid recommends to His Privy Council to see this Act put to due and vigorous Execution Follows the Tenour of the OATH to be taken by all Persons in Publick Trust. I A. B. Solemnly swear in presence of the Eternal God whom I invocat as Judge and Witness of my sincere intention of this my Oath That I own and sincerely profess the true Protestant Religion contained in the Confession of Faith recorded in the first Parliament of King James the Sixth and that I believe the same to be founded on and agreeable to the Written Word of God And I promise and swear that I shall adhere thereto during all the dayes of my lifetime and shall endeavour to educat my Children therein and shall never consent to any change or alteration contrary thereto And that I disown and renounce all such Principles Doctrines or Practises whether Popish or Phanatical which are contrary unto and inconsistent with the said Protestant Religion and Confession of Faith And for testification of my Obedience to my most Gracious Soveraign CHARLES the Second I do affirm and swear by this my solemn Oath That the King's Majesty is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm over all Persons and in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil And that no forraign Prince Person Pope Prelate State or Potentat hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superioritie Preheminencie or Authoritie Ecclesiastical or Civil within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forraign Jurisdictions Powers Superiorities and Authorities And do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King's Majesty His Heirs and Lawful Successours And to my Power shall assist and defend all Rights Jurisdictions Prerogatives Priviledges Prehemineneies and Authorities belonging to the King's Majesty His Heirs and Lawful Successours And I farther affirm and swear by this my solemn Oath That I Judge it unlawful for Subjects upon pretence of Reformation or any other pretence whatsoever To enter into Covenants or Leagues or to convocat conveen or assemble in any Councils Conventions or Assemblies to treat consult or determine in any matter of State Civil or Ecclesiastick without His Majestie 's special command or express licence had thereto or to take up arms against the King or those commissionated by Him And that I shall never so rise in Arms or enter into such Covenant or Assemblies And that there lies no Obligation on me from the National Covenant or the Solemn League and Covenant so commonly called or any other manner of way whatsoever to endeavour any change or alteration in the Government either in Church or State as it is now established by the Laws of this Kingdom And I promise and swear that I shall with my utmost power defend assist and maintain His Majestie 's Jurisdiction foresaid against all deadly And I shall never decline His Majestie 's Power and Jurisdictions As I shall answer to God And finally I affirm and swear that this my solemn Oath is given in the plain genuine sense and meaning of the words without any equivocation mental reservation or any manner of evasion whatsoever And that I shall not accept or use any dispensation from any Creature whatsoever So help me God FINIS THere are several Treatises of the same Right Reverend Author written upon several occasions concerning the Church of Rome and most of the Doctrines in Controversie betwixt us Printed for Joanna Brome * April 3. 1683. He might have referr'd them to himself pag. 460. where he gives the same
this as a reason for his forbidding him to Preach where if he means that the Bishop gave him this as the onely 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 Licence having no Cure of his own to Preach to whereunto when he replied I had promised to give him such a Licence as the Bishop of London had given him viz. Quà m diu se bene gereret durante beneplacito I rejoin'd That it was true indeed I had once promised to give him such a Licence but withall that it was as true that first I had never promised to give him a Licence 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 than 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 Diocese of London and I named the place to him Secondly that since that promise of mine which cannot be supposed to be other than 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 enjoining of things lawfull by lawfull Authority if they might by Accident be the cause of sin was sinfull 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 replied 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 Licence but onely as a reason why I should have thought my self not obliged by the promise I had formerly made him to give him a Licence 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 Diocese 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 doe 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 Sovereign Power was he should acknowledge it and submit to it as if the King owed his Sovereignty 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 onely cause for which the Bishop forbad him to Preach which was neither the onely nor the principal cause why the Bishop did so nor indeed to speak properly any cause of it at all for the onely proper cause for which the Bishop forbad him to Preach was His preaching before without the Bishop 's Licence 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 Licence to Preach for the future either at Kidderminster or in any other place of his Diocese untill 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 onely 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 disclaims 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 the merits of the Cause he had often affirmed in his Answers That the Command of a most lawfull Act was sinfull if that Act commanded might prove to any one a sin per accidens This Assertion I did then and there presently and openly lay to his charge and when he denied it as it was most frequent with him immediately to deny what he had before affirmed the answers which he had delivered written with his own hand were produced and upon the reading of them the justice of my charge was most apparent whereupon I urged him farther that this Assertion of his was not onely false but destructive of all Authority Humane and Divine as not onely denying all power to the Church of making Canons Ecclesiastical
untill he hath done it is to be supposed forthe reasons before by me alledged he cannot doe And consequently that the Charge itself is a mere Calumny Which that it may be made more evidently to appear I have caused the self same Letter wherein he saith there are so many mistakes without any the least addition subtraction or alteration to be reprinted and publish'd to the end that such as will vouchsafe to reade it without prejudice may judge betwixt us whether there be indeed so many or any such mistakes in matter of Fact in it as Mr. Baxter saith there are as likewise whether I did well or ill in restraining him from preaching in my Diocese which that all men may the better judge of I have reprinted likewise those Political Aphorisms of his which were at first annexed to that Letter not as accusing him for holding them now but as remembring him of his holding them then which though it was not the cause as the Letter tells him of my Silencing him at first yet that together with what he had asserted at the Conference in the Savoy was the cause as the Letter tells him also why I continued and resolved to continue that restraint and Suspension untill he should make a publick Recantation as well of what he had affirmed in the aforesaid Conference namely The unlawfulness of lawfull Commands by lawfull Authority if by accident they might be the cause or occasion of sin as likewise of those not onely false and erroneous but dangerous seditious and rebellious Maxims of his which howsoever he may have since repented and recanted I am sure he had not recanted them then at least not publickly or so as I or the World could take notice of it They therefore that reade the Letter with the Aphorisms annexed to it and reprinted with it are to consider them rebus sic stantibus I mean as things were then when they were first printed And if Mr. Baxter himself would consider them so too he must needs confess if at least he will stand to what he hath written since even in this very Book of which he would have me give him my opinion he must needs confess I say that he was justly Silenced or restrained from Preaching as being then one of Those who he himself saith are intolerabiles that is such as ought not to be suffered to Preach as being disturbers of the publick peace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul calls them that is Seducers of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 overturning or turning upside down whole Houses or Families 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose mouths St. Paul saith in the same place ought to be stopped And if those mens mouths ought to be stopped that by Seditious Preaching disturb Families how much more ought they to be silenced that by Printing and Publishing seditious and rebellious Books and Maxims doe what they can not onely to disturb but overthrow whole Churches and Kingdomes But Mr. Baxter will say he doth not own any of those Maxims now I do not say he does but I do say he did own them at least he had not disown'd them then when I silenced him and consequently when he was one of those whom he himself calls intolerabiles or such as ought not to be permitted to Preach which is enough to justifie what I said or did then But whether he hath since made or published any declaration whereby he hath clearly and fully disown'd all those Seditious Maxims of his We shall see hereafter CHAP. III. One Particular Gross mistake as he calls it charged in a late Treatise of his upon the Bishop about the Nonconformists judgment of things sinfull by accident taken to task ANd now I should proceed to the consideration of some particulars which Mr. Baxter is pleased to charge me with in his aforesaid Preface to his aforesaid Book of Concord having I suppose said enough if not more than enough already to his general Charge without witness or proof relating to my aforesaid Letter had not Mr. Baxter himself sent me by my friend Mr. Isaac Walton another Book of his called The second part of the Nonconformists Plea for peace which he calls an extorted and distorted Treatise or rather a bundle of Treatises bound up together And distorted enough indeed it is but how or by whom it was extorted from him I know not he seems by the many Books he hath written to be so ready a Writer that he needed not to have any thing he writes to be extorted from him For indeed he is rather one of those quibus difficile est non scribere who are as hardly to be restrained from Writing as others are from Preaching But in this bundle of Treatises whether extorted or not extorted there is one wherein I am particularly concerned He calls it The judgment of Nonconformists of things sinfull by accident and in his Preface to that whole bundle of Treatises he saith This Treatise in particular was written purposely to answer the gross mistaking charge of Bishop Morley And truly if he had not said so or if that Treatise had been Printed by it self I should neither by the Title of it nor by the Book it self have suspected it to have been purposely written against me or against any mistake of mine For neither in the Title nor in the Book it self do I find Bishop Morley so much as once named or any way so characterized by any thing I have said or done as to conclude my self to be understood by it Nay I verily believe that if I should grant all and every one of the sixty four Propositions asserted in that Treatise to be true yet nevertheless whatsoever I have laid to Mr. Baxter's charge in that Letter of mine would be true also so that I cannot chuse but wonder that he should say as he does in the aforesaid Preface That this particular Treatise of scandal or evil by accident was purposely written to answer the gross mistaking charge of Bishop Morley whereas the Title page to that Treatise saith no such thing neither is that wherein he saith the Bishop is so grosly mistaken to be found either in terminis terminantibus or oequipollentibus either in downright terms or in words that imply as much in the whole Treatise If it be replyed that as the general Preface to the whole bundle of Treatises called The second Part of the Nonconformists Plea tells me that I am the man that am guilty of so gross a mistake so that the Title page to that particular Treatise We are now speaking of though not explicitly and formally yet implicitly and intelligibly enough tells me what it was wherein I was so grosly mistaken namely in misreporting the Nonconformists judgment of things sinfull by accident I rejoyn first that unless Mr. Baxter thinks that every body is obliged to reade all that he Writes he could not rationally presume that a man of my age and
or some body else with it and of setting Fire on Straw foreknowing that by another's negligence or wilfulness it is likely to set fire on the City or the Parliament-House as by these and the like instances I say he would make his Parishioners at Kidderminster and others of his Readers believe the former namely that when he asserted that the command of a thing lawfull in it self was unlawfull if it might by accident be the cause or occasion of sin he meant it onely of such commands where the evil or sin which by accident they would or probably might be the cause of was foreseen or ought to have been hindred by the Commander So by the last of his instances namely supposing to kneel at the receiving of the Communion to be lawfull yet the enjoining of it under an unjust penalty makes the Command it self to be unlawfull he would make it to be believed that he did not deny the command of a lawfull thing by lawfull authority to be lawfull unless it were injoined or commanded under an unjust penalty such as he supposeth the penalty for not receiving the Sacrament kneeling to be So that adding this last instance to the former and considering them one with another or all of them together his design in alledging of them must needs be this to make it to be believed that whereas Bishop Morley chargeth him with having affirmed the Command of a lawfull Act by lawfull Authority to be unlawfull if by accident it might be the cause of sin all that he said or at least all that he meant was this that such a Command was unlawfull if the evil it might by accident be the cause of was foreseen and ought to have been prevented by him that commanded it or if it were commanded under an unjust penalty and consequently that Bishop Morley's charge of him was a gross mistake Whereunto Bishop Morley replies by referring himself to Mr. Baxter's aforesaid answers to our Disputants aforesaid Propositions especially to the third or last of them which affirming such a command of a thing lawfull in it self under no unjust penalty and neither directly nor by accident the cause of any such evil or mischief as the Commander of it did foresee and ought to prevent was a lawfull command Mr. Baxter by denying this proposition to be true and consequently such a command to be lawfull because it might be evil by accident cannot be imagined to mean such an accident as the Commander did foresee and ought to prevent nor the enjoining what he commanded under an unjust penalty both which kinds of accidents the proposition he denyed had in terminis excluded and therefore he must needs mean such an accident as the Commander did not foresee or was not obliged to prevent and such a Command as had no unjust penalty annexed to it and consequently some such accident as either the peevishness or perverseness or some fault or other in those to whom such a command is given and who ought and will not submit to it is the cause of That therefore which I did then and do still charge Master Baxter withall is that he did then at the aforesaid Conference assert the Command of a thing lawfull in it self to be unlawfull if by accident it might be the occasion of Sin now that by accident he did not nor could not mean either the injoyning of it under an unjust penalty or any other accidental evil which the Commander was obliged to prevent or provide against is evident from his denying the Proposition to be true which affirmed such and no other but such a command of a thing lawfull in it self to be lawfull as was neither commanded under an unjust penalty nor could by accident be the occasion of any either evil or mischief which the Commander was answerable for or ought to prevent From Mr. Baxter's denying of this Proposition I say and from his giving no other reason for his denying of it but that such a command as the Proposition affirmed to be lawfull might by accident be unlawfull it is undenyably evident he must needs mean such an accident or accidental evil as the Commandee not the Commander may be guilty of and if no Command be lawfull that may be the occasion of such an evil then as Mr. Baxter truly tells his Kidderminster Friends Bishop Morley did infer that no Command either of God or man could be lawfull or as he is pleased to word it That neither God nor man can enjoyn any thing without Sin if the sinfulness it may by accident be the occasion of in those to whom the Command is given be to be imputed either to the Command or to the Commander which I think is little less than blasphemy to affirm and therefore Mr. Baxter had reason to disguise the Assertion I charge him with by giving such instances of it as are nothing a kin to it for all his aforesaid instances are instances of the unlawfulness of such Commands as are or may be the cause or occasion of some such evil or mischief as the Commander foresees and is obliged to prevent or of such as are commanded under an unjust penalty Whereas if he would have dealt ingenuously and pertinently he should have given us one instance at least if not more of the unlawfulness of such a Command as he asserted at the Conference to be unlawfull namely of the unlawfulness of such a Command as was neither commanded under an unjust penalty nor was the occasion or cause of any such evil mischief or sin as the Commander did not foresee or was not bound to prevent For how does the unlawfulness of selling of Poyson by an Apothecary to one whom he knows or suspects will poyson himself or some body else with it prove the unlawfulness of selling of poyson by him that doth not know or suspect any such use will be made of it because it may fall out that some body or other may be poysoned with it Or how doth the unlawfulness of commanding a Navy to Sea when the Commander foresees it will fall into the Enemies hands prove the unlawfulness of such a Command because by such a chance as the Commander did not nor could not foresee it did fall into the Enemies hands or lastly how doth the unlawfulness of commanding to kneel at the receiving of the Sacrament if it were commanded under an unjust penalty as he supposeth but did not nor cannot prove it is prove the unlawfulness of the same command if it be not commanded under an unjust penalty as We and all other Protestant Churches in the World as well as ours say it is not for proof whereof I refer the Reader to what I have said long ago in my printed Letter CHAP. XII Further those Instances are scandalously Injurious His disingenuous humour of Calumny taken notice of AND now having shewed what in truth it was that I charged Mr. Baxter withall and that I charged him
with it truly and consequently that all his Instances to the contrary are frivolous and impertinent and fraudulent I am now to make it appear that they are scandalously if not maliciously injurious also For first as nothing can be more fraudulent than for a man when he is charged with an Assertion that is false and in its consequences impious and blasphemous to substitute a true one instead of it and by giving many instances of the latter to indeavour to make it to be believed he is not guilty of the former so nothing can be more provoking and injurious than to charge another falsly with what himself may be charged truly And does not Mr. Baxter doe so by producing those aforesaid instances of his which no man can reade that hath any opinion of Mr. Baxter's veracity and sincerity but must needs conclude Bishop Morley or those that disputed with Mr. Baxter had affirmed That the Command of that which is lawfull in it self is a lawfull Command though it be commanded under never so unjust a penalty which is more than insinuated by the last of his instances before specified namely the Command of Kneeling when we receive the Sacrament as likewise that I or they or some of us had affirmed the Command of a thing lawfull in it self to be a lawfull Command though the Commander did foresee it would be the cause of some great evil or mischief which he was bound to prevent and this is not onely insinuated but necessarily implyed in all the rest of the instances produced by him as in that of sending of a Navy to Sea foreseeing it will fall into the Enemie's hand and that of selling of Poyson knowing he that buyes it will poyson himself or some body else with it concerning which and the like damnable actions he doth in effect plainly enough tell me that I allow such things to be lawfull when in his libellous Narrative to his Kidderminster Friends he tells them he must crave the Bishop's pardon for believing those or any of the like commands to be sinfull as if the Bishop had asserted all or any of them to be lawfull which if it can be proved the Bishop did either expresly or implicitly formally or virtually dogmatically or consequentially say there or any where any thing which can grammatically be construed or logically inferr'd to tend towards the asserting or approving of any of the aforesaid instances the Bishop himself doth hereby acknowledge himself to be utterly unworthy to be called a Bishop or a Priest or a Christian or a Man but rather a Devil incarnate or an utter and professed Enemy to all Mankind But if the Bishop did never affirm or say any such thing nay if he and the Disputants of the Episcopal party did not by that Proposition which Mr. Baxter frequently and finally denied assert the contradictory to this calumny namely that what the Church injoined in the Common-Prayer-Book or publick service of God and the Sectaries refused to obey were therefore lawfull injunctions and commands not onely because they were lawfull in themselves and commanded by lawfull Authority but because they were not commanded under any unjust penalty or might so much as by accident be the cause of any such evil or sin as they by whom they were injoyn'd ought to provide against if this I say be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth of what was then affirmed by Bishop Morley or by the Disputants or any other of the Episcopal party as really it is and I defie Mr. Baxter or any of his party to prove the contrary what then doth Master Baxter deserve for indeavouring by his impertinently fallaciously and injuriously at least if not maliciously alledged Instances to make so notoriously-impious unchristian and inhumane a Calumny to be believed not onely of Bishop Morley but of all the Episcopal party that were there present for sure Bishop Morley did not differ from the rest of his party nor the rest of his party from him in this or any other particular at that Conference And to this very purpose it is in the 48th proposition of the Book which he saith was purposely written to answer Bishop Morley 's grossly mistaken charge that Mr. Baxter resumes his instance of an Apothecary's selling Poyson to one who he knows will kill his Neighbour or himself or his Prince with it as of a thing thought lawfull and justified by us because as he makes us speak the selling of Poyson is lawfull per se of it self and unlawfull onely per accidens by accident Whereunto he adds in the same place That he hopes that our Casuists meaning the Casuists of the Conforming party shall never see a Law made to command or tolerate all Apothecaries to sell Poyson to those that they know mean to use it to treason or murther As if we had any such amongst us I mean of the Episcopal party that not onely justifie the selling of Poyson by those that know it will be used for Murther or Treason but would have a Law made to command or tolerate the doing of it If there be any such Casuists amongst us I will readily acknowledge they are as bad if not worse than the worst of the Jesuites but let Mr. Baxter name any at least one such Casuist of ours if he can or if he cannot if he have any thing of Ingenuity left in him let him confess his fraudulent and injurious dealing with us and repent of it For as for that passage which he quotes out of Ecclesiastical Polity to prove the Authour of that Book such a Casuist as he speaks of it is so illogical and unconcluding that none but one that cares not what he says or that thinks his Ipse dixit his own bare saying is enough to conclude quidlibet ex quolibet any thing from any thing would have quoted it upon such an occasion In the mean time I do not I cannot deny but there be some nay many Casuists among us but they are not of us as bad as any of the Jesuits especially in that Casuistical doctrine which is most Jesuitical I mean that of the lawfulness of Subjects taking Arms against their Sovereign nay of selling buying imprisoning deposing and murthering of Kings by their Subjects I need not name those Casuists Mr. Baxter knows whom I mean But of this no more at this time neither should there have been so much if Mr. Baxter had not forgotten what he might have learned at School without going to the University that Qui alterum accusat probri ipsum se intueri oportet He who chargeth another with a crime ought to look home to himself and it is but just Vt qui ex maledicendo voluptatem capit malè audiendo amittat That he who takes pleasure in speaking ill of others should lose that pleasure by having his own faults told him And indeed I have very often and very much wondred that
of all men living Mr. Baxter should reproach us so frequently so loudly and so groundlesly as he does with what he knows himself and his party may most justly and undeniably be reproached with unless he thinks the calling of an honest Woman Whore first will make her that calls her so to be thought an honest Woman And indeed men are apt to believe that one would not for shame accuse another of what he knows himself to be more guilty but experience proves the contrary And I hope I have proved it too partly by confirming my Charge against Mr. Baxter and partly by confuting his Calumny against me But the truth is when Mr. Baxter is in his fit of raving against Bishops and the Episcopal party he cares not whether what he saith be true or false pertinent or impertinent so it be virulent and scandalous enough having amongst many other of their speculative and practical Maxims learned of the Popish Puritans the Jesuits calumniari audacter to charge boldly as hoping that aliquid hoerebit something will stick though it be never so improbable or incredible at least that those of their own Party will believe any thing of or against us which is perhaps all they care for of which practice that Mr. Baxter is often and very much guilty in his treating of me I have given some Instances already and shall give more hereafter CHAP. XIII The Charge of the forementioned Assertion renewed and made good against Mr. B. notwithstanding that late Treatise of his which he pretends was purposely written in answer to it IF it be objected that I have said nothing yet in answer to the Creatise which Mr. Baxter saith he writ on purpose to prove my Charge against him to be a gross mistake I confess I have not because in truth I do not see how I am concerned in it or how any thing I charge Mr. Baxter withall is disproved or so much as offered to be disproved by it Insomuch that as I said before if Mr. Baxter had set out that Treatise by it self and had not in the Preface to another of his Treatises told me himself it was purposely written against me I should not have taken any notice of it at all neither do I yet after the reading of it over and over again and again see any reason why I should put my self to the trouble of writing or any body else to the trouble of reading any thing in reply to it because if all and every one of his sixty three Metaphysical Propositions of which that Treatise of his doth consist were all of them so many Mathematical Demonstrations as perhaps he thinks they are yet my Charge of Mr. Baxter would still stand in full force against him being not so much as touched much less overthrown by any of those Propositions For what was that I charged Mr. Baxter withall was it not this That he at the Conference in the Savoy denyed the command of a thing lawfull in it self and commanded by lawfull authority to be a lawfull command if by accident it might be the cause or occasion of Sin Yes will Mr. Baxter say but then by accident I meant not every accident but such an accident as the Commander might and ought to prevent as for example the commanding it under an unjust penalty for that he will have to be an accident or the commanding of it though the Commander knows or foresees it will by accident be the cause or occasion of some such evil or mischief as he can and ought to provide against And in the one or the other of these two notions of an accident would Mr. Baxter have his Assertion of the unlawfulness of a Command of a lawfull thing by lawfull Authority if by accident it may be the occasion of Sin to be understood and I cannot blame him for Secundoe cogitationes sunt meliores Second thoughts are likely wiser and better than the first But that he did not then by such an accident as made a lawfull command unlawfull mean an accident in either of those notions is evident by his frequently and finally denying the command of a thing lawfull in it self to be lawfull if by accident it may be the cause of Sin though it be not injoyned under an unjust penalty and though the accidental evil or mischief it may be cause or occasion of be such as the Commander either cannot or ought not to provide against Now he that denies such a command as this to be lawfull or which is all one asserts such a command as this to be unlawfull because by accident it may be the cause of Sin cannot either Grammatically or Logically be understood to mean such an accident or accidental Sin as the Commander ought to provide against and consequently if he mean any thing he must needs mean such an accident or accidental evil as not the Commanding but the Commanded party is to answer for And therefore as I said then so I say now That to assert the lawfull command of a lawfull thing to be unlawfull upon such an account or because it may by such an accident as Mr. Baxter must needs be understood to mean be the cause or occasion of Sin is destructive of all Legislative power Divine as well as Humane And therefore Bishop Morley was not grosly mistaken either in charging Mr. Baxter with such an assertion or in charging such an assertion with such impious and pernicious consequences as he affirms and I confess I did But Mr. Baxter doth grosly abuse me and his Reader too by substituting a true Assertion instead of a false one for himself and a false one instead of a true one for the Bishop and his party As if that which he asserted was The unlawfulness of the command of a lawfull thing if either it were commanded under an unjust penalty or the Commander of it did foresee it would be the cause of some such great evil or sin as he was obliged to prevent and that which we had asserted was The lawfulness of a Command of a thing lawfull in it self though it were commanded under never so unjust a penalty or though the Commander of it foresaw it would be the cause of such an evil or mischief as he might and ought to prevent And as to make the latter of these two Assertions to be believed to be ours he brings in the aforesaid Suppositions and fraudulent instances of selling of poyson c. So to make the former to be believed to have been his Assertion then he asserts that and none but that now hoping his friendly or unwary Readers will believe it was the very same which he asserted then And this indeed he might have reason to hope for from his Friends at Kidderminster who he knew would believe whatsoever he told them to be as he said it was especially telling it them in print and before there was any thing in print to the contrary but
that he should think to impose such a belief upon the impartial part of the World after the truth of what I charge him with had been so long before attested in print under the hands of two such men as the Bishops of Ely and Chester who could not chuse but know what was then said on both sides is a confidence that never any yet even of Mr. Baxter's own party hath assumed and I believe never will Good reason therefore had I to reprint that Letter of mine together with the aforesaid Attestation annexed to it that what is in question betwixt Mr. Baxter and me might truly and clearly be stated namely whether he did or did not assert what I charge him with which being onely matter of fact and consequently no way to be decided but by Witnesses and such Witnesses as cannot justly nor ever were actually either by Mr. Baxter himself or any of his party in so many years since excepted against and they having testified so clearly and effectually as they do that charge of mine against Mr. Baxter I know not what needed to have been done more for my justification and his conviction but the reprinting of the testimony of two such Witnesses as they are Against whose Testimony as to the invalidating of it nothing he asserts now though never so true nor none of the Instances he gives of such an Assertion though never so pertinent do or can signifie any thing for that which I charge him with and what the aforesaid Witnesses testifie against him is onely concerning what he asserted then and not what he hath asserted at any time since or doth assert now which as is already proved is very far from being the same which he asserted then And this Mr. Baxter himself must needs confess unless he will say as I think he will not that there is no difference betwixt denying as he did then the command of a lawfull thing to be lawfull though it be not commanded under an unjust penalty and the denying as he doth now the lawfulness of such a command if it be commanded under an unjust penalty or as if it were all one to assert as he did then the command of a thing lawfull in it self to be unlawfull if by accident it might be the cause or occasion of evil or sin though it were such an evil or sin as the Commander was not obliged to prevent and to assert as he doth now such a command to be unlawfull if the evil or sin which it might be the cause of were foreseen and ought to have been prevented by the Commander But these Assertions being so contrary as they are to one another Mr. Baxter's asserting that which is true now will not excuse him from having asserted that which was false then which was all that I charged him with If he hath changed his mind since and be ashamed to own and maintain now what he then held and asserted and therefore sought to palliate and disguise it as well as he could yet he ought not to have excused himself by accusing me and which is much worse by endeavouring to make it to be believed that we of the Episcopal Party asserted the Command of a lawfull thing to be lawfull if it were commanded by lawfull Authority though under never so unjust a penalty and though the Commander did foresee that it would by accident be the cause of never so great a mischief and such as he knew he was bound to prevent as the selling of Poyson by an Apothecary who foresees it will be made use of to poyson some body and thereby implying that they were onely such things as this or of the like nature to this which we asserted and he denied to be lawfull which is evidently and equally false in relation to us and to himself also for we never asserted the lawfulness of the one nor denied the unlawfulness of the other as he would have it to be believed we did so that to what I charged him with before I must now add not onely his want of ingenuity in disguising and misrepresenting what He asserted or denied but his being guilty of Calumny also in disguising and misrepresenting what we asserted or denied at the aforesaid Conference in the Savoy And therefore this being the ground of all that he hath said in that Treatise of which he saith it was purposely written against me to confute my gross mistaking charge against him needs no refutation because it proceeds all the way ex falso supposito upon a false supposition as if what he asserts there were the same that he asserted at the Conference or as if because what he asserted afterwards was true therefore what he had said before was not false or lastly as if because he doth not continue to say so therefore he never did say so by which kind of Logick he might as well conclude he never thought it lawfull to fight against the King because he now doth not or at least pretends he doth not or that he never writ all his Political Aphorisms because he tells us since that he hath recanted some of them or that he never thought it lawfull to subscribe and conform when he was ordained by a Bishop because he doth not think so now such Inferences as these are not nor cannot be true when they are affirmed of any fallible and mutable subject as all men are both in their Words and Actions and Mr. Baxter will some men say hath been so as much as any man in both of them So that having sufficiently proved that which I charged Mr. Baxter with which was what he asserted then I have sufficiently discharged my self from being so grosly mistaken as he pretended or indeed from being mistaken at all And therefore need say nothing or at least no more than I have said already in answer to the aforesaid Book or Treatise of his which onely tells us what his Judgment of things sinfull per accidens is now but not what it was then which was the thing and onely thing I charged him withall which he is so far from disproving that he doth not as much as deny it or take any notice at all of it in this whole Treatise which he pretends purposely to have written for the confutation of it which it is so far from confuting that there be several of his own Propositions in that Treatise that do implicitly and consequentially justifie my Charge against him by proving that Proposition of ours to be true which he then denied as false For Example Prop. 31. He saith Rulers may command many things which the Subject may by accident make sinfull for himself to doe And in the next Proposition he saith There be some accidents rendring the Act commanded unlawfull which the Commander may and ought to make provision against or prevent But there are some which he neither can nor is bound therefore to forbear or to change his
to Jews and Gentiles by the Apostles so was it believed and practised by the Primitive Christians who followed herein the example of Christ their head of whom as it was foretold by the Prophets so it is recorded by the Evangelists that he was oppressed and he was afflicted yet as a sheep before the shearer is dumb so he opened not his mouth but without murmuring or contradiction submitted himself to the sentence of an unjust Judge and patiently endured the execution of it leaving to us an Example as St. Peter tells us of suffering as he did without resisting those that are in authority though they use it or abuse it unjustly and injuriously and though it be in our power to resist it as I am sure it was in Christ's And herein I say the first and best of his Disciples follow'd his example I mean the Primitive Christians of the three first Ages that is all the while they were subject to Heathen and Tyrannical and persecuting Princes and yet we do not reade that ever they did so much as make any the least doubt of the right those Tyrannical and persecuting Princes had to govern them much less did they upon the pretence of those Princes having forfeited their Right to their Government ever take up arms either offensive or defensive against any of them as no doubt they might and would have done if they had thought or had been taught that those Princes had either had no right to govern them because they were unlimited or that they had forfeited the Right they had because they were Tyrants For it was not out of Stupidity or because they were insensible of their sufferings neither was it out of Pusillanimity or want of courage to encounter with their enemies though never so numerous for how could they that did not fear death the most painfull and tormenting death fear any thing that men could doe unto them nor lastly was it Weakness or want of power to make resistance or to defend themselves against their persecuting Princes that was the cause they did not as not onely Bellarmine and other Papists but many of those that call and think themselves to be the best of Protestants are not ashamed to say it was but mere Conscience of their duty to God in obeying even such Princes as those were by doing whatsoever they commanded which God had not forbidden willingly and chearfully and by suffering meekly and patiently whatsoever they did wrongfully inflict upon them for not obeying them when they could not obey them and God too as it undeniably appears by those Apologies that were made in the name of all the Primitive Christians of those times by Justin Martyr Tertullian Athenagoras and others who all of them tell their persecuting Emperours that it was not for want of force or courage but merely for conscience sake and because their Religion had forbidden them to doe so that they did not take up Arms to defend themselves against those Powers that God had set over them though the power they received from God were never so ill used or abused by them Which having made appear from Precepts of Scripture and from the Practice of those Precepts by the Primitive Christians one would think there need no more to be said to justifie my exception against this Aphorism of Mr. Baxter's as being contrary to what was taught by Christ and his Apostles and what was practised by the first and best of their Disciples CHAP. VII The Revolt of the ten Tribes from Rehoboam if it were by special commission no warrant to us BUt yet because there is something in the Old Testament which is the word of God as well as the New which may seem to favour Mr. Baxter's opinion namely That Tyrants have no right to their Government or that Sovereign Princes by becoming Tyrants do lose or forfeit the right they had unto their Government we will consider what can be alledged out of the Old Testament to prove that Assertion There is no such Law I am sure nor no such positive declaration of God's Will that a King or Sovereign Prince ceases to be a king or Sovereign when he is or because he is a Tyrant or that his Subjects shall cease to be his Subjects or cease to acknowledge and obey him as their Sovereign upon that account or indeed upon any other account whatsoever much less is there any thing said in the Old Testament to warrant or justifie the deposing of Sovereign Princes by their Subjects upon any pretence of male administration of their Government in any kind or any degree And therefore if there were never so many Examples or Instances in matter of fact to the contrary they would never prove the thing it self to be lawfull But indeed there is but one Instance or Example in the whole Old Testament appliable to this purpose and that is that of Rehoboam from whom the ten Tribes revolted for but threatning he would oppress them more than his Father had done Now from this one Example onely there be some that do conclude that Subjects in case of Tyranny and oppression by their Sovereigns especially if there be otherwise no hope of their being eased or freed from it may lawfully doe as the ten Tribes did revolt from them and set up others to reign over them But as à facto ad jus non valet argumentum From matter of fact to matter of right is no good consequence so neither à semel facto ad semper sic faciendum From a thing 's having been once done to have it alway so done is no good consequence neither So that supposing but not granting that it was lawfull for Jeroboam and the Ten tribes to doe as they did because Jeroboam had been formerly told by the Prophet Ahljah That God would give him those ten Tribes to reign over them and because God himself speaking of the revolting of the ten Tribes from Rehoboam saith expressly that the thing was from him supposing I say that upon these considerations this fact of Jeroboam's and the ten Tribes in revolting from Rehoboam and setting up Jeroboam in his stead to reign over them had been no Rebellion of the People against their lawfull Sovereign but an execution of God's command against him who though he was their Sovereign was but God's Subject and therefore might be punished by him when and how and by whom and to what degree he pleased as having forfeited to him for his own and Father's sins all the power and dominion he had over his Subjects as derived from him and held of him and that but durante bene placito During his good pleasure onely what I say if upon such considerations as these that particular fact of Jeroboam and the ten Tribes were justifiable would it follow that any other Subject or Subjects without such a special or particular Commission from God as they had might doe as they did Would it not
but hence it will not follow that he was bound to do so nay thence it will follow that neither he nor any of his Predecessors were bound to do so for then they that were the boldest in their demands that ever met and sate in Parliament would have claimed it as of right and not Petition'd for it as they did at least if they had vouchsafed to have Petition'd for it they would have called their Petition a Petition of Right which they did not So that by very Petitioning the King to grant those things which they proposed as agreed on by both Houses they acknowledged that the King was not bound by any Law Custom or Precedent from his Predecessors to consent to what both Houses had agreed on and consequently that there was no such Co-ordination betwixt the King Lords and Commons by the fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom as by the aforesaid Aâ—â—hor was pretended to be And therefo 〈…〉 in his answer to the Petition of the 〈…〉 the 19 Propositions which they pretend humbly to desire but indeed peremptorily press him to grant tells them That to say he is obliged to pass all Laws that shall be offered unto him by both Houses howsoever his own Judgment and Conscience shall be unsatisfied wiih them is to broach a new Doctrine a point of Policy as proper for their present business as destructive to all rights of Parliaments adding that it was out of a strange shamelesness that they would forget for sure there being so many Lawyers among them some of them could not chuse but remember it a Clause in a Law still in force made in the second year of King Henry the V. wherein both Houses of Parliament acknowledg that it is of the Kings Regality to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth himself And if it were so and acknowledged by both Houses of Parliament to be so in Henry the V's time I would fain know in what Kings Reign or by what Kings consent that Act or the aforesaid Clause in that Act which was in force so lately comes to be repeal'd or whether any Law or Act of Parliament can be either made or repealed without the Kings consent CHAP. XIII An Ordinance of both Houses no Law and consequently no legal Authority for the late War against the King The Militia or the Power of the Sword acknowledged by the two Houses themselves to be in the King A Sermon of Arch-Bishop Ushers in the Isle of Wight Preached to the same Purpose NOT a Law perhaps may Mr. Baxter say properly so called but an Ordinance of both Houses may and that without the Kings consent to it nay notwithstanding the Kings declaring and protesting against it oblige all the People of England to do or not to do what the two Houses will have them as much as any Law consented to by the King ever did or can do nay and may repeal any Law made by the King by the advice and with the consent of both Houses any Law or Custom to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding But per quam Regulam by what Rule Mr. Baxter By what Law of God or man can this be done Why by an Ordinance of both Houses which is equivalent at least to an Act of Parliament properly so called and so it had need to be Mr. Baxter and more too to warrant the doing of such things such horrible mischiefs and Villanies as have been done against God by Sacriledg against the King by Rebellion and by Subjects against their fellow Subjects by plundering and imprisoning and murdering one another of which side soever they were for all will be put to the account of them that had no authority I mean no legal and just Authority to warrant them to do what they did And therefore Mr. Baxter you were best be very sure that the two Houses had Authority to make such a War as they did not only without Commission from the King but against the King and to engage you and by you to engage so many thousands as you say they did in it You were best I say be very sure of it for it is not your head or your neck only which you say you are willing to hazard upon that account but your soul it self and the Everlasting Woe or Welfare of it that lies at stake for it Be not deceiv'd God is not to be mocked It is not the Confederacy of the two Houses it is not the Covenanting of the two Nations that can justifie either their commanding or their being obeyed in any thing which God hath forbidden or not allowed them to command or to be obeyed in by some known Law of his own or of the Land neither of which I am sure can be produced by them Moreover it is not the redressing of Grievances had they been as many or more and as great or greater than the House of Commons in their virulent and malicious Remonstrance to the People represented them to be nor the Reformation of Religion though there had been much more need of it than there was no nor the truly intending as well as pretending never so good or never so necessary an End for the publick Good either spiritual or temporal of the whole Nation that can justifie the Means they made use of if they had not Authority to make use of them I mean in their taking of the Sword out of the Kings hands where the Law of God and of the Land had placed it and taking it into their own notwithstanding Gods and mans Law to the contrary For the proof of the first part of which Assertion of mine I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself for amongst his many false and impious and pernicious Aphorisms he hath this true one that it is not lawful for a Nation to fight for the preservation of their Religion or their worldly goods and liberties without just authority and licence Whereunto he adds by way of exposition and illustration of his meaning That it is but a delusory course of some in these times that write many Volumes to prove that Subjects may not bear Arms against their Princes for Religion as if those that were against them did think that Religion only as the end yea or Life or Liberty would justifie Rebellion or that the Efficient Authorizing Cause were not necessary as well as the Final Where bearing Arms against Princes is warrantable quoad fundamentum as to the ground of it this will warrant it quoad finem as to the end of it A good End must have a good Ground Again for proof of the latter part of my Assertion namely that the Sword or the Power of making War was by Law in the Kings hand and not in theirs I appeal to the Acknowledgment of the two Houses themselves who after they had setled the Militia before the War was actually begun yet knowing and being conscious to themselves that they had done it illegally
to justifie himself and those of his Nonconforming Brethren for preaching as they do though the Law have forbidden them to do so but the Popish Priests may pretend to also for their justification in the Execution of their Priestly Office in Conventicles of their own persuasion or for the gaining of Proselytes to their own Religion I. As first for example may not a Romish Priest say and say it truly as Mr. Baxter doth That he holds the sacred Office of the Ministry or Priesthood consisteth in an obligation to doe the work and an Authority to warrant him therein and that both these are essential to the Office as likewise That Kings and other Magistrates are not by Ordination to give this Office nor by Degradation to take it away But what then May not the King forbid a Popish Priest to exercise his Priestly Function here in England and punish him if he do though he cannot degrade him or make him to be no Priest And if this may be done to a Popish Priest without degrading him why may it not be done by the same Authority to a dissenting or Nonconforming Minister without degrading him also Yea and without taking away any thing that is essential to his Office For it is not the obligation to doe but to be qualified and willing to doe the work of a Minister that is essential to his Office neither doth his Ordination give him Authority to doe the work of a Minister any otherwise or any longer than he doeth it as it ought to be done So that this Argument drawn from the Obligation of a Minister to doe the work of a Minister after he is ordained if it prove any thing it proves either more or less than Mr. Baxter would have it namely that either Popish Priests may and ought to exercise their Priestly Office here in England though by Law they are forbidden or else that the Nonconforming Ministers may not nor ought not to exercise their Ministerial Office being forbidden to doe so by the same Authority and especially for the same Reasons also namely for being Disturbers of the publick Peace and holding such Principles as are destructive to Monarchy the one teaching the Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and another Foreign Prince that is betwixt the King and the Pope and the other teaching the Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and the Parliament that is betwixt the King and his Subjects II. Neither is Mr. Baxter's second Argument for the Nonconforming Ministers being obliged to exercise their Ministry though they are by Law forbidden to doe it so peculiar to them but that if it had any force in it any man that hath been ordained and thereby been consecrated and devoted to the Ministerial Function may lay claim to it and make use of it though he have done or may doe never so much hurt by the exercise of it because he will be guilty of Sacrilege saith Mr. Baxter if he do not and of the highest degree of Sacrilege that can be it being much more sacrilegious saith he to alienate consecrated Persons than consecrated Things from the Service of God And for proof thereof he tells us That our Canons enquire after all such as alienate themselves from the Ministry to which they were ordained and turn to other Callings adding We dislike not that Canon but we wish our observance of it might be thought but a pardonable fault As if this Canon which forbids men to quit their Ministerial Calling and to betake themselves to any other Lay Profession did oblige all those that are Ministers or have been ordained to be Ministers to continue in the exercise of their Ministerial Function though by lawfull Authority and for never so just cause they are forbidden to doe so because forsooth he will be guilty of Sacrilege if he do not so that he that is once ordained and thereby consecrated to serve God in the Ministry though he be never so heretical or schismatical or fanatical in point of Opinion or never so factious or seditious or rebellious or lewd or debauched in point of Practice he must not be forbidden to doe the work he was ordained to doe or if he be forbidden he must not forbear to doe it notwithstanding because it will be the highest degree of Sacrilege except Apostasie it self if he do So that this Argument proves nothing neither or as much for the worst as it doth for the best that ever were ordained III. The like may be said of Mr. Baxter's third Argument also which is a deduction from several Texts of Scripture obliging those that have taken upon them the Ministry of the Gospel to be diligent and faithfull and constant in the preaching of it All which places must be understood with this exception unless they be lawfully and by their lawfull Superiours forbidden to doe it Otherwise there will a Floodgate be opened for the bringing in all manner of Heresies and Schisms into the Church and of Faction and Sedition and Rebellion into the State as we have found by our own experience it hath done lately into our own Church and State and will doe so again if such Arguments as these can prevail with us to repeal our Laws and to grant a Licence or rather a licentiousness of Preaching to Men so principled and so affected as Mr. Baxter himself and those he pleads for have shewed themselves to be and will not yet give us any security that they will not preach and doe hereafter as they have done formerly IV. But his fourth main Reason as he calls it why those he pleads for must preach though they be forbidden is a main one indeed if it were a true one namely That they should sin against the Law of Nature it self nay even the great radical Law of Nature so far as to be guilty of the murthering of mens Souls if they did not preach though they be forbidden by what Authority or for what cause soever for so he must mean or else he saith nothing to the purpose and if he means so he condemns the King and Parliament for forbidding so many hundreds or thousands as Mr. Baxter saith are silenced because they will not conform and consequently for doing what they can to make so many hundreds and thousands to sin against the radical Law of Nature and to be guilty of murthering God knows how many Mens Souls But Kings and Parliaments Mr. Baxter may say are but Men and Men that may err in commanding what God hath forbidden and in forbidding what God hath commanded as they do saith he in this particular and are not therefore to be obeyed as the Apostles did not and professed they would not obey the High Priest and the Sanhedrim when they did forbid them to preach any more in the name of Christ the like saith he the Primitive and Orthodox Christians did though the Pagan and Arian Emperours forbad them to doe so