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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

you I named And now O the power of Innocency and worth all those for their Gravity Sobriety Learning and Peaceableness you have as much esteem for as I can have And really I hope as bad as they and their adversaries judge each other were they all better acquainted with each other the rest would constrain their afflicters themselves to such a praise and approbation an inconsiderable number only excepted But who else should I name in the County where you live and near you Mr. Joseph Baker Mr. Benjamin Baxster Mr. George Hopkins Mr. Waldern c. are dead Those living are Mr. Ambrose Sparrey your predecessour at Hampton Mr. Andrew Tristram Mr. Kimberley Mr. Osland Mr. Badland of Worcester Mr. Sergeant Dr. Richard Morton Mr. Stephen Baxter Mr. Richard Dowley Mr. Cowper Mr. Paston Mr. Read I cannot remember all Tell me how many and which of those you mean The Elder about you dead were on our side Mr. Arthur Salway Mr. John Hall Mr. Thomas Hall your next Neighbour Mr. Smith at Dudley Mr. Smith at Stoke a younger Man and not far of Mr. Anthony Burgess Mr. Blake c. which of these mean you And what if you can Name one unlearned Man in Forty or Fifty If he be but a meer Nonconformist and not of some such Sect with whom we have not much more affinity than with the Papists who conform not and yet say they are nearer to you than to us I doubt that odd unlearned Man should he but conform would be a great ornament to your present Church But what course can one better take to silence such Calumnies and to convince Posterity of such mens incredibility than to Name the persons round about How many hundred worthy men in London and a few Counties of my acquaintance could I Name you And you say it is a usual Stratagem with us to possess particular persons with an opinion that you detract from them It is bad arguing Syllogizare ex particulari Excellent Logick He that condemneth the Non-conformists and the ejected Ministers as meer illiterate doth not condemn the Individuals though it came in with an How many I never said that you condemn them all but I askt you as you did me How many And is this like syllogizing ex particulari Do you intimate an Accusation against Many of them and when I name almost all of that County neer you will you absolve them all 2. Next you say Those I intended have your suffrage Because I said I had rather have a meer English Divine than an Hebrew or a Syriac Sot It seems you are of another mind A Sot will serve to preach Divinity and seek mens salvation We feel the judgment of more than you and this was enough to set you upon blew Aprons c. How forgot you Tub-Preachers 3. And you would fain steal some honour to your self from the Universities as a Defender of them O happy advantage But who accused them I said I am grown of late years to take it for no very great honour to our young Preachers that they are acquainted with the Universities And you put It is for I take it and so I take it still But late years signifieth not always nor our young Preachers all Preachers Doth he that dishonoureth the University deserve honour for being at the University What young ones you have I know not but our young ones that I speak of do not yet go about to change my mind Do you think all those named though he did not well by the Glocester Cobler Ralph Wallis are an honour to the University or it to them I still take it for no very great honour I said not none for any ignorant idle Lad to have been at the University But sure I obtruded not this judgment on you or any other Yet here is place for Corah's holy Congregation eclipsing the two Luminaries Agamemnon the Sodomites and more such stuff And shall it be the Controversie whether you or I have written more for Learning and Universities and which of us did more to save them from the Anabaptists and other Fanaticks when they were endangered The visible Evidences shall decide the Case You may be more beholden to the Universities than I but I have done more than wish their prosperity as well as you But Quidvis ex quovis is your way There went about Eleven or twelve out of Kederminster Parish and School to the University and Ministry in my time and many since If you please enquire of the difference 3. And when you tell me that I deal no better with the Primitive Fathers I first ask you how could you make shift to be ignorant how ill you use the ancient Presbyters yea and Bishops of the Church your self were they not mostly blew Aprons with you and such as you disdain for want of Hebrew c. Know you not that the Paucity of Learned Presbyters was the true Cause that the few that were such got the place and honour and power of Bishops above the rest And how few Philosophers turned Christians then And how long it was before the Christians had many considerable Schools much less Universities And what men the common Presbyters were yea and the Bishops for the most part Alexandria by Pantaenus Clemens and Origen kept up some competent Learning Basil Nazianzen Nissen Chrysostom were fain to go to such as Libanius and to Athens except those forenamed and Justin Martyr and Tertullian before them and Hierom after how few either Linguists or Philosophers had we And yet do not you account those holy and worthy men blew Aprons such as Ignatius Polycarpus Irenaeus yea and Cyprian almost all the Bishops of Rome Graeg Neocaesar Antonius Ab. Pachomius Macarius yea Epiphanius himself Ephrem Syrus Isidore Pelesiota Ambrose Philastrius Theoph. Alexand Ruffinus Gaudentius Maximus c. Besides Simeon Stillita and all the holy Famous Monks yea Augustinus himself the best rational Divine had little enough of the Tongues Their Writings easily prove all this with the Historical Descriptions of others concerning them I said I think it so short a Work to read the few brief Writers of the three first Centuries as maketh it more a dishonour to be ignorant of them than any great honour to be acquainted with them Instead of this you feign me to say It is no great honour to be acquainted with them But is this true Is a Positive and a Comparative Assertion all one But it seems you are not of my mind But take it for a greater honour for a Minister to know them than a dishonour to be ignorant of them And who vilified them more then you or I If I say that it is a greater dishonour to be ignorant of the Alphabet of the Grammar of the Gospel than honour to be acquainted with them so as to know what is in them and you denied this who vilified them most Have you no greater matters than these to exercise your censorious faculty on You know

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

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. Cheney's Second Accusation Mr. Roger L'Strange Justice c. The Dialogue between the Pope and a Fanatic Varney's Phanatic Prophesie By RICHARD BAXTER Psalm 120. 6. 7. My Soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace I am for peace but when I speak they are for war Rom. 3. 17. The way of peace they have not known London Printed for Jacob Sampson next to the Wonder Tavern in Ludgate-Street 1681. Readers IF this striving work be unpleasant to you it must be much more so to me It is not the least advantage that Satan getteth against the Church that by other mens sins he can occasion that to become our duty which else would be a sinfull loss of time and against the peace of our selves and others A multitude of heresies make it our duty to read abundance of Books and study those languages and trifling Arts which else were needless And the multitude of Erroneous malignant and other adversaries and the variety of their assaults maketh many Defences Evidences Witnesses and Confutations necessary which else would signifie that evil Contentiousness which the assaulters manifest Though the servant of the Lord must not strive yet must we contend earnestly for the Faith and must not forsake and betray truth and innocency And the necessitated Defender may do his duty while the wilfull Aggressor doth sinfully militate against Truth Charity and Peace And as we must love our Enemies so we take our selves bound much more to love our tempted envyous brethren and if they use us as Joseph cast us into the Pit and sell us as slaves we will call them brethren still and hope one day their repentance will render them more lovely than they are And though some Preach Christ in Envy Strife and Contention to add to our affliction and not sincerely we rejoyce and will rejoyce that Christ is Preached And though they would drive us out from the inheritance of the Lord 1 Sam. 26. 19. We will not venture with David to curse them but say as he in another pursuit 2 Sam. 15. 25. 26. Carry back the Ark of God into the City If I shall find favour in the Eyes of the Lord he will bring me again and shew me both it and his Habitation But if he thus say I have no delight in thee behold here am I let him do to me as seemeth good to him In my endeavours for peace these Thirty Four Years as I have been put to publish many things which I had rather might have been spared so I have written to satisfie others the Quantity of many Volumes which I cast away as unnecessary to the World But some men that I have dealt with will not give me and the Reader such an indulgence Mr. Dodwell is one who shall have his answer by it self Mr. Hinkley is another to whose last Letter I wrote an answer about Nine Years ago But he would not so bury his Talent but hath printed my former Letters with his answer and so called and constrained me to publish my last reply Fame reporteth that the Impleader is Mr. Long of Exeter who heretofore wrote an Accusing Book of which I gave him a private Epistolary Animadversion Who the Reflector or the Author of the Speculum is I know not the Subject calleth me to no particular Answer He and Mr. Roger le strange who argue in the same Mood and Figure make me little work which concerneth others They mistook the question as if it had been what the World should think of me In which I leave them to their Liberty without much contradiction But our question is First whether the Concord of Protestants being supposed necessary the silencing imprisoning fining and banishing from Corporations all Ministers that take Conformity to the present Impositions to be a sin be the way of Peace and Concord either probable or possible to attain the end Mr. John Cheny I judge a godly serious man who being neer me and familiar with me never told me a word of his exceptions nor gave me the least touch of a private Admonition for all the Atheism Infidelity Wickedness Abomination destroying all Religion c. Which he accuseth me of in print And his Book is so dismal a piece of work in its extraordinary privation of Common Reason Truth Charity Tenderness and Modesty that I am constrained to think that the honest man is diseasedly melancholly And I have known some well meaning men in that disease that are so tenacious of all their own Conceptions that they are still fiercely confident that the grossest things that they hold and say are right and passionately reject all that is said against them Whom he hath reported to be his Instigator I shall not here proclaim The Dialogue between the Pope and a Phanatick and Varney's Prophesie I leave the Reader to answer himself as he findeth cause If any man think it a service to God to accuse me and others and justifie our silencing and the imposed penalties I intreat him to remember the Ninth Commandement and that God and his Church need not Lies for their Service but it s he that is both the Father of them and a Lyar from the beginning That was a lying Spirit in the Mouth of all Ahabs Prophets even of him that smote Mica●ah for supposing the Spirit of God departed from him and whose work on Earth against Christ and Souls is done by Deceit and Wrath and Hurtfulness Imitating him will disgrace your cause and you And Light will not so easily be hid Great is truth and will finally prevaile And all the waves do but break themselves who dash against this impregnable rock I call this Book A Third Defence of the cause of Peace with respect to two former One in answer to the Accusation of Mr. John Cheny the other in answer to Dr. Edward Stillingfleet men whom I once thought more unlikely than most other to become our Accusers All Mr. Gouge's WORKS POlitical and Military Observations of the Court and Camp of France during the late Wars in Flanders Germany c. Sacramental Meditations upon divers select places of Scripture wherein Believers are assisted in preparing their hearts and exciting their Affections and Graces when they draw nigh to God in that most awful solemn Ordinance of the Lords Supper By John Flavel Minister of Christ in Devon 12o. price 1 s. 6 d. A peaceable resolution of Conscience touching our present Impositions wherein Loyalty and Obedience are proposed and settled upon their true Foundation in Scripture Reason and Constitution of this Kingdom against all resistance of the present Powers and with compliance with the Laws so far as may be in order to Union With a Draught or Specimen

a Liberty to Preach Christ to ignorant Souls must Protestants Greeks and Papists be all silenced for want of Loyalty I will subscribe to the utmost that which any of their Confessions give to Kings 4. The Non-conformists as far as I am acquainted with them have still been ready in express terms to promise never to meddle in any War against the King Nay to promise to employ their interest and labour to prvent it I● this would serve they should not be silenced Are such as Hooker and Bilson thought worthy of Honour and are these Principles of ours so much less security against War as to leave us on that account uncapable to Preach Let but reason and humility be judge of your Accusation and Cause And here to shame your self yet more Marchiaement Need-hams Book is instanced in A Man that is no Minister but a Physician who in those daies Wrote against us Non-conformists and against my self by Name when the generality of the now silenced Non-conformists and excluding the Sectaries stood out refusing for the most part the engagement whom the Royalists of my vicinity took it This Man that Wrote against me and since the Kings return hath welcomed him in florid Poems is instanced in to tell Men what the Nonconformists are and why they are silenced Truly Sir I conjecture you are a Stranger to them as abundance of the Prelatists are though you lived in England and have dwelt somewhere where you knew but some Giddy Sectaries and judge by them of those you knew not And here Page 8. I am glad that you deny not that the worst among us are received if they do but conforme which sheweth for what crime we are kept out And for your exclamation against us that come not in you would be impatient if I should but describe your dealing What if you lived under in such a power of Usurpers as would say if all the Ministers in Germany Holland c. will under their hands or delibrately profess that no one in the Kingdom is bound by the Oath of Supremacy or Allegiance and promise that he will never endeavour the reformation of any Corruption in Religion but will Assent and Consent to every Word in the Interim and will use Exorcism c. they shall have leave to Preach else they shall all be silenced and deprived of all Ministerial Liberty and maintenance And the● Cassander should have told them that they shu● out themselves if they come not in I say not that our Case is the same with this I know it is not But Cassander dealt more Candidly than you do Is there any thing that could be imposed that would make you a Non-conformist If there be might non any Man talk to you at such rates even tye your Legs and intreat you to go or blindfold you and say read who struck you § 6. What need you more to the present Case when you say that there is never a Cherubim to hinder them than this that though it be no sin in your Opinion it is a hainous sin in theirs And will your Opinion prove it where we search as diligently as you do to know the truth If we be not as good as you you may allow us to love our selves as well Tell me what time of any Usurpation had such impositions which the main Body of the present Conformists then in being did not conform or submit to or which they refused to the Cost of all their Church maintenance for the liberty of Preaching too many of them could easily forego it I know that many were turned out by others that would gladly have conformed if that would but have been accepted I knew not three Men in the three Counties about me that would not then have conformed if that would have kept them in their livings If there were more unknown to me there or elsewhere I would but have asked those men whether it was a sin that was imposed on them And if so whether it would have prevailed with them if one had done as you and told them that they kept out themselves and that no Cherubin stood in the way and how hainously they sinned in forsaking their Calling It seems by your Complaint of the Tryers men that I had nothing to do with that either you did Conform then or would have done if they had not refused you They say you did Conform I am sure that most of my Acquaintance that were sequestred would have Conformed to have kept their Livings But if we be of another mind now when Declarations Subscriptions Oaths and Practices are imposed on us which what would you have us to do Our manifold Interests obligeth us to judge them lawful if we could We lose as much by not Conforming as most of you get by Conforming Must we judge all lawful because our Guides do so How far will that hold Will it hold in Italy or in France or in Denmark or formerly in Scotland if you had lived there He that must take all for good which another calleth so must know who it is that is so far to be trusted on especially of those that renounce Infallibility 2. The Irony was palpable enough to have prevented your Fancy that I give up the Cause scil by confessing the Crime that we sought to save Souls and that we did eat bread A little will encourage you sometimes to great Conclusions § 7. P. 9. Here you have many things to say to prove that men that came into Sequestrations either sought not or procured the good of Souls But O! first remember that if that were true yet all those or neer all were turned out of their Sequestrations before the silencing Bartholomew Day 1662. 2. Do you think that it had been as consistent with the good of Souls that they had for sixteen years been all untaught and left without any Ministers or Publick Worship rather than any should have succeeded the ejected 3. If our Preaching did no good to Souls why should you think that yours does any If you preach the same Gospel why should you think so well of your own works above other mens And if yours also do no good why do men pay their Tythes and trouble themselves to hear such as do but trouble the World 4. Do you not Conspire with the Quakers that falsly cried out that our Ministry did not profit men and with the Levellers that would have taken down the Ministry as unprofitable 5. But O! what an attempt you make to prove how little History is credible to teach men to say How know we that Hegisyppus that Eusebius that Socrates that Epiphanius say true when such men as should be the Preachers of Truth can say what they do of common or notorious matters of Fact yea and confidently stand to it to the face of that Age which knoweth that they speak falsly 1. Who are more competent Judges whether men received any good by Christs Gospel which we preached you or they Do

Conformists that desired a Deliverance But this proveth not that the Parliament was Presbyterians then much less that they were so before the Wars But you that meddle not with Lay-men remember that Lay-men sent those Propasitions You next tell me of Alderman Pennington and the Apprentices Answ 1. Few of those Apprentices knew what Presbytery was but were exasperated against Episcopacy for the sake of the present Bishops as the common people be now within these nine years thinking that it 's they that silence their Teachers and cause all our Divisions But alas little knew they what Church-Government to desire But most that were in judgment against Episcopacy were Independents and Separatists then And how inconsiderable a number in London were those Apprentices 2. And our Question is not what Party of Lads or Apprentices or Women did clamour against Bishops But what Party it was that raised the War Did these Lads give the Earl of Essex his Commission But you find none that said any thing against their Petition but the Lord Digby Answ And hath not he forsaken you also 1. Where did you seek to find it Not in the Parliament Journal sure else you might have found more 2. The truth is the Episcopal Parliament themselves perceiving what Party they must trust to opposed not those Petitions because the Petitioners might serve their turns and I doubt were too well contented with them But as no man must say that the King had the Spirit of Popery because he was willing that the Papists should help him So no man can prove that the Episcopal Parliament had the Spirit of Presbytery or were against Episcopacy it self because they were willing to be helped by all sorts who on a sudden were fallen out with Bishops The truth is the suspending and silencing of Ministers and the cropping the Ears and stigmatizing Prin with Burton and Bastwick had suddenly raised in the London Apprentices and others a great distate of the Bishops though they knew little of any Controversies about Church-Government at all When you say that Episcopacy or rather Bishops Lands was the Palladium c. 1. Episcopacy was not so till after the Army was raised It was so no doubt in the private designs of some particular men Apprentices and Women in the City and Kingdom that is all that were against it desired it should fall And many that were Episcopal desired that it should rather fall than the Abuses of it continue by such men as they thought would else ruine Church and State thinking that there was no other way to save them so far did different apprehensions about Propriety Liberty Popery and Arminianism carry men from one another who were all for Episcopacy But forget not 1. That it is the major Vote of the Parliament and not a few secret designers within or without doors that is the Parliament 2. That it was the Parliament that raised the Militia and Armies 3. That this Parliament was not at that time against Episcopacy Therefore your talk of the Isle of Wight so long after is liker a Jest than serious Besides that you seem ignorant of the Parliament resolved to accept of the Kings Concessions as Prins long Printed Speech will shew you and therefore immediately before they should have voted that closure were pulled out by Cromwell who had secret intelligence what they were going to do 2. And your oblivion caused you by your Parenthesis to contradict what you have hitherto said your self For if it were Bishops Lands rather than Bishops that they would have down it implyeth that they were not Presbyterians nor against Episcopacy Would you make an English-man of this age believe that none of your own Church have an appetite to Bishops Lands Try them and they will confute you more effectually than I can Do you think that of the Multitude that now drink and ●rant and roar and whore and rob there are none whose Consciences could be content that Bishops fell that they might have their Lands you will say perhaps these are not truly for Episcopacy Ridiculous Must we write Histories out of mens secret thoughts and hearts and call men only what they are conscientiously and in sincerity Who knoweth another mans sincerity but God Come into London or go among these Gallants and tell them that they are not Sons of the Church if you dare Hearken whether they talk not more for Bishops than for any other Sect Whether they do not curse and damn the Presbyterians and Fanaticks and their Conventicles and deride their Preaching and praying and say as bad of them as you can wish them Though I know that too great abundance since our silencing are fallen off from you to Infidelity or Atheism and to make a Jest of the Sacred Scriptures and the Papists say that very many thousands are turned to them yet I speak of those that still call themselves Protestants of the Church of England Really if you will take none to be of your Church that would sell the Bishops Lands or none that are not conscientiously for you I doubt your Church yet will prove invisible and as little as some of the housed Sects And if that will serve your turn I pray deal equally and let the Sectaries also have leave to say of any of their Party that killed the King or were guilty of Treason he was not truly one of us The War was first called Bellum Episcopale by the Parliament-men because they thought or said that Land and his Adherents were the Causes of it by seeking to reduce the Scots to their will and to set up Altars and other Innovations in England But not because the Parliament at that time renounced Episcopacy it self As to the particular Members of the Armies I confess I did know them better than you I speak not of Fairfax or Cromwell's Army but of Essex's And it s well that you have so much modesty as not to deny that they were Episcopal or no Presbyterians But you venture to say of those yet living That they were so whilst they assisted in the support of the late Cause I have not so far renounced my Reason and Experience as to fall in with your account And if we persevere in this new Doctrine we shall be as distant as the two Poles Answ Now you are at your Strength your Confidence and Resolution to believe or say you believe as you do is all the life of your Cause It is now taken for no dishonour to the greatest Lords to say that they are for Episcopacy There are yet living the Earl of Bedford the Earl of Denbeigh the Earl of Stamford the Lord Grey of Warke the Lord Hollis the Lord Asthey the Lord Roberts the Earl of Anglesey though he be no Souldier Major General Morgan Mr. G. Massey Sir John Gell and many more Enquire of themselves or any that know them whether they were ever Presbyterians or against a moderate Episcopacy Sir William Waller was most called a Presbyterian

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

and are hunted and laid in Jayls with Rogues 2. Can I expect that men that never were studious or bookish especially in matters of Divinity and Holiness but have been bred up in fulness and pleasure in courtship and converse with such as themselves who will take him for a Fanatick that doth but talk much and seriously of Heaven or Scripture or things Divine that scarce ever heard what a Nonconformist hath to say for himself nor ever seriously examined the cause or read a Book which openeth their case in all their lives I say can I expect that such should be able or willing to understand us I mean not as if All were such but it hath been my hard hap to meet with few persons even of Gentile Education who ask me Why do you not Conform that do not presently shew me in Conference that they are quite out of their Element when they meddle with such matters and talk of things which they never studied or understood and indeed do not think it belongeth to them but to the Church And that is to those Church-men that the King and the Patron please to chuse which maketh the Papists say the Laity of the Church of England cry down our believing as the Church believeth when they do the same by their own Church-men The Question is but whether it be our Church-men or theirs that are to be believed And when Kings were on out side it was our Church-men that were to be believed and when they are on their side it is theirs And Mr. Hutchinson alias Berry spake harshly when he said in Print that there was so little of conscionable Religion in the people of the Church of England that if one were but toucht with the Conscience of Religion he turned Puritan o● Papist I shewed him the injury of his Speech but I would he had much less occasion for it Dr. Stillingfleet told me that there was scarce an● of his Hearers or Readers how mean soever ther● capacities were but could discern the weakness of no Evasions I dwell near the Verge of his Parish I have talkt with some of his Auditors and enquired of many others and I think verily he is more in the right than I at first believed For I finde that abundance of his Auditors hear him some once some twice some thrice a year and some of them know not whether Christ be God or man or both or whether he had a humane Soul or what a man differs from a Beast nor what is the true sence of many if any Articles of the Creed And I am perswaded these whom he calleth of the meanest capacity are the likeliest men to discern the weakness of My Arguments I have talked also with divers of his Readers and I found that they understood this much that Dr. Stillingfleet wrote his Sermon against the Nonconformists and that he is a Dean and may be greater and is a man that can talk with any of us It may be some that I have not met with know more as being of a higher Form and some few I have met with that indeed know more and those lament the Doctor 's undertaking and when they have read my Answer or Account confess that they cannot justifie his Charge Could I but tell how to get most of the Church of England to know what Religion is and to be seriously of any Religion and to understand Baptism and the Lords Supper the Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments how boldly should I expect their Christian sense and candour in our Cause But till then I confess that the Accusers have the advantage of us and their Books unread will do more than ours § 5. And it is a great advantage which they have got by the Oxford-Act of banishing above five Miles from Cities and Corporations all that swear not as is there required For though the King's Wisdome and Clemency have let down he Floud-gates and somewhat stopt the impetus of the Clergy-stream yet it was many years before Nonconformists durst be openly seen in Cities or Corporations much less at Court or among great Men and modesty and prudence yet obligeth them to abstain from the presence of their Superiours where the Law forbids it so that the Ears of Country-Nobles and most of our Rulers hear but what our Accusers say and have no knowledge of our Cause but as described by them whose descriptions are many of them no more credible than if they said that we are Turks § 6. And their Art hath got us to such a straight that whether we speak or are silent we are guilty and whatever we do except swearing saying and doing as they require it shall turn to our Accusation For instance Do some think that Dr. Stillingfleet is in the right that pronouneeth Damnation without Repentance against them that prefer not the purest Church and thereupon come not to the Parish-Assemblies Against such they cry out Separatists Schismaticks preparing for Rebellion away with them execute the Laws But if others do as I do who daily joyn with the Parish-Church in all their Worship and Communicate in their Sacrament and oppose Separation Some say Such are like Ap● that are the ugliest Creatures though likest unto men while they are not men And others say We know not what to make of Mr. B. he is neither Flo● nor Fish He is like one that will go one step on one side the Hedge and another on the other side to avoid Uniformity And the men are not altogether mistaken I profess that I once made it the most earnest action of my life to have prevented the building of a separating Wall or a dividing Thorny-hedge in the midst of this part of the Vineyard of Christ to separate one part of the faithful Ministers and people from the rest And that I earnestly desire to see that Wall or Hedge pull'd down that Christ's Flock among us may be one And I will do the best I can whilst I live to get it down that there may be no such separation And seeing this is a work above my power I will go sometime on both sides the Hedge though by so doing I be scratcht and a Thorn in the Flesh by a buffetting Messenger of Satan reprehend me But reverend Doctors hear my Reasons It is not to avoid Uniformity but Separation I am a Catholick and not a Sectary I am for Communion with the Universal Church If you will hedge in one corner and the Anabaptists another and the Separatists another and so other Sects that must have their peculiars and turn Christ's house into your several Chambers and his Common-field into your little Inclosures and then say Keep onely in our Room and go into no other Keep onely in our Enclosure and go not on the other side of the Hedge I shall tell you that I abhor your separation I have business on both sides I believe the holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints and not onely your