must bear with unless you will separate from your own leaders Deal but impartially Is there one Parish Minister yea or one Parish Church Member of many that was ever convict of so much sin as Mr. Bagshaw hath published and silently but impertinently lyeth down under Is there many of them that ever defended half so much sin so obstinately without confession and yet so impotently without sence Separate from no Ministers or people that are not proved as guilty as this man and I will never more write against your Separation 2. And now the world and posterity shall see in this mans writings how the cause of unlawful Separation was defended in this age I openly profess that this is a great reason that drew me to Defend my Cure of Church Divisions by three following Defences that Posterity may see what interest and passion will not now suffer some to see I look to the times to come And if there be any wiser men among them that can say more for the separating-Separating-cause they are best set to it For if they leave it on such hands as Mr. Bagshaws it is easie to foresee that it will be shamed for ever Yet do I solemnly profess that to my utmost remembrance I never in my life did venture upon or manage one dispute by word or writing through a confidence in my own ability to make good what I undertook but in a confidence of the goodness of my Cause and of the great advantage which the evidence of plain truth doth give to any man of good reason to defend it even against the cunningest Sophister that shall oppose it Sect. 3. And now I shall add my Admonition to you as not being quite ignorant of Satans Wiles to tell you what a snare is laid for you all in Mr. Bagshaw's Writings and as one that hath no interest but Christs and the Churches to move him to it to tell you how great the danger is if you swallow the bait 1. If he prevail with you he will draw you into the guilt of all those sins of his own fore-mentioned by your approbation consent And how great an addition will that be to your load 2. It would draw you to the entertainment of all those Love-killing Malignant and Dividing Principles which I cast down and he sets up And you little know what an evil it is to have an understanding so blinded and a heart so defiled 3. By this means that true universal Love to Godly men and Christians as such will be destroyed And when you should bear Gods Image who is Love it self you will be made like Satan the enemy of God and Love And instead of loving your neighbour as your self you will take your neighbours yea Christs members for your enemies 4. And as Love is the fulfilling of the Law so your death of Love will be the death of all your true obedience and lead you to the breach of every Law You will deny all the acts of Love in word or deed to others that you owe them to you will censure you will backbite freely you will receive false reports and vend them again to others And Christ may say to you Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least mark the least of these my brethren you did it not to me 5. You will be tempted into Treason against Christ under pretence of piety denying his interest in almost all his Churches in the world Even as if you should say that the King is King of one or two Towns only in all his Kingdoms on pretence that all the rest are not good enough to be his Subjects I profess openly that nothing in the world more moveth me to do what I do than this That there is much within me that will not suffer me without abhorrence to think of either unchurching all Churches in the world that use a set Liturgy yea that use one worse than ours or yet to hold that they should all be separated from And had I ever Vowed and Covenanted to do this as I did not it had been a sinful Vow 6. And moreover it will possess you with a degenerate and false kind of Religion consisting in sidings and partial opinions and obeying your selves instead of God 7. And it will make you Satans instruments to disturb all Churches that you joyn with if you do not want occasion and temptation For the Principles which I wrote against will let no Church be quiet where they prevail And a Kingdom or house divided cannot stand 8. You will be drawn from true spiritual worshipping of God and your worship and Church-communion will be corrupted Instead of holy and heavenly Sermons Prayers praises c. you will be infected with a contending and envying passion and puffed up with the conceit of your own judgments and grow zealous for your personal opinions and your parties and turn your preaching and praying into a strain that savoureth of this disease and defile them with unsounder passages for your errours or divided interests than any can be found in the Common Prayers which you shun 9. And if you be thus overcome it will heinously aggravate your sin that you will do all this as a part of your Religion and so will father it all on God as if such doing pleased him and proceeded from his spirit and were commanded by his word And as Matth. 12. it is made the unpardonable sin to blaspheme the Holy Ghost by ascribing his Miracles to Satan so though it be pardonable you should easily see that it cannot be small to say that those things which are pleasing to the Devil and proceed from his will and malicious suggestions are pleasing to God and proceed from his spirit and word 10. By these means Satan would make your Churches to do his work against the Lord whom they profess to worship and and to be the very Nests where PRIDE and IGNORANCE shall breed their like and shall cherish sinful Love killing principles and passions and animosities against your brethren And so your Assemblies will be acted too much by his suggestions and become his Work-houses while you think that they are serving God and mens wisdom will be earthly sensual and diabolical when they verily think it is from above Iam. 3 15 16. 11. Thus he would fain bring an odium upon your selves and cause you to go under such a character as the Munster Anabaptists and the Familists Quakers and such others do That men may say of you that while you take on you to be stricter than others it is but in abhorring other mens Prayers and extolling your own And that sin is no sin when you find it in your own party or your selves And that Lyars and most impudent Calumniators and proud Revilers c. go among your selves for Godly persons while the uprightest men that use the Common Prayer do go for Idolaters and Ungodly And if Satan can but get such an odious Character fastened on you what
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 A Militant Servant of Christ for Faith Hope and Love Unity Concord and Peace against their contraries on both extremes LONDON Printed in the Year MDC LXX II. ERRATA PAge 13. l. 32. for Amareduci r. Amazedness p. 25. l. 6. for Care r. Cure l. 13. for impertinently r. impenitently p. 31. l. 12. for Perry r. Peury p. 33. l. 2. r. up by some l. 3. dele the. l. 13. r. live l. 38. for unmeasurably r. unanswerably THE CHURCH TOLD OF Mr. BAGSHAW's SCANDALS And warned of his Dangerous Snares THE SVMME 1 Cor. 5. 6. Your glorying is not good Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump Rom. 3. 8. Let not us do evil that good may come whose Damnation is just Jam. 1. 20. For the wrath of man worketh not the Righteousness of God Jam. 3. 6 8 9 13 14 15 16. The tongue is a fire a world of iniquity So is the tongue among our members that it defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature and it is set on fire of hell The tongue can no man tame it is an unruly evil full of deadly poison Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meckness of wisdome But if ye have bitter zeal envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the truth This wisdome descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devillish For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Rom. 16. 17 18. Now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them But not the Churches or the innocent for their sake For they that are such serve not the Lord Iesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Act. 20. 30. Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking pervâ—rse things to draw away disciples after them 1 Cor. 11. 19. For there must be also heresies or sects among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you Matth. 22. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21. Then went the Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not But Iesus perceived their wickedness and said Why tempt ye me ye hypocrites shew me the Tribute-money Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods Matth. 17. 26 27. Then are the Children free Notwithstanding lest we should offend them Rev. 22. 15. For without are dogs and whosoever loveth and maketh a lye Psal. 15. 2 3. Lord who shall abide in thy Tabernacles who shall dwell in thy holy hill He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart that backbiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour Christs own Doctrine and Practice Luke 4. 16. As his custome was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read John 18. 20. I spake openly to the world I ever taught in the Synogogue and in the Temple whither the Iews alwayes resort and in secret have I said nothing Mark 1. 44. Shew thy self to the Priest and offer for thy cleansing ... Matth. 23. 2. 3. The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe observe and do but do not ye after their works for they say and do not what they were see in the rest of the Chapt. Mat. 7. 1 2 3 4. Iudge not that ye be not judged For with what judgement ye judge ye shall be judged and with what measure ye measure it shall be measured to you again And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brothers eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye Thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thy own eye TO THE CHURCH AND TO POSTERITY CHAP. I. HAd I seen as I have done the spring multiplication growth and fruits of Dividing Principles Dispositions and Practices in these Kingdomes not being totally innocent therein my self in my unexperienced youth Had I seen so much bloud shed so many Governments overturned and so many Ministers openly reviled abused ejected silenced and so many damnable heresies risen up and all this done in the Name of God Had I my self been one of them that have been cast out of my publick Ministry and maintenance with about 1800 more at once and seen the pittiful case of too many Congregations in the land and all this as the fruit of former Church-Divisions obstinately continued twenty years to look no farther and the new effect of the same spirit still working in both extremes I say Had I seen and felt all this and yet taken the spirit the principles and practises of Division in one side or other for a virtue or a little sin I had been guilty of such horrid wilful blindness as every Christian's soul should hate And had I seen what strong temptations are lately given to propagate these evils and what advantage Satan hath got by the malignity of some to increase the bitter censoriousness of others and to pull down the good old principles of Concord on pretence that now the case is changed Had I seen the fruits of Gods indignation against a self-destroying people in Londons plague and dreadful flames and in our present Church-convulsions Had I seen what visible dangers are over us of a condition yet worser than all this Had I seen how many thousand honest Christians are in danger of being sinners or sufferers by this evil I say had I stood by and seen all this and held my tongue and let men sight like Dog and Bear and not interposed a word of counsel or controulment to the wasting fire I had been guilty of an obduratious self-saving and perfidious silence unbeseeming the Ministry or the Christian name Having therefore begun long ago to publish my Testimony and Council against the Dividing-evils in 1660 fore-seeing the critical day and danger I took the liberty of the season once more to discharge my Conscience though with slender hopes and to reason and even beg for Peace that had it been possible as much as in us lay we might have lived peaceably with all When those opportunities and hopes were gone and some glimmering once and again since vanished one side having
those Principles in mens minds which cause Divisions in all other Churches as well as that and will never suffer Christians to Unite and Agree where they prevail 2. That I was so far from perswading any Minister to the present Conformity that I perswaded not the Readers 1. Either to use the Ceremonies 2. or to communicate with any Persecutors 3. or to own Diocesans 4. nor to communicate with or own a Diocesan Church 5. nor to communicate with or own any Parish Minister that is intolerable through Insufficiency Heresie or Wickedness 6. nor to speak one false word nor to do one sinful action to obtain Communion with the best Church in the world 7. nor to prefer Communion with a worse Church and Minister before Communion with a better where it may be had without greater loss than benefit 8. nor to forbear any lawful endeavours in private for each others good 9. nor to forsake a lawful faithful Pastor merely because he is cast out of the Tythes and Temple 10. nor to take a man for your Pastor merely because he hath possession of the Tythes and Temple 11. nor that a lawful faithful Minister should give over his Ministerial work or not perform it to the best Edificacation of the Church whoever is displeased by it or whatever it cost him which I take to be downright Perfidiousness against his Ordination and Sacrilege as being the alienation of a devoted consecrated person yea greater Sacrilege than alienating Church Lands 12. Nor did I perswade any Minister that instead of flying to another City as Christ once commanded he must needs fly from all Cities For the Diocesans that think Cities only were the seats of Churches and Bishops might inferr that if it be lawful to desert the souls of all in Cities and Corporations it is but a little step farther to dâ—sert the Villages also 13. Nor did I ever perswade any Minister to go to a Parish Church in City or Corporation who is by Law forbidden to come within five miles of it and who by appearing there doth put himself into prison for six months in the common Jayl 14. Nor did I ever perswade any to hear the common Prayer or go to the Parish Churches merely for fear of punishment and to save themselves None of all these were the matters I that medled with 3. But the things that I perswaded men to were these 1. To disclaim the foresaid Love-killing and Church-dividing Principles 2. Particularly to joyn with a Parish Church that hath a good Minister and that ordinarily in case you can enjoy no better without more loss than the benefit is like to be 3. And extraordinarily to joyn sometimes with such a Parish even when you have a better to shew by what Principles you walk unless when some apparent hurt forbid it which for that time is like to be greater than the good Pardon this Repetition of the state of my Case for without it I cannot be understood and his repeated untruths require it And now to his third Libel called the Review Sect. 1. The Title Page speaks of All my immodest calumnies confuted when 1. He neither proveth one Calumny in my Book nor confuteth one detection of his Untruths Sect. 2. He cunningly tells you in an Advertisement that ten or eleven have read his present citations of my words As if that justified fourscore falshoods before written Sect. 3. Pag. 1. He confesseth it is foolish and wicked to publish fourscore Vntruths in five or six sheets of Paper And yet thinks not himself obliged it seems any farther to vindicate himself by one considerable word but as it were by hoping his Readers will not believe that he was so foolish and wicked Doth Church-discipline require no better defence nor no more repentance for above fourscore published Untruths than this Sect. 4. Instead of Repentance he inviteth his Readers to usurp Gods prerogative as he doth and to judge my Heart that it was never truly humbled and that my Repentance is hypocritical Sect. 5. Thus lying down impenitently under all the crimes false doctrines and untruths which he published he now puts them off as Bye-matters and taketh on him to return to the Question which he saith was first designedly handled between us which he saith is Whether Conformity at this day upon conscientious grounds can be defended by any or at least with any kind of honesty be contended for by you Thus he will play small game no more nor write Untruths by parcels but let you know that it is not one untruth shall be the substance of his discourse If telling the Church be a duty it is not Railing to name the sin I therefore desire the Church to consider whether it be easie among the parties that he separateth from or worse than they to meet with so great Impudency in forgeries I know by equivocation almost any words may be verified But when there is no explication adjoyned the rule of humane speech is that Analogum per se positum stat prosignificato famosiore that is Analogous or equivocal words put alone without an ex exposition are to be taken in the most common or famous sense Now the word Conformity in its old and usual sense doth signifie that Conformity by Subscriptions Oaths and Ceremonies which distinguish the people called Non-conformists from the Conformists who yet were notoriously distinguished from the Separatists It 's true that it may be called Conformity if we are baptized if we profess Christianity if we read the Scriptures if we use the common Translation if we go to hear a Sermon in publick if we use the Lords Prayer c. in all this we do as the Church of England doth But this is not it that is notified by the common use of this name Now do but note the front of the man 1. The world knoweth that I never Conformed as the Law obligeth Ministers to do that I lose my whole Ministerial maintenance much more than ever he did all things considered and which is a thousand times more the liberty of my Ministry in publick because I do not conform 2. He knoweth that I have professed in all the three Books which he writeth against that I neither am for Conformity nor ever wrote for it He knoweth how distinctly I excluded that from the Question and stated the Question far otherwise which I meddle with Yet dare this man make this false profession of our difference 3. Yea when it is separation in plain words and not mere Non-conformity which he undertakes to defend on his very Title Page 4. And that I have oft professed to plead for the same cause that Dod Hildersham Cartwright Paget Bradshaw Brightman Ball Gifford and the other Nonconformists defended against the Separatists of those times â—â—d will you believe him if he say that they pleaded for Confâ—rmity Sect. 6. He again repeateth his most palpable untruth in comparing me in the warrs with any one whomsoever passing over my answers
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 Mahâ—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
left us and yet will be one that shall mourn for the reproach of the solemn assemblies 26. Moreover it is one of Satans plots upon you to prepare for the reproach of the Non conformists when greater necessity shall drive them to the Parish assemblies and Communion Do not you make any doubt of it but that if the wrath or rigour of superiours should bring them to the same condition as the old Non-conformists were the most of the present Non-conformists would come to the Parish Churches even in Common Prayer and Sacraments as they did And you are preparing reproach for them that they may then be called Changelings who forsake their former principles and cause 27. And verily you will keep up the Papists hope that by an universal Toleration they may at last come in on equal terms with you or by connivance be endured as much as you And if they be equal in England with you their transmarine advantages will make them more than equal notwithstanding their disadvantages in their Cause and in their contrariety to Kingly interest which Henry Fowlis hath in folio most fully and unanswerably laid open 28. And though God in mercy hath at present given us a King that owneth the Protestant Cause so resolvedly as to make a Law against any that shall report him inclined to Popery England hath no promise that it shall be so for ever And if we should ever have a King more indifferent in his Religion do you know what a temptation it would be to him to pull down the Protestant Religion if he found it but in corners under a connivance and found it under the reproach of such crimes as Bâ—gshaw's books contain It were the next way to procure the fatal word Down with them even to the ground Though I know we have the greater security against this because Popery is so much against Princes interest and is the delâ—vering up the Kingdome in part to a foreign power 29. In a word Satan is playing by Mr. Bagshaw no lower a game than by turning all the people from the Parish assemblies while there are not in England had they liberty 〈◊〉 Ministers enow to supply the tenth part of the Churchâ—â— to 〈◊〉 the generality of them to live like open Atheists that give God no publick worship at all and so to extinguish knowledge Christianity and all Religion in most of the Land These things I see and because I see them I do as I have done 30. There is another reason that sticks much with me as knowing what silly peevish souls are employed in against themselves but I will add no more Brethren I have discharged my conscience Some will hear I will bear the censures and obloquy of the rest Your sins are no more lovely to me than the sins of other men nor no more merciful to England We all suffer by and for such sins as I have reproved I am one of the sufferers and therefore should have leave to speak I am long ago engaged in the cause of Concord Love and Peace and will not betray it for the shadow of Purity nor for the pleasing of any party whatsoever Though no duty when such is to be omitted nor any sin committed for Peace And to prevent the Calumny of Papists and the mis-information of Posterity I add that besides one hot-headed honest young man Mr. Brown I hear of no Non-conformable Minister in England that openly owneth Mr. Bagshaw's 〈◊〉 or secondeth him in his defence of the Love killing Principles of unlawful Separation Which with the other evidences of quietness and patience in the private assemblies of these times I take to be a marvellous thing considering mens great and manifold temptations which in time I hope God will abate FINIS
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