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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94087	A vindication of that prudent and honourable knight, Sir Henry Vane, from the lyes and calumnies of Mr. Richard Baxter, minister of Kidderminster. In a monitory letter to the said Mr. Baxter. By a true friend and servant of the Commonwealth of England, &c.	Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676.	1659 (1659)	Wing S6068; Thomason E985_21; ESTC R203679	15,324	23

whether you have in this passage of your Book faithfully discharged your Duty towards your neighbour and do●e the same to him which you would have had another to have done to you I take not upon me to apologize for any extravagant or heterodox opinions by whomsoever maintained in doct●inalls I do agree for substance with most of our godly Protestant Writers Though it must be granted that there are severall degrees of Light and the great mysteries of the Gospel are more clearly revealed to one then to ●nother yet so that the most quick sighted Christian knows but in part and therefore is apt to mistake in many things by reason of his ignorance and darknesse I wish with all my heart that all those Patriots who stand up and appear for common right and Justice and the publick Interest and weal of these Nations were both Orth●dox and sound in their judgements and also holy in their lives and conversations but we must look more at things then at persons Justice and honesty even in our E●emies and those that differ from us though but in one action should be acceptable to us I have often discoursed with this honourable Gentleman whom you endeavour to blast and render odious by your unbridled tongue and have heard him interpret the Scriptures what his judgment and apprehensions have been formerly I know not but of late in my hearing h● hath expressed himself clearly and faithfully in the great point of Just●fication by the righteousnesse and obedience of Christ as Mediator in opposition to the principles of the Quakers who together with the Papists plead for justification by an inherent righteousness or g●acious qualifications under the notion of Christ or the Spirit in them whereby the blood-shed and obedience of our High Priest the Lord Jesus is rendred invalid and of no effect Now as Luther saith well If a man be ●ound in this one Article of free Justification by the righteousnesse of Christ it will minister light and direction to him in points of an inferiour and lesser consequence We cannot but know that many pretious godly Ministers and Christians since the beginning of the late Wars have been shaken and unsettled in their Judgements as to some of the main Articles of the Christian faith but after some trialls temptations and a●flictions and after seeking the face of God and consulting his word and his people they have been by the blessing of God rooted and stablished in the truth Certainly a man may be Orthodox and sound in Judgment as to the principles of Religion and yet wanting sincere love to Christ ●nd his people may fall shor● of heaven and on the contrary another Christian m●y erre and mistake in many points and yet having ●incere love to the Truths of Christ according to that meas●re of light which God hath vouchsafed unto him he may be saved Who art thou that judgest another mans servant to his own master he st●●deth ●r fall●th And le● him who thinketh that he standeth take heed that he fall not I cannot but wonder at your exceeding great confidence Sect. VII and boldnesse in aspe●sing others with Popery and Jesuitisme who I hope are not ●ainted therewith But Mr. Baxter are not you guilty of the same evils whereof you accuse them and should not you according to our Saviours direction First pluck the beam out of your own eye that you may the better pluck out the mote which is in your brothers eye Physician heal thy self first reform thine own Judgement and reli●quish thine own errours and then reprove others Not to insi●t upon your Sophisticating and darkning the main points and principles of Divinity by your exotick Aristotelian learning superficiall Syllogismes and puzzling Distinctions Sure I am you have in your Writings boldly avouched for Truths such Principles as bordering too near upon the Jesuites and Socinians will not be owned by sober pious Protestants wherein you do not correspond with Luther Calvin Beza Martyr and other Re●orm●sts but rather with Bellarmine Socinus Arminius as hath been sufficiently demonstrated by others I might write largely of your corrupt and unsound tenets touching Justification Conversion the Nature of Speciall Grace Assurance Perseverance the extent and e●fects of the death of Christ which you have not yet rec●●ted that I know of But I will onely at present recite some passages out of your books and leave it to the Impartiall Reader whether these bold Assertions of yours be suitable to the Protestant Doctrine and the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ You say e That Christ hath not taken away the whole curse of the Law from Believers by bearing it himself and that the afflictions of Believers are in execution of the threatning and Curse of the Law That Christ hath not repealed the Old Covenant nor freed Believers wholly from it but superadded the new Law or Covenant to it as the onely possible way of life That an absolute discharge from the execution of the threatning of the Law is granted to none in this life and that when we believe and perform the condition yet still the discharge remains conditionall till we have finished our performance That the Law of God is not only relaxed as to the person suffering but partly as to the penalty suffered That Christ payed not the idem or same thing in the obligation and that even in his sufferings the threatning was partly dispensed with or relaxed That Jer. 31. 31. Heb. 8. 8 9 10. do not contain the full tenor of the Covenant of Grace The holy Ghost saith this is the Covenant but you tell us that it is but a part of the Covenant You call them ordinary Vulgar unstudied Divines who hold the Imputation of Christs active obedience to be the form of our Justi●ication And thus Calvin Beza Chamier Perkins Whitaker Davenant Twisse Ames Cotton Bayn c. are but ordinary Vulgar Divines when they come in competition with incomparable Mr. Baxter You tell us boldly That good works in a proper sense do justifie us before God That faith and faithfull actions are our Evangelicall righteousnesse and that faith as a complicate act accepting Christ as Lord and King is the condition of our Justification And so according to this Popish Doctrine we are partly justified by Grace and partly by Works But the Apostle Paul and the Protestants are not of your mind That the suspending the rigorous execution of the Law which in a sense is common to the elect and reprobate is the immediate noble issue and fruit of Christs death That Christ died to satisfie Divine Justice for the sins of all men elect and reprobate That we are but conditionally and not absolutely delivered from eternall death by the death of Christ nor have we right to life without the intervention of a condition to be performed on our part to qualifie us morally for it That our love is the cause o● condition of our adoption for which you quote Matth. 5.

tongue and pen What was your design I pray you in reproaching this Gentleman was it to render your self famous in rendring his person and parts infamous to posterity nay was it not to curry favour with Mr. Cromwell that so you and your Complices might ride him at your pleasure and accomplish your selfish ends by the pliablenesse of the young Gentleman to the enslaving of your native Countrey hence it was that by you and your friends instigation so many flattering Addresses were presented to him from the severall Counties and Cities whereby the young man was puffed up and made believe that all the people in the three Nations were at his command and yet not a man of you would couragiously stand up for him and his declining Protectorship when he had most need of you Sect. IV Whereas you impudently tell the world in your late railing Book * That Sir Henry Vane and the Vanists put the King to death that he was the Master of the Game That he and his fo lowers are no better then Papists Jesuites c. That the Papists are strong in England under the m●sk of the Vanists whereof you make him the Ringleader That he was in Italy and brought from thence most wicked and corrupt opinions And having thus vented your self in a vain and frothy discourse wherein perhaps you think you have sufficiently answered the Papists and vindicated the Protestant party touching the Kings death by these manifest and grosse untruths as if it were lawfull for you to to speak wickedly for God and to lie for his glory b Give me leave in a friendly way to Expostulate a little with you Did you ever see the face of this Gentleman whom you have so frequently reproached neither Minister nor Man-like or at least did you ever speak a word with him either to know his judgment concerning the proceedings against the late King or his principles in matters of Religion I am confident you do not know him neither had you ever any conference with him but you may have in time for though these Injuries if they were done onely to a private man might be passed by and remitted without exemplary punishment yet being done to one in a Publ●que capacity the Authority of the Nation may in due time take Cognizance thereof Now as touching the death of the late King will you say that all those Gentlemen that sate in the High Court of Justice by Authority of Parliament upon his Triall and yet Sir Henry Vane was none but I am sure some of your good Lords and masters were of the number of his Judges were Popish and Jesuiticall and that therein they carried on a Popish design against the Protestant partie and Interest Can you put no difference between the Clandestine Assasination of a Prince to serve the Jesuites turn and the publick execution of Justice upon a King for levying War against the two houses of Parliament coordinate in power with him and shedding the bloud of his Su●j●cts upon that account who was not put to death to gratifie the Jesuites but to free the Nation from Tyranny and Slavery and from the luxury and unnecessary charge of the Court d Wo be to us and the Protestant Interest if we had ●one that could or would plead out Cause better then you have done for it is well known that you Symbolize with the Papists in many materiall points * and have given no small advant●ge to the Popish party by your calumnies and Invectives against the most eminent Protestan's both on this side and beyond the Seas Sect. V But say you the Vanists and Levellers were the chief Agents in the death of the King and these men are no better then Papists and Sir Henry Vane was the master of the Game This is a manifest u●truth re●lecting no small disparagement upon the Ministry which for my part I honour and reverence as a pretious Ordinance of Christ and am hear●ily sorry that you and others should bring the same into contempt by your bitterness factiousness and ambitious designes and practices That Honourable Gentleman whom you calumniate and from whom I believe you never received the least injury was not free to act in Parliament not in the high Court of Justice upon the garbling of the House by the Army and the Tryal of the K●ng by the Commissioners but did there upon as I remember retire and ●equester himself from publique Imployment being not fully satisfied at that time with the procedings of the Parliament and Army And therefore how co●●d this Gentleman have a chief hand in the death of the King It concerns every man and much more a Minister of the Gospel to write the truth both in a Log●call●nd morall consideration and to speak no otherwise then he knows the thing is and not to utter an untruth though he be ignorant of it Whosoever loveth and maketh a lie shall not inherit the kingd●me of heaven Rev. 22. 15. And the Apostle exhorts us to put away lying and every man to speak truth to his neighbour Ephes. 4. 25. The truth is this honourable Gentleman of whom I have often made mention having absented himself from the Parliament upon that great change and alteration of affairs in the year 1648. Lieutenant Generall Cromwell who sate upon the triall of the King and incouraged the commissioners of the High Court of Justice to proceed to ●entence it being the generall vote and desire of the Army that the King should be put to death was importunate with this Gentleman and ●sed many arguments to perswade him to sit again in Parliament and in the Council of State and did at length prevail with him to come in Now Mr. Baxter the truth of the matter of fact being thus stated if you would have been impartiall you should rather have said that your Lord Protector and his followers had a chief hand in the death of the King whether upon a publick or private account I leave it to the Lord then that Sir Henry Vane and the Vanists were the chief Actors in it But you were resolved to cast dirt in the face of this Gentleman and so to ingratiate your self with the new Court the glory whereof is now laid in the dust together with all your flattering Addresses You have another fling at Sir Henry Vane who it Sect. VI seems is a great eye-sore to you for you tell us that he was in Italy and from thence brought over dangerous opinions a palpable untruth which a meer moral man much more a true Christian would be ash●med of he never sojourned in Italy in all his life and therefore could bring from thence neither sound nor corrupt Doctrines nor is he willing that his eldest Son that proper young Gentleman should travell beyond the Seas lest his youth should be leavened with the corrupt opinions Customes and practises of forraign Popish Countreys so much is he in love with them Judge now Mr. Baxter

44. Luke 6. 27. 45. And so according to your opinion we must first love God before he communicate his love to us That finall impenitency and unbelief is properly the sin against the holy Ghost That no man is perfectly justified nor hath perfect remission of sins till the day of judgement If this Doctrine be true we must all go to Purgatory That though a Christian may be assured of his election and justification yet not of his perseverance of which he hath only strong probability and yet in another place you say if a man be sure that he truely believes he may be sure of his salvation and thus you contradict your self and say and unsay That generall Grace affords true consolation and that speciall Grace is built upon it and that we may gather a world of comfort from generall grace That believing is easie the conditions of the new Covenant being more facile then those of the old That God is the father of the graceless though not in so strict a sense as of the gracious That doubts and fears must be removed by considering the universality of Christs ransome for the whole world and that this is the foundation of all solid peace and comfort That unbelievers may have some good desires which God will accept and though they be not yet come to saving faith yet they may have many good prayers which God will hear That none ever missed of grace and eternall life that improved their naturalls to the utmost as a naturall man may do What is this but down-right Pelagianisme That seeing our acts are cur Evangelicall righteousnesse without which we ●●ve no part in Christs righteousness we may safely build our peace and comfort u●on them That Salvation is promised as the crown and reward to our duties That Grace in the spirituall man f differs not specifically but onely gradually from that which is in the natu●all man and that a Christian must gather his assurance from the degree and not from the kind of grace This is but cold comfort for a weak Believer I know none of them that you call Vanists so vain corrupt and rotten in their principles as you are in these or some of these positions besides others that might be mentioned wherewith under pretence of Piety and Practicall Divinity you have infected and poisoned many young Scholars in the Universities and Ministers in the Land who wanting experience and being not able spir●tually to judge of things that differ have your person and gifts in admiration So that truely Mr. Baxter all things considered you have already done more mischief by your writings then you will be able to do good if you should repent and live an hundred years for since your books were published many Ministers Professors have sadly departed from the simplicity and plainnesse of the Scriptures and Truths of Christ giving ear to your vain Philosophicall Distinctions and thereby ingendring strife and puzzling both themselves and their hearers Sect. IIX Once more you quarrell with Sir Henry Vane and cry out against him for holding an universall Liberty and Toleration in matters of Religion and yet you do not take upon you to answer those Scriptures ar●uments and reasons of State which are alledged for an universall Liberty For my part I am not fully acquainted with his judgment touching this point which hath been so much controverted in our time but if he ●e for such a Liberty without exception or restraint why should you quarrel with him specially considering how the case stands with us in these Nations both as to the Parliament Army Navy Ministry and Churches more then with Luther Austin and other Fathers Admit their opinion that are for an universall Liberty be a mistake yet it is far lesse dangerous then theirs that would have few or none tolerated but such as concurre with them in every thing as if they onely had monopolized to themselves a spirit of infallibility The weapons of your warfare should be spirituall and heavenly not carnall and worldly Nor is the Gospel in the power of it planted or propagated by the Civil or Martiall Sword but by the Spirit of God in preaching prayer Christian conference and a holy conversation This is the best way to convince opposers and gainsayers instructing them in meekn●sse and in a spirit of love whereas if you take violent courses and fignt against the errors of the times with prisons dungeons fetters this will but make men the greater hypocrites and even times more the children of the devil●hen they were before nay they will glory in their suffrings and by this means their number will dayly increase in the Land as the Quakers have done of late years for which we may thank such as you are who by your passionate and violent actings have made them the more confide●t of their d●ngerous and wicked opinions Would to God the Ministers of the Gospel would not onely preach well out of a pulpit but also expresse more self deniall wisdome meeknesse charity and mortification in their actions and live up to the rules of the Gospel and then I doubt not but the Ministry would be more reverenced and Errors would vanish and disappear as the clouds do at the bright shining of the Sun Most men that now plead against Toleration of diversity of R●ligions their own being most countenanced by the Civil power would plead as much for a generall Toleration if they were once under hatches and their Religion discountenanced by the Magistrate Herein commonl●Christians are disposed and affected according to the practise of that Countrey or Kingdome where they live If a Protestant yea a Calvinist live in a Pop●sh Countrey he will plead for Toleration so will a Papist living in a Protestant Countrey where diversity of Religions is not Tolerated The Ancient fathers that lived in times of persecution the first three hundred yeares after Christ pleaded against all kind of violence for Religion as appears by the sayings of Lactantius Tertullian and others But on the contrary the latter Fathers having the Emperours Christian and on their side pleaded against Toleration and incited the Magistrate to violent courses against such as were of a different perswasion Sect. IX I dare not positively affirm that the Civil Magistrate is not to intermeddle at all in matters of Religion for it is his duty to provide for and incourage all the faithfull Preachers and Professours of the Gospel and to be a nursing Father to the Churches of Christ but how far the Magistrate is to proceed in suppressing erroneous Doctrines and where the bounds are to be set beyond which he is not to go I suppose a wiser man then Master Baxter cannot easily determine Ke●kerman a learned Writer saith that the bond between the Magistrate and his Subjects is essentially Civil It seems he was not of your opinion that Magistracy is from Christ as Mediator for if this were true then every Magistrate that doth not submit to