poor Plowmen understood but little of these Matters but a little would stir up their Discontent when Money was demanded But it was the more intelligent part of the Nation that were the great Complainers Insomuch that some of them denied to pay the Ship-money and put the Sheriffs to distrain the Sheriffs though afraid of a future Parliament yet did it in obedience to the King Mr. Hampden and the Lord Say brought it to a Suit where Mr. Oliver St. Iohn and other â—Lawyers boldly pleaded the Peoples Cause The King had before called all the Judges to give their Opinions Whether in a Case of need he might impose such a Tax or not And all of them gave their Opinion for the Affirmative except Judge Hatton and Judge Crook The Judgment passed for the King against Mr. Hampden But this made the Matter much more talk of throughout the Land and considered of by those that thought not much of the Importance of it before § 25. Some suspected that many of the Nobility of England did secretly Consederate with the Scots so far as to encourage them to come into England thinking that there was no other way to cause the Calling of a Parliament which was the thing that now they bent their minds to as the Remedy of these things The Earl of Essex the Earl of Warwick the Earl of Bedford the Earl of Clare the Earl of Bullingbrook the Earl of Mulgrave the Earl of Holland the Lord Say the Lord Brook and I know not how many more were said to be of this Conâ—ederacy But Heylin himself hath more truly given you the History of this That the Scots after they came in did perswade these Men of their own danger in England if Arbitrary Government went on and so they petitioned the King for a Parliament which was all their Consederacy and this was after their second Coming into England The Scots came with an Army and the King's Army met them near Newcastle but the Scots came on till an Agreement was made and a Parliament called and the Scots went home again But shortly after this Parliament so displeased the King that he Dissolved it and the War against the Scots was again undertaken to which besides others the Papists by the Queens means did voluntarily contribute whereupon the Scots complain of evil Counsels and Papists as the cause of their renewed dangers and again raise an Army and come into England And the English at York petition the King for a Parliament and once more it is resolved on and an Agreement made but neither the Scottish or English Army disbanded And thus began the Long Parliament as it was after called § 26. The Et caetera Oath was the first thing that threatned me at Bridgenorth and the second was the passage of the Earl of Bridgwater Lord President of the Marches of Wales through the Town in his Journey from Ludlow to the King in the North For his coming being on Saturday Evening the most malicious persons of the Town went to him and told him that Mr. Madestard and I did not sign with the Cross nor wear the Surplice nor pray against the Scots who were then upon their Entrance into England and for which we had no Command from the King but a printed Form of Prayer from the Bishops The Lord President told them That he would himself come to Church on the morrow and see whether we would do these things or not Mr. Madestard went away and left Mr. Swain the Reader and my self in the danger But after he had spoken for his Dinner and was ready to go to Church the Lord President suddenly changed his purpose and went away on the Lord's Day as far as Lichfield requiring the Accusers and the Bailiffs to send after him to inform him what we did On the Lord's Day at Evening they sent after him to Lichfield to tell him that we did not conform but though they boasted of no less than the hanging of us they received no other Answer from him but that he had not the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and therefore could not meddle with us but if he had he should take such order in the business as were fit And the Bailiffs and Accusers had no more wit than to read his Letter to me that I might know how they were baffled Thus I continued in my Liberty of preaching the Gospel at Bridgenorth about a year and three quarters where I took my Liberty though with very little Maintenance to be a very great mercy to me in those troublesome times § 27. The Parliament being sate did presently fall on that which they accounted Reformation of Church and State and which greatly displeased the King as well as the Bishops They made many long and vehement Speeches against the Ship-money and against the Judges that gave their Judgment for it and against the Et caetera Oath and the Bishops and Convocation that were the formers of it but especially against the Lord Thomas Wentworth Lord Deputy of Ireland and Dr. Laud Archbishop of Canterbury as the evil Counsellers who were said to be the Cause of all These Speeches were many of them printed and greedily bought up throughout the Land especially the Lord Falklands the Lord Digbies Mr. Grimstones Mr. Pims Mr. Nath. Fiennes c. which greatly increased the Peoples Apprehension of their Danger and inclined them to think hardly of the King's Proceedings but especially of the Bishops Particular Articles of Accusation were brought in against the Lord Deputy the Archbishop the Judges Bishop Wren Bishop Pierce and divers others The Concord of this Parliament consisted not in the Unanimity of the Persons for they were of several Tempers as to Matters of Religion but in the Complication of the Interest of those Causes which they severally did most concern themselves in For as the King had at once imposed the Ship-money on the Common-wealth and permitted the Bishops to impose upon the Church their displeasing Articles and bowing towards the Altar and the Book for Dancing on the Lord's Day and the Liturgy on Scotland c. and to Suspend or Silence abundance of Ministers that were conformable for want of this Super-canonical Conformity so accordingly the Parliament consisted of two sorts of Men who by the Conjunction of these Causes were united in their Votes and Endeavours for a Reformation One Party made no great matter of these Alterations in the Church but they said That if Parliaments were once down and our Propriety gone and Arbitrary Government set up and Law subjected to the Prince's Will we were then all Slaves and this they made a thing intolerable for the remedying of which they said every true English Man could think no price to dear These the People called Good Commonwealth's Men. The other sort were the more Religious Men who were also sensible of all these things but were much more sensible of the Interest of Religion and these most inveyed against the Innovations in the
The Synod stumbled at some things in it and especially at the word Prelacy Dr. Burges the Prolocutor Mr. Gataker and abundance more declared their Judgments to be for Episcopacy even for the ancient moderate Episcopacy in which one stated President with his Presbytery governed every Church though not for the English Diocesan frame in which one Bishop without his Presbytery did by a Lay-Chancellour's Court govern all the Presbytery and Churches of a Diocess being many hundreds and that in a Secular manner by abundance of upstart Secular Officers unknown to the Primitive Church Hereupon grew some Debate in the Assembly some being against every Degree of Bishops especially the Scottish Divines and others being for a moderate Episcopacy But these English Divines would not Subscribe the Covenant till there were an alteration suited to their Judgments and so a Parenthesis was yielded to as describing that sort of Prelacy which they opposed viz. That is Church Government by Archbishops Bishops Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy All which conjoyned are mentioned as the Description of that Form of Church Government which they meant by Prelacy as not extending to the ancient Episcopacy When the Covenant was agreed on the Lords and Commons first took it themselves and Mr. Thomas Coleman preached to the House of Lords and gave it them with this publick Explication That by Prelacy we mean not all Episcopacy but only the form which is here described When the Parliament had taken it they sent it to all the Garrisons and Armies to be taken and commended it to all the People of the Land And when the War was ended they caused all the Noblemen Knights Gentlemen and Officers which had been against them in the Wars to take it before they would admit them to Composition and take it they did And they required that all young Ministers should take it at their Ordination The Covenant being taken the Scots raised an Army to help the Parliament which came on and began to clear the North till at York fight the Scots Army the Earl of Manchester's Army and the Lord Fairfax's small Army joyned Battel against Prince Rupert's Army and General King's Army and the Earl of Newcastle's Army where they routed them and it was thought about 5000 were slain upon the place besides all that died after of their wounds After this the Scots Army lay still in the North a long time and did nothing till thereby they became odious as a burden to the Land The Scots said that it was caused by the Policy of the Sectaries that kept them without pay and without orders to March Their Adversaries the Vanists and the Cromwellians said it was their own fault who would not March. At last they were Commanded to besiege Hereford City where they lay a long time till the Earl of Montross having raised an Army in Scotland against them for the King had made it necessary for them to return into their own Country and leave Hereford untaken and the People clamouring against them as having come for nothing into the Country Some Months after they were gone Col. Iohn Birch and Col. Morgan took Hereford in an hour without any considerable bloodshed The Waters about the Walls being hard frozen the Governour sent Warrants to the Constables of the Country neer adjoyning to bring in Labourers to break the Ice Col. Birch got these Warrants and causeth one of his Officers in the Habit of a Constable and many Soldiers with Mattocks in the habit of Labourers to come the next morning early to the Gates and being let in they let in more and surprized the Town This much I thought good to speak altogether here for brevity of the Scots Army and Covenant and now return to the new modell'd Army § 71. The English Army being thus new modell'd was really in the hand of Oliver Cromwell though seemingly under the Command of Sir Thomas Fairfax who was shortly after Lord Fairfax his Father dying Cromwell's old Regiment which had made it self famous for Religion and Valour being fourteen Troops was divided six Troops were made the Lord Fairfax's Regiment and six Troops were Col. Whalley's Regiment and the other two were in Col. Rich's and Sir Robert Pye's Regiments The Confidents of Cromwell were especially Col. Ireton and Major Desborough his Brother-in-law and Major Iames Berry and Major Harrison and Col. Fleetwood and as his Kinsman Col. Whalley and divers others But now begins the Change of the old Cause A shrewd Book came out not long before called Plain English preparatory hereto And when the Lord Fairfax should have marched with his Army he would not as common Fame faith take his Commission because it ran as all others before for Defence of the King's Person for it was intimate that this was but Hypocrisie to profess to defend the King when they marcht to fight against him and that Bullets could not distinguish between his Person and another Man's and therefore this Clause must be left out that they might be no Hypocrities And so had a Commission without that Clause for the King And this was the day that changed the Cause § 72. The Army being ready to march was partly the Envy and partly the Scorn of the Nobility and the Lord Lieutenants and the Officers which had been put out by the Self-denying Vote But their Actions quickly vindicated them from Contempt They first attempted no less than the Siege of Oxford but in the mean time the King takes the field with a very numerous well-recruited Army and marcheth into Northamptonshire into the Parliaments Quarters and thence strait to Leicester a Town poorly fortified but so advantagiously situated for his use as would have been an exceeding Loss to the Parliament if he could have kept it It was taken by Storm and many slain in it General Fairfax leaveth Oxford and marcheth through Northamptonshire towards the King The King having the greater number and the Parliaments Army being of a new contemned Model he marcheth back to meet them and in a Field near Naseby a Village in Northamptonshire they met Cromwell had hasted a few days before into the associated Counties which were their Treasury for Men and Money and brought with him about 500 to 600 Men and came in to the Army just as they were drawn up and going on to give Battel His sudden and seasonable coming with the great Name he had got by the Applauses of his own Soldiers made a sudden Joy in the Army thinking he had brought them more help than he did so that all cried A Cromwell A Cromwell and so went on and after a shor◠hot Fight the King's Army was totally routed and put to flight and about 5000 Prisoners taken with all his Ordinance and Carriage and abundance of his own Letters to the Queen and others in his Cabinet which the Parliament printed as thinking such things were there contained as greatly disadvantaged the
and also how the Plot was laid to Kill the King Thus Oates's Testimony seconded by Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey's Murder and Bedlow and Pranse's Testimonies became to be generally believed Ireland a Jesuit and Two more were Condemned as designing to Kill the King Hill Berry and Green were Condemned for the murder of Godfrey and Executed But Pranse was by a Papist first terrified into a Denyal again of the Plot to Kill the King and took on him to be Distracted But quickly Recanted of this and had no Quiet till he told how he was so Affrighted and Renewed all his Testimony and Confession After this came in one Mr. Dugdale a Papist and confessed the same Plot and especially the Lord Stafford's interest in it And after him more and more Evidence daily was added â—â—â—man the Dutchess of York's Secretary and one of the Papists great Plotters and Disputers being surprized though he made away all his later Papers was hanged by the Old Ones that were remaining and by Oates his Teâ—â—imony But the Parliament kept off all Aspersions from the Duke The Hopes of some and the Fears of others of his Succession prevailed with many § 28. At last the Lord Treasurer Sir Thomas Osborne made Earl of Danby came upon the stage having been before the object of the Parliament and People's jealousy and hard thoughts He being afraid that somewhat would be done against him knowing that Mr. Montague his Kinsman late Ambassadour in France had some Letters of his in his keeping which he thought might endanger him got an order from the King to seize on all Mr. Montagues Letters who suspecting some such usage had conveyed away the chief Letters and telling the Parliament where they were they sent and fetcht them and upon the reading of them were so instigated against the Lord Treasurer they impeached him in the Lords House of High Treason But not long after the King disolved the long Parliament which he had kept up about 17 or 18 years But a new Parliament is promised § 29. Above 40 Scots men of which 3 Preachers were by their Council sentenced to be not only banished but sold as servants called slaves to the American Plantations They were brought by ship to London Divers Citizens offered to pay their ransom The King was petitioned for them I went to the D. of Lauderdale but none of us could prevail for one man At last the Ship-Master was told that by a Statute it was a Capital crime to Transport any of the King's Subjects out of England where now they were without their consent and so he set them on shoar and they all escaped for nothing § 30. A great number of Hungarian Ministers had before been sold for Gally slaves by the Emperour's Agents but were released by the Dutch Admiral 's Request and some of them largely relieved by Collections in London § 31. The long and grievous Parliament that silenced about 2000 Ministers and did many works of such a nature being dissolved as aforesaid on Ian. 25. 1678. A new one was chosen and met on March 6 following And the King refusing their chosen speaker Mr. Segmore raised in them a greater displeasure against the Lord Treasurer thinking him the cause and after some days they chose Serjeant Gregory § 32. The Duke of York a little before removed out of England by the King's Command who yet stands to maintain his Succession § 33. The Parliament first impeached the foresaid Papist Lords for the Plot or Conspiracy the Lord Bellasis Lord Arundel Lord of Powis Lord Scafford and Lord Peter and after them the Lord Treasurer 34. New fires breaking out enrage the People against the Papists A great part of Southwark was before burnt and the Papists strongly suspected the cause Near half the buildings of the Temple were burnt And it was greatly suspected to be done by the Papists One Mr. Bifeild's house in Holbourn and Divers others so fired but quenched as made it very probable to be by their Conspiracy And at last in Fitter-Lane it fell on the house of Mr. Robert Bird a Man employed in Law of great Judgment and Piety who having more wit than many others to search it out found that it was done by a new Servant Maid who confessed it first to him and then to a Justice and after to the Lords that one Nicholas Stubbes a Papist having first made her promise to be a Papist next promised her 5 l. to set fire on her Master's house telling her that many others were to do the like and the Protestant Hereticks to be killed by the middle of Iune and that it was no more sin to do it than to kill a Dog Stubbes was taken and at first vehemently denyed but after confessed all and told them that one Giffard a Priest and his Confessor engaged him in it and Divers others and told them all as aforesaid how the Firing and Plot went on and what hope they had of a French Invasion The House of Commons desired the King to pardon the woman Eliz. Oxley and Stubbes § 35. If the Papists have not Confidence in the French Invasion God leaveth them to utter madness to hasten their ruine They were in full junctness through the Land and the noise of rage was by their design turned against the Nonconformists But their hopes did cast them into such an impatience of delay that they could no longer stay but must presently Reign by rage of blood Had they studied to make themselves odious to the Land they could have found out no more effectual way than by Firing Murder and Plotting to kill the King All London at this day is in such fear of them that they are fain to keep up private Watches in all streets besides the Common ones to save their houses from firing Yea while they find that it increaseth a hatred of them and while many of them are already hanged they still go on which sheweth either their confidence in Foreign Aid or their utter infatuation § 36. Upon Easter day the King dissolved his privy Council and settled it a new consisting of 30 men most of the old ones the Earl of Shaftsbury being President to the great joy of the People then tho since all is changed § 37. On the 27th of April 1679. Tho it was the Lord's Day the Parliament State excited by Stubbes his Confession that the Firing Plot went on and the French were to invade us and the Protestants to be murdered by Iune 28 and they voted that the Duke of York's declaring himself a Papist was the cause of all our dangers by these Plots and sent to the Lords to concur in the same Vote § 38. But the King that week by himself and the Chancellour acquainted them that he should consent to any thing reasonable to secure the Protestant Religion not alienating the Crown from the Line of Succession and Particularly that he would consent that till the Successour should take the Test he should exercise
himself These numerous Petitioners also were very offensive to the King insomuch that once some of his Cavaliers came out upon them armed as they passed by Whitehall and catcht some of them and cut off their Ears and Sir Richard Wiseman leading them there was some Fray about Westminster-Abbey between the Cavaliers and them and Sir Richard Wiseman was slain by a stone from off the Abbey Walls And when at last the King forsook the City these Tumults were the principal Cause alledged by him as if he himself had not been safe Thus rash Attempts of Head-strong People do work against the good Ends which they themselves intend and the Zeal which hath censorious Strife and Envy doth tend to Confusion and every evil Work And Overdoing is the ordinary way of Undoing § 41. 2. And some Members of the House did cherish these Disorders and because that the Subjects have liberty to Petition therefore they made use of this their Liberty in a disorderly way When they had disgraced Ship-money and the Et caetera Oath and Bowing towards Altars and such things as were against Law they stopt not there but set themselves to cast out the Bishops and the Liturgy which were settled by Law And though Parliaments may draw up Bills for repealing Laws yet hath the King his Negative Voice and without his Consent they cannot do it which though they acknowledged yet did they too easily admit of Petitions against the Episcopacy and Liturgy and connived at all the Clamours and Papers which were against them Had they only endeavoured the Ejection of Lay Chancellors and the reducing of the Diocesses to a narrower Compass or the setting up of a Subordinate Discipline and only the Correcting and Reforming of the Liturgy perhaps it might have been borne more patiently but some particular Members concurred with the Desires of the imprudent Reformers who were for no less than the utter Extirpation of Bishops and Liturgy To which purpose the Lord Brook wrote his Book against Episcopacy And in the House of Commons Sir Henry Vane endeavoured to draw all up to the bighest Resolutions and by his Parts and Converse drew many so far to his mind And also the sense of the younger less experienced sort of the Ministers and private Christians in the Country was much against amending the Bishops and Liturgy and thought this was but to guild over our Danger and lose our Opportunity but they were for an utter Extirpation Though none of all this was the Sense of the Parliament yet those Members which were of this Opinion did much to encourage the Petitioners who in a disorderly manner laboured to effect it The Bishops themselves who were accounted most moderate Usher Williams Morton and many other Episcopal Divines with them had before this in a Committee at Westminster agreed on certain Points of Reformation which I will give you afterward though out of the proper place when we come to our Proposals at the King 's Return 1660. But when the same Men saw that greater Things were aimed at and Episcopacy it self in danger or their Grandeur and Riches at the least most of them turned against the Parliament and were almost as much displeased as others § 42. 3. And the great distrust which the Parliament had of the King was another thing which hastened the War For they were confident that he was unmoveable as to his Judgment and Affections and that whatever he granted them was but in design to get his advantage utterly to destroy them and that he did but watch for such an Opportunity They supposed that he utterly abhorred the Parliament and their Actions against his Ship-money his Judges Bishops c. and therefore whatever he promised them they believed him not nor durst take his word which they were hardened in by those former Actions of his which they called The Breach of his former Promises § 43. And the Things on the other side which occasioned their Diffidence and caused the War were these following especially above all the rest 1. The Armies of the Scots and English did long continue in the North undisbanded in their Quarters till the Parliament should provide their Pay Some say other Business caused the delay and some say that the Parliament was not willing that they should be so soon disbanded but the Army of the English wanting pay was easily discontented And the Parliament say that the Court drew them into a Plot against the House to march suddenly up towards London and to Master the Parliament Divers of the Chief Officers were Examined Sir Iacob Astley O Neale Sir Fulh Huncks my Mother-in-Law's Brother and many others and they almost all confessed some such thing that some near the King but not he himself had treated with them about bringing up the Army but none of them talkt of destroying or forcing the Parliament These Examinations and Depositions were published by the Parliament which did very much to perswade abundance of People that the King did but watch while he quieted them with Promises to Master them by Force and use them at his Pleasure And this Action was one of the greatest Causes of the dangerous diffidence of the King § 44. 2. Another was this When the Parliament had set a Guard upon their own House which they took to be their Priviledge the King discharged them and set another Guard upon them of his choosing which made them seem as much afraid as if he had made them Prisoners and would at some time or other command that Guard to Execute his Wrath upon them whereupon they dismissed them and called for a Guard of the City Regiments This also did increase the Diffidence § 45. 3. Another great Cause of the Diffidence and War was this The King was advised no longer to stand by and see the Parliament affront him and do what they listed but to take a sufficient Company with him and to go suddenly in Person to the House and there to demand some of the Leading Members to be delivered up to Justice and tried as Traitors Whereupon he goeth to the House of Commons with a Company of Cavaliers with Swords and Pistols to have charged five of the Members of that House and one of the Lords House with High Treason viz Mr. Pim Mr. Hampden Mr. Hollis Mr. Strowd and Sir Arthur Haseirigge and the Lord Kimbolivn after Earl of Manchester and Lord Chamberlain of the Lord's But the King was not so secret or speedy in this Action but the Members had notice of it before his coming and absented themselves being together at an inner House in Red-Lyon Court in Watling street near Breadstreet in London And so the King and his Company laid hands on none but went their ways Had the five Members been there the rest supposed they would have taken them away by violence When the King was gone this Allarm did cast the House into such Apprehensions as if one after another their Liberties or Lives must be assaulted
by the Sword if they pleased not the Court So that they presently voted it a Breach of their Priviledges and an Effect of the King 's evil Counsellors and published their Votes to awaken the People to rescue them as if they were in apparent Danger The King being disappointed publisheth a Paper in which he chargeth the Members with Treason as stirring up the Apprentices to tumultuous Petitioning c. But confesseth his Error in violating their Priviledges § 46. 4. And another thing which hastened the War was that the Lord Digby and some other Cavaliers attempted at Kingston upon Thames to have suddenly got together a Body of Horse which the Parliament took as the beginning of a War or an Insurrection and Rebellion But the Party was dissipated before they could grow to any great Strength and the Parliament voted him a Delinquent and sent to apprehend him and bring him to Justice with his partakers But he sled into France and when he was there the Parliament intercepted some of his Letters to the King advising him to get away from London to some place of Strength where his Friends might come to him which they took as an Advise to him to begin a War Thus one thing after another blew the Coals § 47. 5. But of all the rest there was nothing that with the People wrought so much as the Irish Massacree and Rebellion The Irish Papists did by an unexpected Insurrection rise all over Ireland at once and seized upon almost all the Strengths of the whole Land and Dublin wonderfully escaped a Servant of Sir Iohn Clotworthy's discovering the Plot which was to have been surprised with the rest Octob. 23. 1641. Two hundred thousand Persons they murdered as you may see in the Earl of Orary's Answer to a Petition and in Dr. Iones's Narrative of the Examinations and Sir Iohn Temple's History who was one of the resident Justices Men Women and Children were most cruelly used the Women ript up and filthily used when they killed them and the Infants used like Toads or Vermin Thousands of those that escaped came stript and almost famished to Dublin and afterwards into England to beg their Bread Multitudes of them were driven together into Rivers and cast over Bridges and drowned Many Witnesses swore before the Lords Justices that at Portdown-bridge a Vision every Day appeared to the Passengers of naked Persons standing up to the middle in the River and crying out Revenge Revenge In a word scarce any History mentioneth the like barbarous Cruelty as this was The French Massacree murdered but Thirty or Forty Thousand but Two Hundred Thousand was a Number which astonished those that heard it This filled all England with a Fear both of the Irish and of the Papists at home for they supposed that the Priests and the Interest of their Religion were the Cause In so much that when the Rumour of a Plot was occasioned at London the poor People all the Countries over were ready either to run to Arms or hide themselves thinking that the Papists were ready to rise and cut their Throats And when they saw the English Papists join with the King against the Parliament it was the greatest thing that ever alienated them from the King Hereupon the Parliament was solicitous to send help to Dublin lest that also should be lost The King was so forward to that Service that he prest the Parliament that he might go over himself The Parliament liked that worst of all as if they had been confident that ill Counsellors advised him to it that he might get at the Head of two Armies and unite them both against the Parliament and by his Absence make a Breach and hinder the Proceedings of the Houses Those that came out of Ireland represent the woful Case of it and the direful Usage of the Protestants so as provoked the People to think that it was impossible that any Danger to them could be greater than their Participation of the like The few that were left at Dublin got into Armes but complained of their Necessities and the multitude of their Enemies So that an Hundred were used to fight against a Thousand And to increase the Flame some Irish Rebels told them that they had the King's Commission for what they did which though the soberer part could not believe yet the credulous timerous vulgar were many of them ready to believe it And the English Souldiers under Sir Charles Cootes the Lord Incheguin c. send over word that it was the common Feast of the Irish that when they had done with the handful that was left in Ireland they would come over into England and deal with the Parliament and Protestants here These Threatnings with the Name of Two hundred thousand murdered and the Recital of their monstrous Cruelties made many thousands in England think that nothing could be more necessary than for the Parliament to put the Countrey into an armed Posture for their own Defence And that side which the Papists of England took they could hardly think would be their Security § 48. Things being thus ripened for a War in England the King forsaketh London and goeth into the North in Yorkshire he calleth the Militia of the Country which would join with him and goeth to Hull and demandeth entrance Sir Iohn Hotham is put in trust with it by the Parliament and denieth him entrance with his Forces The Parliament nameth Lord Lieutenants for the Militia of the Several Countries and the King nameth other Lord Lieutenants by a Commission of Aray and each of them command the said Lord Lieutenants to settle the Militia The Parliament publisheth their Votes to the People That the King misled by evil Counsel was raising a War against his Parliament The Lord Willouhby of Parham in Lincolnshire the Lord Brook in Warwickshire and others in other Counties call in the Country to appear in Arms for the Parliament The King's Lords call them in to appear for the King both King and Parliament published their Declarations justifying their Cause The Parliament chooseth the Earl of Essex for their General and resolveth the raising of an Army as For the Defence of the King and Parliament and the Liberties of the Subjects against evil Counsellors and Delinquents They publish a Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom first and a Declaration of the Causes of their taking up Arms afterward which two contain most of the Reasons of their Cause The King answereth them and goeth to Nottingham and there setteth up his Standard to Summon his Subjects to his Aid The Lord Brook and the Earl of Northampton had some skuffling in Warwickshire The Earl of N. with some Forces assaulted Warwick Castle kept by Major Iohn Bridges and Coventry City kept by Col. Iohn Barker and was repulst from both A Party assaulted Mr. Puresoyes House and burnt the Barns where Mr. George Abbot with a few of his Servants repulst them At Nottingham there were but about Two thousand came
in to the King's Standard whereas the Londoners quickly fill'd up a gallant Army for the Earl of Essex and the Citizens abundantly brought in their Money and Plate yea the Women their Rings to Guildhall to pay the Army Hereupon the King sent to the Parliament from Nottingham the Offer of a Treaty with some General Proposals which in my Opinion was the likeliest Opportunity that ever the Parliament had for a full and safe Agreement and the King seemed very serious in it and the lowness of his Condition upon so much Trial of his People was very like to have wrought much with him But the Parliament was perswaded that he did it but to get time to fill up his Army and to hinder their Proceedings and therefore accepted not of his Offer for a Treaty but instead of it sent him Nineteen Proposals of their own viz. That if he would Disband his Army come to his Parliament give up Delinquents to a Legal Course of Justice c. he should find them dutiful c. And the King published an Answer to these Nineteen Propositions in which he affirmeth the Government to be mixt having in it the best of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and that the Legislative Power is in the King Lords and Commons conjunct and that the Lords are a sufficient skreen to hinder the King from wronging the Commons and to keep off Tyranny c. And he adhereth only to the Law which giveth him the power of the Militia Out of this Answer of the King 's to these Nineteen Proposals some one drew up a Political Catechism wherein the Answers of every Question were verbatim the words of the King's Declaration as if therein he had fully justified the Parliaments Cause The great Controversie now was the present power of the Militia The King said that the Supreme Executive Power and particularly the Power of the Militia did belong to him and not to the Parliament and appealed to the Law The Parliament pleaded that as the Execution of Justice against Delinquents did belong to him but this he is bound by Law to do by his Courts of Justice and their Executions are to be in his Name and by a Stat. Edw. 3. if the King by the Little Seal or the Great Seal forbid a Judge in Court to perform his Office he is nevertheless to go on Also that for the Defence of his Kingdoms against their Enemies the Militia is in his power but not at all against his Parliament and People whom Nature it self forbiddeth to use their Swords against themselves And they alledged most the present danger of the Kingdoms Ireland almost lost Scotland disturbed England threatned by the Irish and the Ruine of the Parliament sought by Delinquents whom they said the King through evil Counsel did protect And that they must either secure the Militia or give up the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the Land and their own Necks to the Will of Papists and Delinquents § 49. And because it is my purpose here not to write a full History of the Calamities and Wars of those Times but only to remember such Generals with the Reasons and Connexion of Things as may best make the state of those Times understood by them that knew it not personally themselves I shall here annex a brief Account of the Country's Case about these Differences not as a Justifier or Detender of the Assertions or Reasons or Actions of either Party which I rehearse but only in faithfulness Historically to relate things as indeed they were And 1. It is of very great moment here to understand the Quality of the Persons which adhered to the King and to the Parliament with their Reasons A great part of the Lords forsook the Parliament and so did many of the House of Commons and came to the King but that was for the most of them after Edghill Fight when the King was at Oxford A very great part of the Knights and Gentlemen of England in the several Counties who were not Parliament Men adhered to the King except in Middlesex Essex Suffolk Norfolk Cambridgeshire c. where the King with his Army never came And could he have got footing there it 's like that it would have been there as it was in other places And most of the Tenants of these Gentlemen and also most of the poorest of the People whom the other called the Rabble did follow the Gentry and were for the King On the Parliaments side were besides themselves the smaller part as some thought of the Gentry in most of the Counties and the greatest part of the Tradesmen and Free-holders and the middle sort of Men especially in those Corporations and Countries which depend on Clothing and such Manufactures If you ask the Reasons of this Difference ask also why in France it is not commonly the Nobility nor the Beggars but the Merchants and middle sort of Men that were Protestants The Reasons which the Party themselves gave was Because say they the Tradesmen have a Correspondency with London and so are grown to be a far more Intelligent sort of Men than the ignorant Peasants that are like Bruits who will follow any that they think the strongest or look to get by And the Freeholders say they were not enslaved to their Landlords as the Tenants are The Gentry say they are wholly by their Estates and Ambition more dependent on the King than their Tenants on them and many of them envied the Honour of the Parliament because they were not chosen Members themselves The other side said That the Reason was because the Gentry who commanded their Tenants did better understand Affairs of State than half-witted Tradesmen and Freeholders do But though it must be confessed That the Publick Safety and Liberty wrought very much with most especially with the Nobility and Gentry who adhered to the Parliament yet was it principally the differences about Religious Matters that filled up the Parliaments Armies and put the Resolution and Valour into their Soldiers which carried them on in another manner than mercenary Soldiers are carried on Not that the Matter of Bishops Or no Bishops was the main thing for Thousands that wished for Good Bishops were on the Parliaments side though many called it Bellum Episcopale And with the Scots that was a greater part of the Controversie But the generality of the People through the Land I say not all or every one who were then called Puritans Precisions Religious Persons that used to talk of God and Heaven and Scripture and Holiness and to follow Sermons and read Books of Devotion and pray in their Families and spend the Lord's Day in Religious Exercises and plead for Mortification and serious Devotion and strict Obedience to God and speak against Swearing Cursing Drunkenness Prophaneness c. I say the main Body of this sort of Men both Preachers and People adhered to the Parliament And on the other side the Gentry that were not so precise and
and silly Preachers whose Performances were so mean that they had better kept to the Reading of the Homilies and many of these were of Scandalous Lives Hereupon the Disciplinarians cried out of the ignorant scandalous Ministers and almost all the scandalous Ministers and all that studied Preferment cried out of the Nonconformists The name Puritan was put upon them and by that they were commonly known when they had been called by that name awhile the vicious Multitude of the Ungodly called all Puritans that were strict and serious in a Holy Life were they ever so conformable So that the same name in a Bishops mouth signified a Nonconformist and in an ignorant Drunkards or Swearers mouth a godly obedient Christian. But the People being the greater number became among themselves the Masters of the Sense And in Spalatensi's time when he was decrying Calvinism he devised the name of Doctrinal Puritans which comprehended all that were against Arminianism Now the ignorant Rabble hearing that the Bishops were against the Puritans not having wit enough to know whom they meant were emboldened the more against all those whom they called Puritans themselves and their Rage against the Godly was increased and they cried up the Bishops partly because they were against the Puritans and partly because they were earnest for that way of Worship which they found most consistent with their Ignorance Carelesness and Sins And thus the Interest of the Diocesans and of the Prophane and Ignorant sort of People were unhappily twisted together in England And then on the other side as all the Nonconformists were against the Prelates so other of the most serious godly People were alienated from them on all these foresaid conjunct Accounts 1. Because they were derided and abused by the Name of Puritans 2. Because the Malignant Sort were permitted to make Religious Persons their common Scorn 3. Because they saw so many insufficient and vicious Men among the Conformable Clergy 4. Because they had a high esteem of the Parts and Piety of most of the Nonconformable Ministers 5. Because they grieved to see so many Excellent Men silenced while so many Thousand were perishing in Ignorance and Sin 6. Because though they took the Liturgy to be lawful yet a more orderly serious Scriptural way of Worship was much more pleasing to them 7. Because Fasting and Praying and other Exercises which they found much benefit by were so strictly lookt after that the High Commission and the Bishops Courts did make it much more perillous than common Swearing and Drunkenness proved to the Ungodly 8. Because the Book that was published for Recreations on the Lord's Day made them think that the Bishops concurred with the Prophane 9. Because Afternoon Sermons and Lectures though by Conformable Men began to be put down in divers Counties 10. Because so great a number of Conformable Ministers were suspended or punished for not reading the Book of Sports on Sundays or about Altars or such like and so many Thousand Families and many worthy Ministers driven out of the Land 11. Because when they saw Bowing towards Altars and the other Innovations added they feared worse and knew not where they would end 12. And lastly Because they saw that the Bishops proceeded so far as to swear Men to their whole Government by the Et caetera Oath and that they approved of Ship-money and other such incroachments on their Civil Interests All these upon my own knowledge were the true Causes why so great a number of those Persons who were counted most Religious fell in with the Parliament in England insomuch that the generality of the stricter diligent sort of Preachers joyned with them though not in medling with Arms yet in Judgment and in flying to their Garrisons and almost all those afterwards called Presbyterians were before Conformists Very few of all that Learned and Pious Synod at Westminster were Nonconformists before and yet were for the Parliament supposing that the Interest of Religion lay on that side Yet did they still keep up an honourable esteem of all that they thought Religious on the other side such as Bishop Davenant Bishop Hall Bishop Morton Archbishop Usher c. But as to the generality they went so unanimously the other way that upon my knowledge many that were not wise enough to understand the Truth about the Cause of the King and Parliament did yet run into the Parliaments Armies or take their part as Sheep go together for Company moved by this Argument Sure God will not suffer almost all his most Religious Servants to err in so great a matter And If all these should perish what will become of Religion But these were insufficient Grounds to go upon And abundance of the ignorant sort of the Country who were Civil did flock in to the Parliament and filled up their Armies afterward meerly because they heard Men swear for the Common Prayer and Bishops and heard others pray that were against them and because they heard the King's Soldiers with horrid Oaths abuse the name of God and saw them live in Debauchery and the Parliaments Soldiers flock to Sermons and talking of Religion and praying and singing Psalms together on their Guards And all the sober Men that I was acquainted with who were against the Parliament were wont to say The King hath the better Cause but the Parliament hath the better Men Aud indeed this unhappy Complication of the Interest of Prelacie and Prophaneness and Opposition of the Interest of Prelacie to the Temper of the generality of the Religious Party was the visible Cause of the overthrow of the King in the Eye of all the understanding World that ever was capable of observing it § 50. And whereas the King's Party usually say that it was the seditious Preachers that stirred up the People and were the Cause of all this I answer 1. It is partly true and partly not It is not true that they stirred them up to War except an inconsiderable Number of them one perhaps in a County if so much But it is true that they discovered their dislike of the Book of Sports and bowing to Altars and diminishing Preaching and silencing Ministers and such like and were glad that the Parliament attempted a Reformation of them 2. But then it is as true that almost all these were conformable Ministers the Laws and Bishops having cast out the Nonconformists long enough before insomuch that I know not of two Nonconformists in a County But those that made up the Assembly at Westminster and that through the Land were the Honour of the Parliaments Party were almost all such as had till then conformed and took those things to be lawful in case of necessity but longed to have that necessity removed § 51. When the War was beginning the Parties set Names of Contempt upon each other and also took such Titles to themselves and their own Cause as might be the fittest means for that which they designed The old Names of Puritans
and Formalists were not now broad enough nor of sufficient force The King's Party as their Serious Word called the Parliaments Party Rebels and as their common ludiâ—rous Name The Round-heads the original of which is not certainly known Some say it was because the Puritans then commonly wore short Hair and the King's Party long Hair Some sâ—y it was because the Queen at Strafford's Tryal asked who that Round-headed Man was meaning Mr. Pym because he spake so strongly The Parliaments Party called the other side commonly by the Name of Malignants as supposing that the generality of the Enemies of serious Godliness went that way in a desire to destroy the Religious out of the Land And the Parliament put that Name into their Mouths and the Souldiers they called Cavaliers because they took that Name to themselves and afterwards they called them Damme's because God Damn me was become a common Curse and as a By-word among them The King professed to sight for the Subjects Liberties the Laws of the Land and the Protestant Religion The Parliament profest the same and all their Commissions were granted as for King and Parliament for the Parliament professed that the Separation of the King from the Parliament could not be without a Destruction of the Government and that the Dividers were the Destroyers and Enemies to the State and if the Soldiers askt each other at any Surprize or Meeting who are you for those on the King's side said for the King and the others said for King and Parliament the King disowned their Service as a Scorn that they should say they fought for King and Parliament when their Armies were ready to charge him in the Field They said to this 1. That they fought to redeem him from them that took him a voluntary Captive and would separate him from his Parliament 2. That they fought against his Will only but not against his Person which they desired to rescue and preserve nor against his Authority which was for them 3. That as all the Courts of Justice do execute their Sentences in the King's Name and this by his own Law and therefore by his Authority so much more might his Parliament do § 52. But now we come to the main matter What satisfied so many of the intelligent part of the Countrey to side with the Parliament when the War began What inclined their Affections I have before shewed and it is not to be doubted but their Approbation of the Parliament in the cause of Reformation made them the easilier believe the lawfulness of their War But yet there were some Dissenters which put the matter to debates among themselves In Warwickshire Sir Francis Nethersole a religious Knight was against the Parliaments War and Covenant though not for the Justness of the War against them In Glocestershire Mr. Geree an old eminent Nonconformist and Mr. Copell a learned Minister who put out himself to prevent being put out for the Book of Recreations and some others with them were against the lawfulness of the War so was Mr. Lyford of Sherborn in Dorcetshire and Mr. Francis Bampfield his Successor and some other Godly Ministers in other Countries And many resolved to meddle on no side Those that were against the Parliaments War were of three Minds or Parties One Part thought that no King might be resisted but these I shall not take any more notice of The other thought that our King might not be at all resisted because he is our Sovereign and we have sworn to his Supremacy and if he be Supreme he hath neither Superior nor Equal And Oaths are to be interpreted in the strictest Sense The third sort granted that in some Cases the King might be resisted as Bilson and other Bishops hold but not in this Case 1. Because the Law giveth him the Militia which was contended for and the Law is the measure of Power 2. Because say they the Parliament began the War by permitting Tumults to deprive the Members of their Liberty and affront and dishonour the King 3. Because the Members themselves are Subjects and took the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and therefore have no Authority to resist 4. It is not lawful for Subjects to defend Reformation or Religion by Force against 〈◊〉 Soveraigns no such good Ends will warrant evil Means 5. It is contrary to the Doctrine of Protestants and the ancient Christians and Scripture it selfe which condemneth all that resist the higher Powers and as for the Primitive Christiansâ— it is well known they were acquainted with no other lawful Weapons against them but Prayers and Tears 6. It importeth a false Accusation of the King as if he were about to destroy Religion Liberties or Parliaments all which he is resolved to defend as in all his Declarations doth appear 7. It justifieth the Papists Doctrine and Practices of Rebellion and taketh the Odium from them unto our selves and layeth a Reproach upon the Protestant Cause 8. It proceedeth from Impatience and Distrust of God which causeth Men to fly to unlawful means Religion may be preserved better by patient Sufferings These were their Reasons who were against the Parliaments War which may be seen more at large in Mr. Dudly Digs his Book and Mr. Welden's and Mr. Michael Hudson's and Sir Francis Nethersole's § 53. As for those on the Parliaments side I will first tell you what they said to these Eight Reasons and next what Reasons moved them to take the other side 1. To the First Reason they said as before that for the Law to give the King the â—â—â—â—itia signifieth no more but that the People in Parliament consented to obey him in Matter of Wars and to fight for him and under his Conduct For the Law is nothing but the Consent of King and Parliament and the Militia is nothing but the Peoples own Swords and Strength And that this Consent of theirs should be supposed to be meant against themselves as if they consented to destroy themselves whenever he commanded it is an Exposition against Nature Sense and Reason and the common Sentiments of Mankind And they said that the same Law required Sheriffs to exercise the Militia in Obedience to the Decrees of his Courts of Justice and this against the King's Personal Commands and in the King's Name Because King and Parliament have by Law setled those Courts and Methods of Execution a Command of the King alone can no more prevail against them than it can abrogate a Law And the Law said they is above the King because King and Parliament are more than the King alone And they pretend also Presidents for their Resistance 2. To the Second they said that when 200000 Protestants were murdered in Ireland and their Friends so bold in England and the Parliaments Destruction so industruously endeavoured it was no time for them to rebuke their Friends upon terms of Civility and good Manners though their Zeal was mixt with Indiscretion and that if the Londoners had not shewed that Zeal
Soldier saith It is my Commission and the High Court of Parliament saith It is the Law declared in a Court of Justice a Parliament seemeth to be the properest Judge As in Controversies of Physick who is to be believed before the Colledge of Physicians Or in Controversies of Religion who before a General Council If the House of York and Lancaster â—ight for the Crown and both Command the Subjects Arms. the poor Peasants are not able to judge of their Titles And if a Parliament shall not judge for them who shall These were the Reasons which caused Men to adhere to the Parliament in this War § 55. For my own part I freely confess that I was not judicious enough in Politicks and Law to decide this Controversie which so many Lawyers and Wise men differed in And I freely confess that being astonished at the Irish Massacre and perswaded fully both of the Parliaments good endeavours for Reformation and of their real danger my Judgment of the main Cause much swayed my Judgment in the Matter of the Wars and the Arguments à fine à natureâ necessitate which common Wits are capable of discerning did too far incline my Judgment in the Cause of the War before I well understood the Arguments from our particular Laws And the Consideration of the Quality of the Parties that sided for each Cause in the Countries did greatly work with me and more than it should have done And I verily thought that if that which a Judge in Court saith sententially is Law must go for Law to the Subject as to the Decision of that Cause though the King send his Broad Seal against it then that which the Parliament saith is Law is Law to the Subjects about the Dangers of the Common-wealth whatever it be in it self and that if the King's Broad-Seal cannot prevail against the Judge much less against their Judgment I make no doubt but both Parties were to blame as it commonly falleth out in most Wars and Contentions and I will not be he that shall Justifie either of them I doubt not but the Headiness and Rashness of the younger unexperienced sort of religious People made many Parliament Men and Ministers overgo themselves to keep pace with those hot Spurs no doubt but much Indiscretion appeared and worse than Indiscretion in the tumultuous Petitioners and much Sin was committed in the dishonouring of the King and provocation of him and in the uncivil Language against the Bishops and Liturgie of the Church But these things came principally from the Sectarian separating Spirit which blew the Coals among foolish Apprentices And as the Sectaries increased so did this Insolence increase I have my self been in London when they have on the Lord's Days stood at the Church Doors while the Common Prayer was reading saying We must stay till he is out of his Pottage And such unchristian Scorns and Jests did please young inconsiderate Wits that knew not what Spirit they were of nor whither such unwarrantate things did tend Learned Mr. Iohn Ball though a Nonconformist discerned the stirrings of this insolent Sectarian Spirit betimes and fell a writing against it even then when some were crying out of Persecution and others were tender of such little Differences One or two in the House and five or six Ministers that came from Holland and a few that were scattered in the City which were the Brownists Relicts did drive on others according to their own dividing Principles and sowed the Seeds which afterward spread over all the Land though then there were very few of them in the Countreys even next to none As Bishop Hall speaks against the justifying of the Bishops so do I against justifying the Parliament Ministers or City I believe many unjustifiable things were done but I think that few Men among them all were the Doers or Instigaters of it But I then thought that whosoever was faulty the Peoples Liberties and Safety could not be forfeited And I thought that all the Subjects were not guilty of all the Faults of King or Parliament when they defended them Yea that if both their Causes had been bad as against each other yet that the Subjects should adhere to that Party which most secured the welfare of the Nation and might defend the Land under their Conduct without owning all their Cause And herein I confess I was then so zealous that I thought it a great Sin for Men that were able to defend their Country to be Neuters And I have been tempted since to think that I was a more competent Judge upon the Place when all things were before our eyes than I am in the review of those Days and Actions so many Years after when Distance disadvantageth the Apprehension A Writer against Cromwel's Decimation recanting his great Adherence to the Parliament in that War yet so abhorreth Neutrality that he likeneth him rather to a Dog than a Man that could stand by when his Country was in such a case But I confess for my part I have not such censorious Thoughts of those that then were Neuters as formerly I have had For he that either thinketh both sides raised an unlawful War or that could not tell which if either was in the right might well be excused if he defended neither I was always satisfied 1. That the Dividers of the King and Parliament were the Traitors whoever they were and that the Division tended to the Dissolution of the Government 2. And that the Authority and Person of the King were inviolable out of the reach of just Accusation Judgment or Execution by Law as having no Superiour and so no Judge 3. I favoured the Parliaments Cause as they professed 1. To bring Delinquents to a Legal Trial 2. And to preserve the Person and Government of the King by a Conjunction with his Parliament But Matters that Warrs and Blood are any way concerned in are so great and tenderly to be handled that I profess to the World that I dare not I will not justifie any thing that others or I my self have done of any such consequence But though I never hurt the Person of any Man yet I resolve to pray daily and earnestly to God that he will reveal to me whatever I have done amiss and not suffer me through Ignorance to be impenitent and would forgive me both my known and unknown Sins and cleanse this Land from the Guilt of Blood § 56. Having inserted this much of the Case of History of those Times I now proceed to the Relation of the Passages of my own Life beginning where I left When I was at Kidderminster the Parliament made an Order for all the People to take a Protestation to defend the King's Person Honour and Authority the Power and Priviledges of Parliaments the Liberties of the Subject and the Protestant Religion against the common Enemy meaning the Papists the Irish Massacre and Threatnings occasioning this Protestation I obeyed them in joyning with the Magistrate in offering
that the Armies were engaged when Sermon was done in the Afternoon the report was more audible which made us all long to hear of the success About Sun-setting Octob. 23. 1642. many Troops fled through the Town and told us that all was lost on the Parliament side and the Carriage taken and Waggons plundered before they came away and none that followed brought any other News The Towns-men sent a Messenger to Stratford upon Avon to know the certain truth About four a clock in the Morning the Messenger returned and told us That Prince Rupert wholly routed the left Wing of the Earl of Essex's Army but while his Men were plundering the Waggons the main Body and the Right Wing routed the rest of the King's Army took his Standard but it was lost again kill'd his General the Earl of Lindsey and his Standard-bearer took Prisoner the Earl of Lindsey's Son the Lord Willoughby and others and lost few Persons of Quality and no Noblemen but the Lord St. Iohn eldest Son to the Earl of Bullingbrook and that the loss of the left Wing was through the Treachery of Sir Faithful Fortescue Major to the Lord Fielding's Regiment of Horse who turned to the King when he should have Charged and that the Victory was obtained principally by Colonel Hollis's Regiment of London Red-Coats and the Earl of Essex's own Regiment and Life-Guard where Sir Philip Stapleton and Sir Arthur Haselrigge and Col. Urrey did much The next Morning being willing to see the Field where they had fought I went to Edghill and found the Earl of Essex with the remaining part of his Army keeping the Ground and the King's Army facing them upon the Hill a mile off and about a Thousand dead Bodies in the Field between them and I suppose many were buried before and neither of the Armies moving toward each other The King's Army presently drew off towards Banbury and so to Oxford The Earl of Essex's Army went back to provide for the wounded and refresh themselves at Warwick Castle the Lord Brook's House For my self I knew not what Course to take To live at home I was uneasie but especially now when Soldiers on one side or other would be frequently among us and we must be still at the Mercy of every furious Beast that would make a prey of us I had neither Money nor Friends I knew not who would receive me in any place of Safety nor had I any thing to satisfie them for my Diet and Entertainment Hereupon I was perswaded by one that was with me to go to Coventry where one of my old Acquaintance was Minister Mr. Simon King sometime School-master at Bridgenorth So thither I went with a purpose to stay there till one side or other had got the Victory and the War was ended and then to return home again For so wise in Matters of War was I and all the Country besides that we commonly supposed that a very few days or weeks by one other Battel would end the Wars and I believe that no small number of the Parliament-men had no more with than to think so to There I stayed at Mr. King 's a month but the War was as far from being like to end as before Whilst I was thinking what Course to take in this Necessity the Committee and Governour of the City desired me that I would stay with them and lodge in the Governour 's House and preach to the Soldiers The offer suited well with my Necessities but I resolved that I would not be Chaplain to the Regiment nor take a Commission but if the meer preaching of a Sermon once or twice a week to the Garrison would satisfie them I would accept of the Offer till I could go home again Mr. Aspinall one of the Ministers of the Town had a Commission from the Earl of Essex to be Chaplain to the Garrison Regiment but the Governour and Committee being displeased with him made no use of him And when he was displeased as thinking I would take his place I assured him I had no such intent and about a Twelve-month after he died Here I lived in the Governours House and followed my Studies as quietly as in a time of Peace for about a year only preaching once a week to the Soldiers and once on the Lord's Day to the People not taking of any of them a Penny for either save my Diet only Here I had a very Judicious Auditory among others many very godly and judicious Gentlemen as Sir Richard Skeffington a most noble holy Man Col. Godâ—rey Bosvile Mr. Mackworth with many others of all which Mr. George About was the chief known by his Paraphrase on Iob and his Book against Bread for the Lord's Day And there were about thirty worthy Ministers in the City who fled thither for Safety from Soldiers and Popular Fury as I had done though they never medled in the Wars viz. Mr. Richard Vines Mr. Anthony Burges Mr. Burdall Mr. Brumskill who lived with that Eminent Saint the old Lady Bromley Widow to Judge Bromley whose only discernable fault to me was too much Humility and Low thought of her self Dr. Bryan Dr. Grew Mr. Stephens Mr. Craddock Mr. Morton of Bewdley my special Friend Mr. Diamond good old Mr. Overton and many more whose presence commanded much respect from me I have cause of continual thankfulness to God for the quietness and safety and sober wise religious Company with liberty to preach the Gospel which he vouchsafed me in this City when other Places were in the Terrours and Flames of War § 62. When I had been above a year at Coventry the War was so far from being ended that it had dispersed it self into almost all the Land only Middlesex Hartfordshireâ— most of Bedford and Northamptonshire were only for the Parliament and had some quietness And Essex Suffolk Norfolk Cambridgeshire and Huntingtonshire with the Isle of Eli were called the Associated Countries and lived as in Peace because the King's Armies never came near them and so for the most part it was with Kent Surrey and Sussex And on the other side Herefordshire Worcestershire and Shropshire till this time and almost all Wales save Pembrokeshire which was wholly for the Parliament were only possessed for the King and saw not the Forces of the Parliament But almost all the rest of the Counties had Garrisons and Parties in them on both sides which caused a War in every County and I think there where few Parishes where at one time or other Blood had not been shed § 63. And here I must repeat the great Cause of the Parliaments Strength and the King's ruine and that was That the debauched Rabble through the Land emboldened by his Gentry and seconded by the Common Soldiers of his Army took all that were called Puritans for their Enemies And though Some of the King's Gentry and Superiour Officers were so Civil that they would do no such thing yet that was no Security to the Country while
to preach before the Judges because I preached against the State But afterward they excused it as done meerly in kindness to me to keep me from running my self into danger and trouble § 106. Not far from this time the London Ministers were called Traitors by the Rump and Soldiers for plotting for the King a strange kind of Treason because they had some Meetings to contrive how to raise some small Sum of Money for Massey's relief who was then in Scotland And some false Brother discovered them and eight of them were sent to the Tower Mr. Arthur Iackson Dr. Drake Mr. Watson Mr. Love Mr. Ienkins c. and Mr. Nalson and Mr. Caughton fled into Holland where one died but the other returned and lived to suffer more by them he suffered for Mr. Love was tried at a Court of Justice where Edm. Prideaux a Member and Sollicitor for the Commonwealth did think his Place allowed him to plead against the Life and Blood of the Innocent Mr. Love was condemned and beheaded dying neither timerously nor proudly in any desperate Bravado but with as great alacrity and fearless quietness and freedom of Speech as if he had but gone to Bed and had been as little concerned as the standers by An honest Gentleman was beheaded with him for the same Cause And at the time of their Execution or very near it on that day there was the dreadfullest Thunder and Lightning and Tempest that was heard or seen of a long time before This Blow sunk deeper towards the Root of the New Commonwealth than will easily be believed and made them grow odious to almost the Religious Party in the Land except the Sectaries Though some malicious Cavaliers said it was good enough for him and laught at it as good News for now the People would not believe that they sought the promoting of the Gospel who killed the Ministers for the Interest of their Faction And there is as Sir Walter Rawleigh noteth of Learned Men such as Demosthenes Cicero c. so much more in Divines of famous Learning and Piety enough to put an everlasting odium upon those whom they suffer by though the Cause of the Sufferers were not justifiable Men count him a vile and detestable Creature who in his passion or for his interest or any such low account shall deprive the World of such Lights and Ornaments and cut off so much excellency at a blow and be the Persecutors of such worthy and renowned Men. Though the rest of the Ministers were released upon Mr. Ienkins's Recantation and Confession that God had now convinced him that he ought to submit to the present Government Yet after this the most of the Ministers and good People of the Land did look upon the New Commonwealth as Tyranny and were more alienated from them than before § 107. The Lord Fairfax now laid down his Commission and would have no more of the Honour of being Cromwell's Instrument or Mask when he saw that he must buy it at so dear a rate And so Cromwell with applause received a Commission and entered upon his place And into Scotland he hasteneth and there he maketh his way near Edinburgh where the Scots Army lay But after long skirmishing and expectations when he could neither draw the Scots out of their Trenches to a fight nor yet pass forward his Soldiers contracted Sicknesses and were impatient of the Poverty of the Country and so with a weakned ragged Army he drew off to return to England and had the Scots but let him go or cautelously followed him they had kept their Peace and broken his Honour But they drew out and followed him and overtaking him near Dunbarr did force him to a Fight by engaging his Rere in which Fight being not of equal Fortitude they were totally rowted their Foot taken and their Horse pursued to Edinburgh § 108. Ten thousand Prisoners of the Foot were brought to Newcastle where the greatness of the Number and the baseness of the Country with their Poverty and the cruel Negligence of the Army caused them to be almost all famished For being shut up in a Cabbage-Garden and having no Food they cast themselves into a Flux and other Diseases with eating the raw Cabbages so that few of them survived and those few were little better used The Colours that were taken were hanged up as Trophies in Westminster-Hall and never taken down till the King's Restoration § 109. Cromwell being thus called back to Edinburgh driveth the Scots to Sterling beyond the River where they fortifie themselves He besiegeth the impregnable Castle of Edinburgh and winneth it the Governor Coll. William Dunglasse laying the blame on his Souldiers that else would have delivered It and him but his Superiors condemned him for the Cowardly Surrender After this Cromwell passeth some of his Men over the River and after them most of the rest The King with the Scots Army being unable to give him Battle after such Discouragements takes the Opportunity to haste away with what Force they had towards England thinking that Cromwell being cast now some Days March behind them by Reason of his passing the River they might be before him in England and there be abundantly increased by the coming in both of the Cavaliers and the rest of the People to him And doubtless all the Land would Suddenly have flockt in to him but for these two Causes 1. The Success of Cromwell at Dumbarre and afterwards had put a Fear upon all Men and the manner of the Scots coming away persuaded all Men that Necessity forced them and they were look'd upon rather as flying than as marching into England and few Men will put themselves into a flying Army which is pursued by the conquering Enemy 2. The implacable Cavaliers had made no Preparation of the Peoples Mind by any Significations of Reconciliation or of probable future Peace And the Prelatical Divines instead of drawing nearer those they differed from for Peace had gone farther from them by Dr. Hammond's new way than their Predecessors were before them and the very Cause which they contended for being not Concord and Neighbourhood but Domination they had given the dissenting Clergy and People no hopes of finding favourable Lords or any Abatement of their former Burdens so little did their Task-Masters relent But contrariwise they saw Reason enough to expect that their little Fingers would be heavier than their Predecessors Loyns And it is hard to bring Men readily to venture their Lives to bring themselves into a Prison or Beggary or Banishment These were the true Causes that no more came in to the King The first kept off the Royalists and the rest the second kept off the rest alone Yet the Earl of Darby the Lord Talbott and many Gentlemen did come in to him and some that had been Souldiers for the Parliament as Capt. Benbow from Shrewsbury with Cornet Kinnersly and a Party of Horse and some few more The King's Army of Scots was
the Importance and Consequence of the War and making not Money but that which they took for the Publick Felicity to be their End they were the more engaged to be valiant for he that maketh Money his End doth esteem his Life above his Pay and therefore is like enough to save it by flight when danger comes if possibly he can But he that maketh the Felicity of Church and State his End esteemeth it above his Life and therefore will the sooner lay down his Life for it And men of Parts and Understanding know how to manage their business and know that flying is the surest way to death and that standing to it is the likeliest way to escape there being many usually that fall in flight for one that falls in valiant fight These things it 's probable Cromwell understood and that none would be such engaged valiant men as the Religious But yet I conjecture that at his first choosing such men into his Troop it was the very Esteem and Love of Religious men that principally moved him and the avoiding of those Disorders Mutinies Plunderings and Grievances of the Country which deboist men in Armies are commonly guilty of By this means he indeed sped better than he expected Aires Desborough Berry Evanson and the rest of that Troop did prove so valiant that as far as I could learn they never once ran away before an Enemy Hereupon he got a Commission to take some care of the Associated Counties where he brought this Troop into a double Regiment of fourteen full Troops and all these as full of religious men as he could get These having more then ordinary Wit and Resolution had more than ordinary Success first in Lincolnshire and afterward in the Earl of Manchester's Army at York Fight With their Successes the Hearts both of Captain and Soldiers secretly rise both in Pride and Expectation And the familiarity of many honest erroneous Men Anabaptists Antinomians c. withal began quickly to corrupt their Judgments Hereupon Cromwell's general Religious Zeal giveth way to the power of that Ambition which still increaseth as his Successes do increase Both Piety and Ambition concurred in his countenancing of all that he thought Godly of what Sect soever Piety pleadeth for them as Godly and Charity as Men and Ambition secretly telleth him what use he might make of them He meaneth well in all this at the beginning and thinketh he doth all for the Safety of the Godly and the Publick Good but not without an Eye to himself When Successes had broken down all considerable Opposition he was then in the face of his strongest Temptations which conquered him when he had conquered others He thought that he had hitherto done well both as to the End and Means and God by the wonderful Blessing of his Providence had owned his endeavours and it was none but God that had made him great He thought that if the War was lawful the Victory was lawful and if it were lawful to fight against the King and conquer him it was lawful to use him as a conquered Enemy and a foolish thing to trust him when they had so provoked him whereas indeed the Parliament professed neither to fight against him nor to conquer him He thought that the Heart of the King was deep and that he resolved upon Revenge and that if he were King he would easily at one time or other accomplish it and that it was a dishonest thing of the Parliament to set men to fight for them against the King and then to lay their Necks upon the block and be at his Mercy and that if that must be their Case it was better to flatter or please him than to fight against him He saw that the Scots and the Presbyterians in the Parliament did by the Covenant and the Oath of Allegiance find themselves bound to the Person and Family of the King and that there was no hope of changing their minds in this Hereupon he joyned with that Party in the Parliament who were for the Cutting off the King and trusting him no more And consequently he joyned with them in raising the Independants to make a Fraction in the Synod at Westminster and in the City and in strengthening the Sectaries in Army City and Country and in rendering the Scots and Ministers as odious as he could to disable them from hindering the Change of Government In the doing of all this which Distrust and Ambition had perswaded him was well done he thought it lawful to use his Wits to choose each Instrument and suit each means unto its end and accordingly he daily imployed himself and modelled the Army and disbanded all other Garrisons and Forces and Committees which were like to have hindered his design And as he went on though he yet resolved not what form the New Common-wealth should be molded into yet he thought it but reasonable that he should be the Chief Person who had been chief in their Deliverance For the Lord Fairfax he knew had but the Name At last as he thought it lawful to cut off the King because he thought he was lawfully conquered so he thought it lawful to fight against the Scots that would set him up and to pull down the Presbyterian Majority in the Parliament which would else by restoring him undo all which had cost them so much Blood and Treasure And accordingly he conquereth Scotland and pulleth down the Parliament being the easilier perswaded that all this was lawful because he had a secret Byas and Eye towards his own Exaltation For he and his Officers thought that when the King was gone a Government there must be and that no Man was so fit for it as he himself as best deserving it and as having by his Wit and great Interest in the Army the best sufficiency to manage it Yea they thought that God had called them by Successes to Govern and take Care of the Commonwealth and of the Interest of all his People in the Land and that if they stood by and suffered the Parliament to do that which they thought was dangerous it would be required at their hands whom they thought God had made the Guardians of the Land Having thus forced his Conscience to justifie all his Cause the Cutting off the the King the setting up himself and his Adherents the pulling down the Parliament and the Scots he thinketh that the End being good and necessary the necessary means cannot be bad And accordingly he giveth his Interest and Cause leave to tell him how far Sects shall be tollerated and commended and how far not and how far the Ministry shall be owned and supported and how far not yea and how far Professions Promises and Vows shall be kept or broken and therefore the Covenant he could not away with nor the Ministers further than they yielded to his Ends or did not openly resist them He seemed exceeding open hearted by a familiar Rustick affected Carriage especially to his Soldiers in
Blood to keep him in it But if they would venture for their Parts on new Confusions he would venture his Part by retiring to his Privacy And so he did to satisfie these proud distracted Tyrants who thought they did but pull down Tyranny resign the Government by a Writing under his Hand and retired himself and left them to govern as they pleased His Good Brother in Law Fleetwood and his Uncle Desborough were so intoxicated as to be the Leaders of the Conspiracy And when they had pull'd him down they set up a few of themselves under the Name of a Council of State and so mad were they with Pride as to think the Nation would stand by and reverence them and obediently wait upon them in their drunken Giddiness and that their Faction in the Army was made by God an invincible Terror to an that did but hear their Names The Care of the Business also was that Oliver had once made Fleetwood believe that he should be his Successor and drawn an Instrument to that purpose but his last Will disappointed him And then the Sectaries flattered him saying that a truly Godly Man that had commanded them in the Wars was to be preferred before such an one as they censured to have no true Godliness § 146. I make no doubt but God permitted all this for Good and that as it was their Treason to set up Oliver and destroy the King so it was their Duty to have set up the present King instead of Richard And God made them the means to their own Destruction contrary to their Intentions to restore the Monarchy and Family which they had ruined But all this is no Thanks to them but that which with a good Intention had been a Duty to take down or not set up Richard Cromwell yet as done by them was as barbarous Perfideousness as most ever History did declare That they should so suddenly so scornfully and proudly pull down him whom they had so lately set up themselves and sworn to And that for nothing they could scarce tell why themselves nor ever were able to give the World a fairer Reason for their Villany by any Fault they could charge upon him than the Munster Fanaticks had to give for their Bethlehem Outrages and Rebellion That they should do this while a Parliament was sitting which had so many wise religious Members not only without the Parliaments Advice but in despight of them and force him to dissolve them first as if Perjury and Rebellion were newly put into the Commandments or God had made these proud Usurpers to be the Governors of Protector and of Parliaments and exempted them wholly from the Precept Honour thy Father Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers That they should so proudly despise not only the Parliament but all the Ministers of London and of the Land as to do this not only without advising with and against their Judgments but in a factious Envy against them left they should be too much countenanced Yea they did it against the Judgments of most of their own Party the Independants as they now profess themselves Yea Mr. Nye that was then thought to be engaged in the same Design doth utterly disclaim it and profess that his Consent or Hand was never to it But Pride usually goeth before Destruction § 147. And having said this of the Crimes of these Firebrands of the Army I must say somewhat of the Sectarian Party in General I mean those who have been most addicted to Church-Divisions and Separations and Sidings and Parties and have refused all terms of Concord and Unity I doubt not but many of them were People that feared God who in their Ignorance of the Doctrine of Church Unity and Communion have been drawn by Pretences of Purity to follow their Leaders in ways which they understood not And I doubt not but the Presbyterians have had their Faults in their Treaties with them and that politick Statesmen kept open the Divisions for their own Designs that they might have a Party to weaken the Scots and Presbyterians that would have restored the King But yet I must record it to the Shame of their Miscarriages that the weaker and younger sort of Professors have been prone to be puft up with high Thoughts of themselves and to over-value their little Degrees of Knowledge and Parts which set them not above the Pity of understanding Men That they have been set upon those Courses which tend to advance them above the Common People in the Observation of the World and to set them at a farther Distance from others than God alloweth and all this under the Pretence of the Purity of the Church That in Prosecution of their Ends there are few of the Anabaptists that have not been the Opposers and Troublers of the faithful Ministers of the Land and were the Troublers of their People and the Hinderers of their Success they strengthned the Hands of the Prophane The Sectaries especially the Anabaptists the Seekers and the Quakers chose out the most able zealous Ministers to make the Marks of their Reproach and Obliquy and all because they stood in the Way of their Designs and hindered them in the propagating of their Opinions They set against the same Men that the Drunkards and Swearers set against and much after the same manner reviling them and raising up false Reports of them and doing all that they could to make them odious and at last attempting to pull them all down only they did it more prophanely than the Prophane in that they said Let the Lord be glorified Let the Gospel be propagated and abused and prophaned Scripture and the Name of God by entituling him to their Faction and Miscarriages Yea though they thought themselves the most understanding and consciencious People of the Land yet did the Gang of them seldom stick at any thing which seemed to promote their Cause but whatever their Faction in the Army did they pleaded for it and approved it If they pull'd down the Parliament imprison'd the godly faithful Members killed the King if they cast out the Rump if they chose a Little Parliament of their own if they set up Cromwell if they set up his Son and pull'd him down again if they sought to obtrude Agreements on the People if they one Week set up a Council of State and if another Week the Rump were restored if they sought to take down Tythes and Parish-Ministers to the utter Confusion of the State of Religion in the Land in all these the Anabaptists and many of the Independants in the Three Kingdoms followed them and even their Pastors were ready to lead them to consent And all this began but in unwarrantable Separations and too much aggravating the Faults of the Churches and Common People and Common Prayer Book and Ministry which indeed were none of them without Faults to be lamented and reformed But they thought that because it needed Amendment it required their obstinate Separation
not prejudiced by partiality against this Book my Key for Catholicks have let me know that it hath not been without Success It being indeed a sufficient Armory for to furnish a Protestant to defend his Religion against all the Assaults of the Papists whatsoever and teacheth him how to answers all their Books The second part doth briefly deal with the French and Grotian Party that are for the Supremacy of a Council at least as to the Legislative Power and sheweth that we never had a general Council nor can it be at all expected § 195. 39. But the Book which hath furnished my Enemies with matter of Reviling which none must dare to answer is my Holy Commonwealth The Occasion of it was this when our Pretorian Sectarian Bands had cut all Bonds and Pull'd down all Government and after the Death of the King had twelve Years kept out his Son few Men saw any probability of his Restitution and every self-conceited Fellow was ready to offer his Model for a new Form of Government Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan had pleased many Mr. Tho. White the great Papist had written his Politicks in English for the Interest of the Protector to prove that Subject ought to submit and subject themselves to such a Change And now Mr. Iames Harrington they say by the help of Mr. H. Nevill had written a Book in Folio for a Democracy called Oceana seriously describing a Form near to the Venetian and setting the People upon the Desires of a Change And after this Sir H. Vane and his Party were about their Sectarian Democratical Model which Stubbs defended and Regars and Needham and Mr. Bagshaw had written against Monarchy before In the end of an Epistle before my Book of Crucifying the World I had spoken a few Words against this Innovation and Opposition to Monarchy and having especially touched upon Oceana and Leviathan Mr. Harrington seemed in a Bethelhem Rage for by way of Scorn he printed half a Sheet of foolish Jeers in such Words as Ideots or Drunkards use railing at Ministers as a Pack of Fools and Knaves and by his gibberish Derision persuading Men that we deserved no other Answer than such Scorn and Nonsense as beseemeth Fools And with most insolent Pride he carried it as if neither I nor any Ministers understood at all what Policy was but prated against we knew not what and had presumed to speak against other Mens Art which he was Master of and his Knowledge to such Ideots as we incomprehensible This made me think it fit having given that General hint against his Oceana to give a more particular Charge and withal to give the World and him an Account of my Political Principles and to shew what I held as well as what I denyed which I did in that Book called Political Aphorisms or A Holy Commonwealth as contrary to his Heathenish Commonwealth In which I plead the Cause of Monarchy as better than Democracy and Aristocracy but as under God the Universal Monarch Here Bishop Morley hath his Matter of Charge against me of which one part is that I spake against Unlimited Monarchy because God himself hath limited all Monarchs If I had said that Laws limit Monarchs I might among some men be thought a Traytor and unexcusable but to say that God limiteth Monarchs I thought had never before been chargeable with Treason or opposed by any that believed that there is a God If they are indeed unlimited in respect of God we have many Gods or no God But now it is dangerous to meddle with these matters Most men say now Let God defend himself In the end of this Book is an Appendix concerning the Cause of the Parliaments first War which was thus occasioned Sir Francis Nethersole a Religious Knight who was against the lawfulness of the War on both sides sent his man to me with Letters to advise me to tell Cromwell of his Usurpation and to counsel him to call in the King of which when I had given him satisfaction he sent him against with more Letters and Books to convince me of the unlawfulness of the Parliament's War And others attempting the same at the same time and the Confusions which the Army had brought upon us being such as made me very much disposed to think ill of those beginnings which had no better an end I thought it best to publish my Detestation and Lamentation for those Rebellious Proceedings of the Army which I did as plainly as could be born both in an Epistle to them and in a Meditation in the end and withal to declare the very Truth that hereby I was made suspicious and doubtful of the beginnings or first Cause but yet was not able to answer the Arguments which the Lawyers of the Parliament then gave and which had formerly inclined me to that side I conconfessed that if men Miscarriages and ill Accidents would warrant me to Condemn the beginnings which were for another Cause then I should have condemned them But that being not the way I found my self yet unable to answer the first Reasons and therefore laid them down together desiring the help of others to answer them professing my own suspicion and my daily prayers to God for just satisfaction And this Paper is it that containeth all my Crimes Against this one Tomkins wrote a Book called The Rebels Plea But I wait in silence till God enlighten us In the beginning of this Book having reprehended the Army I answer a Book of Sir Henry Vane's called The Healing Question It was published when Richard Cromwell was pull'd down and Sir H. Vane's New Commonwealth was forming § 196. 40. About the same time one that called himself W. Iohnson but I hear his Name is Mr. Terret a Papist engaged me in a Controversie about the perpetual visibility of the Church which afterwards I published the story of which you have more at large in the following part of this Book In the latter I inserted a Letter of one Thomas Smyth a Papist with my Answer to it which it seemeth occasioned his recovery from them as is manifest in a Letter of Mr. Thomas Stanley his Kinsman a sober godly man in Breadstreet which I by his own consent subjoyned To this Book Mr. Iohnson hath at last replyed and I have since return'd an Answer to him § 197. 41. Having been desired in the time of our Associations to draw up those Terms which all Christian Churches may hold Communion upon I published them though too late for any such use till God give men better minds that the World might see what our Religion and our Terms of Communion were and that if after Ages prove more peaceable they may have some light from those that went before them It consisteth of three parts The first containeth the Christian Religion which all are positively to profess that is Either to subscribe the Scriptures in general and the ancient Creeds in particular or at most The Confession or Articles annexed e.g.
thousands of faithful Ministers and be like to be the Perdition of many and many thousand Souls But the Presbyterians said We are bound by the Covenant to the King that last was and by the Oath of Allegiance to him and his Heirs and all Changes since have been made unlawfully by Rebellious Sectaries and for our parts whatever others have done we have taken no Engagements or contrary Oaths if the Sectaries and the Cavaliers have taken the Engagement what is that to us Our Brethren of Scotland nor we never did it Therefore being obliged to the King as the undoubted Heir of the Crown we ought to do our Duty as Loyal Subjects to Restore him and for the Issue let God do what he will § 73. This was their Resolution but in their Expectations they much differed for those of them that converse with the Nobles and Great Men and heard from them an high Character of the King as to his Temper and Piety were apt to believe them and had great hopes that because he had taken the Covenant himself he would be moderate in setling all Matters of the Church and would allow the Presbyterians liberty to preach the Gospel in their Parish-Churches and that he would remove the Subscriptions and leave the Common Prayer and Ceremonies indifferent so that they should not be cast out of the Churches Others thought that the Prelates being once set up there would be no place for Non-subscribers in the Publick Churches but yet that if we were the means of the King's Restoration the Prelates would not for shame deny us such Liberty as the Protestants have in France and that Protestants would not deny that to Protestants after such an Obligation which Papists granted them But a third sort said You know not the Principles or Spirit of the Prelates if you look for any Liberty in Publick or in Private to be granted to any that do not conform We all look to be Silenced and some or many of us imprisoned or banished but yet we will do our parts to restore the King because no foreseen ill consequence must hinder us from our Duty And if ignorant Men be put into our places and never so many Souls perish by it the Fault is not ours but theirs that do it And a fourth sort there were that foreseeing the Silencing of the Ministers said We are sure that there are not competent Men much less excellent in England to supply the place of one among many of those that will be cast out and we know that God useth to work by Means and therefore that the Change is like to be the damnation of many thousand Souls and we do not believe that we are bound all things considered to be forward to bring such a Work to pass But we will stand by and see what God will do and will not hinder it § 74. Those that lookt for Liberty were encouraged in their Expectations by these Means following 1. All the Noblemen and Gentry that had been Sequestred for the King's Cause against the old Parliament did in several Counties publish Invitations to all Men to promote the King's Reduction protesting against Thoughts of Revenge or Uncharitableness and professing their Resolution to put up all Injuries and live in Peace 2. Afterward his Majesty sent over a Promise of Liberty of Conscience as these Men understood it but indeed it was but a Profession of his readiness to consent to any Act which the Parliament should offer to him to that end 3. Dr. Morley and other of the Divines on that side did privately meet with several Persons of Honour and some Ministers and professed Resolutions for great Moderation and Lenity § 75. But those that look'd for silencing cruelty and Confusion said that from the Beginning except a few inconsiderable Persons it was all the Enemies of serious Godliness in the Land who were on the one side and it was the Friends of serious Godliness who were the main Body on the other side That the Enmity between the Woman's and the Serpent's Seed is the most unreconcilable in the World That all the Hypocrites and carnal Sort of Formal Pharisaical Christians will persecute them that are born after the Spirit That Wars and Sequestrations and Cromwel's severity against them have exasperated them so that we shall have natural Enmity and Malice sublimated to deal with and that they will revenge all their real and seeming Injuries that these twenty Years Tryal hath proved them unreconcilable That their carnal Interest will continually engage them against serious Godliness and a Man of Conscience that cannot say or swear or do any thing which they command him will be taken by them for a Schismatick and Enemy That the late Wars hath given them Advantage to cast the Odium of Civil Broils upon Religion and of other Mens Faults upon the innocent so that there Interest will certainly lead them to call all those Rebels that swear not to their Words and every Man whose Religion is not ceremonious and complemental shall be called a Presbyterian and every Presbyterian a Rebel And whereas heretofore they had no worse Names to call godly Men by than the foolish Names of Puritans and Roundheads henceforth if a Man will not be as bad as others he shall be called an Enemy to the Government And though not one of forty of the Ministers ever medled with the Wars they shall all fare alike if they be not Prelatists Thus did Men differ in their Expectations § 76. When I was at London the new Parliament being called they presently appointed a Day of Fasting and Prayer for themselves The House of Commons chose Mr. Calamy Dr. Gauden and my self to preach and pray with them at St. Margaret's Westminster In that Sermon I uttered some Passages that were after matter of some Discourse Speaking of our Differences and the way to heal them I told them that whether we should be Loyal to our King was none of our Differences in that we are all agreed it being not possible that a Man should be true to the Protestants Principles and not be Loyal as it was impossible to be true to the Papists Principles and to be Loyal And for the Concord now wish'd in matters of Church-Government I told them it was easy for moderate Men to come to a fair Agreement and that the late Reverend Primate of Ireland and my self had agreed in half an Hour I remember not the very Words but you may read them in the Sermon which was printed by order of the House of Commons § 77. As soon as this printed Sermon came abroad the Papists were enraged against me and one nameless Gentleman wrote a Pamphlet to challenge me to make good my Charge And others sent me Letters with their Names real or counterfeit containing the same Challenge but never told me where they dwelt nor how I might convey an Answer to them whereas the heedless Challengers might have seen that I fully performed what
Governour of the lower Governours and the Flocks and indeed are all Archbishops though they have the Name of Bishops still Most of the Ministers were satisfied but to me remained unsatisfied to the end § 129. But at the next Meeting those that were satisfied resolved upon Thanksgiving to the King and they drew up this following Writing To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The humble and grateful Acknowledgment of many Ministers of the Gospel in and about the City of London to his Royal Majesty for his gracious Concessions in his Majesty's late Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs Most Dread Sovereaign WE your Majesty's most Dutiful and Loyal Subjects Ministers of the Gospel in your City of London having perused your Majesty's late Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs and finding it to the joy of our hearts so full of Indulgence and gracious Condescension we cannot but judge our selves highly obliged in the first place to render our unfelgned Thanks to our good God who hath so mercifully inclined your Majesty's Royal heart to this Moderation and next our most humble and hearty Acknowledgments unto your Sacred Majesty that we may testifie to your Royal Self and all the World our just Resentment of your Majesty's great Goodness and Clemency therein expressed May it please your Majesty The Liberty of our Consciences and the free Exercise of our Ministry in the Work of our Great Lord and Master for the Conversion of Souls ought to be and are more dear to us than all the Profits and Preferments of this World and therefore your Majesty's Tenderness manifested in these so high Concernments doth wonderfully affect us and raise up our Hearts to an high pitch of Gratitude We cannot but adore Divine Goodness for your Majesty's stedfast adherance to the Protestant Religion notwithstanding all Temptations and Provocations to the contrary and your professed Zeal for the Advancement and Propagation thereof declaring that nothing can be proposed to manifest your Zeal and Affection for it to which you will not readily consent Your Majesty has graciously declared That your Resolution is and shall be to promote the Power of Godliness to encourage the Exercises of Religion both publick and private to take care that the Lord's day be applyed to holy Exercises without unnecessary Divertisements and that insufficient negligent and scandalous Ministers be not permitted in the Church Your Majesty hath granted that no Bishop shall Ordain or Exercise any part of Jurisdiction which appertains to the Censures of the Church without the advice and assistance of the Presbyters and neither do nor impose any thing but what is according to the known Laws of the Land Excluded Chancellours Commissaries and Officials from Acts of Jurisdiction so happily restored the Power of the Pastors in their several Congregations and granted a Liberty to all the Ministers to assemble Monthly for the Exercise of the Pastoral perswasive Power to the promoting of Knowledge and Godliness in their Flocks Your Majesty hath graciously promised a Review and effectual Reformation of the Liturgy with additional Forms to be used at Choice And in the mean time that none be punished or troubled for not using it Your Majesty hath graciously freed us from Subscription required by the Canon and the Oath of Canonical Obedience and granted us to receive Ordination Institution and Induction and to exercise our Function and enjoy the profit of our Livings without the same Your Majesty hath gratified the Consciences of many who are grieved with the use of some Ceremonies by indulging to and dispensing with their omitting those Ceremonies viz. Kneeling at the Sacrament the Cross in Baptism bowing at the Name of Jesus and wearing of the Surplice All this your Majesty's Indulgence and tender Compassion which with delight we have taken the boldness thus largely to Commemorate we receive with all humility and thankfulness and as the best Expression thereof shall never cease to pray for your Majesty's long and prosperous Reign and study how in our several Stations we may be most Instrumental in your Majesty's Service And that we may not be defective in Ingenuity we crave leave to profess that though all things in this Frame of Government be not exactly suited to our Judgment yet your Majesty's moderation hath so great an influence upon us that we shall to our utmost endeavour the healing of the Breaches and promoting the Peace and Union of the Church There are some other things that have been propounded by our Reverend Brethren which upon our knees with all humble Importunity we could beg of your Majesty especially that Re-ordination and the Surplice in Colledges may not be imposed and we cannot lay aside our Hopes but that that God who hath thus far drawn out your Majesty's Bowels and Mercy will further incline your Majesty's Heart to gratifie us in these our humble Desires also That we be not further burthensome we humbly beg leave to thank your Majesty for the Liberty and Respect vouchsafed to our Reverend Brethren in this weighty Affair of Accommodation The God of Heaven bless your Majesty and all the Royal Family Your Majesty's most Loyal Subjects Sa. Clark Tho. Case Io. Rawlinson Io. Sheffield Tho. Gouge Gab. Sanger Will. Cooper Will. Whittaker Tho. Iacomb Tho. Lye Io. Iackson Io. Meriton Eli. Pledger Will. Bates Io. Gibbon Mat. Poole With may others This Address was Presented to his Majesty at Whiteball Nov. 16. by some of these Ministers to whom he was pleased to return a very gracious Answer London Printed by his Majesty's Approbation for Ioh. Rothwel at the Sign of the Fountain in Cheapside in Goldsmiths Row 1660. § 130. Whether this came to the King's Ears or what else it was that caused it I know not but presently after the Earl of Lauderdale came to tell me that I must come the next day to the King Who was pleased to tell me that he sent for me only to signifie his Favour to me I told him I feared my plain Speeches Octob. 22. which I thought that Cause in hand commanded me might have been displeasing to him But he told me that he was not offended at the plainness or freedom or earnestness of them but only when he thought I was not in the right and that for my free Speech he took me to be the honester Man I suppose this Favour came from the Bishops who having notice of what last past did think that now I might serve their Interests § 131. The Question now is What we got by procuring this Declaration of the King 's and how it was accepted by the People 1. I thought it no small gain though none of it should be fulfilled that we had got so much from the hand of a King to take off prejudice among the People and abate the violence of cruel Men and to stand on record to Posterity that once so much was granted us by the King for if ever there be any inclinations to Peace and Charity hereafter that which once
be forced to Absolve the unfit and that in absolute Expressions 7. That they are forced to give thanks for all whom they Bury as Brethren whom God in mercy hath delivered and taken to himself 8. That none may be a Preacher that dare not Subscribe that there is nothing in the Common Prayer Book the Book of Ordination and the Nine and thirty Articles that is contrary to the Word of God These are most of the things which we judge contrary to the Word of God which at present come to our remembrance So we humbly desire that whenever you would have us give you a full enumeration of such we may have leave to consult with the rest of our Brethren and deliver it to you by our Common Consent And we humbly crave that all these Points may be taken into serious Consideration and those of them which we have not yet debated we are ready to debate and give in our Arguments whenever we are called to it to prove them all contrary to the Word of God And may we be so happy as to have this Proposal granted us we shall undoubtedly have Unity and Peace Ad 2 m We suppose according to the Laws of distinguishing you speak in this second Proposal of all things so inexpedient as not to be contrary to the Word of God Otherwise the greatest Sins may be committed by inexpediences As a Physician may murder a Man by giving him inexpedient Medicines and a General may destroy his Army by inexpedient ways of Conduct and Defence And the Pastor may be guilty of the Damnation of his People by Doctrines and Applications inexpedient and unsuitable to their state And a way of worship may be so inexpedient as to be sinful and loathsom unto God such is the Battology or thinking to be heard for affected Repetitions or Bablings Pharisaical Thanksgivings that Men are better than indeed they are with abundance such like But supposing that you here speak of no such inexpedient things but such as are not contrary to the Word of God We add Ad 3 m We are thankful that in such Matters we may have leave to make any such Proposals as are here mentioned but we shall not be forward to busie ourselves and trouble others about such little things without a Special Call If the Convocation at any time desire an account of our Thoughts about such Matters we shall readily produce them And for acquiescing in their Judgments in such Matters what we Three do in that point is but of small consequence And for others seeing the Ministers that we speak for were many Hundreds of them displaced or removed before the advice of the Convocation and others denied their Votes because not Ordained by Diocesans and others not approving the Constitution of our Convocations durst not meddle in the choice We cannot tell how far they will think themselves obliged by the Determination of this Convocation But this can be no matter of impediment to your Satisfaction or ours For we are commonly agreed that we are bound in Conscience to obey the King and all his Magistrates in all lawful things and with Christian patience to suffer what he inflicteth on us for not obeying in things unlawful And therefore while we acquiesce thus far in the Judgment of those who must make the Decrees of the Convocation to be civilly obligatory and the King intendeth to take their Advice before he determine of such Matters It is all one as to the end as if we directly did thus far acquiesce in the Judgment of the Convocation if the King approve it But if the King and Parliament dissent or disallow the Convocation's Judgment as it is possible they may have cause to do would you have us acquiesce in it when King and Parliament do not And for the last part of the Proposal by God's Assistance if you do not silence or disable us we are resolved faithfully to teach the People that the Division of the Church is worse than inexpedient and the Peace of it not to be disturbed for the avoiding of any such inexpediences as are not contrary to the Word of God We conclude with the Repetition of our more earnest Request That these wise and moderate Proposals may be prosecuted and all things be abated us which we have proved or shall prove to be contrary to the Word of God But if we agree not on those things among our selves according to his Majesty's Commission the World may know we did our parts When the Liberty of using the Alterations and Additional Forms which were offered to you according to his Majesty's Declaration would end all our Differences about Matters of Worship And when you have had them in your hands so long since you called for them and have not notwithstanding the Importunity of our Requests vouchsafed us any Debates upon them or Exceptions against them but are pleased to lay them by in silence We once more propose to you Whether the granting of what you cannot blame be not now the shortest and the surest way to a general Satisfaction Note here That I offered to my Brethren two more Particulars as contrary to the Word of God which were 1. That none may have leave in Publick Worship to use a more suitable orderly way but all are confined to this Liturgy which is so defective and disorderly which we are even now ready to manifest if you will receive it 2. That none may be a Minister of the Gospel that dare not subject himself by an Oath of Obedience to the Diocesans in that State of Government which they exercised in this Land contrary to the practice of all Antiquity These Ten Things I offered as contrary to the Word of God but the two Brethren with me thought these two last were better left out lest they occasion new Debates though they judged them true § 208. When I read and delivered these Papers the Bishops were much displeased that I should charge so many things on the Church as Sins Where you may note the marvellous oscitancy of these men that when they had treated with us so long and received so many large Exceptions and Replys and in all had heard us open the sinfulness of their way they should yet imagine that we had accused their way but of inexpediency and think to gratifie themselves by such a poor device But their main design was to divide us while they set us upon distinguishing all their sins from their inexpediences and they thought that one would take that for inexpedient only which others took to be sin And they considered not that we were now treating what should be imposed and not what should be obeyed if it were imposed and that we would charge Sin upon their Impositions in many points which might lawfully be done when Imposed rather than to forsake the Churches And if I did the Church any Service in all these Debates it was principally by frustrating their evil design of dividing us so
Authority yet upon four other grounds it is lawful to take up Arms against his Army 1. Because as Willius and other Politicians say the Majestas realis is in the People 2. Because some Lawyers say That the People of England have as Hooker and Bâ—lson calls them fore-prized Liberties which they may defend and the Parliament hath part of the Legislative Power by the Constitution of the Kingdom 3. Because the Law of Nature and Charity requireth the Defence of our Selves Posterity and Country 4. And because Scripture requireth the same They that will say That the Oath hath left all these Pleas or Evasions for Fighting against the King's Armies do make it utterly useless to the ends for which it was intended and make the Authors to have been strangely blinded 2. Note That he takes the Word Lawful to extend to all Laws of Nature Scripture or whatever And 3. That he takes these Words It is not Lawful to mean no more than I judge or think it is not Lawful As if all our Parliament Men with the Learned Bishops had not had Wit enough to have said so if they had meant so but said one thing and meant another 4. I confess I stick not much on the Fourth Quaere but its plain that the Subject named is capable of various Predicates yea of contrary and of taking Arms may be applied to an opertet a litet a factum est yea or a non licet though the licet I doubt not is their Sense 5. Note That the Answer to the Fifth is a meer putting off the Answer For the Question is Whether the Act of Parliament or the private Commission be more Authoritative And he answereth That which is Lawful which implieth that he was not willing to speak out 6. Note that he plainly concludeth that a Sheriff hath the King's Authority to resist by the Posse Comitatus the King 's Commissioned Officers that would hinder him from Executing the Decrees of a Court of Justice And doth not this either cross the intent of the Imposers or give up the whole Cause Doth it not grant that either it is lawful by the King's Authority given to the Sheriff by the Law c. for him by Arms to resist the King's Commissioners Or else that they be resisted as not Commissioned because their Commission is unlawful And what did the Parliament's Army desire more If a Sheriff by the Sentence of an inferiour Court may raise Arms against the King's Army as not Commissioned you will teach the Parliament to say That their Judgment is greater than an inferiour Court's 7. And it is possible That Commissions may be contrary of the same date who then can know which is the Traytor 8. The Seventh is a putting off the Answer like the Fifth 9. Note especially that of the Eighth Quaere which implyeth divers Instances of Cases in which Grotius Barclay Bilson c. say That it is Lawful to take Arms against the King he seemeth wholly to grant it and maketh it but like a Cavil to suppose that those Cases ever came into the Parliament's Thoughts And I am much in that of the good Man's Mind But if they will Swear me to an Universal while they forget particular Exceptions that will not make the Oath Lawful to me For 1. It is not certain to me That they would have excepted those things if they had remembred them 2. Much less can I tell which and how many things they would have excepted 3. And how could the wit of Man devise Words more exclusive of all Exceptions than to say It is not Lawful on any pretence whatsoever Are those in the Eighth Quaere no pretences whatsoever I dare not thus stretch my Conscience about an Oath when I know that the Authors were Learned Crasty willing to extend it far enough and Men that understood English and spake in a matter of their own Concernment and Employment Therefore by any pretence whatsoever I cannot think that they meant to exclude so many Pretences as the Eighth Case speaks of 10. Note also That he alloweth Parliaments Judges or private Men even by the King's Authority in his Laws to defend their Lives their Houses Estates Purses and Companions against such as are Commissioned to Surprize them Which is because he taketh such to be really no Commissions And so the Parliament and their Army would say in a Word That the King's Commissions to his Armies were no Commissions But this which the Lawyers wholly rest on I think in my Conscience was so contrary to the Imposers Sense that if it had been then mentioned they would have expresly put in some Words against it And if an illegal Commission be no Commission then there are not two sorts of Commissions one legal and the other illegal unless speaking Equivocally And this comes up to what Richard Hooker and the long Parliament said viz. That the King can do no wrong because if it be wrong it is not to be taken for the King's Act. 11. Note also That a Commission must be shewn if required and an illegal one is null And which of the Parliament's Souldiers ever saw the Commissions of those whom they Fought against Not one of many Thousands And was this think you the meaning of the Imposers of the Oath that it should be left to Men's Liberty to take an illegal Commission for none If this were declared who of all the Parliament's Army would not take this part of the Oath 12. To the Eleventh he answereth That the Oath is against altering Monarchy which none doubts of But whether the Power of Parliaments or Courts of Justice be included the good Man thought it not best to understand 13. He thinks that by Government is meant only the Species Monarchy and not the Person of the King as being sufficiently secured elsewhere whereas there is no such limitation in the Words but that he is to be esteemed a Changer of the Government who would depose the King and set up an Usurper 14. But if it do secure the King's Person as I think it doth and should do he thinks it extendeth not to the Persons of the Church-Governours because by Law they may be altered But 1. Here is no difference made in the Oath unless it be that the Government of the Church is put before that of the State 2. Therefore the Question is Whether this Oath be not contrary to those former Laws and do not settle the Bishops and Chancellors as fast as the King As to the plain Sense of the Words I find no difference And as to the meaning of the Law-makers it is hard otherwise to know it seeing they are of so many minds and various degrees of Capacity among themselves 15. And it is here confessed That the Clergy-Government is included yea and that the Oath meaneth the English Species and yet he thinketh that it prohibiteth not lawful Endeavours to make more Bishops and to take down Lay-Chancellors whereas 1. Chancellors are
the King's Consent or Letter of Instructions for what he did which amazed many Hereupon His Majesty Charles II. wrote to the Duke of Ormond and Council to restore his Estate because it appeared to those appointed to examine it that what he did was by his Father's Order or Consent Upon this the Parliament's old Adherents grew more confident than ever of the righteousness of their Wars And the very destroyers of the King whom the first Parliamentarians called Rebels did presume also to justifie their Cause and said that the Law of Nature did warrant them But it stopt not here For the Lord Mazarine and others of Ireland did so far prosecute the Cause as that the Marquess of Antrim was forced to produce in the Parliament of England in the House of Commons a Letter of the King 's Cha I. by which be gave him order for his taking up Arms Which being read in the House did put them into a Silence But yet so egregious was their Loyalty and veneration of Majesty that it put them not at all one step out of the way which they had gone in But the People without Doors talked strangely Some said Did you not perswade us that the King was against the Irish Rebellion And that the Rebels belied him when they said that they had his Warrant or Commission Do we not now see with what Mind he would have gone himself with an Army into Ireland to fight against them A great deal more not here to be mentioned was vended seditiously among the People the Sum of which was intimated in a Pamphlet which was Printed called Murder will out in which they published the King's Letter and Animadversions on it Some that were still Loyal to the King did wish that the King that now is had rather declared that his Father did only give the Marquess of Antrim Commission to raise an Army as to have helped him against the Scots and that his turning against the English Protestants in Ireland and the murdering of so many hundred thousand there was against his Will But quod scriptum erat scriptum erat And though the old Parliamentarians expounded the Actions and Declarations both of the then King and Parliament by the Commentary of this Letter yet so did not the Loyal Royalists or at least thought it no reason to make any change in their Judgments or stop in their Proceedings against the English Presbyterians and other Non-conformable Protestants § 174. In the beginning of December 1670. The Duke of Ormond as he was returning home to Clarendon House in the Night was seized on by six Men who set him on Horseback to have carried him away But he was rescued before they could accomplish it Shortly after some of his Majesty's Life-Guard surprized Sir Iohn Coventrig a Member of the House of Commons and cut his Nose which occasioned a great heat in the House and at last that Act which is newly passed for preventing of the like Many Murders and outrages and cutting of Noses were committed also on other Persons But the greatest Noise was made by certain Dukes and Lords that went in a torrent of Jovialty to a defamed House in a Street called Whetstone-Park and when the wretched Women cryed for help the Beadle came in with some Watchmen and they killed him presently Whilst such things went on the House of Commons was busie about an Act to make all forbidden Meetings for God's Worship Preaching and Praying by the silenced Ministers to be severelier yet punished as Routs and Riots § 175. There happened a great rebuke to the Nobility and Gentry of Dublin in Ireland which is related in their Gazette in these words Dubl Dec. 27. Yesterday happened here a very unfortunate Accident Most of the Nobility and Gentry being at a Play at a publick Playhouse the upper Galleries on a sudden fell all down beating down the second which together with all the People that were in them fell into the Pit and lower Boxes His Excellency the Lord * Lieutenant with his Lady happened to be there but thanks be to God escaped the Danger without any harm part of the Box where they were remaining firm and so resisting the Fall from above only his two Sons were found quite buried under the Timber The younger had received but little hurt but the eldest was taken up deâ—d to all appearance but having presently been let Blood c. recovered There were many dangerously hurt and seven or eight killed outright So far the Gazette About seventeen or eighteen died then and of their Wounds The first Letters that came to London of it filled the City with the report that it was a Play in scorn of Godliness and that I was the Person acted by the Scorner as a Puritan and that he that represented me was set in the Stocks when the fall was and his Leg broke But the Play was Ben. Iohnson's Bartholomew-Fair with a sense added for the times in the which the Puritan is called a Banbury Man and I cannot learn that I was named nor medled with more than others of my Condition unless by the Actor's dress they made any such reflecting Intimations § 176. The Lord Lucas and the Earl of Clare made two vehemently cutting Speeches before the King who now came frequently to the Lord's House The first declaring the frustration of their hopes and the addition of much more to their sufferings Calamities and dangers since the King came in and aggravated the stupendious expence of Moneys and the of the Commons in a Bill then sent up for giving no less than three Millions said he at once and provoking the Lords to stop their Excesses The other was against the King's sitting so ordinarily in the Lord's House and that without his Robes c. There were Copies of the Lord Lucas's Speech given out which encreased the offence and at last it was burned by the Hangman and ere long he died § 177. The Irish Men called the Rebels petitioned the King by the hands of Colonel Richard Talbot a Papist Servant to the Duke of York for a re-hearing against the former Judgments that had deprived many of them of their Lands that so they might be restored to them and the English dispossessed which offended the House of Commons as well as the English Nation and caused some Votes which signified their Offence and the King at present cast aside their Petition § 178. Lamentable Complaints came from the Protestants of France for the severities more and more used against them their Churches pulled down and after Montaban their other University of Lanmors decreed to be prohibited § 179. In the latter end of this Year the Bishops and their Agents gave out their great fears of Popery and greatly lamented that the Dutchess of York was turned Papist and thereupon gave out that they greatly desired that some of the presbyterians as they called even the Episcopal Nonconformists might by some abatement of the New Oaths and
Sorrow but such as tendeth to raise us to a high Estimation of Christ and to the magnifying of Grace and a sweeter taste of the Love of God and to the firmer Resolution against Sin And that Tears and Grief be not commended inordinately for themselves nor as meer Signs of a Converted Person And that we call Men more to look after Duty than after Signs as such â—â—t Self-love on Work and spare not so you will call them much more to the Love of God and let them know that that Love is their best sign but yet to be exercised on a higher Reason than as a sign of our own Hopes for that Motive alone will not produce true Love to God And as the Antinomians too much exclude Humiliation and signs of Grace so too many of late have made their Religion to consist too much in the seeking of these out of their proper time and place without referring them to that Obedience Love and Joy in which true Religion doth principally consist Reader I do but transcribe these three Counsels for thee from a Multitude of Melancholy Persons sad Experiences § 185. This Year Salisbury-Diocess was more fiercely driven on to Conformity by Dr. Seth Ward their Bishop than any place else or than all the Bishops in England besides did in theirs Many Hundreds were Prosecuted by him with great Industry And among others that learned humble holy Gentleman Mr. Thomas Grove an Ancient Parliament-Man of as great Sincerity and Integrity as almost any Man I ever knew He stood it out a while in a Law-Suit but was overthrown and fain to forsake his Countrey as many Hundreds more are quickly like to do § 186. And his Name remembreth me that Ingenuity obligeth me to Record my Benefactor A Brother's Son of his Mr. Rob. Grove is one of the Bishop of London's Chaplains who is the only Man that Licenseth my Writings for the Press supposing them not to be against Law which else I could not expect And besides him alone I could get no Licenser to do it And because being Silenced Writing is the far greatest part of my remaining Service to God for his Church and without the Press my Writings would be in vain I acknowledge that I owe much to this Man and one Mr. Cook the Arch-bishop's Chaplain heretofore that I live not more in vain § 187. And while I am acknowledging my Benefactors I add that this Year died Serjeant Iohn Fountain the only Person from whom I received an Annual Sum of Money which though through God's Mercy I needed not yet I could not in Civility refuse He gave me 10 l. per Ann. from the time of my Silencing 'till his Death I was a Stranger to him before the King's Return save that when he was Judge before he was one of the Keepers of the Great Seal he did our Countrey great Service against Vice He was a Man of a quick and sound Understanding an upright impartial Mind and Life of too much testiness in his weakness but of a most believing serious Fervency towards God and open zealous owning of true Piety and Holiness without owning the little Partialities of Sects as most Men that ever I came near in Sickness When he lay sick which was almost a Year he sent to the Judges and Lawyers that sent to visit him such Answers as these I thank your Lord or Master for his kindness Present my Service to him and tell him It is a great Work to Die well his time is near all worldly Glory must come down intreat him to keep his Integrity over-come Temptations and please God and prepare to Die He deeply bewailed the great Sins of the Times and the Prognosticks of dreadful things which he thought we were in danger of And though in the Wars he suffered Imprisonment for the King's Cause towards the end he came from them and he greatly feared an inundation of Poverty Enemies Popery and Infidelity § 188. The great Talk this Year was of the King 's Adjourning the Parliament again for about a Year longer and whether we should break the Triple League and desert the Hollanders c. § 189. Before they were Adjourned I secretly directed some Letters to the best of the Conforming Ministers telling them how much it would conduce to their own and the Churches Interest if they that might be heard would become Petitioners for such Abatements in Conformity as might let in the Non-conformists and unite us seeing two things would do it 1. The removal of Oaths and Subscriptions save our Subscription to Christianity the Scriptures and the 39 Articles and the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy 2. To give leave to them that cannot use all the Liturgy and Ceremonies to be but Preachers in those Churches where they are used by others submitting to Penalties if ever they be proved to Preach against the Doctrine Government or Worship of the Church or to do any thing against Peace or the Honour of the King and Governours But I could get none to offer such a Petition And when I did but mention our own petitioning the Parliament those that were among them and familiar with them still laught at me for imagining that they were reasonable Creatures or that Reason signified any thing with them in such Matters And thus we were Silenced every way § 190. During the Mayoralty of Sir Samuel Sterling many Jury's Men in London were Fined and Imprisoned by the Judge for not finding certain Quakers guilty of violating the Act against Conventicles They Appealed and sought remedy The Judges remained about a Year in suspense and then by the Lord Chief Justice Vaughan delivered their Resolution against the Judge for the Subject's Freedom from such force of Fines that when he had in a Speech of two or three Hours long spoke vehemently to that purpose never thing since the King's Return was received with greater Joy and Applause by the People and the Judges still taken for the Pillars of Law and Liberty § 191. The Parliament having made the Laws against Nonconformists Preaching and private Religious Meetings c. so grinding and terrible as aforesaid the King who consented to those Laws became the sole Patron of the Nonconformist's Liberties not by any Abatements by Law but by his own Connivance as to the Execution the Magistrates for the most part doing what they perceived to be his Will So that Sir Rich. Ford all the time of his Mayoralty in London though supposed one of their greatest and most knowing Adversaries never disturbed them The Ministers in several Parties were oft encouraged to make their Addresses to the King only to acknowledge his Clemency by which they held their Liberties and to profess their Loyalty Sir Iohn Babor introduced Dr. Manton and some with him Mr. Ennis a Scotch Non-conformist by Sir Rob. Murray introduced Mr. Whittakers Dr. Annesley Mr. Watson and Mr. Vincent's The King as they say themselves told them That though such Acts were made He was against
Persecution and hoped ere long to stand on his own Legs and then they should see how much he was against it By this means many score Nonconformable Ministers in London kept up Preaching in private Houses Some 50 some 100 many 300 and many 1000 or 2000 at a Meeting by which for the present the City's Necessities were much supplied For very few burnt Churches were yet built up again about 3 or 4 in the City which yet never moved the Bishops to relent and give any Favour to the Preaching of Nonconformists And though the best of England of the Conformists for the most part were got up to London alas they were but few And the most of the Religious People were more and more alienated from the Prelates and their Churches § 192. Those that from the beginning thought they saw plainly what was doing lamented all this They thought that it was not without great Wit that seeing only a Parliament was trusted before the King with the People's Liberties and could raise a War against him Interest ruling the World it was contrived that this Parliament should make the severest Laws against the Nonconformists to grind them to dust and that the King should allay the Execution at his pleasure and become their Protector against Parliaments and they that would not consent to this should suffer And indeed the Ministers themselves seemed to make little doubt of this But they thought 1. That if Papists shall have liberty it is as good for them also to take theirs as to be shut out 2. And that it is not lawful for them to refuse their present Liberty though they were sure that Evil were design'd in granting it 3. And that before Men's desigâ—s can come to ripeness God hath many ways to frustrate them and by drawing one Pin can let fall the best contrived Fabrick But still remember that all Attempts to get any Comprehension as it was then called or abatement of the Rigour of the Laws or Legal Liberty and Union were most effectually made void § 193. At this time there was Printed in Holland the Thesis or Exercise Performed at the Commencement for the Degree of Dr. of Law by one of the King's Subjects a Scots-Man Rob. Hamilton In which he largely proveth the Necessity of a standing Treasury in a Kingdom and the power of the King to raise it and impose Tributes without the People's Consent and Dedicating it to the King and largely applying it to England he sheweth that Parliaments have no Legislative Power but what the King giveth them who may take it from them when He seeth Cause and put them down and raise Taxes according to his own Discretion without them And that Parliaments and Mâ—gna Charta are no impediments to him but Toys and that what Charter the former Kings did grant could be no Band on their Successors forgetting that so he would also disoblige the People from the Agreements made by their Predecessors as e. g. that this Family successively shall rule them c. with much more Whom Fame made to be the Animater of this Tractate I pass by § 194. There was this Year a Man much talk'd of for his Enterprises one Major Blood an English-man of Ireland This Man had been a Soldier in the old King's Army against the Parliament and seeing the Cause lost he betook himself towards Ireland to live upon his own Estate In his way he fell in Company with the Lancashire Ministers who were then Writing against the Army and against all violence to King or Parliament Blood being of an extraordinary Wit falls acquainted with them and not thinking that the Presbyterians had been so true to the King he is made the more capable of their Counsel so that in short he became a Convert and married the Daughter of an honest Parliament Man of that Countrey And after this in Ireland he was a Justice of Peace and Famous for his great Parts and upright Life and success in turning many from Popery When the King was Restored and he saw the old Ministers Silenced in the Three Kingdoms and those that had Surprized Dublin-Castle for the King from the Anabaptists cast aside and all things go contrary to his Judgment and Expectation being of a most bold and resolute Spirit he was one that plotted the Surprizing of the D. of Ormond and of Dublin Castle But being deâ—ected and prevented he fled into England There he lived disguised practising Physick called Dr. Clarke at Rumford When some Prisoners were carried to be put to Death at York for a Plot he followed and Rescued them and set them free At last it was found to be He with his Son and three or four more that attempted to Surprize the D. of Ormond and to have carried him to Holland where he had a Bank of Money and to have made him there to pay his Arrears Missing of that Exploit he made a bolder Attempt even to fetch the King's Crown and Jewels out of the Tower where pretending Friendship to the Keeper of it He with two more his Son and one Perrot suddenly Gagg'd the old Man and when he cryed out he struck him on the Head but would not kill him and so went away with the Crown But as soon as ever they were gone the Keeper's Son cometh in and finds his Father and heareth the Cafe and runs out after them and Blood and his Son and Perrot were taken Blood was brought to the King and expected Death but he spake so boldly that all admired him telling the King How many of his Subjects were disobliged and that he was one that took himself to be in a State of Hostility and that he took not the Crown as a Thief but an Enemy thinking that lawful which was lawful in a War and that he could many a time have had the King in his power but that he thought his Life was better for them than his Death lest a worse succeed him and that the number of Resolute Men disobliged were so great as that if his Life were taken away it would be revenged That he intended no hurt to the Person of the D. of Ormond but because he had taken his Estate from him he would have forced him to restore the value in Money and that he never Robb'd nor shed Blood which if he would have done he could easily have kill'd Ormond and easily have carried away the Crown In a word he so behaved himself that the King did not only release and pardon him but admit him frequently to his presence Some say because his Gallantry took much with the King having been a Soldier of his Father's Most say That he put the King in fear of his Life and came off upon Condition that he would endeavour to keep the discontented Party quiet § 195. Mr. Bagshaw in his rash and ignorant Zeal thinking it a Sin to hear a Conformist and that the way to deal with the Persecutors was to draw all the People as far from
while these envious Preachers cryed out against our Preaching and perswaded men how fully we were maintained they laboured for Laws to increase their setled maintenance and some of them in my hearing Preached how miscrable a case the Clergy were in were they left to the people's kindness and bounty And yet proclaim our fulness who are left to the kindness of those few who also pay fully their Tythes to the Parish Ministers who these Envyers say are but the smaller and poorer sort in the Land which comparatively is true though by this time I think the far greatest part are grown into dislike with the present Prelates who yet cleave to their Church And if their noble rich and numerous followers would leave them in want were they left to their Charity it seems they take their Church to consist of men much more covetous and less Religious and liberal than our few poor men § 261. The Lord's day before the Parliament was dissolved one of these Prelatists Preached to them to perswade them that we are obstinate and not to be tolerated nor cured by any means but Vengeance urging them to set Fire to the Fagot and teach us by Scourges or Scorpions and open our eyes with Gall. Yet none of these men will procure us leave to publish or offer to Authority the Reasons of our Non-conformity But this is not the first proof that a carnal worldly proud ungodly Clergie who never were serious in their own professed belief nor felt the power of what they Preach have been in most Ages of the Church its greatest plague and the greatest hinderers of Holiness and Concord by making their formalities and Ceremonies the test of Holiness and their Worldly Interest and Domination the only cement of Concord And O how much hath Satan done against Christ's Kingdom in the World by setting up Pastors and Rulers over the Churches to fight against Christ in his own name and livery and to destroy piety and peace by a pretence of promoting them § 262. This foresaid Preacher brings to my remembrance a Silenced Minister who heard the Sermon Mr. Iohn Humphrey a man not strait and factious in Doctrin Government or Worship as his Books shew for the middle way about Election Justification c. and his former Writings for giving the Lord's Supper to the Ungodly to convert them and his own Reordination and writing for Reordination The former Sessions of Parliamen he printed a sheet for Concord by restoring some silenced Ministers and tolerating others for which he was Imprisoned as was Dr. Ludovicus Molinaeus M. D. Son to old Peter for writing his Patronus against the Prelatists but delivered by the Common Act of Pardon And this Session the said Mr. Humphrey again printed another sheet and put it into the hands of many Parliament men which though slighted and frustrate by the Prorogation of the House yet I think hath so much reason in it that I shall here annex it though it speak not at all to the righteousness of our Cause and the Reasons of our Non-conformity that the Reader may see upon what Terms we stood But the truth is when we were once contrived into the Parliament's Inquisition and persecution it was resolved that we should be saved by the King or not at all and that Parliaments and Laws should be our Tormenters and not our Deliverers any more Mr. Iohn Humphrey's Papers given to the Parliament-Men Comprehension with Indulgence Nihil est jam dictum quod non fuit dictum prius Terence IT hath pleased his Majesty by several gracious Overtures to commend a Union of his Protestant Subject to the consideration of a Parliament A design full of all Princely Wisdom Honesty and Goodness In this Atchievement there is a double Interest I apprehend to be distinguished and weighed that of Religion it self and that of the Nation The advance of Religion doth consist much in the Unity of its Professors both in Opinion and Practice to be of one Mind and one Heart and one way in Discipline and Worship so far as may be according to the Scriptures The advance of the Nation does lie in the freedom and flourishing of Trade and uniting the whole Body in the common Benefit and dependence on the Government The one of these bespeaks an Established Order and Accommodation the other bespeaks Indulgence Liberty of Conscience or to eration For while People are in danger about Religion we dare not launch out into Trade say they but we must keep our Moneys being we know not into what straits we shall be driven and when in reference to their Party they are held under severity it is easie for those who are designing Heads to mould them into Wrath and Faction which without that occasion will melt and dissolve it self into bare Dissent of Opinion peaceably rejoycing under the Enjoyment of Protection The King we know is concerned as Supreme Governour and as a Christian Protestant Governour As he is King he is to seek the welfare of the Nation as he is a Christian the Flourishing of Religion and the Protestant Religion particularly is his Interest as this Kingdom doth lie in Ballance he being the chief Party with its Neighbour Nations The Judgment now of some is for a Comprehending Act which may take in those who are for our Parochial Churches that severity then might be used for reclaiming all whosoever separate from them The Judgment of some others is for a free and equal Act of Grace to all indifferently the Papists with most excepted whether separatists or others abhorring Comprehension as more dangerous to them upon that Account mentioned than all the Acts that have passed Neither of these Judge up to the full interest of the King and Kingdom as is proposed It becomes not the Presbyterian if his Principles will admit him to own our Parochial Churches and enjoy a Living to be willing to have his Brethren the Independents given up to Persecution And it becomes not the Separatist if he may but enjoy his Conscience to Repine or envy at the Presbyterian for reaping any further Emolument seeing both of them supposing the later may do so have as much at the bottom as can be in their Capacities desired of either It is an Act therefore of a mixt Complexion providing both Comprehension and Indulgence for the different Parties must serve our Purpose And to this end as we may humbly hope there is a Bill at present in the House A Bill for the ease of the Protestant Dissenter in the business of Religion Which that upon this present Prorogation it may be cast into this Model I must present the same yet in a little farther Explication There are two sorts we all know of the Protestant Dissenters one that own the Established Ministry and our Parish Congregations and are in Capacity of Union upon that account desiring it heartily upon condescension to them in some small matters The other that own not our Churches and so are
the King to remove him from all publick Enployment and Trust His chief accusing Witness was Mr. Burnet late Publick-Professor of Theologie at Glascow who said That he askt him whether the Scots Army would come into England and said What if the Dissenting Scots should Rise an Irish Army should cut their Throats c. But because Mr. Burnet had lately magnified the said Duke in an Epistle before a published book many thought his witness now to be more unfavoury and revengefull Every one judging as they were affected But the King sent them Answer That the words were spoken before his late Act of pardon which if he should Violate it might cause jelousies in his Subjects that he might do so also by the Act of Indemnity § 294. Their next Assault was against the Lord Treasurer who found more Friends in the House of Commons who at last acquitted him § 295. But the great work was in the House of Lords where an Act was brought in to impose such an Oath on Lords Commons and Magistrates as is Imposed by the Oxford-Act of Confinement on Ministers and like the Corporation-Oath of which more anon It was now supposed that the bringing the Parliament under this Oath and Test was the great work which the House was to perform The Summ was That none Commissioned by the King may be by Arms resisted and that they would never endeavour any alteration of the Government of Church or State Many Lords spake vehemently against it as destructive to the Privileges of their House which was to Vote freely and not to be preobliged by an Oath to the Prelates The Lord Treasurer the Lord Keeper with Bishop Morley and Bishop Ward were the great Speakers for it And the Earl of Shaftsbury Lord Hollis the Lord Hallifax the D. of Buckingham the Earl of Salisbury the chief Speakers against it They that were for it being the Major part many of the rest Entered their Protestation against it The Protesters the first time for they protested thrice more afterward were the Duke of Buckingham the Marquess of Winchester the Earls of Salisbury Bristol Barkshire § 296. The Protesting Lords having many days striven against the Test and being overvoted attempted to joyn to it an Oath for Honesty and Conscience in these words I do swear that I will never by threats injunctions promises or invitations by or from any person whatsoever nor from the hopes or prospects of any gift place office or trust whatever give my vote other than according to my opinion and conscience as I shall be truly and really perswaded upon the debate of any business in Parliament But the Bishops on their side did cry it down and cast it out § 297. The Debating of this Text did more weaken the Interest and Reputation of the Bishops with the Nobles than any thing that ever befel them since the King came in so much doth unquiet overdoing tend to undoing The Lords that would not have heard a Nonconformist say half so much when it came to be their own case did long and vehemently plead against that Oath and Declaration as imposed on them which they with the Commons had before imposed on others And they exercised so much liberty for many days together in opposing the Bishops and free and bold speeches against their Test as greatly turned to the Bishops Disparagement especially the Earl of Shaftsbury the Duke of Buckingham the Earl of Bristol the Marquess of Winchester the Earl of Salisbury the Lord Hollis the Lord Hallifax and the Lord of Alesbury Which set the Tongues of Men at so much liberty that the common talk was against the Bishops And they said that upon Trial there were so few found among all the Bishops that were able to speak to purpose Bishop Morley of Winchester and Bishop Ward of Salisbury being their chief Speakers that they grew very low also as to the Reputation of their parts § 298. At last though the Test was carried by the Majority yet those that were against it with others prevailed to make so great an alteration of it as made it quite another thing and turned it to the greatest disadvantage of the Bishops and the greatest accommodation of the Cause of the Nonconformists of any thing that this Parliament hath done For they reduced it to these words of a Declaration and an Oath I A. B. do declare That it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King And that I do abhor that Traiterous Position of taking Arms by His Authority against His Person or against those that are Commissioned by him according to Law in time of Rebellion and War in acting in pursuance of such Commission I A. B. do Swear that I will not endeavour an Alteration of the Protestant Religion now established by Law in the Church of England nor will I endeavour any Alteration in the Government of this Kingdom in Church or State as it is by Law Established § 299. This Declaration and Oath thus altered was such as the Nonconformists would have taken if it had been offered them in stead of the Oxford-Oath the Subscription for Uniformity the Corporation and Vestry Declaration But the Kingdom must be Twelve years rackt to Distraction and 1800 Ministers forbidden to Preach Christ's Gospel upon pain of utter ruin and Cities and Corporations all New-Modelled and Changed by other kind of Oaths and Covenants and when the Lords find the like obtruded on themselves they reject it as intolerable And when it past they got in this Proviso That it should be no hinderance to their Free-Speaking and Voting in the Parliament Many worthy Ministers have lost their Lives by Imprisonments and many Hundred their Maintenance and Liberty and that opportunity to serve God in their Callings which was much of the comfort of their Lives and mostly for refusing what the Lords themselves at last refuse with such another Declaration But though Experience teach some that will no otherwise learn it is sad with the World when their Rulers must learn to Govern them at so dear a rate and Countreys Cities Churches and the Souls of Men must pay so dear for their Governours Experience § 300. The following Explication will tell you That there is nothing in this Oath and Declaration to be refused 1. I do declare That it is not lawful can mean no more but that I think so and not that I pretend to Infallible certainly therein 2. To take Arms against the King That is either against his Formal Authority as King or against His Person Life or Liberty or against any of His Rights and Dignity And doubtless the Person of the King is inviâ—â—able and so are His Authority and Rights not only by the Laws but by the very Constitution of the Kingdom For every Common-wealth being essentially constituted of the Pars Imperans and pars subdita materially the Union of these is the Form of it and the Dissolution is the Death of it And
intend only Bishops and King by Church and State 1. It would suppose that King and Parliament do take Bishops and King for two coordinate Heads in governing the Kingdom 2. And that they set the Bishops before the King which is not to be supposed 5. And to put all out of question the Oath is but Conform to former Statutes Oaths Articles of Religion and Canons 1. The Statutes which declare the King to be only Supreme Governour of the Church I need not cite 2. The Oath of Supremacy is well known of all 3. The very first Canon is that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and all Bishops c. shall faithfully keep and observe all the Laws for the King's Supremacy over the Church of England in causes Ecclesiastical And the 2d Canon is to condemn the dangers of it And the 36. Canon obligeth all Ministers to subscribe that the King's Majesty under God is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm as well in all spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal And as the Parliament are called the Representative of the People or Kingdom as distinct from the Head so the 139. Canon excommunicateth all them that affirm that the Sacred Synod of this Nation in the Name of Christ and by the King's Authority Aslembled is not the true Church of England by Representation So that they claim to be but the Representative of the Church as it is the Body distinct from the Head Christ aud the King as their chief Governour 4. And all that are Ordained are likewise to take the Oath of Supremacy I do utterly testify and declare in my Conscience that the King's Highness is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or Causes as Temporal 5. And It is also inserted in the Articles of Religion Art 35. And it is added expositorily Where we attribute to the Queen's Majesty the Chief Government by which title we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended we give not to our Princes the Ministring either of God's Word or of the Sacraments but that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastcal or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the Stubborn and evil Doers Here it is to be noted that though no doubt but the Keys of Excommunication and absolution belong to the Pastors and to the Civil Magistrate yet the Law and this Article by the word Government mean only Coercive Government by the Sword and do include the power of the Keys under the title of Ministring the Word and Sacraments Church Guidance being indeed nothing else but the Explication and Application of God's word to Cases and Consciences and administring the Sacraments accordingly So that as in the very Article of Religion Supreme Government appropriated to the King only is contradistinguish'd from Ministring the Word and Sacraments which is not called Government there so are we to understand this Law and Oath And many Learned Men think that Guidance is a fitter name than Government for the Pastor's Office And therefore Grotius de Imper. Sum. Pot. would rather have the Name Canons or Rulers used than Laws as to their Determinations Though no doubt but the name Government may be well applyed to the Pastor's Part so we distinguish as Bilston and other judicious men use to do calling one Government by God's Word upon the Conscience and the other Government by the sword as seconding Precepts with enforcing penalties and Mulcts § 301. While this Test was carrying on in the house of Lords and 500 pounds Voted to be the penalty of the Refusers before it could come to the Commons a difference fell between the Lords and Commons about their priviledges by occasion of two Suits that were brought before the Lords in which two Members of the Commons were parties which occasioned the Commons to send to the Tower Sir Iohn Fagg one of their Members for appearing at the Lords Bar without their consent and four Counsellours Sir Iohn Churchill Sergeant Pemberton Sergeant Pecke and another for pleading there And the Lords Voted it Illegal and that they should be released Sir Iohn Robinson Lieutenant of the Tower obeyed the Commons for which the Lords Voted him a Delinquent And so far went they in daily Voting at each other that the King was fain to Prorogue the Parliament Iune 9. till October 13. there appearing no hope of Reconciling them Which rejoiced many that they rose without doing any further harm § 302. Iune 9. Keting the Informer being commonly detested for prosecuting me was cast in Gaol for Debt and wrote to me to endeavour his Deliverance which I did and in his Letters saith Sir I assure you I do verily believe that God hath bestowed all this affliction on me because I was so vile a wretch as to trouble you And I assure you I never did a thing in my Life that hath so much troubled my self as that did I pray God forgive me And truly I do not think of any that went that way to work that ever God would favour him with his mercy And truly without a great deal of mercy from God I do not think that ever I shall thrive or prosper And I hope you will be pleased to pray to God for me c. § 303. A while before another of the chief Informers of the City and my Accuser Marishall died in the Counter where his Creditors laid him to keep him from doing more harm Yet did not the Bishops change or cease Two more Informers were set on work who first assaulted Mr. Case's Meeting and next got in as hearers into Mr. Read's Meeting where I was Preaching And when they would have gone out to fetch Justices for they were known the doors were lockt to keep them in till I had done and one of them supposed to be sent from Fullum stayed weeping Yet went they straight to the Justices and the week following heard me again as Informers at my Lectures but I have not yet heard of their Accusation § 304. But this week Iune 9. Sir Thamas Davis notwithstanding all his foresaid Warnings and Confessions sent his Warrants to a Justice of the Division where I dwell to distrein on me upon two Judgments for 50 pounds for Preaching my Lecture in New-street Some Conformists are paid to the value of 20 pounds a Sermon for their Preaching and I must pay 20 pounds and 40 pounds a Sermon for Preaching for nothing O what Pastors hath the Church of England who think it worth all their unwearied Labours and all the odium which they contract from the People to keep such as I am from Preaching the Gospel of Christ and to undo us for it as far as they are able though these many years they do not for they cannot
that Power which they convey to others first in themselves to convey at least in ordinando pares but are only media applicandi legem ad personam Ad 3 um To your Third Argument I answer Invaders of the Ministerial Office may unjustly take Encouragement hence but no just Encouragement is given them The best things are Occasions of encouraging Men in Sin e. g. God's Mercifulness Christ's Satisfaction the Preaching of Free-Grace c. To your Question if this be sufficient why do we not give them the Right Hand of Fellowship I answer They despise or neglect God's Order and therefore deserve not the Hand of Fellowship If God bid them go and work in his Vineyard but for Order's sake go in at this Door he that will not go in at this Door is a disobedient Servant and not to be owned till he reform But if God himself do nail up this Door there needs no express Dispensation for our not going in at it for nemo tenetur ad impossibile nisi ipse sit Causa culpabilis impossibilitatis Nor is it necessary that it be expressed that we go in at another Door for the Command of going to labour in the Vineyard is not abrogated by the locking up of that Door seeing as it was opened non ut fiat opus directly sed ut sic fiat so it is nailed up non ne fiat sed ne sic fiat and therefore the Command requires us to go in at another If by Law every Physician that Practiceth in London must be approved by the Colledge he deserves to be punisht and not taken for a Physician that will profess and practice it without the Approbation of the Colledge and every wise Patient will fear least he be Conscious of such Unworthiness as that he dares not venture a Tryal or at the best he is a disobedient Subject But if the Colledge of Physicians be dead or dissolved any worthy Man may profess and practice without their Approbation and as the law of Nature binds him to do Good so the Obligation that limited him is ipso facto dissolved cessante materia where you say that this extream necessity is their Case I answer Nothing more untrue They slight and despise Ordination they may be ordained if they would submit themselves to tryal if they be found fit But they will not Their false Imaginations create no necessity but a necessity of laying them by and receiving the Truth which is imposed on them by God or if they will call it a Necessity that is imposed on them by their Error it is but a Necessity of not being ordained while they judge it sinful which yet is none because they are still bound to lay by that Conceit but not a Necessity of being Ministers in the mean time without it Besides that as it is a Necessity of Suspension 〈◊〉 Forbearance and not of Acting so it is themselves that are the culpable Cause 〈◊〉 it and exculpa propria nemini debetur commodum If Vaux think he must blow up the Parliament and Ravailliack that he must stab a King doth this necessitate them Such a Necessity as every wicked Man brings on himself of sinning by a Custom in Sin which aggravates and not excuseth his Fault which is evident when the Case is made plain by God and only their Negligence or sinful Prejudice hindereth them from Recovery out of their Error For the Grant that you desire I say I am loath to yield that Christ hath no known Ministry on Earth that I may keep out Invaders To your Case about Apostacy I answer There are many other Cases that may necessitate an Entrance into the Ministry without Ordination besides universal Apostacy 1. So great an Apostacy as was in the Arrian Prevalency 2. Such unlawful Ingredients as are in the Romish Ordination 3. The Death or the violent Proscription of the Ordainers in one Kingdom For if all that are found to work in the Vineyard to exercise the Ministry must but go to another Land for it Poverty Weakness Magistrates Prohibition may so restrain them that not one of a Hundred could enter when God doth by the Churches Necessity call to it Much less could all the World travail for Ordaination to some Corner of the Earth As for the Churches Officers which you mention that went along in Reformation it 's true of Presbyters they were the Leaders but so few Bishops out of England that the Reformed Churches were forced to go on without their Ordination But to this Day there is a necessity of Preaching without Ordination by legitimate Church Guides in many Parts of the World and I doubt not but it is the great Sin of many that it is neglected I suppose did you consider well but the Sence of the Law Natural and Supernaturally revealed you would not be so inclinable to turn Seeker nor to expect new Miracles Apostles or Revelations upon the Supposition you make and for all your Words if it came to the Practice I do not believe that you have so hard a Heart so unmerciful a Nature as to leave this one Nation much less all the World to that apparent danger of Everlasting Damnation and God's publick Worship to be utterly cast out if I can but prove that the Succession of Legitimate Church Ordination is interrupted Ad 4 um To your Fourth Argument I answer I am as far from believing Imposition of Hands essential to Ordination as any of the rest The Bishop that was last save one in this Diocess was so lame of the Gout that he could not move his Hand to ones Head and though his Chaplain did his best to help him yet I could not well tell whether I might call it Imposition of Hands when I saw it Yet I never heard any on that Ground suspect a nullity in his Ordination Nor do I think that a Bishop loseth all his Power of Ordination if he loss his Hands or the Motion of them 1. Imposition of Hands was an old Custom in a Superiors Act of Benediction or setting a part to Office and conveying Power and not newly instituted by Christ but continued as a well known Sign and therefore not of such Necessity as you imagin 2. The End will shew much the degree of Necessity If it be evident that the End was but the Solemnizing of the Work by a convenient Ceremony then it is not essential to Ordination or Authorizing But c. Ergo 3. God did not lay such a stress on Ceremonies no not under the Ceremonial Law no not on the great initiating Sign and Seal of Circumcision without which Men were entered and continued in his Church for Forty Years in the Wilderness Your Argument is Christ hath revealed to his Church that it is his Mind or Will that his Church's Officers be set apart by Imposition of Hands Ergo It followeth that Imposition of Hands is necessary and essential to their Seperation Answ. Negatur sequela It follows a praecepto only
of his publick Ministry in London p. 301. His going to the Archbishop to beg a License p. 302. His Majesty's Commission for the Savoy Conference p. 303. an Account of what past at the Conference p. 305. Exceptions that Mr. Baxter drew up against the Common Prayer at that time p. 308. the Exceptions against the Book of Common Prayer that were deliver'd in to the Commissioners p. 316 c. Of the choice of the Convocation and of Mr. Calamy and Mr. Baxter for London p. 333. a further account of the Conference p. 334 c. a Paper then offer'd by Dr. Cosins about a way to terminate the differences with an Answer to it p. 341 c. An Account of the Dispute manag'd in Writing at that time between Dr. Pierson Dr. Gunning Dr. Sparrow and Dr. Pierce and Dr. Bates Dr. Jacomb and Mr. Baxter who were deputed for that purpose p. 346 c. A Reply to the Bishops Disputants which was not answer'd p. 350. a Continuation of the Conference p. 356. a Copy of the Part of the Bishops Divines in the Disputation p. 358. A Censure of this Conference and Account of the Managers of it p. 363. of the Ministers going up to the King after the Conference p. 365. the Petition they presented to his Majesty on that occasion p. 366. to which by reason of their Affinity is annexed a Copy of the Concessions that were made by Bishop Usher Bishop Williams Bishop Moreton Bishop Holdsworth and many others in a Committee at Westminster 1641. p. 369. Books written against Mr. Baxter by Mr. Nanfen Dr. Tompkins and others p. 373. He goes to Kidderminster to try if he might be permitted to preach there p. 374. Bishop Morley and his Dean endeavour to set the people there against him p. 375 376. Bp. Morley and Dr. Boreman write against him p. 377. Mr. Bagthaw writes against the Bishop p. 378. Of the surreptitious publication of the Savoy Conference p. 379. other assaults that Mr. Baxter met with p. 380. a false report rau'd of him by Dr. Earls p. 381. a Letter of Mr. Baxter's to him on that occasion with his answer to it p. 382. Divers Ministers imprison'd particularly in Worcestershire on occasion of a pretended Conspiracy p. 383. Of BLACK BARTHOLOMEW DAY 1662. wherein so many Ministers were silenc'd p. 384. of the sad consequences of that day p. 385. Mr. Calamy's imprisonment for preaching occasionally after the silencing p. 386. the state of the Conformists and Nonconformists in England at that time p. 336. the sum of their several Causes and the Reasons of their several ways p. 387 c. Of the King's Declaration Dec. 26. 1662. p. 430. Old Mr. Ashes Death and Character ibid Mr. James Nalton's Death and Character p. 431. How Mr. Baxter and Dr. Bates had like to have been apprehended for going to pray with a sick person p. 431. of the imprisonment of divers Ministers about the Country p. 432. Strange Iudgments of God about this time turn'd by the Devil to his own advantage ibid. Much talk about an Indulgence or a Comprehension in 1663. p. 433. An Answer sent in a Letter to an honourable Person at that time to this Question Whether the way of Comprehension or Indulgence be more desirable p. 434. But the Parliament that then sate considerably added to former rigour p. 435. Mr. Baxter and others go to the Assemblies of the Church of England p. 436. His Answer to the Objections against this practice and Reasons for it p. 438. He retires to Acton p. 440. A Letter to Mr. Baxter from Monsieur Amyraut another from Monsieur Sollicoffer a Switzer which by reason of the Iealousies he was under he thought not fit to answer p. 442. He debates with some ejected Ministers the Case about Communicating sometimes with the Parish Churches in the Sacraments p. 444. A Letter from my Lord Ashley with a special Case about the lawfulness of a Protestant Lady's marrying a Papist in hope of his Conversion with Mr. Baxter's reply p. 445. PART III. Written for the most part in the year 1670. OF the Plague in the year 1665 p. 1. during the Sickness some of the ejected Ministers preach in the City Churches p. 2. at the same time the Five-mile Act was fram'd at Oxford ibid a Censure of the Act p. 3. the reasons of mens refusal to take the Oath imposed by that Act p. 5. Queries upon the Oxford Oath p. 7. further Reflections on it p. 10. Twenty Nonconforming Ministers take this Oath p. 13. a Letter from Dr. Baâ—es to Mr. Baxter about that affair p. 14. of the Dutch War p. 16. of the Fire of London ibid. of the Instruments of the Fire p. 18. The Nonconformists set up seperate publick Meetings p. 19. of the burning of our Ships at Chatham by the Dutch p. 20. the disgrace and banishment of my Lord Chancellour Hide ibid. Sir Orlando Bridgman made Lord Keeper p. 22. the Nonconformists conniv'd at in their Meetings ib. Mr. Baxter sent for to the Lord Keeper about a Toleration and Comprehension p. 23. Proposals then offer'd by Mr. Baxter and others p. 24. the Lord Keeper's Proposals p. 25. Alterations made by Mr. Baxter and his Associates in his Proposals p. 27. falsly pag'd 35. Reasons of these Alterations p. 28. falsly pag'd 36. Alterations of the Liturgy c. then offer'd p. 31. falsly pag'd 39. two new Proposals added and accepted with alterations p. 34. an Address of some Presbyterian Ministers to the King with a Letter of Dr. Manton's to Mr. Baxter about it p. 36. great talk of Liberty at this time but none ensued p. 38. Of the Book call'd A Friendly Debate p. 39. of Parker's Ecclesiastical Policy p. 41. of Dr. Owen's Answer and Parker's Reply p. 42. An Apologue or two familiarly representing the Heats and Feuds of those times p. 43 c. Mr. Baxter's further account of himself while he remain'd at Acton p. 46. of his acquaintance with worthy Sir Matth. Hale p. 47. of the disturbance he receiv'd at Acton p. 48. he is sent to New Prison p. 49. a Narrative of his Case at that time p. 51. the Errours of his Mittimus with an Explication of the Oxford Act p. 56. His Reflections during his imprisonment p. 58. His Release and perplexity thereupon p. 60. His Benefactours while in prison ibid. His bodily weakness ibid. An Account of his Writings since 1665. p. 61. on Account of a Treaty between him and Dr. Owen about an Agreement between the Presbyterians and the Independants p. 61. a Letter of Dr. Owen's to Mr. Baxter about that matter p. 63. Mr. Baxter's Reply to it p. 64. how it was dropp'd p. 69. of his Methodus Theologiae ibid. and some other Writings p. 70. the heat of some of his old people at Kidderminster p. 73. the renewal of the Act against Conventicles p. 74. Dr. Manton's imprisonment ibid. Great offers made to Mr. Baxter by the Earl of Lauderdail if he would go
Church the bowing to Altars the Book for Sports on Sundays the Casting out of Ministers the troubling of the People by the High-Commission Court the Pilloring and Cutting off Mens Ears Mr. Burtons Mr. Prins and Dr. Bastwicks for speaking against the Bishops the putting down Lectures and Afternoon Sermons and Expositions on the Lord's Days with such other things which they thought of greater weight than Ship-money But because these later agreed with the former in the Vindication of the Peoples Propriety and Liberties the former did the easilier concur with them against the Proceedings of the Bishops and High Commission Court And as soon as their Inclination was known to the People all Countreys sent in their Complaints and Petitions It was presently known how many Ministers Bishop Wren and others of them had suspended and silenced how many thousand Families had been driven to flie into Holland and how many thousand into New-England Scarce a Minister had been Silenced that was alive but it was put into a Petition Mr. Peter Smart of Durham and Dr. Layton a Scotch Physician who wrote a Book called Sion's Plea against the Prelates were released out of their long Imprisonment Mr. Burton Mr. Prin and Dr. Bastwick who as is said had been pillored and their Ears cut off and they sent into a supposed perpetual Imprisonment into the distant Castles of Gernsey Iersey and Carnarvon were all set free and Damages voted them for their wrong And when they came back to London they were met out of the City by abundance of the Citizens with such Acclamations as could not but seem a great Affront to the King and be much displeasing to him The Lord Keeper Finch and Secretary Windebank fled beyond Sea and saved themselves The guilty Judges were deeply accused and some of them imprisoned for the Cause of Ship-money But the great Displeasure was against the Lord Deputy Wentworth and Archbishop Laud Both these were sent to the Tower and a Charge drawn up against them and managed presently against the Lord Deputy by the ablest Lawyers and Gentlemen of the House This held them work a considerable time The King was exceeding unwilling to consent unto his death and therefore used all his skill to have drawn off the Parliament from so hot a Prosecution of him And now began the first Breach among themselves For the Lord Falkland the Lord Digby and divers other able Men were for the sparing of his Life and gratifying the King and not putting him on a thing so much displeasing to him The rest said If after the Attempt of Subverting the Fundamental Laws and Liberties no one Man shall suffer Death it will encourage others hereafter to the like The Londoners petitioned for Iustice And too great numbers of Apprentices and others being imboldened by the Proceedings of the Parliament and not fore-knowing what a Fire the Sparks of their temerity would kindle did too triumphingly and disorderly urge the Parliament crying Iustice Iustice. And it is not unlikely that some of the Parliament-men did encourage them to this as thinking that some backward Members would be quickned by Popular Applause And withal to work on the Members also by disgrace some insolent Painter did seditiously draw the Pictures of the chief of them that were for saving the Lord Deputy and called them the Straffordians he being Earl of Strafford and hang'd them with their Heels upward on the Exchange Though it cannot be expected that in so great a City there should be no Persons so indiscreet as to commit such disorderly Actions as these yet no sober Men should countenance them or take part with them whatever ends might be pretended or intended The King called these Tumults the Parliament called them the Cities Petitioning Those that connived at them were glad to see the People of their mind in the main and thought it would do much to facilitate their Work and hold the looser Members to their Cause For though the House was unanimous enough in condemning Ship-money and the Et caetera Oath and the Bishops Innovations c. yet it was long doubtful which side would have the major Vote in the matter of the Earl of Strafford's Death and such other Acts as were most highly displeasing to the King But disorderly means do generally bring forth more Disorders and seldom attain any good end for which they are used § 28. The Parliament also had procured the King to consent to several Acts which were of great importance and emboldened the People by confirming their Authority As an Act against the High Commission Court and Church-mens Secular or Civil Power and an Act that this Parliament should not be dissolved till its own Consent alledging that the dissolving of Parliaments emboldened Delinquents and that Debts and Disorders were so great that they could not be overcome by them in a little time Also an Act for Triennial Parliaments And the People being confident that all these were signed by the King full sore against his will and that he abhorred what was done did think that the Parliament which had constrained him to this much could carry it still in what they pleased and so grew much more regardful of the Parliament and sided with them not only for their Cause and their own Interest but also as supposing them the stronger side which the Vulgar are still apt to follow § 29. But to return to my own matters This Parliament among other parts of their Reformation resolved to reform the corrupted Clergy and appointed a Committee to receive Petitions and Complaints against them which was no sooner understood but multitudes in all Countreys came up with Petitions against their Ministers The King and Parliament were not yet divided but concurred and so no partaking in their Differences was any part of the Accusation of these Ministers till long after when the Wars had given the occasion and then that also came into their Articles but before it was only matter of Insufficiency false Doctrine illegal Innovations or Scandal that was brought in against them Mr. Iohn White being the Chair-man of the Committee for Scandalous Ministers as it was called published in print one Century first of Scandalous Ministers with their Names Places and the Articles proved against them where so much ignorance insufficiency drunkenness filthiness c. was charged on them that many moderate men could have wished that their Nakedness had been rather hid and not exposed to the Worlds derision and that they had remembred that the Papists did stand by and would make sport of it Another Century also was after published Among all these Complainers the Town of Kederminster in Worcestershire drew up a Petition against their Ministers The Vicar of the place they Articled against as one that was utterly insufficient for the Ministry presented by a Papist unlearned preached but once a quarter which was so weakly as exposed him to laughter and perswaded them that he understood not the very Substantial Articles of
the People this Protestation which caused some to be offended with me About that time the Parliament sent down an Order for the demolishing of all Statues and Images of any of the three Persons in the blessed Trinity or of the Virgin Mary which should be found in Churches or on the Crosses in Church-yards My Judgment was for the obeying of this Order thinking it came from just Authority but I medled not in it but left the Churchwarden to do what he thought good The Churchwarden an honest sober quiet Man seeing a Crucifix upon the Cross in the Church-yard set up a Ladder to have reacht it but it proved too short whilst he was gone to seek another a Crew of the drunken riotous Party of the Town poor Journey-men and Servants took the Allarm and run altogether with Weapons to defend the Crucifix and the Church Images of which there were divers left since the time of Popery They Report was among them that I was the Actor and it was me they sought but I was walking almost a mile out of Town or else I suppose I had there ended my days when they mist me and the Churchwarden both they went raving about the Streets to seek us Two Neighbours that dwelt in other Parishes hearing that they sought my Life ran in among them to see whether I were there and they knockt them both down in the Streets and both of them are since dead and I think never perfectly recovered that hurt When they had foamed about half an hour and met with none of us and were newly housed I came in from my walk and hearing the People Cursing at me in their Doors I wondered what the matter was but quickly found how fairly I had scaped The next Lord's Day I dealt plainly with them and laid open to them the quality of that Action and told them Seeing they so required me as to seek my Blood I was willing to leave them and save them from that Guilt But the poor Sots were so amazed and ashamed that they took on sorrily and were loth to part with me § 57. About this time the King's Declarations were read in our Market-place and the Reader a violent Country Gentleman seeing me pass the Streets stopt and said There goeth a Traitor without ever giving a syllable of Reason for it And the Commission of Array was set afoot for the Parliament medled not with the Militia of that Country the Lord Howard their Lieutenant not appearing Then the rage of the Rioters grew greater than before And in preparation to the War they had got the word among them Down with the Round-heads Insomuch that if a Stranger past in many places that had short Hair and a Civil Habit the Rabble presently cried Down with the Round-heads and some they knockt down in the open Streets In this Fury of the Rabble I was advised to withdraw a while from home whereupon I went to Glocester As I past but through a corner of the Suburbs of Worcester they that knew me not cried Down with the Round-heads and I was glad to spur on and be gone But when I came to Gloucester among Strangers also that had never known me I found a civil courteous and religious People as different from Worcester as if they had lived under another Government There I stayed a Month and whilst I was there many Pamphlets came out on both sides preparing for a War For the Parliaments Cause the principal Writing which very much prevailed was Observations written by Mr. Parker a Lawyer But I remember some Principles which I think he misapplieth as also doth Mr. Thomas Hooker Ecclis polit lib. 8. viz. That the King is singulis major but universis minor that he receiveth his Power from the People c. For I doubt not to prove that his Power is so immediately from God as that there is no Recipient between God and him to convey it to him Only as the King by his Charter maketh him a Mayor or Baliff whom the Corporation chuseth so God by his Law as an Instrument conveyeth Power to that Person or Family whom the People consent to and their Consent is but a Conditio sine quâ non and not any Proof that they are the Fountain of Power or that ever the governing Power was in them and therefore for my part I am satisfied that all Politicks err which tell us of a Magestas Realis in the People as distinct from the Majestas Personalis in the Governors And though it be true that quo ad naturalem bonitatem in genere Causae finalis the King be universis minor and therefore no War or Action is good which is against the common Good which is the end of all Government yet as to governing Power which is the thing in question the King is as to the People Universis Major as well as Singulis For if the Parliament have any Legislative Power it cannot be as they are the Body or People as Mr. Tho. Hooker ill supposeth who lib. 1. Polit. Eccles. maketh him a Tyrant that maketh Laws himself without the Body but it is as the Constitution twisteth them into the Government For if once Legislation the chief Act of Government be denied to be any part of Government at all and affirmed to belong to the People as such who are no Governors all Government will hereby be overthrown Besides these Observations no Books more advantaged the Parliament's Cause than a Treatise of Monarchy afterwards published and Mr. Prin's large Book of the Soveraign Power of Parliaments wherein he heapeth up Multitudes of Instances of Parliaments that exercised Soveraign Power At this time also they were every where beginning the Contention between the Commission of Array and the Parliaments Militia In Gloucestershire the Country came in for the Parliament In Worcestershire Herefordshire and Shropshire they were wholly for the King and none to any purpose moved for the Parliament § 58. Whilst I was at Gloucester I saw the first Contentions between the Ministers and Anabaptists that ever I was acquainted with For these were the first Anabaptists that ever I had seen in any Country and I heard but of few more in those parts of England About a dozen young Men or more of considerable Parts had received the Opinion against Infant Baptism and were re-baptized and laboured to draw others after them not far from Gloucester And the Minister of the Place Mr. Winnel being hot and impatient with them hardened them the more He wrote a considerable Book against them at that time But England having then no great Experience of the tendency and consequents of Annabaptistry the People that were not of their Opinion did but pity them and think it was a Conceit that had no great harm in it and blamed Mr. Winnel for his Violence and Asperity towards them But this was the beginning of the Miseries of Gloucester for the Anabaptists somewhat increasing on one side before I came away
Synod at Westminster I know that there are Men in the World that defame both the Actors and the Work and would make the World believe that almost none but worthy Learned Men were turned out and that for their Fidelity to the King and Bishops and that almost none but Unlearned and Factious Fellows were introduced But this Age hath taught the World how little the Report of such Men is to be believed of any others who speak what their Interest and Malice do command them and by these are made strangers to the Men they speak of though they dwell among them For they Converse not with them at all unless in some wrangling Dispute when Malice and Passion seek a Whetstone but they talk only with those that talk against them and easily believe any false Reports when once they are so like the Common Enemy that they desire them to be true But I shall in this Case also speak impartially neither justifying what they did amiss nor condemning them without cause And because I have past it by before I shall say something of the Westminster Assembly here This Synod was not a Convocation according to the Diocesan way of Government nor was it called by the Votes of the Ministers according to the Presbyterian way But the Parliament not intending to call an Assembly which should pretend a Divine Right to make obliging Laws or Canons to bind their Brethren but an Ecclesiastical Council to be Advisers to themselves did think that they best knew who were the fittest to give them Advice and therefore chose them all themselves Two were to be chosen out of each County but some few Counties I know not upon what reason had but one I suppose it was long of the Parliament Men of those Counties And because they would seem Impartial and have each Party to have liberty to speak they over and above the number chose many Episcopal Divines even the Learnedest of them in the Land as Archbishop Usher Primate of Ireland Dr. Holdsworth Dr. Hammond Dr. Wincop Bishop Westford Bishop Prideaux and many more But they would not come because it was not a Legal Convocation and because the King declared himself against it Dr. Dan. Featley and very few more of that Party came But at last he was charged with sending Intelligence to the King's Quarters at Oxford of what was done in the Synod and Parliament and was imprisoned which much reflected on the Parliament because whatever his Fact were he was so Learned a Man as was sufficient to dishonour those he suffered by The Prolocutor or Moderator was Dr. William Twisse a Man very famous for his Scholastical Wit and Writings in a very smooth triumphant Stile The Divines there Congregate were Men of Eminent Learning and Godliness and Ministerial Abilities and Fidelity And being not worthy to be one of them my self I may the more freely speak that Truth which I know even in the Face of Malice and Envy that as far as I am able to judge by the Information of all History of that kind and by any other Evidences left us the Christian World since the days of the Apostles had never a Synod of more Excellent Divines taking one thing with another than this Synod and the Synod of Dort were This Assembly was confined by the Parliament to debate only such things as they proposed to them And many Lords and Commons were joyned in Commission with them to see that they did not go beyond their Commission Six or seven Independants were joyned with them that all sides may be heard of whom five were called the Dissenting Brethren Philip Nye Thomas Goodwyn Ieremiah Burroughs Sydrach Sympson and William Bridge who joyned with the rest till they had drawn up a Confession of Faith a larger and a shorter Catechism But when they came to Church Government they engaged them in many long Debates and kept that Business as long as possibly they could undetermined and after that kept it so long unexecuted in almost all parts of the Land saving London and Lancashire that their Party had time to strengthen themselves in the Army and the Parliament and hinder the Execution after all and keep the Government determined of a Stranger to most of the People of this Land who knew it but by hearsay as it was represented by Reporters For my own part as highly as I honour the Men I am not of their Mind in every Point of the Government which they would have set up and some words in their Catechism I could wish had been more clear and above all I could wish that the Parliament and their more skilful Hand had done more than was done to heal our Breaches and had hit upon the right way either to unite with the Episcopal and Independants which was possible as distant as they are or at least had pitched on the Terms that are fit for Universal Concord and left all to come in upon those Terms that would But for all this dissent I must testifie my Love and Honour to the Persons of such great Sincerity and Eminent Ministerial Sufficiency as were Gataker Vines Burgess White and the greater part of that Assembly Among other parts of their Trust one was to approve of all that should be admitted into any Church Livings They had no Power to put out any but only to judge of the fitness of such as were taken in The Power of Casting out unworthy Men was partly in a Committee of Parliament Men at London and partly in the Committees of each several County according to an Ordinance of Parliament expressing the Crimes Herein it was laudable that Drunkards Swearers Cursers Blasphemers Hereticks Fornicators and such scandalous Persons were to be ejected but it was not well done to put in those among them that had been against the Parliament in the War For the Work of God should not give place to the Matters of their Secular Interest and Policy as long as the Being of the Commonwealth is secured And all the Learned Ministers in the Land on one side and the other are few enow to do the Work of Christ And I believe that those that were against them would have done them less hurt in the Pulpits where there were so many Witnesses than they did in Private But yet I must needs say that in all the Countreys where I was acquainted six to one at least if not many more that were Sequestred by the Committee were by the Oaths of Witnesses proved insufficent or scandalous or both especially guilty of Drunkenness or Swearing and those that being able godly Preachers were cast out for the War alone as for their Opinions sake were comparatively very few This I know will displease that Party but this is true And though now and then an unworthy Person by sinister means crept into their Places yet commonly those whom they put in were such as set themselves laboriously to seek the Saving of Souls Indeed the one half of them were
very young but that could not be helpt because there were no other to be had The Parliament could not make Men Learned nor Godly but only put in the learnedest and ablest that they could have And though it had been to be wisht that they might have had leisure to ripen in the Universities yet many of them did as Ambrose teach and learn at once so successfully as that they much increased in Learning themselves whilst they prosited others and proportionably more than many in the Universities do § 118. To return from this Digression to the Proceedings of Cromwell when he was made Lord Protector he had the Policy not to detect and exasperate the Ministers and others that consented not to his Government having seen what a stir the Engagement had before made but he let Men live quietly without putting any Oaths of Fidelity upon them except his Parliaments for those must not enter the House till they had sworn Fidelity to him The Sectarian Party in his Army and elsewhere he chiefly trusted to and pleased till by the Peoples submission and quietness he thought himself well settled And then he began to undermine them and by degrees to work them out And though he had so often spoken for the Anabaptists now he findeth them so heady and so much against any settled Government and so set upon the promoting of their Way and Party that he doth not only begin to blame their unruliness but also designeth to settle himself in the Peoples Favour by suppressing them In Ireland they were grown so high that the Soldiers were many of them re-baptized as the way to Preferment and those that opposed them they crusht with much uncharitable Fierceness To suppress these he sent thither his Son Henry Cromwell who so discountenanced the Anabaptists as yet to deal civilly by them repressing their Insolencies but not abusing them or dealing hardly with them promoting the Work of the Gospel and setting up good and sober Ministers and dealing civilly with the Royallists and obliging all so that he was generally beloved and well spoken of And Major General Ludlow who headed the Anabaptists in Ireland was fain to draw in his head In England Cromwell connived at his old Friend Harrison while he made himself the Head of the Anabaptists and Fanaticks here till he saw it would be an applauded acceptable thing to the Nation to suppress him and then he doth it easily in a trice and maketh him contemptible who but yesterday thought himself not much below him The same he doth also as easily by Lambert and layeth him by § 119. In these times especially since the Rump reigned sprang up five Sects at least whose Doctrines were almost the same but they sell into several Shapes and Names 1. The Vanists 2. The Seekers 3. The Ranters 4. The Quakers 5. The Behmenists 1. The Vanists for I know not by what other Name to make them known who were Sir Henry Vane's Disciples first sprang up under him in new England when he was Governor there But their Notions were then raw and undigested and their Party quickly confounded by God's Providence as you may see in a little Book of Mr. Tho. Welds of the Rise and Fall of Antinomianism and Familism in New-England where their Opinions and these Providences are recorded by him that was a reverend Minister there One Mrs. Dyer a chief Person of the Sect did first bring forth a Monster which had the Parts of almost all sorts of living Creatures some Parts like Man but most ugly and misplaced and some like Beasts Birds and Fishes having Horns Fins and Claws and at the Birth of it the Bed shook and the Women present fell a Vomiting and were fain to go forth of the Room Mr. Cotton was too favourable to them till this helpt to recover him Mrs. Hutchinson the chief Woman among them and their Teacher to whose Exercises a Congregation of them used to assemble brought forth about 30 mishapen Births or Lumps at once and being banished into another Plantation was killed there by the Indians Sir Henry Vane being Governor and found to be the secret Fautor and Life of their Cause was fain to steal away by Night and take Shipping for England before his Year of Government was at an end But when he came over into England he proved an Instrument of greater Calamity to a People more sinful and more prepared for God's Judgments Being chosen a Parliament man he was very active at first for the bringing of Delinquents to Punishment He was the Principal Man that drove on the Parliament to go too high and act too vehemently against the King Being of very ready Parts and very great Subtilty and unwearied Industry he laboured and not without Success to win others in Parliament City and Country to his Way When the Earl of Strafford was accused he got a Paper out of his Father's Cabinet who was Secretary of State which was the chief Means of his Condemnation To most of our Changes he was that Within the House which Cromwell was without His great Zeal to drive all into War and to the highest and to cherish the Sectaries and especially in the Army made him above all Men to be valued by that Party His Unhappiness lay in this that his Doctrines were so clowdily formed and expressed that few could understand them and therefore he had but few true Disciples The Lord Brook was slain before he had brought him to Maturity Mr. Sterry is thought to be of his Mind as he was his Intimate but he hath not opened himself in writing and was so famous for Obscurity in Preaching being said Sir Benj. Rudiard too high for this World and too low for the other that he thereby proved almost Barren also and Vanity and Sterility were never more happily conjoined Mr. Sprig is the chief of his more open Disciples too well known by a Book of his Sermons This Obscurity by some was imputed to his not understanding himself but by others to design because he could speak plainly when he listed the two Courses in which he had most Success and spake most plainly were His earnest Plea for universal Liberty of Conscience and against the Magistrates intermedling with Religion and his teaching his Followers to revile the Ministry calling them ordinarily Blackcoats Priests and other Names which then savoured of Reproach and those Gentlemen that adhered to the Ministry they said were Priest-ridden When Cromwell had served himself by him as his surest Friend as long as he could and gone as far with him as their way lay together Vane being for a Fanatick Democracie and Cromwell for Monarchy at last there was no Remedy but they must part and when Cromwell cast out the Rump as disdainfully as Men do Excrements he called Vane a Jugler and Martin a Whoremonger to excuse his usage of the rest as is aforesaid When Vane was thus laid by he wrote his Book called The retired Man's Meditations
did before possess as far as I can learn from History Sure I am that when it became a matter of Reputation and Honour to be Godly it abundantly furthered the Successes of the Ministry Yea and I shall add this much more for the sake of Posterity that as much as I have said and written against Licentiousness in Religion and for the Magistrates Power in it and though I think that Land most happy whose Rulers use their Authority for Christ as well as for the Civil Peace yet in Comparison of the rest of the World I shall think that Land happy that hath but bare Liberty to be as good as they are willing to be and if Countenance and Maintenance be but added to Liberty and tollerated Errors and Sects be but forced to keep the Peace and not to oppose the Substantials of Christianity I shall not hereafter much fear such Toleration nor despair that Truth will bear down Adversaries 5. Another Advantage which I found was that Acceptation of my Person which Bishop Morley and Dean Warmstry so vehemently dissuaded them from in vain Though to win Estimation and Love to our selves only be an end that none but proud Men and Hypocrites intend yet it is most certain that the Gratefulness of the Person doth ingratiate the Message and greatly prepareth the People to receive the Truth Had they taken me to be Ignorant Erroneous Scandalous Worldly Self-seeking or such like I could have expected small Success among them 6. Another Advantage which I had was by the Zeal and Diligence of the Godly People of the Place who thirsted after the Salvation of their Neighbours and were in private my Assistants and being dispersed through the Town were ready in almost all Companies to repress seducing Words and to justify Godliness and convince reprove exhort Men according to their needs as also to teach them how to pray and to help them to sanctifie the Lord's Day For those People that had none in their Families who could pray or repeat the Sermons went to their next Neighbour's House who could do it and joined with them so that Some House of the ablest Men in each Street were filled with them that could do nothing or little in their own 7. And the holy humble blameless Lives of the Religious sort was a great Advantage to me The malicious People could not say your Professors here are as proud and covetous as any But the blameless Lives of godly People did shame Opposers and put to Silence the Ignorance of foolish Men and many were won by their good Conversation 8. And our Unity and Concord was a great Advantage to us and our freedom from those Sects and Heresies which many other Places were infected with We had no private Church though we had private Meetings we had not Pastor against Pastor nor Church against Church nor Sect against Sect nor Christian against Christian. There was none that had any odd Opinions of his own or censured his Teacher as erronious nor questioned his Call At Bewdley there was a Church of Anabaptists at Worcester the Independents gathered theirs But we were all of one Mind and Mouth and Way Not a Separatist Anabaptist Antinomian c. in the Town One Journeyman Shoemaker turned Anabaptist but he left the Town upon it and went among them When People saw diversity of Sects and Churches in any Place it greatly hindred their Conversion and they were at a loss and knew not what Party to be of or what Way to go and therefore would be of no Religion at all and perhaps derided them all whom they saw thus disagreed But they had no such Offence or Objection there they could not ask which Church or Party shall I be of for we were all but as one Nay so Modest were the ablest of the People that they never were inclined to a preaching way nor to make Ostentation of their Parts but took warning by the Pride of others and thought they had teaching enough by their Pastors and that it was better for them to bestow their Labour in digesting that than in Preaching themselves 9. And our private Meetings were a marvellous help to the propagating of Godliness among them for thereby Truths that slipt away were recalled and the seriousness of the Peoples minds renewed and good desires cherished and hereby their knowledge was much increased and here the younger sort learned to pray by frequent hearing others And here I had opportunity to know their Case for if any were touched and awakened in publick I should presently see him drop in to our private Meetings Hereby also idle meetings and loss of time was prevented And so far were we from being by this in danger of Schism or Divisions that it was the principal means to prevent them For here I was usually present with them answering their Doubts and silencing Objections and moderating them in all And some Private Meeting 's I found they were exceeding much inclined to and if I had not allowed them such as were lawful and profitable they would have been ready to run to such as were unlawful and hurtful And by encouraging them here in the fit exercise of their parts in Repetition Prayer and asking Questions I kept them from inclining to the disorderly exercise of them as the Sectaries do We had no Meetings in opposition to the Publick Meetings but all in subordination to them and under my over-sight and guidance which proved a way profitable to all 10. Another thing which advantaged us was some publick Disputations which we had with Gainsayers which very much confirmed the People The Quakers would fain have got entertainment and set up a Meeting in the Town and frequently railed at me in the Congregation But when I had once given them leave to meet in the Church for a Dispute and before the People had opened their deceits and shame none would entertain them more nor did they get one Proselyte among us Before that Mr. Iohn Tombes being Lecturer of Bewdley two miles off us who was reputed the most Learned and able Anabaptist in England we kept fair Correspondence for a long time and I studiously avoided all Debates with him about Infant Baptism till at last he forced me to it as I shall shew further anon And after one days Dispute with him of Bewdley my Hearers were more setled and the course of his Infection stopt How mean soever my own Abilities were yet I had still the advantage of a good Cause and thereby easily opened the vanity of all Pretenders Deceivers and Dividers that came among us 11. Another advantage was the great honesty and diligence of my Assistants When I came first to Kidderminster after the Wars I found Mr. Richard Sergeant there received as their Preacherâ— whom they took in a Case of Necessity when they could get no other I found him very honest but of no extraordinary Learning and of no taking utterance so that some that were more for Learing than
Prayer by all the Ministers at Worcester where they desired me to preach But Weakness and other things hindered me from that Day but to compensate that I enlarged and published the Sermon which I had prepared for them and entitled the Treatise Gildas Salvianus because I imitated Gildas and Salvianus in my Liberty of Speech to the Pastors of the Churches or The reformed Pastor I have very great Cause to be thankful to God for the Success of that Book as hoping many thousand Souls are the better for it in that it prevailed with many Ministers to set upon that Work which I there exhort them to Even from beyond the Seas I have had Letters of Request to direct them how they might bring on that Work according as that Book had convinced them that it was their Duty If God would but reform the Ministry and set them on their Duties zealously and faithfully the People would certainly be reformed All Churches either rise or fall as the Ministry doth rise or fall not in Riches and worldly Grandure but in Knowledge Zeal and Ability for their Work But since Bishops were restored this Book is useless and that Work not medled with § 178. 23. When the part of the Parliament called the Rump or Common-wealth was sitting the Anabaptists Seekers c. flew so high against Tythes and Ministry that it was much feared lest they would have prevailed at last Wherefore I drew up a Petition for the Ministry which is printed under the Name of the Worcestershire Petition which being presented by Coll. Iohn Bridges and Mr. Thomas Foley was accepted with Thanks and seemed to have a considerable tendency to some good Resolutions § 179. But the Sectaries greatly regard against that Petition and one wrote a vehement Invective against it which I answered in a Paper called The Defence of the Worcestershire Petition which by an Over-sight is mained by the want of the Answer to one of the Accusers Queries I knew not what kind of Person he was that I wrote against but it proved to be a Quaker they being just now rising and this being the first of their Books as far as I can remember that I had ever-seen § 180. 24. Presently upon this the Quakers began to make a great Stirr among us and acted the Parts of Men in Raptures and spake in the manner of Men inspired and every where railed against Tythes and Ministers They sent many Papers of Queries to divers Ministers about us And to one of the chief of them I wrote an Answer and gave them as many more Questions to answer entiâ—uling it The Quakers Catechism These Pamphlets being but one or two Days Work were no great Interruption to my better Labours and as they were of small Worth so also of small Cost The same Ministers of our Country that are now silenced are they that the Quakers most vehemently opposed medling little with the rest The marvellous concurrence of Instruments telleth us that one principal Agent doth act them all I have oft asked the Quakers lately why they chose the same Ministers to revile whom all the Drunkards and Swearers rail against And why they cryed out in our Assemblies Come down thou Deceiver thou Hireling thou Dog and now never meddle with the Pastors or Congregations And they answer 1. That these Men sin in the open Light and need none to discover them 2. That the Spirit hath his times both of Severity and of Lenity But the Truth is they knew then they might be bold without any Fear of Suffering by it And now it is time for them to save their Skins they suffer enough for their own Assemblies 181. 25. The great Advancement of the Popish Interest by their secret agency among the Sectaries Seekers Quakers Behmenists c. did make me think it necessary to do something directly against Popery and so I published three Disputations against them one to prove our Religion safe and another to prove their Religion unsafe and a third to shew that they overthrew the Faith by the ill Resolution of their Faith This Book I entituled The safe Religion § 182. 26. About the same time I fell into troublesom Acquaintance with one Clement Writer of Worcester an ancient Man that had long seemed a forward Professor of Religiousness and of a good Conversation but was now perverted to I know not what A Seeker he profest to be but I easily perceived that he was either a jugling Papist or an Infidel but I more suspected the latter He had written a scornful Book against the Ministry called Ius Divinum Presbyterii and after two more against the Scripture and against me one called Fides Divina the other 's Title I remember not His Assertion to me was that no Man is bound to believe in Christ that doth not see confirming Miracles himself with his own Eyes By the Provocations of this Apostate I wrote a Book called The unreasanableness of Infidelity consisting of four Parts The first of the extrinsick Witness of the Spirit by Miracles c. to which I annexed a Disputation against Clement Writer to prove that the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles oblige us to believe that did not see them The Second part was of the intrinsick Witness of the Spirit to Christ and Scripture The Third was of the Sin or Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost And the Fourth was to repress the Arrogancy of reasoning against Divine Revelations All this was intended but as a Supplement to the Second Part of The Saints Rest where I had pleaded for the Truth of Scripture But this Subject I have since more fully handled in my Reasons of the Christian Religion At the time Mr. Gilbert a learned Minister in Shropshire wrote a Small concise Tractate in Latin as against a Book of Dr. Owen's though his intimate Friend to prove that Christ's Death was not necessary absolutely but of Divine Free Choice and in answer to that Book I wrote a brief Premonition to my Treatise against Infidelity to decide that Controversy § 183. 27. Mr. Tho. Foley being High Sheriff desired me to preach before the Judges which I did on Gal. 6. 16. and enlarged it to a Treatise entituled The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ for Mortification and put an Epistle somewhat large before it to provoke rich Men to good Works § 184. 28. Some Men about this time persuaded me that if I would write a few single Sheets on several Subjects though the Style were not very moving yet it would do more good than larger Volumes because most people will buy and read them who will neither buy nor read the larger Whereupon I wrote first One Sheet against the Quakers containing those Reasons which should satisfie all Sober Men against their way § 185. 29. The Second Sheet I called A Winding Sheet for Popery containing a Summary of Moderate and Effectual Reasons against Popery which single sheet no Papist hitherto hath answered §
and the tolerated Churches and that they keep the Peace between these Churches and settle their several priviledges by a Law 2. That the Churches be accounted Tolerable who profess all that is in the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue in Particular and generally all that they shall find to be revealed in the Word of God and hold Communion in Teaching Prayer Praises and the two Sacraments not obstinately preaching any Heresie contrary to the particular Articles which they profess nor seditiously disturbing the Publick Peace And that such Heretical Preaching and such Seditious unpeaceableness or notorious Wickedness of Life do forfeit their Toleration 3. And that those that are further Orthodox in those Particulars which Rulers think fit to impose upon their Subjects have their publick Maintenance and greater Encouragement Yea and this much is become neccessary but upon supposition that Men will still be so self-conceited and uncharitable as not to forbear their unnecessary Impositions Otherwise there would be found but very few who are Tolerable that are not also in their measure to be approved maintained and encouraged And if the Primitive Simplicity in Doctrine Government and Worship might serve turn for the Terms of the Churches Union and Communion all would be well without any more ado supposing that where Christian Magistrates are they keep the Peace and repress the Offenders and exercise all the Coercive Government And hereticks who will subscribe to the Christian Faith must not be punished because they will subscribe to no more but because they are proved to preach or promote Heresie contrary to the Faith which they profess 28. I am farther than ever I was from expecting great matters of Unity Splendor or Prosperity to the Church on Earth or that Saints should dream of a Kingdom of this World or slatter themselves with the Hopes of a Golden Age or reigning over the Ungodly till there be a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness And on the contrary I am more apprehensive that Sufferings must be the Churches most ordinary Lot and Christians indeed must be self-denying Cross-bearers even where there are none but formal nominal Christians to be the Cross-makers And though ordnarily God would have Vicissitudes of Summer and Winter Day and Night that the Church may grow extensively in the Summer of Prosperity and intensively and radicatedly in the Winter of Adversity yet usually their Night is longer than their Day and that Dâ—y its self hath its Storms and Tempests For the Prognosticks are evident in their Causes 1. The Church will be still Imperfect and Sinful and will have those Diseases which need this bitter Remedy 2. Rich Men will be the Rulers of the World and Rich Men will be generally so far from true Godliness that they must come to Heaven as by Human Impossibilities as a Camel through a Needles Eye 3. The Ungodly will ever have an Enmity against the Image of God and he that is born of the Flesh will persecute him that was born after the Spirit and Brotherhood will not keep a Cain from killing an Abel who offereth a more acceptable Sacrifice than himself And the Guilty will still hate the Light and make a Prey to their Pride and Malice of a Conscionable Reprover 4. The Pastors will be still troubling the Church with their Pride and Avarice and Contentions and the worst will be seeking to be the Greatest and they that seek it are likest to attain it 5. He that is highest will be still imposing his Conceits upon those under him and Lording it over God's Heritage and with Diâ—trephes casting out the Brethren and ruling them by constraint and not as Volunteers 6. Those that are truly judicious will still comparatively be few and consequently the Troublers and Dividers will be the Multitude and a judicious Peace-maker and Reconciler will be neglected slighted or hated by both Extreams 7. The Tenour of the Gospel Predictions Precepts Promises and Threatnings are fitted to a People in a suffering State 8. And the Graces of God in a Believer are mostly sured to a State of Suffering 9. Christians must imitate Christ and suffer with him before they reign with him and his Kingdom was not of this World 10. The Observation of God's dealing hitherto with the Church in every Age confirmeth me and his befooling them that have dreamed of glorious Times It was such Dreams that transported the Munster Anabaptists and the Followers of David George in the Low Countries and Campanella and the Illuminati among the Papists and our English Anabaptists and other Fanaticks here both in the Army and the City and Country When they think the Golden Age is come they shew their Dreams in their extravagant Actions And as our Fifth Monarchy Men they are presently upon some unquiet rebellious Attempt to set up Christ in his Kingdom whether he will or not I remember how Abraham Scultetus in Curriculo Vitae suae confesseth the common Vanity of himself and other Protestants in Germany who seeing the Princes in England France Bohemia and many other Countrys to be all at once both Great and Wise and Friends to Reformation did presently expect the Golden Age But within one year either Death or Ruines of War or Back-slidings had exposed all their Expectations to Scorn and laid them lower than before 29. I do not lay so great a Stress upon the external Modes and Formes of Worship as many young Professors do I have suspected my self as perhaps the Reader may do that this is from a cooling and declining from my former Zeal though the truth is I never much complyed with Men of the Mind But I find that Iudgment and Charity are the Causes of it as for as I am able to discover I cannot be so narrow in my Principles of Church-Communion as many are that are so much for a Liturgy or so much against it so much for Ceremonies or so much against them that they can hold Communion with no Church that is not of their Mind and Way If I were among the Greeks the Lutherans the Independants yea the Anabaptists that own no Herisy nor set themselves against Charity and Peace I would hold sometimes occasional Communion with them as Christians if they will give me leave without forcing me to any sinful Subscription or Action Though my most usual Communion should be with that Society which I thought most agreeable to the Word of God if I were free to chuse I cannot be of their Opinion that think God will not accept him that prayeth by the Common-Prayer-Book and that such Forms are a self-invented Worship which God rejecteth Nor yet can I be of their Mind that say the like of extemporary Prayers 30. I am much less regardful of the Approbation of Man and set much lighter by Contempt or Applause than I did long ago I am oft suspicious that this is not only from the increase of Self-denial and Humility but partly from my being glutted and
whereas you tell us that the conforming of Suffraganes to Rural Deaneries and other such are his private Conceptions destitute of any Testimoney of Antiquity We answer No marvel when Rural Deaneries were unknown to true Antiquity And when in the Ancientest Church every Church had its proper Bishop and every Bishop but one Church that had also but one Altar But surely the Corepiscopi were no Strangers to Antiquity as may appear before the Council at Nice in Concil Ancyran Can. 12. and in Concil Antiochin Can. 10. c. It was unknown in the days of Ignatius and Iustin Martyr that a Church should be as large as a Rural Deanry containing a dozen Churches with Altars that had none of them peculiar Bishops But it was not strange then that every Church had a Bishop and if it were Rural a Chorepiscopus As also you may gather even from Clemens Romanus The Quarrel which you pick with the Archbishops Reduction for not Naming the King as if he destroyed his Supremacy is such as a low degree of Charity with a little Understanding might easily have prevented Either you know that it is the Power of the Keys called Spiritual and proper-Ecclesiastical and not the Coercive Power circa Ecclesiastica which the Archbishop speaketh of and all our Controversie is about or you do not know it If you do know it either you think this Power of the Keys is resolved into the King or not If you do think so you differ from the King and from all of your selves that ever we talked with and you contradict all Protestant Princes that have openly disclaimed any such Power and published this to the World to stop the Mouths of Calumniating Papists And we have heard the King and some of you disclaim it And how can you then fitly debate these Controversies that differ from all Protestant Kings and from the Church But if you your selves do not so think had you a Pen that would charge the Archbishop for destroying the King's Supremacy for asserting nothing but what the King and you maintain And if you knew not that this Spiritual Power of the Keys as distinct from Magistratical Coercive Power is the Subject of our Controversie we dispute to good purpose indeed with Men that know not what Subject it is that we are to dispute about so that which way soever it go you see how it is like to fall and how Men that are out of the dust and noise will judge of our Debates And here we leave it to the Notice and Observation of Posterity upon the perusal of all your Exceptions How little the English Bishops had to say against the Form of Primitive Episcopacy contained in Archbishop Usher's Reduction in the day when they rather chose the increase of our Divisions the Silencing of many Hundred faithful Ministers the scattering of the Flocks the afflicting of so many thousand godly Christians than the accepting of this Primitive Episcopacy which was the Expedient which those called Presbyterians offered never once speaking for the Cause of Presbytery And what kind of Peace-makers and Conciliators we met with when both Parties were to meet at one time and place with their several Concessions for Peace and Concord ready drawn up and the Presbyterians in their Concessions laid by all their Cause and proposed an Archbishops frame of Episcopacy and the other side brought not in any of their Concessions at all but only unpeaceably rejected all the Moderation that was desired Lastly They hear desire it may be observed that in this Reduction Archiepiscopacy is acknowledged And we shall also desire that it may be observed that we never put in a word to them against Archbishops Metropolitans or Primates and yet we are very far from attaining any Peace with them And we desire that it may be observed also that understanding with whom we had to do we offered them not that which we approved our selves as the best but that which we would submit to as having some Consistency with the Discipline and Order of the Church which was our End Of the Superadded Particulars § 14. 1. This is scarce Serious The Primate's Suffragans or Chorepiscopi are Rural Deans or as many for number The Suffragans you talk of by Law are other things about Sixteen in all the Land The King's Power is about the Choice of them as Humane Officers but as Pastors of the Church or Bishops the Churches had the Choice for a Thousand years after Christ through most of the Christian World And what if it be in the King's power Is it not the more reasonable that the King be petitioned to in the Business The King doth not choose every Rural Dean himself And is it any more destructive of his Power to do it by the Synods than by the Diocesan This use the Name and Power of Kings is made of by some kind of Men to make a noise against all that cross their Domination but all that is exercised by themselves is no whit derogatory to Royalty And yet how many Men have been Excommunicated for refusing to Answer in the Chancellor's Courts till they profess to sit there by the King's Authority § 15. We much doubt whether you designed to read the Archbishop's Reduction when you answered our Papers If you did not why would you choose to be ignorant of what you answered when so light a Labour might have informed you If you did how could you be ignorant of what we meant by Associations when you saw that such as our Rural Deaneries was the thing spoken of and proposed by the Reduction And 1. Are the Rural Deaneries think you without the King's Authority If not what mean you by such Intimations unless you would make Men believe that we breathe Treason as oft as we breathe as the Soldier charged the Country-man for whistling Treason when he meant to plunder him 2. And what though Associations may not be entered into without the King's Authority Do you mean that therefore we may not thus desire his Authority for them If you do not to what sence or purpose is this Answer Sure we are that for Three hundred years when Magistrates were not Christian there was Preaching Praying and Associating in particular Churches hereunto without the Kings Authority and also Associating in Synods And after that for many a Hundred year the Christian Magistrates confirmed and over-ruled such Associations but never overthrew them or forbad them § 16. But the Apostles of Christ and all his Churches for many hundred years thought all these Subscriptions and Oaths unnecessary and never prescribed nor required either them or any such So unhappy is the present Church in the happy Understandings of these Men of Yesterday that are wiser than Christ his Apostles and Universal Church and have at last found out these necessary Oaths and Subscriptions And you are not quite mistaken Necessary they are to set up those that shall rule by Constraint as Lords over God's Heritage and
effectual with none but wicked Men and Hypocrites who dare Sin against their Consciences for fear of Men And is it worth so much ado to bring the Children of the Devil into your Church The third way of Efficacy is but to kill or banish all the Children of God that are not of your Opinion for it is they that dare not Sin against Conscience whatever they suffer And this is but such an Efficacy as the Spanish Inquisition and Queen Mary's Bonfires had to send those to God whom the World is not worthy of You know every Man that is true to his God and his Conscience will never do that which he taketh to be Sin till his Judgment is changed and therefore with such it can be no lower than Blood or Banishment or Imprisonment at least that is the Efficacy which you desire And if no such rigour be too much its pity the French that murthered 30000 or 40000 at their Bartholoâ—â—ew days or as Dr. Peter Moulin saith 100000 within a few Weeks and the Irish that murthered 200000 had not had a better Cause For they took the most effectual way of rigour But when God maketh Inquisition for the Blood of his Servants he will convince Men that such rigour was too much and that their Wrath did not fulfil his Righteousness You shew your Kindness to Men's praying in the Pulple without your Book Make good what you say that such Praying is of no great Antiquity and we will never contradict you more Or if we prove it not the Ancientest way of Praying in the Christian Church we will give you free leave to hang or banish us for not Subscribing to the Common Prayer Book which the Apostles used and which was imposed on the Church for some hundred years But it seems you think that we are beholden to meer Sufferance without Law or Canon for conceived Prayers How long then it will be suffered we know not if we must live by your Patience § 20. It seemeth that our Converse and yours much differ The most that we know or meet with had rather be without the Liturgy and you say That the People generally are well satisfied with it By this time they are of another Mind If it were so we take it for no great honour to it considering what the greater Number are in most places and of what Lives those Persons are of our Parishes and Acquaintance generally or for the most part who are for it Or what those are that are against it and whom for itsâ— sake you desire your effectual rigour may be exercised against The Lord prepare them to undergo it innocently § 21. Doth there need no more to be said for the Ceremonies How little will satisfie some Men's Consciences Lawful Authority hath in other Countreys cast out the same Bishops and Ceremonies which are here received Doth it follow that they are good in one Country and disorderly and undecent in another Or that our Authority only is infallible in judging of them Is not God's Worship perfect without our Ceremonies in its Integrals as well as its Essentials As for Circumstantials when you saw us allow of them you need not plead for them as against us But the Question is whether our Additions be not more then Circumstances § 22. We suppose that you give all to the Cross in Baptism which is necessary to a Humane Sacrament And this we are ready to try be just Dispute When you say that never was Moral Efficacy ascribed to them you seem to give up all your Cause for by denying this ascribed Efficacy you seem to grant them unlawful if it be so And if it be not so let us bear the blame of wronging them The informing and exciting the dull mind of Man in its duty to God is a Moral Effect from Moral Efficacy But the informing and exciting the dull Mind of Man in its Duty to God is an Effect ascribed to our Ceremonies Ergo a Moral Effect from Moral Efficacy is ascribed to our Ceremonies The major cannot be denied by any Man that knoweth what a Moral Effect and Efficacy is that which worketh not per modum Naturae in genere Causae efficientis naturalis only but per modum objecti vel in genere causae finalis upon the Mind of Man doth work morally but so do our Ceremonies Ergo sure the Arminians that deny all proper Physical Operations of God's Spirit as well as his Word and reduce all to Moral Efficacy will not say that Ceremonies have such a Physical Efficacy more than Moral And if not so the good Effects here mentioned can be from no lower Efficacy than Moral And the minor which must be denied is in the words of the Preface to the Common Prayer Book and therefore undeniable The Word of God it self worketh but moraliter proponendo objectum and so do our Ceremonies § 23. There is a great difference between Sacramental Ceremonies and meer Circumstances which the Reformed Churches keep These we confound not and could have wished you would not Our Cross in Baptism is A dedicating sign saith the Canon or transient Image made in token that this Child shall not be ashamed of Christ crucified but manly fight under his Banner against the Flesh the World and the Devil and continue Christ's faithful Servant and Soldier to his Lives end So that 1. It is a Dedicating Sign performed by the Minister and not by the Person himself as a bare Professing Sign is 2. It engageth the Party in a Relation to Christ as his Soldier and Servant 3. And in the Duties of this Relation against all our Enemies as the Sacramentum Militare doth a Soldier to his General and that in plainer and fuller words than are annexed to Baptism 4. And it is no other than the Covenant of Grace or of Christianity it self which this Sacrament of the Cross doth enter us into as Baptism also doth It is not made a part of Baptism nor called a Sacrament but as far as we can judge made essentially a Humane Sacrament adjoyned to Baptism The Reformed Churches which use the Cross we mean the Lutherans yet use it not in this manner § 24. This is but your unproved Assertion That the Fault was not in the Ceremonies but in the Contenders we are ready to prove the contrary but if it had been true how far are you from Paul's mind expressed Rom. 14. 15. and 1 Cor. 8. You will let your weak Brother perish and spare not so you can but charge the Fault on himself and lay Stumbling-blocks before him and then save him by your effectual rigour by Imprisonment or Punishment § 25. Those seem a few to you that seem many to us Had it been but one hundred such as Cartwright Amesius Bradshaw Parker Hildersham Dod Nicolls Langley Paget Hering Baynes Bates Davenport Hooker Wilson Cotton Norton Shephard Cobbet Word c. they had been enough to have grieved the Souls of many Thousand godly
Resolution to become the effectual Moderator in our Differences and your self to bring us together by procuring such mutual Condescâ—ntions as are necessary thereto and also by your gracious Acceptance of our Proposals which your Majesty heard and received not only without blame but with Acknowledgment of their Moderation and as such as would infer a Reconciliation between the differing Parties that we must needs say the least Abatement of our Hopes is much the more unwelcome and grievous to us And it is no small Grief that surprizeth our Hearts from the Complaints of the Students ejected in the Universities and of faithful Ministers removed from their beloved Flocks and denied Institution for want of Subscription Re-ordination or an Oath of Obedience to the Bishop but especially from many Congregations in the Land that cry out they are undone by the loss of those Means of their Spiritual Welfare which were dearer to them than all Worldly Riches and by the grievous Burden of Ignorant or Scandalous or dead unprofitable Ministers set over them to whom they dare not commit the Guidance and care of their Immortal Souls and whose Ministry they dare not own or countenace lest they be guilty of their Sin And it addeth to our Grief and Fear in finding so much of the proposed necessary Means of our Agreement especially in the point of Government here passed by in your Majesty's Declaration as if it were denied us But yet remembring the gracious and encouraging Promises of your Majesty and observing your Majesty's Clemency in what is here granted us and your great Condescention in vouchfasing not only so graciously to â—hear us in these our humble Addresses and Requests but also to grant us the Sight of your Declaration before it is resolved on with Liberty of returning our Additional Desires and hope that they shall not be rejected we re-assume our Confidence and comfortably expect that what is not granted in this Declaration that is reasonable and necessary to our Agreement shall yet be granted upon fuller Consideration of the Equity of our Requests As our Designs and Desires are not for any worldly Advantages or Dignities to our selves so have we not presumed to intermeddle with any Civil Interest of your Majesty or any of your Officers nor in the matters of meer Convenience to cast our Reason into the Ballance against your Majesty's Prudence but meerly to speak for the Laws and Worship and Servants of the Lord and for the Peace of our Consciences and the Safety of our own and Brethrens Souls It lifts us up with Joy to think what happy Consequents will ensue if your Majesty shall entertain these healing Motions How happily our Differences will be reconciled and the exasperated Minds of Men composed How Temptations to Contention and Uncharitableness will be removed How comfortably your Majesty will reign in the dearest Affections of your Subjects and how firmly they will adhere to your Interest as their own How chearfully and zealously the united parts and Interests of the Nation will conspire to serve you What a Strength and Honour a righteous Magistracy a learned holy loyal Ministry and a faithful praying People will be to your Throne And how it will be your Glory to be the King of the most religious Nation in the World that hath no considerable Parties but what are Centered under Christ in you What a Comfort it will be for the Bishops and Pastors of the Church to be honoured and loved by all the most religious of their Flocks to see the Success of their Labours and the Beauty of the Church promoted by our common Concord and Brethren to assemble and dwell together in Unity serving one God according to one Rule with one Heart and Mouth And on the contrary it astonisheth us to foresee the doleful Consequents that would follow if which God forbid your Majesty should refuse the most necessary moderate Ways of Concord and be engaged by a party to exalt them by the Suppression of the rest How woful a Day would it prove to your Majesty and your Dominions in which you should thus espouse a Cause and Interest injurious to the Interest of Christ and the Cause of Unity and Love and contrary to your Majesty's gracious Inclinations be engaged unawars in a seeming necessity to deal hardly with the Ministers and Servants of the Lord How considerable a part of the Three Nations for Number Wisdom Piety and Interest you would be drawn to govern with a grievous Hand and to lay them under the greatest Sorrow who restored and received your Majesty with Joy How the Dissent of Ministers from the Government and Ceremonies of the Church were it expressed but by their Groans and Tears and moderate Complaints to God or Not-praying for that Church Government which they dare not pray for would be reckoned as Discontent and Sedition and it would be judged a Crime to feel when they are hurt What Occasion this would give to irreligious Temporizers to arrogate the Name of your Majesty's best Subjects and to let out their Malice against the Upright and make Religion a Reproach And then what a Hindrance that would be to the Conversion and saving of the Peoples Souls and what a fruitful Nursery of all Vice How grievously Charity would be overthrown while the People are engaged in the hardest Thoughts and Speeches of each other What a Temptation it would be to the afflicted part to abate their Honour and due Respect to those they suffer by when they are deprived of that which is dearest to them in the World and when the Groans and Cryes of afflicted Innocents arrive at Heaven and have awakened the Justice of the King of Kings the greatest cannot stand before him And what a Snare and Grief will it be to the Bishops and Pastors of the Church to be esteemed Wolves and to be engaged to suppress them as their Adversaries that else might be the Honour of their Ministry and the Comfort of their Lives And when Divisions and separated Assemblies are thus multiplied the People being driven from the publick Congregations either it will bring them under Trouble or let in Papists and others that are intollerable into an equal Tolleration and such Discontents and Distractions in the Church will not be without their Influence on the State And by all this how much will Satan and the Enemies of our Religion be gratified and God dishonoured and displeased And seeing all this may safely and easily be now prevented we humbly beseech the Lord in Mercy to vouchsafe to your Majesty a Heart to discern of time and Judgment And as these are our General Ends and Motives so we are induced to insist upon the Form of Synodical Government conjunct with a fixed Presidency or Episcopacy for these Reasons 1. We have reason to believe that no other Terms will be so generally agreed on And it is no way injurious to Episcopal Power but most firmly establisheth all in it that can
the ruling of the People whose Rectors they are called And when I perceived some Offence at what I said I told them that we had not the Judgments of Men at our command We could not in reason suppose that our Concessions or any thing we could do would change the Judgments of any great Numbers and therefore we must consider what will unite us in case their Judgments be not changed or else we labour to no purpose § 109. But Bishop Morley told them how great our Power was and what we might do if we were willing and he told the King that no Man had written better of these Matters than I had done and there my five Disputations of Church Government c. lay ready to be produced and all was to intimate as if I now contradicted what I had there written I told him that I had best reason to know what I had written and that I am still of the same mind and stand to it all and do not speak any thing against it A great many words there were about Prelacy and Re-ordination Dr. Gunning and Bishop Morley speaking almost all on one side and Dr. Hinchman and Dr. Cosens sometimes and Mr. Calamy and my self most on the other side But I think neither Party doth value the rambling Discourses of that Day so much as to think them worthy the recording Mr. Calamy answered Dr. Gunning from Scripture very well against the Divine Right of Prelacy as a distinct Order And when Dr. Gunning told them that Dr. Hammond had said enough against the Presbyterains Cause and Ordination and was yet unanswered I thought it meet to tell him that I had answered the Substance of his Arguments and said enough moreover against the Diocesan Frame of Government and to prove the validity of the English Presbyters Ordination which indeed was unanswered though I was very desirous to have seen an Answer to it which I said because they had got the Book by them and because I thought the unreasonableness of their dealing might be evinced who force so many hundreds to be Re-ordained and will not any of them answer one Book which is written to prove the validity of that Ordination which they would have nullified though I provoked them purposely in such a Presence § 110. The most of the time being spent thus in speaking to Particulars of the Declaration as it was read when we came to the end the Lord Chancellour drew out another Paper and told us that the King had been petitioned also by the Independants and Anabaptists and though he knew not what to think of it himself and did not very well like it yet something he had drawn up which he would read to us and desire us also to give our Advice about it Thereupon he read as an Addition to the Declaration That others also be permitted to meet for Religious Worship so be it they do it not to the disturbance of the Peace and that no Iustice of Peace or Officer disturb them When he had read it he again desired them all to think on it and give their Advice But all were silent The Presbyterians all perceived as soon as they heard it that it would secure the Liberty of the Papists and one of them whispered me in the Ear and intreated me to say nothing for it was an odious Business but let the Bishops speak to it But the Bishops would not speak a word nor any one of the Presbyterians neither and so we were like to have ended in that Silence I knew if we consented to it it would be charged on us that we spake for a Toleration of Papists and Sectaries But yet it might have lengthened out our own And if we spake against it all Sects and Parties would be set against us as the Causers of their Sufferings and as a partial People that would have Liberty our selves but would have no others have it with us At last seeing the Silence continue I thought our very Silence would be charged on us a Consent if it went on and therefore I only said this That this Reverend Brother Dr. Gunning even now speaking against Sects had named the Papists and the Sâ—â—inians For our parts we desired not favour to our selves alone and rigorous Severity we desired against none As we humbly thanked his Majesty for his Indulgence to our selves so we distinguish the tolerable Parties from the intolerable For the former we humbly crave just lenity and favour but for the latter such as the two sorts named before by that Reverend Brother for our parts we cannot make their Toleration our request To which his Majesty said That there were Laws enough against the Papists and I replyed That we understood the Question to be whether those Laws should be executed on them or not And so his Majesty brake up the Meeting of that Day § 111. Before the Meeting was dissolved his Majesty had all along told what he would have stand in the Declaration and he named four Divines to determine of any Words in the Alteration if there were any difference that is Bishop Morley Bishop Hinchman Dr. Reignolds and Mr. Calamy and if they disagreed that the Earl of Anglesey and the Lord Hollis should decide it As they went out of the Room I told the Earl of Anglesey That we had no other business there that day but the Curches peace and welfare and I would not have been the Man that should have done so much against it as he had done that day for more than he was like to get by it for being called a Presbyterian he had spoken more for Prelacy than we expected And I think by the Consequent that this saying did some good for when I after found the Declaration amended and asked him how it came to pass he intimated to me that it was his doing § 112. And here you may note by the way the fashion of these Times and the state of the Presbyterians Any Man that was for a Spiritual serious way of Worship though he were for moderate Episcopacy and Liturgy and that lived according to his Profession was called commonly a Presbyterian as formerly he was called a Puritan unless he joyned himself to Independents Anabaptists or some other Sect which might afford him a more odious Name And of the Lords he that was for Episcopacy and the Liturgy was called a Presbyterian if he endeavoured to procure any Abatement of their Impositions for the Reconciling of the Parties or the ease of the Ministers and People that disliked them And of the Ministers he was called a Presbyterian that was for Episcopacy and Liturgy if he conformed not so far as to Subscribe or Swear to the English Diocesan Frame and all their Impositions I knew not of any one Lord at Court that was a Presbyterian yet were the Earl of Manchester a good Man and the Earl of Anglesey and the Lord Hollis called Presbyterians and as such appointed to direct and help
latter end where I had purposely been brief because I had been too large in the beginning and because Particulars may be answered satisfactority in a few Words when the General Differences are fully cleared § 188. By this time our Commission was almost expired and therefore our Brethren were earnestly desirous of personal Debates with them upon the Papers put in to try how much Alteration they would yield to Therefore we sent to the Bishops to desire it of them and at last they yielded to it when we had but Ten Days more to treat § 189. When we met them I delivered them the Answer of their former Papers the largeness of which I saw displeased them and they received it And we earnestly prest them to spend the little time remaining in such pacifying Conference as tended to the ends which are mentioned in the King's Declaration and Commission and told them that such Disputes which they had called us to by their manner of Writing were not the thing which we desired or thought most conducing to those ends § 190. I have reason to think that the Generality of the Bishops and Doctors present never knew what we offered them in the reformed Liturgy nor in this Reply nor in any of our Papers save those few which we read openly to them For they were put up and carried away and I conjecture scarce any but the Writers of their Confutations would be at the Labour of reading them over And I remember in the midst of our last Disputation when I drew out the short Preface to this last Reply which Mr. Calamy wrote to enumerate in the beginning before their Eyes many of the grossest Corruptions which they stifly defended and refused to reform the Company was more ashamed and silent than at any thing else that I had said by which I perceived that they had never read or heard that very Preface which was as an Epistle to themselves Yea the chief of them confessed when they bid me read it that they knew no such thing So that it seems before they knew what was in them they resolved to reject our Papers right or Wrong and to deliver them up to their Contradictors § 191. When we came to our Debates I first craved of them their Animadversions on our Additions and Alterations of the Liturgy which we had put in long before and that they would tell us what they allowed or disallowed in them that we might have the use of them according to the Words in the King's Declaration and Commission But they would not by any Importunity be intreated at all to debate that nor to give any of their Opinions about those Papers There were no Papers that ever we offered them that had the Fate of those Though it was there that some of them thought to have found recriminating matter of Exception yet could we never prevail with them to say any thing about them in Word or Writing but once Bishop Morley told us of their length to which I answered that we had told them in our Preface that we were ready to abbreviate any thing which on debate should appear too long but that the Purity of the Prayers made the ordinary Lord's day Prayers far should than theirs And since we had given our Exceptions against theirs if they would neither by Word nor Writing except against ours nor yet give their Consent to them they would not honour their Cause or Conference But all could not extort either Debates on that Subject or any Reprehensions of what we had offered them Nor have they since to this Day in any of their Writings which ever I could see or hear of said a Word in way of Exception against those Papers Yea when Roger L'Estrange himself wrote according to his manner a malicious Invective against our several Papers when they were afterwards printed he could find little to say against our Liturgy but that we left it to the Liberty of the Minister in several Cases to pray in these Words or to this Sense And is that all the fault besides the Length forementioned Did they not know that it belongeth to the Prelates and not to such as we to deprive Men of their Liberty in praying If they had desired it how easy had it been for them to have dasht out that one Clause or to this Sense and then it had been beyond their Exception What measure of Liberty Ministers shall have it is not we but they that must determine § 192. When they had cast out that part of our desired Conference our next business was to desire them by friendly Conference to go over the Particulars which we excepted against and to tell us how much they could abate and what Alterations they could yield to This Bishop Reignolds oft prest them to and so did all the rest of us that spake But they resolutely insisted on it that they had nothing to do till we had proved that there was any necessary of Alteration which we had not yet done and that they were there ready to answer to our Proofs We urged them again and again with the very Words of the King's Declaration and Commission 1. That the ends expressed are for the removal of all Exceptions and Occasions of Exceptions and Differences from among our good Subjects and for giving Satisfaction to tender Consciences and the restoring and continuance of Peace and Unity in the Churches 2. And the means is to make such reasonable and necessary Alterations Corrections and Amendments therein as shall be agreed upon to be needful and expedient for the giving Satisfaction to tender Consciences and restoring and continuing Peace c. We plainly shewed hence that the King supposeth that some Alterations must be made But the Bishops insisted on two Words necessary Alterations and such as should be agreed on We answered them That the Word necessary hath reference to the Ends expressed viz. the satisfying tender Consciences and is joined with Expedient And its strange if when the King hath so long and publickly determined of the End and called us to consult of the means we should presume now at last to contradict him and to determine that the End it self is unnecessary and consequently no means necessary thereto What then have we all this while been doing 2. And when they are called to agree on such necessary means if they will take the Adventage of that Word to agree on nothing that so all Endeavours may be frustrated for want of their Agreement God and the World would judge between us who it is that frustrateth the King's Commission and the Hopes of a divided bleeding Church Thus we continued a long time contending about this Point Whether some Alterations be supposed by the King's Declaration and Commission to be made by us or whether we were anew to dispute that Point But the Bishops would have that to be our Task or none to prove by Disputation that any Alteration was necessary to be made while
they confuted our Proofs We told them that the End being to satisfy tender Consciences and procure Unity those tender Consciences did themselves profess that without some Alteration and that considerable too they could not be satisfied and Experience told them that Peace and Unity could not without it be attained But still they said that none was necessary and they would yield to all that we proved necessary And here we were lest in a very great Strait If we should enter upon Dispute with them we gave up the End and Hope of our endeavours If we refused it we knew that they would boast that when it came to the setting to we would not so much as attempt to prove any thing unlawful in the Liturgy nor durst dispute it with them Mr. Calamy with some others of our Brethren would have had us refuse the Motion of disputing as not tending to fulfil the King's Commands We told the Bishops over and over that they could not choose but know that before we could end one Argument in a Dispute our time would be expired and that it could not possibly tend to any Accommodation And that to keep off from personal Conference till within a few Days of the Expiration of the Commission and then to resolve to do nothing but wrangle out the time in a Dispute as if we were between jeast and earnest in the Schools was too visibly in the sight of all the World to defeat the King's Commission and the Expectations of many Thousands who longed for our Unity and Peace But we spoke to the Deaf they had other Ends and were other Men and had the Art to suit the means unto their Ends. For my part when we faw that they would do nothing else I persuaded our Brethren to yield to a Disputation with them and let them understand that we were far from fearing it seeing they would give us no hopes of Concord but withal first to profess to them that the Guilt of disappointing his Majesty and the Kingdom lay not upon us who desired to obey the King's Commission but on them And so we yielded to spend the little time remaining in disputing with them rather than go home and do nothing and leave them to tell the Court that we durst not dispute with them when they so provoked us nor were able to prove our Accusations of the Liturgy § 193. When this was resolved on we spent many Hours with them about the Order of our Disputation I offered them to spend one half of the time in the Opponents part if they would promise to do the like the other half of the time when we had done that our Disputation might be on equal Terms They refused this and answered That it belonged to us only to argue who were the Accusers and not at all to them who were on the Defence I told them it was we that are the Defendants against their Impositions They command us to do such and such things or else we shall be excommunicate silenced imprisoned and undone We desend our selves against this cruelty by calling upon them to shew their Authority from God for such Impositions Therefore we still call upon them to prove that God hath authorised them to any such thing And if they refuse this they do give up their Cause We offered first to prove the unlawfulness of their Impositious if they would afterward prove the lawfulness of them or their Power so to impose them On these Terms we stood with them about two Days and they would not yield to prove any thing at all At last I oft declared to them that we would do our part and prove their Impositions unlawful whether they would do their part or on but with an open Declaration that we took them for Deserters of their Cause At last Dr. Pierson alone undertook that he would dispute for their Part when we had performed ours and we accepted of his Undertaking § 194. Upon this seeing it was to be all done in Writing the rest of the Commissioners on both sides did choose three of a Party to manage the Dispute that the other might withdraw themselves because they had no more to do The Bishops chose Dr. Pierson Dr. Gunning and Dr. Sparrow The other side chose Dr. Bates Dr. Iacomb and my self for I never medled with the choice of any only I would â—ain have had Mr. William Moses Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Matthew Pool into the Commission that I might have had their help in Disputing because they were very quick ingenuous Men and I could not prevail The rest of our Brethren presently withdrew and not a Man of them came near us any more as supposing it contrary to the Agreement But the Bishops came some of them from day to day indeed on the second day they asked whether any more them the Disputants might be present And I answered them That we cared not how many of them were present And after that others that were not in the Commission asked whether they might be present and I told them the same So that there came Dr. Pory Dr. Crowther and almost the Room full of them with two or three Scholars and Lay-men that as Auditors came in with us Mr. Miles Mr. Tillotson c. § 195. When I began our first Argument to prove their Impositions sinful Bishop Cosins was offended at the Word sinful and told me that I condemned all the Churches of Christ who all of them imposed some Gesture or other as much as that came to and what intollerable Boldness was it in us to charge all the Churches of Christ with Sin I answered him 1. That many of the reformed Churches did not impose any such thing on their Terms that is to reject all from the Ministry and Communion that conformed not 2. It was no Arrogance nor Uncharitableness to charge all the Church and World with Sin But he that saith he hath no Sin is a Lyar In many things we offend all It is the Priviledge of the Triumphant Church to be without Sin This they stormed at and yet could not tell how to deny it Bishop Lany said That justified Persons have no Sin and are no Sinners because Iustification taketh it away But when I answered him by opening the Nature of Justification and shewing that it took not away the Sin it self but the Guilt which is the Obligation to Punishment he was confounded and unsaid all again and knew not what he said I told him that he might see how near we came to him I confessed that if the Controversy were but de Nomine and he took Justification as some do for Sanctification or a Change of our Qualities and Actions then I granted him that it took away Sin it self but not perfectly and therefore Sin still remained Here he and some more said that no Man before me ever took Justification in any such Sence and they laughed at me I answered that I was glad to hear him say so
his Discources Of Dr. Pierce I will say no more because he hath said so much of me On our part Dr. Bates spake very solidly judiciously and pertinently when he spake And for my self the reason why I spake so much was because it was the desire of my Brethren and I was loth to expose them to the hatred of the Bishops but was willinger to take it all upon my self they themselves having so much wit as to be therein more sparing and cautelous than I and I thought that the Day and Cause commanded me those two things which then were objected against me as my Crimes viz. speaking too boldly and too long And I thought it a Cause that I could comfortably suffer for and should as willingly be a Martyr for Charity as for Faith § 237. When this Work was over the rest of our Brethren met again and resolved to draw up an Account of our Endeavours and present it to his Majesty with our Petition for his promised help yet for those Alterations and Abatements which we could not procure of the Bishops And that first we should acquaint the Lord Chancellour withal and consult with him about it Which we did and as soon as we came to him according to my expectation I found him most offended at me and that I had taken off the distaste and blame from all the rest At our first entrance he merily told us That if I were but as fat as Dr. Manton we should all do well I told him if his Lordship could teach me the Art of growing fat he should find me not unwilling to learn by any good means He grew more serious and said That I was severe and strict like a Melancholy Man and made those things Sin which others did not And I perceived he had been possessed with displeasure towards me upon that account that I charged the Church and Liturgy with Sin and had not supposed that the worlt was but inexpendiency I told him that I had spoken nothing but what I thought and had given my Reasons for After other such Discourse we craved his Favour to procure the King's Declaration yet to be past into an Act and his Advice what we had further to do He consented that we should draw up an Address to his Majesty rendering him an account of all but desired that we would first shew it him which we promised § 238. When we shewed our Paper to the Lord Chancellour which the Brethren had desired me to draw up and had consented to without any alteration he was not pleased with some Passages in it which he thought too pungent or pressing but would not bid us put them out So we went with it to the Lord Chamberlain who had heard from the Lord Chancellor about it and I read it to him also and he was earnest with us to bloe out some Passages as too vehement and such as would not well be born I was very loth to leave them out but Sir Gilbirt Gerrard an ancient godly Man being with him and of the same mind I yielded having no remedy and being unmeer to oppose their Wisdoms any further And so what they Scored under we left out and presented the rest to his Majesty afterwards But when we came to present it the Earl of Manchester secretly told the rest that if Dr. Reignolds Dr. Bates and Dr. Manton would deliver it it would be the more acceptable intimating that I was grown unacceptable at Court But they would not go without me and he profest he desired not my Exclusion But when they told me of it I took my leave of him and was going away But he and they came after me to the Stairs and importuned me to return and I went with them to take my Farewel of this Service But I resolved that I would not be the Deliverer of any of our Papers though I had got them transcribed and brought them thither So we desired Dr. Manton to deliver our Petition and with it the fair Copies of all our Papers to the Bishops which was required of us for the King And when Bishop Reignolds had spoken a few words Dr. Manton delivered them to the King who received them and the Petition but did not bid us read it at all At last in his Speeches something fell in which Dr. Monton told him that the Petition gave him a full account of if his Majesty pleased to give him leave to read it whereupon he had leave to read it out The occassion was a short Speech which I made to inform his Majesty how far we were agreed with the Bishops and wherein the difference did not lye as in the Points of Loyalty Obedience Church Order c. This Dr. Monton also spake And the King but the Question But who shall be Iudge And I answered him That Judgment is either publick or private Private Judgement called Discretionis which is but the use of my Reason to conduct my Actions belongeth to every private rational Man Publick Iudgment is Ecclesiastical or Civil and belongeth accordingly to the Ecclesiastical Governours or Pastors and the Civil and not to any private Man And this was the end of these Affairs § 239. I will give you the Copy of the Petition just as I drew it up because 1. Here you may see what those words were which could not be tolerated 2. Because it is but supposing the under-scored Lines to be blotted out and you have it as it was presented without any Alteration For those under scored Lines were all the words that were left out To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The due Account and humble Petition of us Ministers of the Gospel lately Commissioned for the Review and Alteration of the Liturgy May it please your Majesty WHen this distempered Nation wearied with its own Contentions and Divisions did groan for Unity and Peace the wonderful Providence of the most Righteous God appearing for the removal of Impediments their Eyes were upon your Majesty as the Person born to be under God the Center of their Concord and taught by Affliction to break the Bonds of the Afflicted and by Experience of the lad Effects of Mens Uncharitableness and Passions to restrain all from Violence and Extremities and keeping Moderation and Mediocrity the Oyl of Charity and Peace And when these your Subjects Desires were accomplished in your Majesty's peaceable possession of your Throne it was the Joy and Encouragement of the Sober and Religions that you began the Exercise of your Government with a Proclaimation full of Christian Zeal against Debauchery and Prophaneness declaring also your dislike of those who under pretence of affection to your Majesty and your Service assume to themselves the liberty of Reviling Threatning and Reproaching others to prevent that Reconciliation and Union of Hearts and Affections which can only with God's Blessing make us rejoyce in each other Our Comforts also were carried on by your Majesty's early and ready Entertainment of
against Prelacy in Specie and to let their Places and Honours die with them The Government may be so altered without putting out any Man if none be put in to succeed them when they die 2. And what if the King continue them as Church-Magistrates only to do what his own Officers may do to keep the Churches Peace as Justices and continue their Baronies and their Lands and Places in Parliament and only reform the pretended Spiritual Power of the Keys would not this have been a taking down of Prelacy without the wrong of any 3. Or what if he had taken down all their Power and given them a Writ of Ease and therewith left them durante vita their Estates and Honours Would this have been any injury to them 4. If Prelacy be as sinful as the Non-Subscribers foregoing Arguments would prove can it be injustice to save a Man from Sin and Hell and to save all the Churches from such Calamity for some fleshly abatements that follow to a few Persons 5. Was it injustice to put down the Abbots Or cannot King and Parliament do good by Laws to the Church or Commonwealth whenever a single Person or a few do suffer by it 6. Especially where the Maintenance is Publick and given for the Work and the Work is for the Publick Good Doth any Prince scruple the removing of an intolerable Pilot or Captain from a Ship Or an intolerable Minister from the Church Or an intolerable Officer from the Court though it be to his loss For my part I never accused them for casting out so many Hundred Ministers from their Livings or Benefices upon supposition that it be no wrong to Christ and Mens Souls to cast us out of the Church but should rather justifie it § 383. 11. The last and not the weakest Reason against the Obligation of the Covenant is That if it were lawful before for subjects to petition and Parliament Men to speak and vote against Prelacy yet now it is not because by this Act the Parliament hath made it unlawful Answ. 1. The Parliament doth only declare their sense of a thing past that no Man is bound and not enact by a Law that no Man shall henceforth be bound 2. If it had been otherwise all Protestants confess that neither Pope nor any Earthly Power can dispense with Oaths and Vows 3. They do not so much as prohibit all Men to endeavour an alteration of Government in the Church but only forbid them to say That they are bound to it by the Covenant 4. They have allowed Subjects to petition for the change of Laws so they do it but ten at a time 5. The Parliament is not by any Man to be accused of such a Subversion of Liberties and of Parliaments Priviledges and of the Constitution of the Kingdom as to forbid Subjects petitioning and all Parliament Men speaking and to disable the King and Parliament from changing a Law when they see cause If they should do any of this the Charges now brought against the Long Parliament would teach and allow us to suppose all to be null 6. If the Laws of God be against Prelacy those oblige above all Humane Laws And he that should forbid another to save him or his Neighbour when he is drowning doth not by that prohibition make the saving of them unlawful before God § 384. Now to the Latitudinarians addition of Reasons de modo sensu 1. They say that the Act extendeth not to the King at all when it biddeth us subscribe that there is no Obligation on me or any other person for Laws being made for Subjects are to be interpreted only of Subjects unless when the King is named To this it is easily answered That they distinguish not between the King as the Subject of a Law and the King as the Object of my Assertion or Belief It 's true that the Law speaketh of Subjects only whenever it speaketh of the Duty of Subjects and the King is no Subject But it is as true that the Law speaketh of the King only whenever it speaketh of the Prerogatives of the Crown and Soveraignty and as the Object of the Subjects Acts of Loyalty The question is not here Who is commanded by this Act but who is obliged by the Covenant or Vow And if I be commanded to say that no person is obliged without any limitation I can with no reason except the King whom the Law excepteth not Princes may be obliged by Vows as well as others and their Obligations may be the Subject of our Assertions and Belief § 385. 2. The second Reason is Because the King's Government is part of that whose alteration is declared against therefore be can be none of the any other persons Answ. 1. So the Prelates are the Persons whose Government is here mentioned and yet no doubt they are included in the any other persons as their Chancellors Commissaries Deans c. 2. If the King may be included when it is said That no Man must extirpate Monarchy no not the King much more when it is said That no Man may extirpate Prelacy for there the reason of the Objection faileth § 386. 3. They further say That the Act meaneth only that no Man is bound by the Vow to endeavour against Law as by Rebellion Sedition Treason c. and not that Subjects may not petition Parliament Men speak or King and Parliament alter the Law which they prove because it was taking up Arms and illegal Actions only that the old Parliament was blamed for Answ. This one pretence hath drawn abundance of laudable Persons to Subscribe but how unsatisfactory it is may thus appear 1. Why then could it never be procured to have the word unlawfully put into the Act when it was know that in that sence none of us would have scrupled it 2. All Casuists agree that Universal Terms in or about Oaths and Vows must not be understood any otherwise than Universally without apparent cogent Reason On such Terms as these else a Man may take any Oath in the World or disclaim any The Parliament hath exactly tyed Subscribers to the particular words and they long deliberated to express their own sence And they say neither I nor any other person and now cometh an Expositor and saith The King is not the any other person What! Is he no Person or is he not another Person So they say no Obligation lieth on us to endeavour and the Latitudinarian saith That I may endeavour it and that they mean no Endeavour but unlawful This contradictory Exception and Exposition is against all common Use and Justice and such as will allow a Man to cheat the State by saying or unsaying any thing in the World 3. We have many a time told some Latitudinarians how this matter may be soon decided if they will The Parliament hath past another Act with the self same words in it making it Confiscation for any Man to say That he or any other person is
be but the Justice's own Words or Assertion without proof Or if now dwelleth be taken laxly for a distant time then note that here is not any mention of Proof that there was any just or considerable distance between his Preaching and his dwelling here but he might go away the next hour after his Preaching notwithstanding any thing here mentioned For any Man that Preacheth is in the place where he Preacheth while he Preacheth and if he go away the next hour it must be considered in what time he can go five Miles But if now be taken for the Witnesses Words here is no intimation of the least distance And none can imagine that the Law meaneth that the Preacher shall be five Miles off the next Minute or Hour And indeed seeing no Man can tell how many hours must be allowed it is plain that the Act meaneth that the Person must be first legally Convict of Preaching in an unlawful Assembly and also of not having conformed or taken the Oath before the Oath is made of his not removing five Miles 3. This Act not at all enabling the Justices to take Oath about the Conventicles but only about not coming within five Miles and there being but one Deposition mentioned where he now dwelleth being a very part of that one Testimony if it be not the Justice's own Words it followeth that this Oath must be made before the Act against Conventicles was expired because no other Act enableth them to take such an Oath And then the now dwelleth will signifie long ago without any notified distance from his Preaching 4. If where he now dwelleth be part of the Deposition then so must the following Words not having taken and subscribed the Oath which Charity forbiddeth us to believe that they swore seeing I was never accused of it and it 's not possible that they or any Man living should know that I have not taken it heretofore 5. Here is no Oath that Richard Baxter Preached in a Conventicle before this Act which is to be proved as well as that he did it after The great difficulty in this Act is whether the general Words all such Persons as shall take on them to Preach be not to be taken as expounded in the Preamble limited to Non-conformists and the un-ordained as aforesaid And it 's plain that it 's not to be extended to Conformists 1. Because the Law doth not dishonour them so far as to suspect them of poisonous Principles 2. Else what ruin would it make in the Church when every Pastor must no more come within five Miles of his Charge no not the dignified Clergy if any Enemy shall secretly swear that they once preached in an unlawful Assembly 3. All the Conformable Clergy and their Council are of this mind For none of them take this Oath at the Sessions and therefore none of them think they are bound to take it Note it is to be taken unoffered and that on the Penalty of 40 l. if they come within five Miles of their Charge though they were never so willing to take it after Objection 1. The Conformists need it not because they keep no Conventicles Answ. 1. They are commanded many private Meetings as private Visitations of the Sick Baptisms Communions Perambulations in the Rogation-Week when they use in Houses by the way to spend the time in Pious Instructions Prayers c. And many of them repeat their Sermons in their Houses which is as much Preaching as any thing I have ever done 2. And there are few publick Assemblies where some-what is not done contrary to the Liturgy by Omissions c. 3. And every Man hath some Enemy who may Swear that these are unlawful Assemblies Obj. 2. The Conformists have already Subscribed Answ. 1. That proveth that this Act intendeth them not and therefore not me who Conform as far as any Law requireth me 2. It is one thing to say I am of Opinion and another thing to Swear that so it is 3. I may say that the Covenant bindeth me not to endeavour any Alteration of Church-Government easilier than Swear That I will never at any time endeavour it when we once already so far endeavoured it by Command 1660. as His Majesty's Gracious Declaration about Eccles. Affairs expresseth even while contrary Laws were in force § 125. While I stayed in Prison I saw some-what to blame my self for and some-what to wonder at others for and some-what to advise my Visitors about 1. I blamed my Self that I was no more sensible of the Spiritual part of my Affliction such as was the interruption of my Work and the poor People from whom I was removed and the advantage Satan had got against them and the loss of my own publick Liberty for worshipping in the Assemblies of his Servants 2. I marvelled at some who suffered no more than I as Mr. Rutherford when he was confined to Aberdeen that their Sufferings occasioned them so great Joys as they express which sure was from the Free Grace of God to encourage others by their Examples and not that their own Impatience made them need it much more than at other times For surely so small a Suffering needeth not a quarter of the Patience as many poor Nonconformable Ministers and Thousands others need that are at liberty whose own Houses through Poverty are made far worse to them than my Prison was to me 3. To my Visitors I found Reason 1. To intreat my Acton-Neighbours not to let their Passion against their Parson on my account hinder them from a due regard to his Doctrine nor from any of the Duty which they owed him 2. To blame some who aggravated my Sufferings and to tell them That I had no mind to fancy my self hurt before I felt it I used at home to confine my self voluntarily almost as much I had ten-fold more publick a Life here and converse with my Friends than I had at home If I had been to take Lodgings at London for six Months and had not known that this had been a Prison and had knock'd at the Door and ask'd for Rooms I should as soon have taken this which I was put into as most in Town save only for the Interruption of my sleep That it sheweth great weakness to magnifie a small Suffering and much worse to magnifie our selves and our own Patience for bearing so small a thing than which most poor Men in England bear more every Day I found Cause to desire my Brethren that when they suffered they would remember that the design of Satan was more against their Souls than their Bodies and that it was not the least of his hopes to destroy their Love which wâ—s due to those by whom they suffered and to dishonour Superiours and by aggravating our Sufferings to render them odious to the People As also to make us take such a poor Suffering as this for a sign of true Grace instead of Faith Hope Love Mortification and a Heavenly Mind and that
the loss of one Grain of Love was worse than a long Imprisonment And that it much more concerned us to be sure that we deserved not Suffering than that we be delivered from it and to see that we wronged not our Superiours than that they wrong not us seeing we are not near so much hurt by their Severities as we are by our Sins Some told me that they hoped this would make me stand a little further from the Prelates and their Worship than I had done To whom I answered That I wondred that they should think that a Prison should change my Judgment I rather thought now it was my Duty to set a stricter watch upon my Passions lest they should pervert my Judgment and carry me into Extreams in opposition to my Afflictors And not past a Year and half after two Gentlemen turned Quakers in Prison If Passion made me lose my Love or my Religion the loss would be my own And Truth did not change because I was in a Goal The temper of my Visitors called me much to this kind of talk § 126. When I was in Prison the Lord Chief Baron at the Table at Serjeant's Inn before the rest of the Judges gave such a Character of me openly without fear of any Man's displeasure as is not fit for me to own or recite who was so much reverenced by the rest who were every one Strangers to me save by hear-say that I believe it much settled their Resolutions The Lord Chief Justice Vaughan was no Friend to Nonconformity or Puritans but he had been one of Selden's Executors and so Judge Hale's old Acquaintance Judge Tyrell was a well-affected sober Man and Serjeant Fountain's Brother-in-Law by Marriage and sometime his Fellow-Commissioner for keeping the Great Seal and Chancery Judge Archer was one that privately favoured Religious People And Judge Wild though greatly for the Prelates way yet was noted for a Righteous Man And these were the Four Judges of the Court. § 127. My Habeas Corpus being demanded at the Common Pleas was granted and a Day appointed for my Appearance But when I came the Judges I believe having not before studied the Oxford-Act when Judge Wild had first said I hope you will not use to trouble this Court with such Causes asked whether the King's Council had been acquainted with the Case and seen the Order of the Court which being denied I was remanded back to Prison and a new Day set They suffered me not to stand at the Bar but called me up on the Table which was an unusual respect and they sent me not to the Fleet as is usual but to the same Prison which was a greater favour § 128. When I came next the Lord Chief Justice coming towards Westminster Hall went into White-Hall by the way which caused much talk among the People When he came Judge Wild began and having shewed that he was no Friend to Conventicles opened the Act aâ—d then opened many defaults in the Mittimus for which he pronounced it invalid but in Civility to the Justices said that the Act was so Penned that it was a very hard thing to draw up a Mittimus by it which was no Compliment to the Parliament Judge Archer next spake largely against the Mittimus without any word of disparagement to the main Cause And so did Judge Tyrell after him I will not be so tâ—dious as to recite their Arguments Judge Vaughan concluded in the same manner but with these two Singularities above the rest 1. That he made it an Error in the Mittimus that the Witnesses were not named seeing that the Oxford-Act giving the Justices so great a power if the Witnesses be unknown any innocent Person may be laid in Prison and shall never know where or against whom to seek remedy which was a Matter of great moment 2. When he had done with the Cause he made a Speech to the People and told them That by the apperance he perceived that this was a Cause of as great Expectation as had been before them and it being usual with People to carry away things by the halves and their misreports might mislead others he therefore acquainted them That though he understood that Mr. Baxter was a Man of great Learning and of a good Life yet he having this singularity the Law was against Conventicles and it was only upon the Error of the Warrant that he was released and that they use in their Charge at Assizes to enquire after Conventicles and they are against the Law so that if they that made the Mittimus had but known how to make it they could not have delivered him nor can do it for him on any that shall so transgress the Law This was supposed to be that which was resolved on at White-Hall by the way But he had never heard what I had to say in the main Cause to prove my self no Transgressor of the Law Nor did he at all tell them how to know what a Conventicle is which the Common Law is so much against § 129. Being discharged of my Imprisonment my Sufferings began for I had there better Health than I had of a long time before or after I had now more exasperated the Authors of my Imprisonment I was not at all acquit as to the main Cause they might ameâ—d their Mittimus and lay me in again I knew no way how to bring my main Cause whether they had power to put the Oxford-Oath on me to a legal Tryal And my Counsellors advised me not to do it much less to question the Justices for false Imprisonment lest I were born down by power I had now a great House of great Rent on my Hands which I must not come to I had no House to dwell in I knew not what to do with all my Goods and Family I must go out of Middlesex I must not come within five Miles of City Corporation c. where to find such a place and therein a House and how to remove my Goods thither and what to do with my House the while till my time expired were more trouble than my quiet Prison by far and the Consequents yet worse § 130. Gratitude commandeth me to tell the World who were my Benefactors in my Imprisonment and Calumny as much obligeth me because it is said among some that I was 〈◊〉 by it Serjeant Fountain's general Counsel ruled me Mr. Wallop and Mr. Offley sent me their Counsel and would take nothing Of four Serjeants that pleaded my Cause two of them Serjeant Windham afterwards Baron of the Exchequer and Serjeant Sise would take nothing Sir Iohn Bernard a Person that I never saw but once sent me no less than Twenty Pieces and the Countess of 〈◊〉 Ten Pound And Alderman Bard Five and I received no more but I confess more was offered me which I refused and more would have been but that they knew I needed it not And this much defrayed my Law and Prison Charges § 131. When
account of Religion earnestly declaming against Popery and becoming the Head of the Party that were zealous for the Protestant Cause and awakened the Nation greatly by his Activity And being quickly put out of his place of Chancellourship he by his bold and skillful way of speaking so moved the House of Lords that they began to speak higher against the danger of Popery than the Commons and to pass several Votes accordingly And the Earl of Shaftsbury spake so plainly of the Duke of York as much offended and it was supposed would not long be born The Earl of Clare the Lord Hollis the Lord Hallifax and others also spake very freely And among the Bishops only that I heard of Sir Herbert Crofts who had sometimes been a Papist the Bishop of Hereford And now among Lords and Commons and Citizens and Clergy the talk went uncontrolled that the Duke of York was certainly a Papist and that the Army lately raised and encamped at Black-heath was designed to do their Work who at once would take down Parliaments and set up Popery And Sir Bucknall told them in the House of such Words that he had overheard of the late Lord Treasurer Clifford to the Lord Arundell as seemed to increase their Satisfaction of the Truth of all but common observation was the fullest satisfaction In a word the offence and boldness of both Houses grew so high as easily shewed men how the former War began aâ—d silenced many that said it was raised by Nonconformists and Presbyterians § 255. The third of February was a publick Fast against Popery the first as I remember that besides the Anniversary Fasts had ever been since this Parliament sate which hath now sate longer than that called the long Parliament did before the major part were cast out by Cromwell But the Preachers Dr. Cradock and Dr. Whitchcot medled but little with that Business and did not please them as Dr. Stillingfleet had done who greatly animated them and all the Nation against Popery by his open and diligent endeavours for the Protestant Cause § 256. During this Session the Earl of Orery desired me to draw him up in brief the Terms and Means which I thought would satisfie the Non-conformists so far as to unite us all against Popery professing that he met with many Great Men that were much for it and particulary the New Lord Treasurer Sir Thomas Osborn and Dr. Morley Bishop of Winchester who vehemently profess'd his desires of it And Dr. Fullwood and divers others had been with me to the like purpose testifying the said Bishop's resolution herein I wisht them all to tell him from me that he had done so much to the contrary and never any thing this way since his Professions of that sort that till his real Endeavours convinced Men it would not be believed that he was serious But when I had given the Earl of Orery my Papers he returned them me with Bishop Morley's Strictures or Animadversions as by his Words and the Hand I had reason to be confident by which he fully made me see that all his Professions for Abanement and Concord were deceitful Suares and that he intended no such thing at all And because I have inserted before so much of such transactions I will here annex my Proposals with his Strictures and my Reply To the Right Honourable the Earl of Orery My Lord I Have here drawn up those Terms on which I think Ministers may be restored to the Churches Service and much union and quietness be procured But I must tell you 1. That upon second Thoughts I forbore to distribute them as I intimated to you into several Ranks but only offer what may tend to a Concord of the most though not of every man 2. That I have done this only on the suppositions that we were fain to go upon in our Consultation with Dr. 〈◊〉 viz. That no change in the Frame of Church-Government will be consented to Otherwise I should have done as we did in 1660 offered you Arch-bishop Vsher's Reduction of the Government to the primitive state of Episcopacy and have only desired that the Lay-Chancellours have not the Power of the Keys and that if not in every Parish at least in every Rural Deanry or Market-Town with the adjacent Villages the Ministers might have the Pastoral power of the Keys so far as is necessary to guide their own Administrations and not one Bishop or Lay-Chancellour's Court to have more to do than Multitudes can well do and thereby cause almost all true Discipline to be omitted 3. I have forborn to enumerate the Particulars which we cannot subscribe or swear to or practise because they are many and I fear the naming of them will be displeasing to others as seeming to accuse them while we do but say what a Sin such Conformity would be in our selves But if it should be useful and desired I am ready to do it But I now only say that the matters are far from being things doubtful or indifferent or little Sins in our Apprehensions of which we are ready to render a Reason But I think that this bare Proposal of the Remedies is the best and shortest and least offensive way In which I crave your Observation of these two Particulars 1. That it is the matter granted if it be even in our own Words that will best do the Cure For while other men word it that know not our Scruples or Reasons they miss our Sence usually and make it ineffectual 2. That the Reason why I crave that Ministers may have impunity who use the greatest part of the Liturgy for the Day is 1. To shorten the Accommodation that we may not be put to delay our Concord till the Liturgy be altered to the Satisfaction of Dissenters which we have cause to think will not be done at all Now this will silently and quietly heal us and if a Man omit some one Collect or Sentence without debate or noise it will not be noted nor be a matter of offence 2. And he is unworthy to be a Minister that is not to be trusted so much as with the using or not using of a few Sentences or words in all his Ministration 3. And almost every Minister that I hear all the Year of the most Conformable do every day omit some part or other and yet are not Silenc'd nor taken notice of as offenders at all And may not as much for our Concord be granted to Dissenters in the present case He that thinks that these Concessions will be more injurious to the Church and the Souls of Men than our Uncharitableness and Divisions have been these Eleven Years and are yet like to be is not qualified to be at all an Healer In Conclusion I must again intreat you that this Offer may be taken but as the Answer of your desire for your private use and that no Copy be given of it nor the Author made known unless we have encouragement from our Governours to
at the Temple the violentest of them and Mr. Rose and Mr. Philips the same two Men that had sent me to the Goal four years before They offered Mr. Bedford the Oath but it proved that he had taken it before and so far defeated them But he was fined accordingly to the Act in 20 l. and the place 40 l. which the Lord Wharton the Countesses of Bedford Manchester and Clâ—re and other hearers paid But two of the Justices swore that he said that the King did not in good earnest desire the execution of this Law which he professed he never said And for this the King sent him to Prison § 284. An Accident at this time fell out which occasioned a little seeming stop of my trouble which I will relate as the Duke of Lauderdail told it me himself who was present The Lord Falcon-brigde being with the Bishop of Salisbury Ward after reported that the Bishop told him that it was nothing of the Bishops but of the Lord Treasurer that the Act was thus Executed The Lord Treasurer charged it as an injury on the Bishop The Lord High Chamberlain E. of Lindsey told it Bishop Morley who told it Bishop Ward who went to the Lord Treasurer and Complained of it as a false injurious report of the Lord Falconbridge The Lord Treasurer took him to the King who sent for the Lord Falconbridge who before the King the D. of Lauderdail the Lord Treasurer the Lord High Chamberlain c. was accused by Bishop Ward for a false report of his words The Lord Falconbridge could not make it good but tho he spake not those very words he took the Scope of his Speech to be of that Importance The King said the Duke to me said I must tell you this my self I called the Bishops to give me their advice what was to be done for the present securing of the Church and the Protestant Religion and they told me that there was something to be done but they thought it not safe for them to give advice in it I told them that I took this for a Libel and askt them who or what they were afraid of And I appointed these Lords to see them give their Answer Among other passages the Lord Falconbridge said that the Bishop called the Execution of the Law a trick The Bishop Answered I said not that the Execution of the Law was a trick but that to begin with Mr. Baxter was a trick of some to make it thought that we are unreconcilable to the most moderate and peaceable Men. And thus they were drawn in to give their seeming Judgment against my suffering tho there was great reason to think that Papists and Prelates were the Contrivers of it § 285. For the better understanding of many of these matters it must be known that at 2 or 3 of the last Sessions of Parliament Bishop Morley had on all occasions in the Company of Lords Gentlemen and Divines cryed out of the danger of Popery and talkt much for abatements and taking in the Nonconformists or else we are like all to fall into the Papists hands so that there were no Lords or others for agreement but he made himself the head of their Design and so got an Interest still in the work as the forwardest desirer of it Dr. Fulwood Mr. Collyer and Divers others came to me to advise about a way of Concord as encouraged by this Bishop's words I sent him word by them all that I had heard these many years of these agreeing peâ—â—emaking purposes and desires of his Lordship but having known so much of his Endeavours to the contrary I intreated him by some Deeds to convince me of his sincerity for till then I was not able to believe it And the Event shewed that my incredulity was not without cause § 286. At this Sessions of Parliament approaching he set upon the same Course again and Bishop Ward as his second and chief Coagent joyned with him and they were famed to be the two Bishops that were for Comprehension and Concord none so forward as they At last Dr. Bates brings me a message from Dr. Tillot son Dean of Canterbury that he and Dr. Stillingfleet desired a Meeting with Dr. Manton Dr. Bates Mr. Pool and me to treat of an Act of Comprehension and Union and that they were encouraged to it by some Lords both Spiritual and Temporal We met to consider whether such an Attempt was safe and prudent or what was not offered by some Bishops as a sâ—are to us I told them my opinion that Experience would not suffer any Charity to believe any better of some Bishops but that they knew Dr. Stillingfleet and Dr. Tillotson to be the likeliest Men to have a hand in an Agreement if such a thing should be attempted and therefore that they would make themselves the Masters of it to defeat it and no better issue was to be expected as from them But yet that these two Doctors were Men of so much Learning Honesty and Interest that I took it as our Duty to accept the offer and to try with them how far we could agree and so try them first whether they would promise us secresy unless it came to maturity to be further notified by Consent And that we might hope for this Success as quickly to agree with these two Men and in time it might be some advantage to our desired Unity that our Terms were such as these two worthy Men consented to § 287. Accordingly Dr. Manton and I were desired by the rest to try them We went to Dr. Tillotson who promised Morley and Bishop Ward that had set them on work and the Earl of Carlile and Halifax chiefly who encouraged them Here-upon we agreed to meet the next week with him and Dr. Stillingfleet to try how far we could agree on the Terms I had before drawn up the form of an Healing Act and read it to no one but Mr. Hampden who told me it would never pass Before the next Meeting Dr. Manton was fain to abscond at the Lord Wharton's being designed as is aforesaid to the Common Goal such was the Treaty which we were invited to But I went alone and met the two Doctors I found them sincere in the business and conceited that Bishop Morley and Ward were so also Upon their promise of secrecy I freely told them my thoughts of the Bishop of Winchester and what an attempt I had lately made with him besides all heretofore at the request of the Earl of Orery and that after his Calls for Concord he granted me no one abatement or alteration or indulgence desired I shewed them the form of the Act which I had prepared They desired me to leave it with them to consider on Shortly after Dr. Tillotson brought me a Draught with several omissions and alterations I drew up my own again with some little alterations required by his Draught This he and I debated till we came to an agreement of the whole
his Conscience to baptize any Child who is not thus offered to God by one of the Parents or by such a pro parent as taketh the Child for his own and undertaketh the Christian Education Be it also Enacted that no person shall be constrained against his Conscience to the use of the Cross in Baptism or of the Surplice nor any Minister to deny the Lord's Supper to any for not receiving it kneeling nor read any of the Apocrypha for Lessons nor to punish any Excommunication or Absolution against his Conscience but the Bishop or Chancellour who decreeth it shall cause such to publish it as are not dissatisfyed so to do or shall only affix it on the Church-Door Nor shall any Minister be constrained at Burial to speak only words importing the salvation of any person who within a year received not the Sacrament of Communion or was suspended from it according to the Rubrick or Canon and satisfyed not the Minister of his serious Repentance III. And whereas many persons having been ordained as Presbyters by Parochial Pastors in the times of Usurpation and Distraction hath occasioned many Difficulties for the present remedy hereof be it Enacted That all such persons as before this time have been ordained as Presbyters by Parochial Pastors only and are qualifyed for that Office as the Law requireth shall receive power to exercise it from a Bishop by a written Instrument which every Bishop in his Diocess is hereby impowered and required to Grant in these words and no other To A. B. of C. in the Country of D. Take thou Authority to exercise the Office of a Presbyter in any place and Congregation in the King's Dominions whereto thou shall be lawfully called And this practice sufficing for present Concord no one shall be put to declare his Judgment whether This or That which he before received shall be taken for his Ordination nor shall be urged to speak any words of such signification but each party shall be left to Judge as they see cause IV. And whereas the piety of Families and Godly Converse of Neighbours is a great means of preserving Religion and Sobriety in the World and lest the Act for suppressing seditious Conventicles should be mis-interpreted as injurious thereto be it declared that it is none of the meaning of the said Act to forbid any such Family Piety or Converse tho more then four Neighbours should be peaceably present at the Reading of the Scriptures or a Licensed Book the singing of a Psalm repeating of the publick Sermons or any such Exercise which neither the Laws nor Canons do forbid they being performed by such as joyn with the allowed Church-Assemblies and refuse not the Inspection of the Ministers of the Parish Especially where persons that cannot read are unable to do such things at home as by Can. 13. is enjoyned V. And whereas the form of the Oath and Declaration imposed on persons of Office and Trust in Corporations is unsatisfactory to many that are Loyal and peaceable that our Concord may extend to Corporations as well as Churches Be it Enacted That the taking of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Declaration against Religion and Disloyalty here before prescribed shall to all Ends and purposes suffice instead of the said Oath and Declaration VI. And whereas there are many peaceable Subjects who hold all the Essentials of the Christian Faith but conform not to so much as is required to the Established Ministry and Church-Communion Be it Enacted that All and only they who shall publickly take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy before some Court of â—ustice or at the Open Sessions of the County where they live and that then and there Subscribe as followeth I. A. B. do unfeâ—gnedly stand to my Baptismal Covenant and do believe all the Articles of the Creeds called the Apostles the Nicene and Constantinopolitane and the truth of the holy Canonical Scriptures and do renounce all that 〈◊〉 contrary hereto shall be so far tolerated in the Excercise of their Religion as His Majesty with the advice of his Parliament or Council shall from time to time find consistent with the peace and safety of his Kingdoms VII And lest this Act for Concord should occasion Discord by emboldening unpeaceable and unruly or heretical men be it enacted that if any either in the allowed or the Tolerated Assemblies that shall pray or Preach Rebellion Sedition or against the Government or Liturgy of the Church or shall break the Peace by tumults or otherwise or stir up unchristian hatred and strife or shall preach against or otherwise oppose the Christan verities or any Article of the sacred Doctrine which they subscribe or any of the 39. Articles of Religion they shall be punished as by the Laws against such Offences is already provided I will here also Annex the Copies of some Petitions which I was put to draw up which never were presented I. The first was intended while the Parliament was sitting to have been offered but wise Parliament-Men thought it was better forbear it II. The second was thought fit for some Citizens to have offered but by the same Councel it was forborn III. The third was thus occasioned Sir Iohn Babor told Dr. Manton that the Scots being then suspected of some insurrection it was expected that we renewed the profession of our Loyalty to free us from all suspicion of Conspiracy with them We said that it seemed hard to us that we should fall under suspicion and no cause alledged We knew of no occasion that we had given But we were ready to profess our continued Loyalty but desired that we might with it open our just resentment of our Case They put me to draw it up but when it was read it was laid by none daring to plead our Cause so freely and signify any sense of our hard usage I. May it Please Your Majesty with the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament WHen the Common profession of resolved moderation had abated Men's fears of a Silencing Prelacy and the published Declarations of Nobilitie and Gentry against all dividing violence and revenge had helpt to unite the endeavours of Your Subjects which prospered for Your Majestie 's desired Restoration when God's wonderful providence had dissolved the Military Powers of Usurpers which hindered it and when Your welcome appearance Your Act of Oblivion Your Gracious Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs for which the House of Commons solemnly gave you thanks did seem to have done much to the Cure of our Divisions we had some hopes that our common revived Love and Concord would have tended to Your Majesty's and our common joy in the harmony strength and prosperity of Your Kingdoms and that we might among your inferiour Subjects have enjoyed our part in the common tranquility But the year 1662. dissolved those hopes fixing our old Difficulties and adding more which since then also have been much increased Beeing consecrated and vowed to the sacred Ministry we
in with such an Advantage as the turning of the Papist Bishops would have brought But what is that to prove that they would have Bishops and could not Grotius knew France as well as you whoever you are and he tells us another Story of them Discus Apologet. Rivet That they wilfully cast out the Order of Bishops as far as their Authority could reach what impossibility hath their been these hundred Years for France Belgia Helvetia Geneva with the rest of the Protestant Churches to have had Bishops if they had been willing They had Hermannus of Colen Vergerius of Iustinop came among them Spalatensis would have ordained some in his Passage if no English Bishop could have been got thither how easy had it been to have sent one to receive Episcopal Consecration here and then to have gone home and ordained more It may be you would make us believe the like of the Church of Scotland too that they would fain have Bishops and could not If you alledge 〈◊〉 Inconvenience that necessitates all these Protestant Churches to continue without Bishops even to this Day I say 3. Our Necessity is as great as any of theirs for ought you can manifest to the contrary for 1. Our Rulers are as much against them 2. We cannot exercise publickly our Ministerial Office unless we be ordained according to the Laws of the present Rulers 3. There is a heavy Penalty ordained to all Ordainers that do otherwise 4. We have no Bishop in our Diocess 5. We read Canons that null Bishops Ordination out of their Diocesses 6. We know not of above two Bishops in England nor where to find the rest that are latent and we hear those two will not ordain 7. Divers of them were justly ejected for destroying the Church and we cannot take them for Bishops 8. We are but Subjects and a small part of the Ministry and cannot set up Bishops among our selves if we were of that Judgment as much as others But Nations Commonwealths and Free-cities might if they would The Cloak which you say is too short is indeed much larger than our Case requires If our Nation or any part of it did voluntarily cast off Bishops so did the Protestant Churches and continue to keep them out to this Day But you cannot prove that the Ministers of this Association did cast them off And for your surmise of the Countenance of our Christian Charity I answer we never yet gave you Cause to suppose that we distinguish not between Protestant Bishops and Papists Except to Sect. 5. An Argument a Fortiori all Logick admits of but I never heard a Suspicion of any Firmness in concluding ab Imbecilliori thus Perhaps perhaps I say and as many Moderns would charitably think they may be true Presbyters who were ordained by Presbyters where morally to speak and as to consciential possibility there was an impossibility of procuring Orders from any Bishops but such as would oblige them to betray both Presbyters and Bishops Authority to Papal Usurpation and arrogated Supremacy therefore we also who might have had Ordination by Bishops and those such who have as well as we oft hindred that papal Usurpation yea had renued that Duration by an Oath in Synod a little before these late sad Schisms and this new attempted Ordination and chose to be ordained without them contrary to all the Canons of the Church Universal of all Ages till these last Ages of this Cotroversy We I say also for all that are true Pastors and Presbyters and we will be acknowledged for such in this Agreement and others to be Popish Divines lurking under the Name of Episcopal Divines Lo here a goodly Consequence and a Christian Presbyterian Charity Reply to Sect. 5. 1. Our Argument is not only a pari but a fortiori as is manifested 2. You give us reason here to fear that your self are one of those Persons whom we except against and that it is your own Cause that you strive for and that your Guilt is it that makes you angry for you seem to me to intimate to us that you own not their Opinion that make the Protestant Ministers to be Ministers indeed and consequently their Churches true organized Churches for all the necessity which you pretend they had for you make it but a perhaps and your double that perhaps that we may see you own it not and you say it is as many would think as if it were but their Thought and as if you were none of those many And it is but the Moderns that so think as if you intimated that Antiquity iudged otherwise which doubtless you prefer before the Moderns and you say they would think it intimating that Will prevails against Judgment or Judgment follows not that Will yea it is charitably that they would think it as if Affection misled them and other Passages afterward do yet further reveal your Mind in this though you are loath I perceive to speak out because of the harshness of it to Protestants Ears I therefore again say 1. Those churches were not nor are to this Day under any impossibility of having Bishops if they judged them necessary 2. That you prove not what you say that they in this Country might have had Ordination by a Bishop who were ordained by Presbyters only We leave therefore our Consequence and our Christian Presbyterian Charity to a more equal Judge whether that Man be like to be a Protestant that taketh the Church of Rome for a true Church and all the reformed Churches except the Episcopal for no true Churches and that taketh their Priests for Lawful Ministers and all the Protestant Ministers for none except those that were ordained by Bishops nay that argue as here you do to have us and consequently all so ordained disclaimed by Pastors and People and consequently all our Churches nullified and publick Worship forsaken Are we so blind as not to see that you thus not only prefer the Papists before us as much as a true Ministry before no Ministry and a true Church before no Church but hereby would deliver us up into their Hands If we dispute with them in the hearing of the People and confess that their Church is true and ours is not may not the People easily see that it 's better join with them than with us and would not you your self rather submit to a Mass Priest than to those whom you take for no Ministers at all If you say you would have us submit to neither but to the Episcopal yet 1. It follows nevértheless that the Papists of the two are to be preferred as true Ministers before them that are none 2. And if we dispute with the Papist which is the true Church and set against them only Eleven or Twelve for so many you reckon on English Bishops and if there be any Irish or Scotish with those of the Clergy that adhere to them Quality and Number considered whom the People know not where to find nor can
were all distinguished by the Limits of their Habitation or Proximity so that there was never two Churches in the same City or Bounds save Hereticks and Men of divers Tongues at least where one could hold them all But it 's otherwise with the Separatists 4. No lawful Church in Scripture was gathered out of a true Gospel-Church But theirs are 5. Scripture Churches had fixed known Tests to know qualified Members by which was consent to the Baptismal Covenant explained in the Creed Lord's-Prayer and Commandments So that all Churches had the same Test and Terms of Qualification and so had one Profession But these Men leave this Arbitrary to the Pastor or People to try whether Men are converted by uncertain Terms and Words devised by every Minister so that the Terms are unknown and not agreed on among their Churches and may be as various as Ministers 6. Scripture-Churches never divided the Christians of the same Family some to one Church and some to another But these Men do so to great Confusion 7. They are not agreed on any Form of Doctrine to be a Test of their Agreement with other Churches with whom they will have Communion If they say that the Scripture is that Test I answer a General Belief that Scripture is the Word of God is neither sufficient to Salvation nor to Communion Many have this who deny the Essentials of Christianity And an explicite Understanding and Belief of every Text no Man hath Thousands of Texts are not understood by most Christians or Teachers therefore there must be some Collection of the Essentials in a Creed or else there can be no certain Notice whether so much of Scripture Truth be explicitely believed as is necessary to Salvation And if single Pastors require more it must be only in order to Growth and Edification and not as a necessary Qualification for Membership or Communion of Churches I have great Cause to know what I say of them A Parliament once chose Fourteen Ministers to draw up the Fundamentals of Religion as a Test of such as were to be tollerated in Union There were Dr. Owen Mr. Nye Dr. Thomas Goodwin Mr. Sydrak Sympson Dr. Cheynel and others Bishop Usher was chosen and refused and I was chosen in his stead Before I came they had drawn up Fourteen or Fifteen Articles all in new Terms of their own and some neither Essential nor true I told them that we were not to make a new Christianity or Creed but must own that which the Christian Church was known by in all Ages But I could not be heard though Mr. Vines and Mr. Mantâ—n joined with me At last they wrote this for a Fundamental That they that allowed themselves or others in any known Sin cannot be saved I told them that though I could not be heard by them I durst say that I would make them presently blot it out They bid me do it if I could I said The Parliament taketh Independency Separation Anabaptistry and Antinomianism for Sin And they will say These Divines pronounce us all Damned if we allow them They said not a Word but threw away their Fundamental The rest of them they printed But the Parliament were glad with silence to pass by all their Works and take no notice of it lest it should be a publick Reproach that we could not agree on the Fundamentals And I am glad that I hindered such an Agreement as they would have made instead of the old Creeds which they would not rest in And can such Churches be of any known Consistency or Concord If you join with them how know you what Religion they are of Or how know they what other particular Churches are in their Communion for I hope they hold a Communion of Churches Arrians and Socinians say they believe the Scripture No Man understandeth all the Scripture The necessary selected Articles they have no known Agreement in If they say that they own the same Creed that we do why then do they not use it as the Test of Christian Profession but instead of it leave every Pastor to make one in Terms that is only his and no two Churches have the same To agree in Independency or Separation is not to agree in Christianity There are abundance of Books written for very false Doctrines by men called Independents it 's odious to name them Are all the Author of their Communion or not The Assembly could never get them to tell whom they would take to be of their Communion and whom not 8. Therefore their Churches are not compaginate nor confederate so as the Members of our Body should be and as Scripture-Churches were and as Christ would have had the Jewith National Church to be 9. They have no Certainty and Concord in their Church-Worship which they have little more than such Preaching and Praying which cannot be known for true or false sound or unsound till the Words are past And it may justly be expected that Separatists Antinomians Anabaptists Socinians and all erroneous Men should put their Errors into their Sermons and Prayers and sinfully father them all on God And so all God's Worship must be contiually uncertain to the Flocks and of as many different Strains as the Preachers differ in Parts and Wisdom And it must be low and poor and confused wherever the Ministers are young raw erroneous or ignorant They once met at the Savoy and drew up an Agreement of many Pastors But in that they differ from many other Churches called Independants and from the Anabaptists And they expresly contradict the Scripture 1. In saying that we have no Righteousness but Christ's which is imputed to us when as Scripture many Hundred times mentioneth also another personal inherent or acted Righteousness 2. They say that Faith is not imputed for Righteousness I think they mean well But they should rather expound Scripture than flatly deny or contradict what it saith and after defame those falsly that would help them more distinctly to understand it Their People are taught to speak evil of what they understand not and to represent Men as dangerous or odious who think not of many wordy Controversies as confusedly and ignorantly as they Their Churches are too usually constituted of such Novices in Knowledge of both Sexes as are like a School where the Boys call their Teacher a Deceiver for every word by which he would deliver them from their Errours and teach them more than they knew before 10. They lazily gather a few that seem so much better than the rest as will put them to no great labour in Teaching and Discipline But if all the rest of the Parishes lye in Ignorance how little are we beholden to these Separatists for the Cure When I came to Kidderminster some inclined that way importuned to me to take a few Professors of Zeal for my Flock and let the rest follow their ignorant Readers But when I renounced their Counsel and after my own and my Assistants long Catechizing them
and perswading all the Families House by House they saw the Body of Town and Parish in love with serious Religion they told me they had been undone if I had followed their Counsel William Allen who with Mr. Lamb were Pastors of an Anabaptist Arminian Church first separated from the Parish-Churches and next from the Independents was turned from Independency much by seeing being our Kidderminster Factor that Parish-Churches may be made as holy as separated ones and the People not left by lazy Separatists to the Devil So that this Experience made him and his Companion more against Independency than I am 11. They abuse the People in indulging them in works that they were never called to nor are capable of nor can give any comfortable account of to God that is To be the Judges of Persons admitted to Communion and of Mens Repentance and Fitness for the Sacrament c. whenas God hath put this Power called The Church Keys into the Pastors and Rulers hands the not over-forced Men but Voluntiers Baptism is the true Churches Entrance and the Baptizer is the Judge of the Capacity of the Baptized no more but Consent to particular Church Relation and Duty is necessary to Membership of Neighbour Christians in particular Churches And nothing but proved nullifying the Baptismal Covenant by Heresie or Sin impenitently maintained or contained in doth forfeit their visible right to Communion And if the People must judge of all these they must have their Callings to examine every Person and they must grow wiser and abler then many of their Leaders are 12. Their Churches have among them no probable way of Concord but they are as a heap of Sand that upon every Commotion fall in pieces The Experience of it in Holland broke them to nothing And it so affected the Sober in New-England that in 1660. or 1661. Mr. Ash and I were fain to disswade Mr. Norton and Mr. Broadstreet whom they sent hither as Commissioners from inclining to our English Episcopacy foretelling them what was doing and we have seen so deeply were they afraid of being received by that Peoples uncurable Separation from their ablest Pastors whenever any earnest erroneous Teachers would seduce them Their Building wanteth Cement 13. God hath so wonderfully by his Providences disowned the way of Schism and Separation on how good pretences soever that I should be too like Pharaoh in hardness if I should despise his warnings For Instance 1. In the Apostles days all are condemned that separated from the setled Churches even when those Churches had many heinous Scandals and St. Paul saith That all they in Asia were turned from him The Authority and Miracles of the Apostles did not serve to keep Men from Separation and raising Schisms 2. Even when the Church lay under Heathen Persecutors for 294 years yet Swarms of Condemned Sects arose to so great a number as that the naming and confuting them filleth great Volumes to the great Reproach of the Christian Churches and Scandal of the Heathens 3. As soon as Constantine delivered the Churches from the Flames of cruel Persecution and set up Christians in Power and Wealth separating Sects grew greater than before each Party crying up their several Bishops and Teachers and grew worse by Divisions till thereby they tempted the Papal Clergy to unite Men carnally by force 4. At Luther's Reformation Swarms of Separatists arose in Germany Holland Poland c. to the great dishonour of the Protestant Cause 5. Here in England it hath been ill in Queen Elizabeth's time by the Familists and Separatists and far worse since It was such as Quarterman and Lilburn and other Separatists that drew Tumults and Crowds down to Westminster to draw the Parliament to go beyond their own Judgment and thereby divided the Parliament-men and drove away the King which was the beginning of our odious War It was the Separating Party that all over the Land set up Anti-Churches in the Towns that had able godly Ministers when they had nothing imposed on them to excuse it neither Bishops Liturgies nor Ceremonies So that Churches became like Cockpits or Fencing-Schools to draw asunder the Body of Christ. It was the Separating Party that got under Cromwell into the Army and became the common Scorners of a godly able Ministry by the Names of the Priest-byters the Driviners the Westminster-sinners the Dissembly-men as Malignant Drunkards did and worse It was these that thought Success had made them Rulers of the Land that caused the disbanding of all the Soldiers that disliked their Spirit and Way and then pull'd down first eleven and then the major part of the Parliament imprisoning and turning out Men of eminent Piety and Worth and making a Parliament of the minor part and their killing the King and afterward with scorn turning out that minor part that had done their work and to whom they had oft profest themselves Servants It was these Men that set up a Usurper that made a thing called a Parliament all of his and his Armies nomination If this should ever be imitated whom may we thank It was these Men that set up the Military Government of Major-Generals It was they that set up and pull'd down so many feigned Supream Powers in a few years as made themselves the Scorn of the World and by a dreadful warning of Divine Justice all their victorious Army and Power dropt in pieces like Sand as they would have used the Church and was dissolved without one Battle or drop of Blood save the after-Blood of their Leaders that were hang'd drawn and quarter'd by Parliament Sentence It is these Men and these doings that have hardened thousands against Reformation and turned all that was done for it O what did it cost and what raised hopes had many of the Success into Reproach quieted the Consciences of those that have thought they served God by silencing hating and persecuting those that they thought had been of this guilty Sect. In a word the spirit and way of causeless Separation whether by violent Prelatists Pursuits and Excommunications or by self-conceited Sectaries was never owned or blest by God If any say truly or falsly You have had a hand in some such thing your self I answer If I had I will hate it and write against it so much the more To thrust ones self into a way so disowned by God by such a course of fearful warnings is to run with Pharaoh into the Red-Sea especially when Impenitence so fixeth the guilt on them that cannot endure to hear of it as may make us fear that the worst 〈◊〉 behind and Sin and Judgments yet continue The Sum of what is said to you on the other side is that the Church of England and the Parish Churches have no true Ministry and therefore are no true Churches That they confess there is no Church without a Bishop and no Bishop below the Diocesan and so no Church below the Diocesan Church That those are no Scripture Bishops and Churches
vain If they do then they prove the Duty if not the Necessity of Infant Baptism 3. Ceremonies have not so much laid on them under the Gospel as under the Law Mercy before Sacrifice is the Gospel Canon Ad 2 m 2. That Command Matth. 28. commandeth the baptizing of Disciples I doubt not but it commandeth thereby the baptizing of Infants who are Disciples and made Disciples while proselyted Parents enter them into the Covenant of God according to his express unrepealed Law and Promise 2. But suppose it did not command Infant-Baptism nay suppose it had consequentially forbidden it it proves no more than that it is a sin not a nullity 3. But suppose it had made it a Nullity how are you guilty of other mens omission of Baptism by holding Communion with them when you may at your Enterance declare your dissent from them in that point Your Argument would lead you to avoid Communion with all Churches in the World even the re-baptized that held not all that you take to be the Institutions of Christ because you are bound to hold them But when you have leave to do your own Duty if you will shun all that you think do not theirs you will abhor Catholicism Ad 3 m 1. As to Iohn 3. 5. doubtless that Text speaks of more than the visible Church even the Mystical and the Triumphant And therefore if you will from thence exclude Infants from Baptism and the visible Church you must needs shut them all out of Heaven but Christo dissentiente you shall have none of Christ's consent 2. It is both Water as the sign and the holy Covenant and Cleansing of the Soul as the thing signified that are convincingly meant in the Text. But how one only as a sign and the other as the thing signified and therefore not as equally necessary in point of means though equally commanded Alas how easily understand we such Speeches among Men. If a General say to the Rebels I will spare none of you that will not come and list himself under me every Body will understand that becoming a Soldier and the Military Engagement or Sacrament as the Oath was anciently called is the thing here signified to be absolutely necessary and the Listing or Colours but as a sign for Order and in Cases of Necessity dispensable and regarded but in order unto the thing signified Your Arguments from personal Inconveniencies are none Ad 1 m 1. Do not you startle to hear the Catholick Church called the World and a retirement into its Communion called a Returning to the World I have read Come out from among them that is the World but not Come out of the Catholick Church 2. And do you not startle to hear them call their way Strictness and the other Loosness If they mean a sinful strictness so every Vice or many may have a strictness Malice hath a strictness and Covetousness and Oppression hath a strictness and Superstition hath a strictness But if they mean it of a holy strictness are not they the strictest that are likest to Christ and most conformable to his Will and most accurate in their Obedience And is not Love the new and great Commandment Are not your People loose that are so far from holy Love and Catholick Communion God is Love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God They are strict then in opposing God and the Unity or sweet Communion of the Members of the Lord. Is it an honour to be strict Sinners and Destroyers of the Church and Holy Love Let some take heed least they be too strict to come into Heaven among so many Millions of Souls that never owned any but Infant Baptism which is I think since Christ many hundred to one that is there that never were against Infant Baptism whether do you think Christ or the Phaâ—isees were the stricter when they condemned him for eating with Publicans and Sinners and his Disciples for breaking the ears of Corn and him for Sabbath-breaking c. Sure he more accurately observed his Father's will even the blessed Rule of Love and Mercy though they were more superstitious and strict was it the weak or the strong Christians Rom. 14. 15. that were the stricter about meats and drinks and days The weak superstitiously but the strong did more strictly adhere to the Law of Christ. Do you think that Man that shall say Christ died but for half the Saints themselves to be ever the better for that strict Opinion If you are for such forbidden strictness of Practice why do you not answer it in your Opinions about Grace c. 2. You have cause to be much humbled before the Lord for bringing your People into this Snare and Misconceit and ergo should not be guilty of continuing them in it nor make the fruit of your Sin an Argument to go on Impenitently 3. So great a Truth and Duty as Christian Catholick Love and Communion is not to be bawked for fear of danger Tell you of it plainly and trust God with the Issue It 's doubt those that will turn Quakers that is Infidels or near rather than be reduced to Catholick Love and Communion are never like to come to good if you keep them where they are It 's a fearful thing that any Man should think the better of his Spiritual state because he flieth furthest from the Catholick Love and Communion of Saints that is from the Church from Christ from God from Heaven Ad 2 m Your Communion with differing Saints is not a sinning against your Opinion about Baptism nor a leaving your station You may own your way and yet own Catholick Communion Dear Brother I think the Lord of Love and Peace is laying hands on you and will have you away out of your dangerous Schisms into the Paths of Love and Peace It is Uncharitableness and Separation that hath made the Rebaptized so odious throughout the World Love breedeth Love as Heat breedeth Heat The Christian Charity that appeareth in your Lives I sensibly feel draws out my own Heart in love to you All God's Saints will love you if you will but turn into the way of Love I hear that the Rebaptized in Ireland that grew to the reputation of Turbulent in their height begin now to be thought more peaceable and tolerable than some others there that being lately in the Saddle possessed their Prosperity and unquietness O! if days of Persecution come it will cut your hearts to think how you have refused Communion with your Brethren in days of Peace If we all lay our Heads and Hearts and Hands together for God's Church and Cause it will be too little My motion to you is That you will joyn with us for a Brotherly Agreement between the Men of your mind and ours The Articles shall be but these three 1. That all that can being satisfied in Conscience with their being Rebaptized shall continue loving Communion in the Church 2. That those that cannot be brought
fear God to obey Men in doing what they think God forbiddeth and leaving undone what they think he commandeth 3. Or else to punish those that will not do this to utter Disablement Extirpation or Death The two first ways I was sure would never prevail And I knew that the third would cost so dear as that no Ceremonies Forms or unnecessary Oaths or Covenants would finally bear the Charges of it The Blood of the faithful is of hard digestion and Iudas his Conscience hath an awakening Day when his Companions in Guilt will cast him off And God essemeth such Blood precious And when the Jobb is done by it it leaveth an Everlasting Odium on the Doers and Shame upon their Cause And their own Successors disown it and say If we had lived in the days of our Fathers we would not have been Partakers with them in this Blood And they build their Sepulchres whom their Fathers slew and Saint them that were despised as Martin c. And the Moderate must come after to heal all by crying Shame on the Cruelty of their Predecessors as Salvian Clemangis Erasmus Espencaeus Cassander Grotius and such others do and say as Tertullian Solitudinem faciunt pacem vocant But the final Reckoning will pay for all Some say We and other Countries have lived in Peace on the Terms that you call impossible Answ. It 's true of some kind of Peace So they do in Spain Italy Turky Moscovy c. keep Men so ignorant that they shall not know Duty from Sin nor trouble their Heads about God's Law and in Satan's Darkness you may keep Men in his Peace and they will venture their Souls on the Opinion of them that can hurt their Bodies But when Christ battereth this Garrison of Satan he breaks this Peace And I knew that in England many score Thousands would never return to this ignorant Peace XIX As I was sure that there was no hopes of Peace in any but the way of plain Christianity so I found that all the wisest and famoustest Lights of the Church and greatest Peace-makers had still been of the same mind The Primitive Churches for Three hundred years did lay their Unity on this ground and by Degrees Divisions grew up as needless Impositions grew Nazianzen Hillary Vincentius Lerin c. and since Erasmus Ferus Cassender Grotius Acontius Bergius Iunius Usher Hall Daâ—â—enant Chillingworth Hales c. go all this necessary way And when my dearest Friend the Lord Chief Justice Hale was not far from death I wrote to him to leave his Judgment in Writing to the World of the true way to Heal our present Breaches And he left for me to that use three small Tractates before written which I published shewing that all our Divisions and Calamities come by making that to seem part of Religion which is none and that to be necessary which is not so XX. But lest any racked words of mine should be interpreted to be for Sedition or Schism these being the things that my Soul abhorreth I wrote near Twenty Books almost wholly against Schism and Sedition and all the Principles and Reasonings that favour them on all Extreams I was discouraged a while to find that the Stream of Philosophies Politicks Canonists Casuists Papists and Protestants and the greatest Lawyers that I could meet with agreed that the People are the Fountain of Civil Power and give the Soveraign what he hath and many such Notions I feared to contradict such a stream as this But being satisfied I first confuted it in Harrington 1659. and then punctually in Richard Hooker though dedicated by a Bishop to the King and then in many others of all sorts And for Church-Concord no Man living hath written half so much as I. And now after all I am singled out as accused for that which I have written near Twenty Books purposely against and above an Hundred in which this Doctrine of Love Unity and Subjection hath it due part XXI The words which are misinterpreted as Seditious by feigning me to mean worse than I speak leave me and all Writers to the mercy of Mistakers which are most that have ignorance and ill-will I mean no more than I speak If other Men say that my words signifie more they thereby make them theirs and not mine God only is the Judge of secret Thoughts Humane Converse hath made these Rules of Exposition First That words be taken in the usual sence of Men that Treat on the Subject that they handle unless the Speaker otherwise expound them Secondly That the whole Scope and Context must expound particular words Thirdly That an odd strained word is not to be taken contrary to the Author's Declaration of his Judgment in many whole Copious Volumes such as I have written against Disloyalty and Schism XXII Almost all the most approved Writers speak far more sharply without Sedition The words of Nazianzen Eusebius Chrysostom Hillary Salvian and many Fathers the words of Petrarch Clemangis Alvarus Pelagius Erasmus Iansenius Glandav Grotius Iewel Bilson I am ready to cite far more sharply speaking of the Sins of Civil and Church Rulers than ever I did besides such as Gildas Grosthead c. XXIII By such Accusers measures I am condemnable if I say but the Lord's Prayer or the Common Prayer when I am commanded They may say that I accuse the Church when I say that we have left undone the things that we ought to have done and done the things that we ought not to have done and there is no health in us And that I mean Rulers when I say Deliver us from Evil and Forgive our Enemies Persecutors and Slanderers and turn their Hearts and From our Enemies defend us O Christ Graciously look upon our Afflictions That we thy Servants being hurt by no Persecution may evermore c. That God will defend us in all the Assaults of Our Enemies That the Evils which the Craft or Subtilty of the Devil or Man worketh against us be brought to nought If at the Sacrament a Minister say If any be a hinderer of God's Word Repent or come not to this Holy Table lest the Devil enter into you as he did into Iudas and fill you full of all Iniquities and bring you to Destruction of Body and Soul What Remedy have I if any will say that I mean Rulers by these words as Silencers and Persecutors Yea or when I read all the dreadful Passages against Persecutors in the Gospel There is bound up with our Bibles and Liturgies a Prayer for Families which saith Confound Satan and Antichrist with all Hirelings and Papists whom thou hast already cast off into a reprobate sense that they may not by Sects Schisms Heresies and Errours disquiet thy little Flock And because O Lord we be fall'n into the latter days and dangerous times wherein Ignorance hath got the upper hand and Satan by his Ministers seeks by all means to quench the Light of thy Gospel we beseech thee to maintain thy
Cause against those ravening Wolves and strengthen all thy Servants whom they keep in Prison and Bondage Let not thy Long suffering be an occasion to increase their Tyranny or to discourage thy Children c. The Homilies have many Passages liable to hard Interpretations The use of none of these is Sedition XXIV From 1650. to 1660. I had Controversies by Manuscript with some great Doctors that took up with Dr. Hammond's and Petavius's new singular way of Pleading for Episcopacy which utterly betrayed it They held that in Scripture time all called Presbyters were Diocesan Bishops and that there was no such thing as our Subject Presbyters and yet that every Congregation had a Diocesan Bishop and that it was no Church that had not such a Bishop and that there are no more Churches than there are such Bishops And so when Diocesses were enlarged as ours the Parishes were no Churches for no Bishop had more than one And that Subject Presbyters are since made and are but Curates that have no more power than the Bishop pleaseth to give them Dr. Hammond in his Vindication saith That as far as he knoweth all that owned the same Cause with him against the Presbyterians were come to be of his mind herein And we know not of four Bishops then in England And the Et caetera Oath and Canons of 1640. and the Writers that nullified the Reformed Churches Ordination and Ministry and pleaded for a Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and for our Re-ordination all looking the same way I thought they knew the Judgment of the few remaining Bishops better than I did and sometime called it The Iudgment of the present Church here that is of these Church-men and the English Diocesans but proved that the Laws and Doctrine still owned as the Churches was contrary to them and took the Parishes for true Churches and the Incumbents true Pastors and the Diocesans to be over many Churches and not one alone whereas the Men that I gainsayed overthrew the whole Sacred Ministry among us and all our Churches as of Divine Institution for our Presbyters they say were not in Scripture times Our Parishes are no Churches for want of Bishops our Diocesans are no Successors of such Apostolick Men as were over many Churches ours having but one And they are not like those that they call the Scripture Diocesans for they say these Doctors had but single Assemblies These Men I confuted in my Treatise of Episcopacy and other Books But the Scribe or Printer omitting my Direction to put still The fore-described Prelacy and Church instead of The English Prelacy and Church I was put to number it with the Errata and give the Reader notice of it in the Preface and Title Page and have since vindicated the Church of England hereform XXV I hear the angry Protestant Recusants say It is just with God that he that hath done more than all others to draw Men to the Parish-Churches and hath these Thirty years been Reconciling us to the Papists in Doctrinals and is now called Bellarminus junior for his Arguments for Liturgies and Forms and in his Paraphrase hath so largely and earnestly pleaded for Charity to Papists as not Babylonish or Antichristian should be the first that should suffer by them and that for this very Book that so extraordinarily doth serve their Interest To which I say take heed of mis-expounding Providence that Errour hath cost England dear If I be put to doath by them I shall not repent of any of those Conciliatory Doctrines and Endeavours I have reviewed my Writings and am greatly satisfied that I suffer not for running into either Extream nor for any false Doctrine Rebellion Treason or gross Sin but that I have spent my Labour and Life against both Persecuting and causeless Separating And that I shall leave my Testimony against both to Posterity and for what could I more comfortably suffer It is by decrying their Persecution and Cruelty that I have angred the hurtful Papists and by confuting their gross undoubted Crimes more effectually than you do by the Name of Antichrist Babylon and the Whore And if their Cruelty on me should prove my Charge against them true I shall not be guilty of it Nor will their Sin abrogate God's great Law of Love even to Enemies and if it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men follow peace with all men blessed are the peace-makers c. The disorderly tumultuous Cries and Petitions of such ignorant Zealots for Extreams under the Name of Reformation and crying down all moderate Motions about Episcopacy and Liturgies and rushing fiercely into a War and young Lads and Apprentices and their like pricking forward Parliament Men had so great a part in our Sin and Misery from 1641. till 1660. as I must give warning to Posterity to avoid the like and love Moderation I repent that I no more discouraged ignorant Rashness in 1662. and 1663. but I repent not of any of my Motions for Peace XXVI I am sure that my Writings besides Humane Imperfection have no guilt of what they are accused unless other Men put their sense on my words and call it mine and say I meant the Rulers when I spake of Popish Interdicts Silencings and Persecutions And by that measure no Minister must speak against any Sin till he be sure that the Rulers are neither guilty nor defamed of it lest he be thought to mean them and so our Office is at an end If the Text and the general Corruption of the World lead me to speak against Fornication Perjury Calumny Lying Murder Cruelty or any Vice must I tell Men whom I mean by Name I mean all in the World that are guilty And why must my meaning be any more confined when I with the Text speak against Persecution and unjust Silencing the faithful Ministers of Christ while I say that Rulers may justly Silence all that forfeit their Commission and do more hurt than good XXVII Can any Man that hath read Church-History Fathers and Councils be ignorant how dolefully Satan hath corrupted and torn the Church by the Ambition and Tyranny of many Popes Patriarchs and Metropolitans while the humble fort of Bishops and Pastors have kept up the Life and Power of Christianity Or can any Man that maketh not Christ and his Church a meer Servant to Worldly Interest think that this should not by all true Christians be lamented Let such read Nazianzen's sad Description of the Bishops of his time in striving for the highest Seats and his wish that they were equal And the same wish of Isidore Pelusiota and the sharp Reproof hereof by Chrysostom Great Grotius expoundeth Matth. 24. 29. of the Powers of Heaven shaken thus It is the Christian Laity who after the Apostles times began to be marvellously shaken by the Tyranny of the Prelates who loved Pre-eminence and to Lord it oyer the Clergy by rash Excommunications and a daily increase of Schisms He that will