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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26854	Richard Baxter his account to his dearly beloved, the inhabitants of Kidderminster, of the causes of his being forbidden by the Bishop of Worcester to preach within his diocess with the Bishop of Worcester's letter in answer thereunto : and some short animadversions upon the said bishops letter.; Account to his dearly beloved, the inhabitants of Kidderminster, of the causes of his being forbidden by the Bishop of Worcester to preach within his diocess	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Letter to a friend for vindication of himself from Mr. Baxter's calumny.	1662 (1662)	Wing B1179; ESTC R1412	40,242	54

doe it or command it Yea or not to hinder it in any such case when Qui non vetat peccare cum potest jubet Yea though going to Gods publike worship be of it self so far from being a sin as that it is a duty yet I think it is a sin to command it to all in time of a raging pestilence or when they should be defending the City against the assault of an enemy It may rather be then a duty to prohibite it I think Paul spake not any thing inconsistent with the Government of God or Man when he bid both the Rulers and people of the Church not to destroy him with their meat for whom Christ dyed and when he saith that he hath not his Power to destruction but to Edification Yea there are Evil Accidents of a thing not evil of it self that are caused by the Commander and it is my opinion that they may prove his command unlawful But what need I use any other Instances then that which was the matter of our dispute Suppose it never so lawful of it self to kneel in the Reception of the Sacrament if it be imposed by a penalty that is incomparably beyond the proportion of the offence that penalty is an Accident of the command and maketh it by accident sinful in the Commander If a Prince should have Subjects so weak as that all of them thought it a sin against the example of Christ and the Canons of the general Councils and many hundred years practice of the Church to kneel in the act of Receiving on the Lords day if he should make a Law that all should be put to death that would not kneel when he foreknew that their consciences would command them all or most of them to die rather than obey would any man deny this command to be unlawful by this accident Whether the penalty of ejecting Ministers that dare not put away all that kneel and of casting out all the people that scruple it from the Church be too great for such a circumstance and so in the rest and whether this with the lamentable state of many Congregations and the divisions that will follow being all foreseen do prove the Impositions unlawful which were then in question is a case that I had then a clearer call to speak to then I have now Only I may say that the ejection of the servants of Christ from the Communion of the Church and of his faithful Ministers from their sacred work when too many Congregations have none but insufficient or scandalous teachers or no preaching Ministers at all will appear a matter of very great moment in the day of our Accounts and such as should not be done upon any but a Necessary cause where the benefit is greater then this hurt and all the rest amounts to Having given you to whom I owe it this account of the cause for which I am forbidden the exercise of my Ministry in that Countrey I now direct these Sermons to your hands that seeing I cannot teach you as I would I may teach you as I can And if I much longer enjoy such liberty as this it will be much above my expectation My dearly beloved stand fast in the Lord And fear ye not the reproach of men neither be afraid of their revilings For the moth shall eat them up like a garment and the worm shall eat them like wooll but the righteousnesse of the Lord shall be for ever and his salvation from generation to generation Isa. 51. 7 8. If I have taught you my doctrine of error or impiety of disobedience to your Governours in lawful things of schism or uncharit blenesse unlearn them all and renounce them with penitent detestation But if otherwise I beseech you mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they are such as serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 17. If any shall speak against Truth or Godlinesse remember what you have received and how little any adversary could say that ever made such assaults upon you and that it is easie for any man to talk confidently when no man must contradict him I denyed no man liberty upon equal terms to have said his worst against any doctrine that ever I taught you And how they succeeded I need not tell you your own stability tells the world As you have maintained true Catholicism and never followed any sect so I beseech you still maintain the ancient faith the Love of every member of Christ and common charity to all your Loyalty to your King your peace with all men And let none draw you from Catholick Unity to faction though the declaiming against Faction and Schism should be the device by which they would accomplish it And as the world is nothing and God is all to all that are sincere believers so let no worldly interest seem regardable to you when it stands in any opposition to Christ but account all loss and dung for him Phil. 3. 8. And if you shall hear that I yet suffer more then I have done let it not be your discouragement or grief For I doubt not but it will be my crown and joy I have found no small consolation that I have not suffered for sinfull or for small and indifferent things And if my pleading against the ejection of the Ministers of Christ and the excommunicating of his member for a ceremony and the divisions of his Church the destruction of Charity shall be the cause of my suffering be it never so great it shall as much rejoyce me to be a suffering witnesse for CHARITY and UNITY as if I were a Martyr for the Faith I participate with Paul in an expectation and hope that Christ shall be magnified in my body whether by life or death and as to live will be Christ so to die will be gain Only let your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ that whether I ever see you more or be absent till the joyfull day I may hear of your affairs that ye stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel and in nothing terrified by your adversaries which is to them an evident token of perdition but to you of salvation and that of God if to you it shall be given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also to suffer for his sake Phil. 1. 10 21 27 28 29. But let no injury from inferiors provoke you to dishonour the Governors that God himself hath set over you Be meek and patient the Lord is at hand Honour all men Love the Brotherhood Fear God Honour the King For so is the will of God that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men 1 Pet. 2. 15 17. It is soon enough for you and me to

RICHARD BAXTER HIS ACCOUNT To his dearly beloved the Inhabitants OF KIDDER MINSTER Of the causes of his being forbidden by the Bishop of WORCESTER to preach within his Diocess WITH The Bishop of WORCESTER'S Letter in Answer thereunto AND Some short Animadversions upon the said Bishops LETTER LONDON Printed Anno Dom. 1660. To my dearly beloved the Inhabitants of the Burrough and Parish of Kederminster in Worcester-shire AS I never desired any greater preferment in this world than to have continued in the work of my Ministry among you so I once thought my dayes would have been ended in that desired station But we are unmeet to tell God how he shall dispose of us or to foreknow what changes he intends to make Though you are low in the world and have not the Riches which cause mens estimation with the most I see no probability that we should have been separated till death could I but have obtained leave to preach for nothing But being forbidden to preach the Gospel in that Diocesse I must thankfully take the liberty which shall anywhere else be vouchsafed me And while I may enjoy it I take it not for my duty to be over querulour though the wound that is made by my separation from you be very deep And though to strangers it will seem probable that such severity had never been exercised against me but for some heynous crime yet to you that have known me I shall need to say but little in my defence The great crime which is openly charged on me and for which I am thought unworthy to preach the Gospel even where there is no other to preach is a matter that you are unacquainted with and therefore as you have heard me publikely accused of it I am bound to redder you such an account as is necessary to your just information and satisfaction It pleased the Kings Majesty in the prosecution of his most Christian resolution of uniting his differing subjects by the way of mutual approaches and abatements to grant a Commission to twelve Bishops and nine assistances on the one side and to one Bishop and eleven other Divines and nine assistants on the other side to treat about such alterations of the Liturgy as are necessary to the satisfying of tender Consciences and to the restoring of unity and reace My experiences in a former Treaty for Reconciliation in matter of Discipline made me intreat those to whom the nomination on the one side was committed to excuse me from the service which I knew would prove troublesome to my self and ungrateful to others but I could not prevail But the Work it self I very much approved as to be done by fitter and more acceptable persons Being commanded by the Kings Commission I took it to be my duty to be faithful and to plead for such Alterations as I knew were necessary to the assigned ends thinking it to be treachery to his Majesty that entrusted us and to the Church and Cause for which we were entrusted if under pretence of making such Alterations as were necessary to the two forementioned ends I should have silently yield to have \ No Alterations\ or \ next to none \ In the conclusion when the chief work was done by writing a Committee of each part was appointed to manage a Disputation in prefence by writing also Therein those of the other part formed an Argument whose Major proposition was to this sense for I have no copy \ Whatsoever book enjoyneth nothing but what is of it self lawfal and by lawful authority enjoyneth nothing that is sinful \ We denied this proposition and at last gave divers Reasons of our denyal among which one was that \ It may be unlawful by Accident and therefore sinful\ You now know my crime It is my concurring with learned reverend Brethren to give this Reason of our denyal of a proposition Yet they are not forbidden to preach for it and I hope shall not be but only I. You have publikely heard from a mouth that should speak nothing but the words of Charity Truth and Sobernesse especially there that this was \ a desperate shift that men at the last extremity are forced to\ and inferring \ that then neither God nor Man can enjoyn without sin \ In City and Country this soundeth forth to my reproach I should take it for an act of clemency to have been smitten professedly for nothing and that it might not have been thought necessary to afflict me by a defamation that so I might seem justly afflicted by a prohibition to preach the Gospel But indeed is there in these words of ours so great a crime Though we doubted not but they knew that our Assertion made not Every evil accident to be such as made an Imposition unlawful yet we exprest this by word to them at that time for fear of being misreported and I told it to the Right Reverend Bishop when he forbad me to preach and gave this as a reason And I must confesse I am still guilty of so much weaknesse as to be confident that some things not evil of themselves may have Accidents so evil as may make it a sin to him that shall command them Is this opinion inconsistent with all Government Yea I must confesse my self guilty of so much greater weaknesse as that I thought I should never have found a man on earth that had the ordinary reason of a man that had made question of it yea I shall say more then that which hath offended viz. that whenever the commanding or forbidding of a thing indifferent is like to occasion more hurt than good and this may be foreseen the commanding or forbidding it is a sin But yet this is not the Assertion that I am chargeable with but that \ some Accidents there may be that make the Imposition sinful \ If I may ask it without accusing others how would my crime have been denominated if I had said the contrary Should I not have been judged unmeet to live in any Governed society It is not unlawfull of it self to command out a Navy to Sea But if it were foreseen that they would fall into the enemies hands or were like to perish by any accident and the necessity of sending them were small or none it were a sin to send them It is not of it self unlawful to sell poyson or to give a knife to another or to bid another do it but if it were foreseen that they will be used to poyson or kill the buyer it is unlawful and I think the Law would make him believe it that were guilty It is not of it self unlawful to light a Candle or set fire on a straw But if it may be foreknown that by anothers negligence or wilfulnesse it is like to set fire on the City or to give fire on a train and store of Gunpowder that is under the Parliament House when the King and Parliament are there I crave the Bishops pardon for believing that it were sinful to

to urge Christs example against himself for as we conform our selves to the Churches order and custome of our times in receiving the Communion otherwise in point of gesture then perhaps it was received at the first institution so Christ and his Apostles conforming themselves to the order and practise of the Church of their times did celebrate the Passeover otherwise then according to the first Institution it was to be celebrated in point of gesture also thereby intending to teach us that as long as the Essentials of Doctrine and Worship which are unalteraable are preserved we are not to separate from the Church or quarrel with our Superiours if those things that are in their own nature alterable be not alwaies and in all places just the same that they were at first because there may be very just cause for the alteration of them and whether there be such a cause or no in this and the like particulars it is the Church that is to be the Judge So that there is nothing that can be collected either from the Canons of the Councels or from the practise of the Primitive Church no nor from Christs own example that can prove Kneeling at the Sacrament to be a sin neither doth Mr. Baxter himself believe it to be sinful for if he did he would not say as he does Pag. 4. 11. of his five Disputations that he himself would kneel rather then disturb the Peace of the Church or be deprived of its Communion In which words he confesseth First that Kneeling at the Sacrament is not sinful or unlawful Secondly that not to Kneel when it is imposed is to disturb the Peace of the Church and Thirdly that the imposing of it upon penalty of being deprived of the Communion is an effectual means to make those that otherwise would not kneel to conform to it and consequently that the imposing of it upon such a penalty is prudent and rational and whatsoever is prudent and rational cannot be unlawful so that not only the Act of Kneeling it self but the imposition of it by lawful Authority must needs be lawful Neither indeed would the People scruple at the imposition if they had not been taught that the thing it self were unlawful or if Mr. Baxter would yet teach them to believe what he himself believes namely that it is lawful which with what conscience he can refuse to do I know not for sure he is obliged to teach them obedience not to Divine Authority only but to humane Authority also in all lawful things and not to let them go on in such an erroneous opinion as will disturb the Peace and deprive them of the Communion of the Church and consequently make them sin against God and Man and their own Souls Of which sin of theirs he must needs be a partaker in a great measure if he do not perswade them from it seeing as he himself saith Qui non vetat peccare cum potest jubet And what Power he hath to lead or mislead those kind of men their venturing to kill and be killed in a most unrighteous quarrel upon his perswasion hath more then enough demonstrated during the time of the late troubles unlesse he will say that he hath conjured up a Spirit that he cannot lay Howsoever by how much the more faulty he hath been in misleading them heretofore by so much the more zealous he should be to reduce them into the right way hereafter which if he and the rest of his Brethren can do as I am confident they can if they wil they wil make some amends for the mischief they have done and then there will be no fear or danger of Ministers being Ejected for their tenderness towards the People nor of the Ejecting of any of the People from the communion of the Church for not conforming themselves to the Orders and Commands of it consequently there will be no Schisms or Divisions amongst us when we shall all worship the same God the same way But if they will not do this which by all obligations Humane and Divine they are bound to do for my part I know no better way for undeceiving reducing of the People then by removing such Ministers and then we shall see when the blowing of those boisterous winds ceaseth whether the waves will not be still or no In the mean time I hope the removing of erroneous and seditious will not necessitate the introducing of ignorant and scandalous Ministers though Mr. Baxter ought to remember that as there is no sin more heinous then Rebellion so no teacher ought to be more scandalous I am sure there is none more dangerous then a teacher of Rebellion And now to use Mr. Baxters own words I think there is no man to be found on earth that hath the ordinary reason of a Man but will confess That it is indeed destructive of all Government and Legislative power to Assert as Mr. Baxter did Assert the command of a thing in it self lawful by lawful Authority under no unjust punishment with no evil circumstance which the Commander can foresee or ought to provide against for all these pre-cautions were expresly put in the proposition which Mr. Baxter denied as a sinful Command for a●● other reason but because the Act Commanded may be by Accident a sin Let Mr. Baxter then know and if he have ingenuity enough confess that the words I spoke as to this particular were words of truth and words of charity also as being intended and spoken to no other end but to undeceive that People who by having his person too much in admiration as if he could neither deceive nor be deceived had been so long and so dangerously mislead by him so that it was not I that defamed him then but it is he that hath defamed me now Neither could I expect lesse from the boldnesse of this man and that party who have had the confidence publickly to own the obligation of the Covenant even since it hath been condemn'd to be burnt by the Parliament And truly I see no reason why all those Books and Sermons which have been Preach'd and Printed in defence of the Covenant or to maintain the same or worse principles of Sedition then are in the Covenant should not be burnt also Nay I dare be bold to say that if the Authors of such Books and Sermons were not still of the same opinions and if they be God deliver us from such Preachers if they were not still I say of the same opinions but did truly repent of them and were heartily sorry for the horrible mischief they have done by them they would with those converted Exorcists Act. 16. 19. bring all those Conjuring Books of theirs togethers and to save the Hang-man a labour would publickly burn them all with their own hands that so though by the burning of their works they may perhaps suffer some losse in point of reputation with some of their Disciples yet they themselves may be

averre that He could not otherwise uphold and maintain it than by preserving the Undue and as some think Antichristian Dignity and Prelation of His inferiour Officers 3. Bishops are so little useful to support the Regal Dignity which is founded upon a distinct Basis of its own that upon enquiry it will be found how none have been greater Enemies to the True and Undoubted Soveraignty of Princes than some Bishops themselves For by their Officious and scarce warrantable intermedling in Civil Affairs by their Absurd and Insignificant distinguishing between Civil and Ecclesiastical Causes of which last they have alwayes made themselves sole Judges they mangle the Kings Authority and as to Church-matters which may be extended as far as they please they leave the King nothing of Supremacy but the Name The Pope of Rome therefore who is the great Father of all such Bishops hath improved this Notion and Distinction so far that in ordine ad spiritualia he hath laboured to subject all Civil Empires unto his sole Jurisdiction So that if the Bishop of Worcester's Rule hold good of Crimine ab uno Disce omnes i. e. That all men who are of a Party may be judged of by the miscarriages of one then I must leave it to You to judge what all those Bishops that are of the Bishop of Worcester's complexion do really drive at by the fatal example of that one Bishops Usurpation For Secondly That Assertion That the Bishop of Worcester and consequently every other Bishop is the sole Pastor of all the Congregations in his Diocesse if it be at all defensible I am sure can be defended only by those Arguments which are commonly alledged to maintain the Popes Supremacy over all Churches whatever For since a Bishop can no otherwise discharge his duty herein than by providing Substitutes what hinders but the Bishop of Rome may as well oversee a million of Churches as the Bishop of Worcester five hundred Since if Deputation be lawful more or less compass and circuit of ground doth not at all alter the case I forbear to urge how contrary this Practise is to the Doctrine of the Apostles both Paul and Peter I hope the Bishop will not take it ill that I do not call them Saints for these Holy men do not need any stile of Honour out of the Popes Kalender When Paul had sent for the Elders of the Church at Ephesus he bids them to feed the Church of God over which not he himself by his sole Authority as Bishop of the Diocesse but the Spirit of God had made them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Overseers or to use the proper stile Bishops And Peter commands his Fellow-Elders for so doth that Apostle condescend to call himself to feed the Flock which was among them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Overseeing or Acting the Bishops not like the Bishop of Worcester as Lording it over Gods Heritage but as Patterns of the Flock From which places we learn not only that those two so much controverted Names of Bishop and Presbyter are without distinction ascribed to the same Persons but likewise that whoever feed the Flock are under Christ whom the Apostle there stiles the Chief-Shepherd the next and immediate Pastors of the Flock And to extend the Pastoral Power beyond the actual care of Feeding is a Notion altogether unscriptural and likewise leaves us no bounds where to fix till we come to center upon some one Universal Pastor who may claim this Power over the whole World by the same parity of reason that a Bishop doth over one Diocesse Thirdly It seems to be a Light and to say no more unseemly trifling with sacred Scripture to affirm that those words of our Saviour concerning such as come not in by the Door and therefore are Thieves and Robbers ought to be understood of such Ministers as preach to Congregations without the Bishops License Which thing the Bishop in great Heat and Earnestnesse as if he had done very well in it tells us more than once that it was the Principal reason why he silenced Mr. Baxter Truly if this practise be justifiable and those who design themselves to preach the Gospel must besides their Ordination procure a License from a Bishop to do that which a Woe is denounced against if they offer to omit Then 1. I see not what Ordination signifies since the Power that then is given no Authority from Man can take away any more than dissolve the Contract of a Marriage much less impeach and hinder the free use of it except for Moral and notoriously vicious Misdemeanours 2. For one Minister of the Gospel for certainly a Bishop is no more to Silence another and that for no better Reason than because his Fellow-Minister is desirous to preach the Gospel without a new License this is an abuse of Dominion which as our Saviour doth no where countenance so the first Ages of the Church were altogether unacquainted with For the Bishops instance of our Saviours putting to silence the Scribes and Pharisees is both Impertinent and False because our Saviour did only silence them by Argument which the Bishop may do when ever he is able but what is that to an Authoritative and Imperious commanding men to be Silent Besides even then when our Saviour was most strict in pronouncing Woes against the Pharisees in that very Chapter he is so far from forbidding the Pharisees to preach that he commands his Disciples both to Hear and to Obey their Doctrine So that since the Bishop will needs have the Presbyterians to be Pharisees let him but allow them the same Liberty of Teaching the People as our Saviour did the other and I believe they will not at least were I a Presbyterian I should not envy his Lordship either his Title or Maintenance how undue and unmeri●●ed soever they ●●oth be And though the Bishop is pleased to say that the Presbyterians preach nothing but Sedition and Treason which is most false as being directly contrary to their declared Principles yet the Pharisees taught something worse and that was Blasphemy Yet our Saviour who sure had more power and withall more care of his Church than the Bishop of Worcester did not go about by Force to prohibit them I wish therefore th●● this bishop and the rest of his Brethren if any are Cholerick and Testy enough to be of his mind would consider that as by silencing their Fellow-Ministers for such frivolous and slight pretences they usurp a Power which Christ never gave so at the last day he will not thank them for the Exercise of it Fourthly How consistent with the Civil Peace for as to Christian Charity the whole thing is but a Letter of defiance against it the Bishops Distinction is about the Act of Indempnity and the so much forgotten Act of Oblivion I hope His Majesty and the Parliament will in due time consider For he is so hardy as to tell us That the