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
discharged me from speaking to them any more and God I think discharged me at present I saw nothing more to be attempted but with the other whose duty for Concord and Christian Love after many years silence I opened in a Treatise called The Cure of Church-Divisions But yet would not publish it without an Addition of the Duty of those Pastors that most complain against separation lest I should exasperate their minds against those that I instructed and should tempt them to overlook their own miscarriages But more of this then I there adjoyned it could not be expected that the Licenser should pass The only man that rose up against this Writing with furious indignation was Mr. Edw. Bagshaw a man that had before written against Bishop Morley's Letter published against me and lain in prison many years And gave the world a notable proof of one of the chief passages displeasing to them in my Book viz. That there is a marvellous affinity between the spirit of Persecution and of sinful SEPARATION though several opinions or capacities cause them to operate several wayes By this time I discerned the guilty from the innocent by the Cry which signified their smart I had seen so much of the workings of that spirit that I expected not to escape their sharpest censure And verily I expected neither preferment nor so much as Liberty to preach as a reward from the other side instead of the favour of those that I knew I was to lose Nor yet had I such a contempt of them or a desire to be bitterly censured and reviled as to invite men to it as the Circumcellians importuned men to kill them I foresaw that some interessed men would be angry as supposing that I would hinder their alienating work though they could not deny but that I spake the truth I foresaw that many that look but to the present day and place would say It was unseasonable and served the Prelates design not considering that their design is not to bad but that some things which seem their design do also seem the design of Christ and his Churches good and mens salvation I foreknew those that make uncharitable Divisions their very Religion would make it a part of their religious dutys to call me as bad as their distempers do incline them These things I prognosticated in my Preface As Tertullian saith of the Christians martyrdome It is more the choice of our own will than the effect of your power i. e. We dye because we will dye rather than not do our duty by the omission of which we could escape so I say I could easily have kept as large an interest in the favour and applause of all the parties that ever railed at me as most men of my profession as their own words have told me What did it gain me in the world to do what I have done to lose the favour of the Papists the Ithacian Prelatists the Anabaptists the Separatists the Quakers the seekers c. But I saw whither the temptations of this age did tend And this was a work that some body must do or else woe to the Ministry that in their very sufferings would be so unfaithful And I thought my reputation with the Uncurable as fit to be cast away and my self as fit to bear their slanders as most of my brethrens who had more use for an interest in them than I had And I remembred that ill-gotten goods must be restored and without restitution no remission Though I can truly say that I disliked and decryed this spirit from my beginnings yet when I preached first the favour and loud applause of some good people tainted a little with this disease did tempt me to please them too often by exclaiming too smartly against the corruptions of the Church Though I said nothing but what I was confident was true yet I think I did not well to cherish their inorâ—inate censoriousness in such matters And having gotten sometime a great stock of estimation with such angry persons by means which I dare not wholly justifie though it made me the more capable to do them good I did voluntarily surrender it to them again before they took it from me and I did yield to serve God at the rate of so small a part of self-denial rather than be silent at such a time as this I have long ago preached to Drunkards and other ungodly people till they openly rose against me in tumults in the streets and sought my life And shall I forbear to speak that truth to Ignorant-proud Dividers which is necessary to heal the Church and them and all for fear lest their passion and partiality should shew their guilt by their calling me what they are themselves They call out for Valiantness in suffering themselves And shall I be so cowardly as to fear their false reports They cry out against the fear of man And shall I fear their impotent revilings They will be my witnesses that it is a duty to deny our selves and to forsake all for the Cause of Christ And I am as certain that Love and Unity are his Cause as I am that he is the Christ And shall I think the good thoughts and words of some of his froward Children too great a matter to forsake and lose They themselves think that we should rather suffer a prison or death then joyn with the holiest Minister and people in the use of the Common Prayer And should I that know the difference think that LOVE and CONCORD are not matters more worthy to be suffered for When first the City and Countrey had sounded with abundance of untruths about my Book while it was yet but in the Press at last the man that openly assaulted it when it came forth did use the same instruments which himself decryed and filled his Libel with as many untruths as ever I saw heaped up in so small a room except once in such another piece that was about eight years elder And the Cause it self he shamefully slip'd over as if his spirit and interest had directed him to no other means but only to attempt to asperse the person that was against him I wondred that no soberer a man rose up to defend Dividing-Principles And I was glad that in an age of such Temptations he had no more approvers among the Ministers When I had answered that Libel he sent forth another which instead of professing repentance did double the number of his Vntruths and cast out more of his bilious excrements but pretended also to say somewhat for his Separating Principles and Cause When I had replyed to that and Admonished him to repent of his false Doctrines and Crimes and above fourscore visible Vntruths he hath vented a third Libel of which I am now to give you a more particular account CHAP. II. I Must needs again remember the Readers 1. That the design of my Book was not particular to reconcile men only to the Parish Churches but universal against
adding that Generals or Parliament would have signified little had they not had such Chaplains when I had told him and he durst not deny it that the Armies were raised before I ever spake to Parliament man or Officer or ever preached to them yea two years before I was in the Army whither I went with an open profession to disswade them from the changes which they made my judgment forsaking their Cause in 1644. when their Commission at the New-modelling left out For the King which before had run For the defence of the Kings person c. and the rest of their intentions evidently to me appearing Till then in Coventry Garison I did speak all that which in the Book cited by him I expressed Nor did I ever say I did but little as he vainly intimateth Sect. 7. Pag. 3. By a false representation of my Repentance whether ignorantly or maliciously he would insinuate that I Repent of Good as well as of Evil or else that such as he and his adherents the Separatists have none of that sort of culpability to repent of or else that they disclaim so inglorious a thing as Repentance is and will stand to their sins at Death and Judgment let God say against them what he will The first is an intimation which maketh no small part of his Book to be one continued Untruth When one part is spent in making the ignorant and suspicious believe that I wrote for Conformity the next is constituted of another Untruth in the false description of my Repentance But I know the design of his railing is to draw me to talk of those matters over rashly about Wars and Governments which I repent of talking of so much already that he may catch somewhat for his Malice to make use of to a farther end Fain he would make the world believe that I must speak Treason or be a Coward or a Turn coat Not with the simplicity as children dare one another into the dirt but with the kindness that traps and snares are set for birds to catch and kill them And if Murderous Malice and Lying be made by Christ the Devils sins and the marks of his children Ioh. 8. 48. 1 Ioh. 3. 8. I think those that are notoriously thus self-stigmatized are fitter to be separated from than to separate from others as unworthy of their good company I must profess that as in my Answers to divers such men as this I have as near as I could imitated my great example so I cannot see but this man and others that have led him this same way have exactly imitated the malicious Pharisees And let him be also their imitator who thinketh them wiser and more stout and valiant men than Christ Matth. 22. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21. Then went the Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk that they might either accuse him of Treason as after they did or else make the people hate him as a favourer of the Roman Tyranny as they accounted it Master we know that thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth and wilt not hide thy judgement by dark speeches nor bauk plain truth neither carest thou for any man for thou regardest not the persons of men O malicious commendations Tell us therefore what thinkest thou Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not But Iesus perceived their wickedness and said Why tempt ye me ye hypocrites shew me the Tribute money And they shewed him a penny And he saith unto them Whose is this Image and Superscription They say unto him Caesars Then saith he unto them Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods I hope Mr. Bagshaw will neither say that Christ here plainly decided the controversie intended by the questioners nor yet deny but he seemeth to do it so far as silenced his adversaries then and as putteth Expositors hard to it now to understand his meaning See Dr. Hammond on the words And I am in some hope yet that as foul-mouth'd as he is he will not call Christ a Lyar or dissembler or a favourer of Tyranny or a Coward that would say any thing to escape sufferings But rather of the two think that he is not deceived who thinketh his own way somewhat like to the Murderous-Tempting-Hypocrites in the Text. As for my Repenting which he ignorantly and maliciously talketh of I shall now say no more to the Reader but this 1. That I expect that the enemies of Repentance be enemies to me 2. That I little regard such censures as this man who either cannot through ignorance or will not through malice or passion understand plain English when he readeth it nor know the difference between the disowning of Evil and of Good Sect. 8. pag. 4. He intimateth by a Question this visible falshood that I said I thought nothing of Divinity in the cause so hard is it for Ignorance and rashness to speak truth This is because I said that I knew of no controversie in Divinity about it but in Politicks and Law And can one that hath ever learned to read English and ever exercised his thoughts of such matters be possibly so ignorant as to think this is all one as to say that there was nothing of Divinity in the cause Their Controversies were whether the Parliament had Authority to raise their Arms against the Kings will prohibition and opposition And whether the King had Authority to raise his Arms against theirs And is this a Controversie in Divinity Poor souls Will you be seduced to think that Christ or Paul must decide all controversies of forms and degrees of power in Republicks Which Text is it that telleth you that the Militia belonged to the Parliament or what degree of power the Courts of Justice have Did Paul Rom. 13. tell you whether Nero or the Senate were the higher power Did Christ tell the tempting hypocrites whether Caesar justly coined money in or for Iudaea But what Hath Divinity therefore nothing to do in Law controversies Yes surely both about the efficient end and motives Politicks and Law tell us which is the highest power And Divinity telleth us that we must obey it and that for conscience-sake as being of God Divinity telleth you that Religious interest may be the just end and motive of a War but withall that it must be made by those only that have just power to do it But who hath just power the Laws must tell us Thus Reader the mans ignorance and false speaking have lengthened thy trouble Sect. 9. Ib. That my Love of ease and fear of suffering cause strange changes in my corrupt and carnal understanding is at least a single untruth and may be a double one for ought he knows that knoweth not the heart I am sure it is a fault even in Mr. Bagshaw to make himself a Heart-searching-God while he maketh the Prayers of his betters to be Idolatry Sect.