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A26901 The church told of Mr. Ed. Bagshaw's scandals and warned of the dangerous snares of Satan now laid for them in his love-killing principles with a farther proof that it is our common duty to keep up the interest of the Christian religion and Protestant cause in the parish churches, and not to imprison them by a confinement to tolerated meetings alone / by Richard Baxter ... Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1672 (1672) Wing B1226; ESTC R1907 28,184 36

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10. Ib. But he professeth that he dealeth thus in Zeal to the Glory of God Love to the Cause of Christ and Non-conformity which I have deserted Where 1. It is a repeated falshood that I have deserted the Cause of Non-conformity I challenge him openly to name even one point of it in which I have changed my judgment these 31 yeares which I speak not as my praise who in those things have grown no wiser except in knowing the same things better to this day 2. What sin will you call it to father all these falshoods on the Glory of God and the Cause of Christ Doth his Cause and Glory need mens Lies How many hundreds thus in a few more Libels may you publish if Satan bless them as hitherto he hath done with an Increase and Multiply Sect. 11. pag. 5. He reciteth many words of my Disputations of Church Government and laboureth whether by gross Ignorance or malice I know not to perswade the Reader that I retract or contradict them and saith We stand amazed you should so soon and so much forget all that you have said This is not a single falshood but maketh up no small part of his Book Reader do but hear and judge whether any thing except his Amareduci can excuse such horrid deliberate untruths 1. I never retracted any of that book setting aside the Dedication 2. I do still profess that I am of the same judgment which that book expresseth 3. I have in the greatest audience told the Bishops that I stand to it and provoked them to answer it 4. There is not a word of contradiction to that Book in my Cure of Church-Divisions which he writes against And am I not as like to understand my own writings as this man is 5. That very Book pleadeth as much and much more for a moderate Episcopacy the lawfulness of a Liturgy and those circumstances or ceremonies which I judge lawful as kneeling at the Sacrament than my later Books have done 6. It was to me a considerable Providence which drew me when the Sectaries were at the very highest to write that Book which had I written since the King returned they would have imputed to temporizing or a change 7. The very same men that now rail so loud against me said nothing that ever I could hear of against that book that contained more than Now I have written for But then it passed uncontradicted by them that now rail at half as much So Is it not a strange fate which that poor Book incurreth that the men of both sides plead it as for them and commend it whilst they condemn the Author as if he were himself against it The Reverend Bishop whom Mr. Bagshaw wrote against alledged it in the greatest audience before his Majesty Dukes Lords and Bishops with no less commendation than these words No man hath spoken better of this than Mr. Baxter And now Mr. Bagshaw citeth it with applause Reader who is in such a case as I The Bishop is for my Book Mr. Bagshaw is for it And I am the man that am against my self whilst I openly tell them both that I still stand to it as my judgment only not owning any words that any party shall justly find to be too sharp Surely they labour to bring me to that reputation among these contenders as Plato was among the Philosophers whom every Sect took to be the second or next the best Sect. 12. But pag. 6. he thinks that he talketh like a man of brains when he inferreth that if they be such kind of persons as I have represented them they ought immediately to be forsaken and forborn as to any acts of Church-communion Answ. But 1. I never said of them that they printed besides false Doctrines fourscore untruths in two small Libels as you have done and give the world neither vindication nor repentance And yet you or your disciples will not inferr thus against your self 2. Deceitful man Did I ever lay the charge you mention against all the honest conformable Pastors of the Parish Churches in the Land who have no hand in any thing that you can call an imposition or a persecution Nay that own not as they think the Diocesan Prelacy as such but only Episcopacy in general and Diocesans as the Kings Officers Did I ever lay that charge against all the Christians in the Parish Churches No nor against all the Bishops neither 3. And must all the Churches in a Kingdome be excommunicated or forsaken for the cause of a few men whom few of them ever knew or saw This is like the Popes interdicting Kingdomes 4. And if you separated but from the individual offenders should it not be done in a regular way Why go you about to blind the ignorant with such palpable fallacies as these Is it truth that men must be thus cheated into with errours Sect. 13. pag. 6. From what I said the Episcopal Churches would then have been if they had but had a meer toleration in the times that openly discountenanced them when the countenanced parties should set up by themselves he inferreth as if I had called them such now when no other are tolerated and that in all those Parishes where are good Ministers and no other Churches Thus palpable falshood is the very life of all his Libel Sect. 14. Ib. The self-contradicting man professeth to follow the Light which I once had in this and yet that my present Light is nothing else but confusion of darkness when I said the same then in that very Book that now I do and now own that book which I wrote then And all to carry on a cheating falshood as if in this I had changed my judgment Sect. 15. I had almost pass'd over a shameless falshood pag. 4. And that you may know I do not speak at randome particularly when at Gloucester you preached upon Curse ye Meroz and now you say you do repent do you expect ever to be believed again which is a mere composition of Vntruths 1. I never preached on Curse ye Meroz in my life if he mean that text or those words I never was at Gloucester but about one month before the Wars in which I preached thrice or four times of which one on a Fast had respect to the times which was on Ezek. 37. 3. Son of man Can these bones live And my business was to shew the Difficulty of the reparation and reformation of a sinful lapsed Church In which I mentioned many things and sorts of people that would hinder it but neither my Notes which I yet have by me or memory have any thing at all that tended unto War or resistance of Authority Yet if any other Sermon there did touch the times which I remember not I am sure it was not on that Text which I never preached on 2. And he as falsly insinuateth that I say I repent of what I preached at Gloucester so hard is it to him to speak that which is not
any good and winning any souls to true repentance When the Conformable Preachers should do good the people will be taught by you to shun them or despise them as Idolaters When the Non-conformists should do any good they will be taught by your practice and other mens calumny to turn away from them as such as afore described And then how much hath Satan gained I know another sort of men are at least as deeply guilty of all these consequents as you But that is no excuse of yours And though it must be that offence come yet wo to them by whom it cometh 24. And indeed it would be a heinous aggravation of your sin if you should defie Gods Providence and the large and lamentable experience of the mischiefs of Love-killing dividing-principles and wayes This spirit and way was of old blasted in England and Holland It troubled New-England It injured the Non conformists and put them to write many books against it more than the Conformists did The books of Mr. Perry Martin Mar-Prelate full of jears and scorn were unsavoury to all sober men and his death the more dishonourable Scotland kept them out thence by Discipline In our late Wars Martin-Mar-priest Overton as was thought with Prince Lilburn c. quite exceeded Martin-Mar-Prelate and the Ministers were more scorned than ever were the Bishops Seekers Quakers and Ranters have all been generated for the most part by the foresaid Separating Principles and Spirit I will tell you no more now what effects it then had on the Churches and Kingdom nor what it hath brought on themselves and us But reason should tell it you and I will tell you that now even now to run violently further into the same fire which first burnt up so much of our Concord peace and glory and turned us into ashes and then burnt up the men that kindled it and is not quenched to this day nor like to be in haste I say to blow this fire still and run into it and back-bite even Non-conformable Ministers themselves that would but disswade you and desire you to quench it will be an obdurateness so like to Pharaoh's as may be a doleful prognostick to the guilty if not to all the Land 25. You little know what a pernicious design the Devil hath upon you in perswading you to desire and endeavour to pull down the Interest of Christ and Religion which is upheld in the Parish Churches of the Land and to think that it is best to bring them as low in reality or reputation as you can and to contract the Religious Interest all into private meetings By which means 1. The privacy shall keep it under obloquy suspicion and contempt 2. And shall level the sound with all the rotten Sects in their reputation 3. And shall leave them no security in Law for their continuance an hour 4. And shall keep them still under the censures discountenance and dangers of the Law 5. And young rash intemperate spirits among your selves will be continual endangerers of your liberties 6. Or a malicious enemy may at any time put on the vizor of a friend and come among you and act a furious part to make you odious and overthrow you 7. And few of the young the ignorant or licentious sorts will be your Auditors And how will the work of Repentance then be carried on by you The most will go to the publick Churches when you have done the most against it you can 8. And when the present generation of Non-conformists are dead do you think it likely that so many will survive them of their mind as are sufficient without the publick assemblies to keep up the Christian and Protestant Religion in the Land You are ignorant if you think it probable I know that God can do what he will But his Promise is the measuring object of our faith And I think he hath promised no such thing And I have long feared lest twenty years wilful contentions wantonness c. will not be punished with a short rebuke If you know how great a number was silenced in King Iames his time and yet that in 1640 there were not found near half so many Non conformable Ministers as are Counties in England you may think it is possible it may be so again And would you have but one Minister in a County or two to keep up all the Interest of Religion I am not without hope that God will make men so wise as to unite us before such a day But of that we have no certainty 9. Yea could you wish at this day that the Christian and Protestant Religion were kept up by none but the unconformable Ministers in private No honest man can wish it who considereth how many of the 1800 are dead already and how few are left in most Counties of the Land in comparison of the Congregations that need instruction I know that it is commonly said that God blesseth not their Ministry to the conversion of any souls and therefore it is as good be without the Conformists But this is foolishly spoken For 1. Many of them are as wise and as good men as you 2. You have no satisfactory account what hearts are secretly wrought on by their Ministry They come not all to you to be confessed 3. And the worser sort of them are not worse than Iudas whom Christ sent forth 4. And there is much done to keep up the Christian and Protestant Doctrine in soundness against Infidelity and Popery where few are brought to sound Conversion And so Gods publick worship and the hopes of our Posterity are kept up If any of you had rather that all turned open Infidels or Mah●metans my soul shall not enter into your Counsels 10. And the publick Churches will be kept up some or other If you would have the Protestant Interest in them fall the Popery will find them as a house ready swept and garnished and will make our latter end worse than our beginning 11. And I am perswaded few can be so sottish as to be ignorant that it greatly pleaseth the Papists that you are forced into corners and hold your exercises of Religion by connivance against Law and much more you will gratifie and rejoyce them if you could help them to get down all the Protestant interest in the Parish Churches And do your Leaders yet think that the Papists are pleased with that which will promote the Protestant cause 12. Many a man as wise and good as you whose Judgment is Non-conformable who liveth where there are no other Churches would take it for an unspeakable loss to be deprived of the benefit of the Parish Churches For all these reasons though I desire Reformation and will never swear not to endeavour it in my place and Calling yet I will do the best I can to get the best Pastors into the Parish Churches and to promote their reputation and the labours of the Ministers there and bless God for what is yet there