suggest nor did we ever hear any just Reasons given for their diâ—ient from the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy or Prelacy as it was stated and established in this Kingdom Which we believe to be for the main the true ancient primitive Episcopacy and that to be more than a meer presidency of Order Neither do we find that the same was in any Time ballanced or managed by any Authoritative Commixtion of Presbyters therewith Though it hath been then and in all Times since usually exercised with the Assistance and Counsel of Presbyters in subordination to the Bishops § 8. And we cannot but wonder that the Administration of Government by one single Person should by them be affirmed to be so liable to Corruptions Partialities Tyrannies and other Evils that for the avoiding thereof it should be needful to have others joyned with him in the power of Government Which if applyed to the Civil State is a most dangerous Insinuation And we verily believe what Experience and the Constitutions of Kingdoms Armies and even private Families sufficiently confirmeth in all which the Government is administred by the Authority of one single Person although the Advice of others may be requisite also but without any share in the Government that the Government of many is not only most subject to all the aforesaid Evils and Inconveniencies but more likely also to breed and soment perpetual Factions both in Church and State than the Government by one is or can be And since no Government can certainly prevent all Evils that which is liable to the least and sewest is certainly to be preferred As to the four particular Instances of things amiss c. § 9. 1. We cannot grant that the Extent of any Diocess is so great but that the Bishop may well perform that wherein the proper Office and Duty of a Bishop doth consist which is not the personal Inspection of every Man's Soul under his Government which is the Work of every Parochial Minister in his Cure but the Pastoral Charge of overseeing directing and taking care that the Ministers and other Ecclesiastical Officers within his Diocess do their several respective Duties in their several Stations as they ought to do And if some Diocesses shall be thought of too large Extent the Bishops may have Suffragan Bishops to assist them as the Laws allow It being a great mistake that the Personal Inspection of the Bishop is in all places of his Diocess at all times necessary For by the same reason neither Princes nor Governours of Provinces nor Generals of Armies nor Mayors of great Cities nor Ministers of great Parishes could ever be able to discharge their Duties in their several Places and Charges § 10. 2. We confess the Bishops did as by the Law they were enabled depute part of the Administration of their Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions to Chancellors Commissaries and Officials as Men better skill'd in the Civil and Canon Laws But as for Matters of more Spiritual Concernment viz. the Sentences of Excommunication and Absolution with other Censures of the Church we conceive they belong properly to the Bishop to decree and pronounce either by himself where for the present he resideth or by some grave Ecclesiastical Person by him Surrogated for that purpose in such Places where he cannot be Personally present Wherein if many things have been done amiss for the time past or shall be seasonably conceived inconvenient for the future we shall be as willing to have the same Reformed and Remedied as any other Persons whatsoever § 11. 3. Whether a Bishop be a distinct Order from Presbyter or not or whether they have power of sole Ordination or no is not now the Question But we affirm that the Bishops of this Realm have constantly for ought we know or have heard to the contrary Ordained with the Assistance of Presbyters and the Imposition of their Hands together with the Bishops And we conceive it very fit that in the exercise of that part of their Jurisdiction which appertaineth to the Censures of the Church they should likewise have the Advice and Assistance of some Presbyters And for this purpose the Colledges of Deans and Chapters are thought to have been instituted that the Bishops in their several Diocess might have their Advice and Assistance in the Administration of their weighty Pastoral Charge § 12. 4. This last dependeth upon Matter of Fact Wherein if any Bishops have or shall do otherwise than according to Law they were and are to be answerable for the same And it is our desire as well as theirs that nothing may be done or imposed by the Bishop but according to the known Laws For Reforming of which Evils c. § 13. 1. The Primates Reduction though not published in his Life time was formed many years before his Death and shewed to some Persons ready to attest the same in the Year 1640. but it is not consistent with two other Discourses of the same Learned Primate viz. the one of the Original of Episcopacy and the other of the Original of Metropolitans both printed in the Year 1641. and written with great diligence and much variety of ancient Learning In neither of which is to be found any mention of the Reduction aforesaid Neither is there in either of them propounded any such Model of Church Government as in the said Reduction is contained Which doubtless would have been done had that Platform been according to his setled Judgment in those Matters In which Reduction there are sundry things as namely the Conforming of Suffragans to the number of Rural Deaneries which are apparently private Conceptions of his own accommodated at that time for the taking off some present from Animosities but wholly destitute of any Colour of Testimony or President from Antiquity nor is any such by him offered towards the proof thereof And it would be considered whether the Final Resolution of all Ecclesiastical Power and Jurisdiction into a National Synod where it seemeth to be placed in that Reduction without naming the King or without any dependance upon him or relation to him be not destructive of the King's Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical It is observable nevertheless that even in the Reduction Archi-Episcopacy is acknowledged As for the super-added Particulars § 14. 1. The Appointment and Election of Suffragans is by the Law already vested in the King whose Power therein is by the Course here proposed taken away § 15. 2. What they mean by Associations in this place they explain not but we conceive it dangerous that any Association whatsoever is understood thereby should be made or entered into without the King's Authority § 16. 3. We do not take the Oaths Promises and Subscriptions by Law required of Ministers at their Ordination Institution c. to be unnecessary although they be responsible to the Laws if they do amiss it being thought requisite as well by such Cautions to prevent Offences as to punish Offenders afterwards Upon all which Consideration it is that
Name of Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Government And so by the Name they seduce Mens minds to think that this is indeed the use of the Keys which God hath put into the Churches Hands 3. Hereby they greatly encourage the Usurpation of the Pope and his Clergy who set up such Courts for probate of Wills and Causes of Matrimony and rule the Church in a Secular manner though many of them confess that directly the Church hath no forcing Power And this they call the Churches Power and Spiritual Government and Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction and say that it belongeth not to Kings and that no King can in Conscience restrain them of it but must protect them in it And so they set up Imperium in Imperio and as Bishop Bedle said of Ireland The Pope hath a Kingdom there in the Kingdom greater than the Kings Against which Ludov. Molinaeus hath written at large in two or three Treatises So that when the Papal Power in England was cast down and their Courts subjected to the King and the Oath of Supremacy formed it was under the Name of Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Power that it was acknowledged to be in the King who yet claimeth no proper Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power so greatly were these Terms abused and so are they still as applied to our Bishops Courts so that the King is said by us to be Chief Governour in all Causes Ecclesiastical because Coercive Power in Church Matters which is proper to the Magistrate was possessed and claimed by the Clergy And in all Popish Kingdoms the Kings are but half Kings through these Usurpations of the Clergy And for us to Exercise the same kind of Power mixt with the Exercise of the Keys and that by the same Name is greatly to countenance the Usurpers § 352. If it be said That the Church claimeth no Coercive Power but as granted them by the King or that it is the Magistrate that annexeth Mulcts and Penalties and not the Church I answer 1. They perswade the Magistrate that he ought to do so 2. Force is not a meer Accident but confessed by them to be the very Life of their Government It is that which bringeth People to their Courts and enforceth all their Precepts and causeth Obedience to them so that it is part of the very Constitution of their Government And as to Fees and Commutation of Penance Pecuniary Mulcts are thus imposed by themselves 3. Their very Courts and Officers are of a Secular Form 4. The Magistrate is but the Executioner of their Sentence He must grant out a Writ and imprison a Man quatenus excommunicate without sitting in Judgment upon the Cause himself and trying the Person according to his Accusation And what a dishonour do these Men put on Magistrates that make them their Executioners to imprison those whom they condemn inuudita causa at a venture be it right or wrong So much of the Nonconformists Charges against the English Prelacy § 353. By this you may see what they Answer to the Reasons of the Conformists As 1. To the willing Conformists who plead a Iur Divinum they say That if all that Gersom Bucer Didoclavius Blondell Salmasius Parker Baines c. have said against Episcopacy it self were certainly confuted yet it is quite another thing that is called Episcopacy by them that plead it Iure Divino If 1. Bishops of single Churches with a Presbytery under them 2. and General Bishops over these Bishops were both proved Iure Divine yet our Diocesans are proved to be contra jus Divinum 2. To the Latitudinarians and involuntary Conformists who plead that no Church-Government as to the form is of Divine Institution they answer 1. This is to condemn themselves and say Because no Form is of God's Institution therefore I will declare that the Episcopal Form is of Divine Institution for this is part of their Subscription or Declaration when they Profess Assent and Confent to all things in the Book of Common Prayer and Ordination And one thing in it is in these words with which the Book beginneth It is evident to all Men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church Bishops Priests and Deacons which Offices were evermore had in such reverend estimation c. So that here they declare that Bishops and Priests are not only distinct Degrees but distinct Orders and Offices and that since the Apostles time as evident by Scripture c. when yet many of the very Papists Schoolmen do deny it And the Collect in the Ordering of Priests runs thus Almighty God giver of all good things who by the holy Spirit hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church So that in plain English they declare That Episcopacy even as a distinct Order Office and Function for all these words are there is appointed by the Spirit of God because they believe that no Form is so appointed 2. That which Mr. Stillingfleet calleth A Form is none of the Substance of the Government it self nor the Offices in the Church He granteth that 1. Worshipping Assemblies are of Divine appointment 2. That every one of these must have one or more Pastors who have power in their Order to teach them and go before them in Worship and spiritually guide or govern them But 1. Whether a Church shall have one Pastor or more 2. Whether one of them shall be in some things subject to another 3. Whether constant Synods shall be held for concord of Associated Churches 4. Whether in these Synods one shall be Moderator and how long and with what Authority not unreasonable these he thinks are left undetermined And I am of his mind supposing General Rules to guide them by as he doth But the Matter and Manner of Church-Discipline being of God's appointment and the Nature and Ends of a particular Church and the Office of Pastors as well as the Form of the Church Universal it is past doubt that nothing which subverteth any of these is lawful And indeed if properly no Form of Government be instituted by God then no Form of a Church neither for the Form of Government is the Form of a Church considered in sensu politico and not as a meer Community And then the Church of England is not of God's making Quest. Who then made it Either another Church made this Church and then what was that Church and who made its Form and so ad Originem or no Church made it If no Church made the Church of England quo jure or what is its Authority and Honour If the King made it was he a Member of a Church or not If yea 1. There was then a Church-Form before the Church of England And who made that Church usque ad Originem If the King that made it was no Member of a Church then he that is no Member of a Church may institute a Church Form but quo jure and with what
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
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
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
increase my Faith and give my Soul a clear fight of the Evidences of his Truth and of himself and of the invisible World § 37. Whilst I was thus employed between outward Labours and inward Trials Satan stirr'd up a little inconsiderable rage of wicked men against me The Town having been formerly eminent for Vanity had yearly a Shew in which they brought forth the painted forms of Giants and such like foolery to walk about the Streets with and though I said nothing against them as being not simply evil yet on every one of those Days of Riot the Rabble of the more vicious sort had still some spleen to vent against me as one part of their Game And once all the ignorant Rout were raging mad against me for preaching the Doctrine of Original Sin to them and telling them that Infants before Regeneration had so much Guilt and Corruption as made them loathsome in the Eyes of God whereupon they vented it abroad in the Country That I preached that God hated or loached Infants so that they railed at me as I passed through the Streets The next Lord's Day I cleared and confirmed it and shewed them that if this were not true their Infants had no need of Christ of Baptism or of Renewing by the Holy Ghost And I askt them whether they durst say that their Children were saved without a Saviour and were no Christians and why they baptized them with much more to that purpose and afterward they were ashamed and as mute as fishes Once one of the drunken Beggers of the Town raised a slander of me That I was under a Tree with a Woman an ill-fam'd Beggar of the Town All the Drunkards had got it in their mouths before I could find out the Original I got three or four of them bound to the Good Behaviour and the Sot himself that raised the Slander confessed before the Court that he saw me in a rainy day on Horseback stand under an Oak which grew in a thick Hedge and the Woman aforesaid standing for shelter on the other side the Hedge under the same Tree and that he believed that we saw not one another but he spake it as a Jest and the Company were glad of the occasion to feed their Malice So they all askt me forgiveness and I desired the Magistrate immediately to release them all There lived at Kinver an ancient prudent Reverend Divine Mr. Iohn Cross who died since Pastor of Matthews Friday-street in London This godly Man had been the chief means of the good which was done in Kidderminster before my coming thither when I came I got him to take every second day in a Weekly Lecture It came to pass once that a Woman defamed him at Kidderminster openly and told the People that he would have ravished her Mr. Cross being a wise Man sent one before to desire the Bailiff and Justice to call her to Examination and he came after and sate in a common dark coloured Coat among many others in the Bailiff's Parlour as if he had been one of the Magistrates The Bailiff called her in and she stood impudently to the Accusation The Bailiff askt her whether she knew the Man if she saw him which she confidently affirmed He askt her Is it this Man or that Man or the other Man or any there And she said O no God forbid that she should accuse any of them Mr. Cross said Am not I the Man and she said No she knew the Man well enough And when they had told her that this was Mr. Cross she fell down on her knees and askt him forgiveness and confest that one of his Neighbours who was his great Accuser at the Bishops Courts had hired her to report it But the Good Man forgave them all § 38. And here I must return to the Proceedings of the Parliament because the rest will not be well understood without connoting the Occasions of them which were administred When the Londoners cried to the House for Iustice and honoured those Members who were for the punishment of Delinquents and dishonoured those that pleased the King a Breach began to be made among themselves And the Lord Digby the Lord Falkland and divers others from that time forward joyned with the King being not so immoveable as many of the rest whom neither hope nor fear nor discontent would alienate from the Cause which they thought well of Yet others were tried with the offer of Preferments The Lord Say was made one of the Privy Council Mr. Oliver St. Iohn was made the King's Sollicitor c. But as this did not alter them so others of them would accept of no Preserment left they should be thought to seek themselves or set their Fidelity to Sale When the Earl of Strafford was Condemned and the King desired to sign the Bill many Bishops were called to give him their Advice and it is commonly reported that Archbishop Usher and divers others told him that he might lawfully concur with the Judgment of his Parliament proceeding according to Law though his own Judgment were that their Sentence was unjust But Dr. Iuxon the Bishop of London advised him to do nothing against his Conscience and others would give no Advice at all When the King had Subscribed and Strafford was beheaded he much repented it even to the last as his Speeches at his Death express And the Judgments of the Members of the Parliament were different about these Proceedings Some thought that the King should not at all be displeased and provoked and that they were not bound to do any other Justice or attempt any other Reformation but what they could procure the King to be willing to And these said When you have displeased and provoked him to the utmost he will be your King still and when you have sate to the longest you must be dissolved at last you have no power over his Person though you have power over Delinquent Subjects And if he protect them by Arms you must either be ruined your selves by his displeasure or be engaged in a War Displeasing him is but exasperating him and would you be ruled by a King that hateth you Princes have great Minds which cannot easily suffer Contradiction and Rebukes The more you offend him the less you can trust him and when mutual Confidence is gone a War is beginning And if it come to a War either you will conquer or be conquered or come to Agreement If you are conquered you and the Common-wealth are ruined and he will be absolute and subdue Parliaments and Govern as he pleaseth If you come to an Agreement it will be either such as you force him to or as he is willing of If the latter it may be easilier and cheaper done before a War than after If the former it will much weaken it And if you Conquer him what the better are you He will still be King You can but force him to an Agreement and how quickly will he have power and
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
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
a good Man called Mr. Hart came out of Herefordshire with Mr. Vaughan a Gentleman and they drew many to Separation on another side and after them in the Wars came one Mr. Bacon a Preacher of the Army and drew them to Antinomianism on another side which together so distracted the good People and eat out the Heart of Religion and Charity the Ministers of the Place being not so able and quick as they should have been in confuting them and preserving the People that the City which had before as great Advantages for the prosperity of Religion among them as any in the Land in the Civility Tractableness and Piety of the People became as low and Poor as others and the Pity of more happy Places while these Tares did dwindle and wither away the solid Piety of the Place § 59. When I had been at Glucester a Month my Nâ—ighbours of Kiderminster came for me home and told me that if I stayed any longer the People would interpret it either that I was afraid upon some Guilt or that I was against the King So I bid my Host Mr. Darney the Town Clark and my Friends farewell and never came to Gloucester more When I came home I found the beggarly drunken Rowt in a very tumultuating Disposition and the Superiors that were for the King did animate them and the People of the Place who were accounted Religious were called Round-heads and openly reviled and threatned as the King's Enemies who had never medled in any Cause against the King Every drunken Sot that met any of them in the Streets would tell them we shall take an order with the Puritans ere long And just as at their Shews and Wakes and Stage-plays when the Drink and the Spirit of Ryot did work together in their Heads and the Crowd encouraged one another so was it with them now they were like tyed Masâ—iffs newly loosed and sled in the Face of all that was religious yea or Civil which came in their way It was the undoing of the King and Bishops that this Party was encouraged by the Leaders in the Countrey against the civil religious Party Yet after the Lords Day when they had heard the Sermon they would a while be calmed till they came to the Alehouse again or heard any of their Leaders hiss them on or heard a Rabble cry Down with the Round-heads And when the Wars began almost all these Drunkards went into the King's Army and were quickly killed so that scarce a Man of them came home again and survived the War § 60. All this time the King having marched from Nottingham to Shrewsbury had there very succesfully made up his Army especially out of Shropshire Worcestershire Herefordshire and Wales though many came also out of other Parts And the Earl of Essex's Army was filled up and was marching down towards Worcester The Fury of the Rabble was so hot at home that I was fain to withdraw again and being with one Mr. Hunt near Iâ—kborough there came a Party of the Earl of Essex's Army before the rest to block up the Lord Bryon in Worcester till the Earl of Essex came to take him there This Party lay in a Meadow near Powick above a Mile from Worcester Mr. Hunt with other Countreymen bringing them in Provision I had a great mind to go see them having never seen any part of an Army As soon as I came a Messenger came out of Worcester secretly to tell them that the Lord Bryon was mounted and ready to be gone Hereupon the Commanders Col. Brown a Scot Col. Edwin Sans of Kent and Col. Nath. Fienes Capt. Ioh. Fienes and Capt. Wingate consulted what was to be done Brown and Sands were hot for the leaving of their Ground where they were secure by a River and presently to pursue the Enemy The rest said This Message may be a Deceit to draw us into a Snare let us first send Scouts and see how it is But the other prevailed and over the Bridge they went being all horse and Dragoons and by that time they had past a narrow Lane and half of them entred a Field beyond it they found the King's Horse under the Command of Prince Rupert drawn up ready to charge them when they knew not whom they fought with nor knew that Prince Rupert was within twenty Miles of them so he charged them before the rest came in and Col. Sands was wounded and taken Prisoner and died of his Wounds and Major Douglas slain and the rest â—led and though the Enemy pursued them no farther than the Bridge yet fled they in grievous terror to Parthore and the Earl of Essex's Life Guard lying there took the Allarm that the Enemy was following them and away they went This Sight quickly told me the Vanity of Armies and how little Confidence is to be placed in them § 61. Upon this Prince Ruport fetcht off the Lord Byron and marcht away and the next Day the Earl of Essex came to Worcester with many Lords and Knights and a flourishing Army gallantly cloathed but never tried in Fight There were with his Army as Chaplains to the several Regiments abundance of famous excellent Divines viz. Mr. Stephen Marshall and Dr. Burges to the Earl of Essex's Regiments Mr. Obediah Sedgwick to Col. Hollis's Regiment Dr. Calibute Downing to the Lord Robert's Regiment Mr. Iohn Sedgwick to the Earl of Stamford's Regiment Dr. Spurtow to Mr. Hampdens Mr. Perkins to Col. Goodwin's Mr. Moor to the Lord Wharton's Mr. Adoniram Bifield to Sir Henry Cholmeley's Mr. Nalton to Col. Grantham's Mr. Simeon Ash to the Lord Brooks or the Earl of Manchester's I remember not whether Mr. Morton of Newcastle with Sir Arthur Haselrigg's Troop with many more Mr. Bifield and Mr. Moor quartered with us at Kiderminster where were the Regiments of Col. Essex the Lord Wharton Sir Henry Cholmeley and the Lord Brooks at Beudeley while they quartered there the King's Army was upon the March from Shrewsbury towards Oxford Their way lying through Wolverhampton some of their Scouts appeared on the Top of Kniver Edge three miles from Kidderminster The Brigades in Kidderminster not knowing but all the King's Army might come that way marcht off to Worcester and in haste left a Carriage or two with Arms behind some of the Inhabitants hasted to the King's Soldiers and told them all which made them come into the Town and take those Arms. The Fury of our own Rabble and of the King's Soldiers was such that I saw no safety in staying at home The Civility of the Earl of Essex's Army was such that among them there was no danger though none of them knew me And there was such excellent Preaching among them at Worcester that I stayed there among them a few days till the marching of the King's Army occasioned their remove Upon the Lord's Day following I preached at Alcester for my Reverend Friend Mr. Samuel Clark As I was preaching the People heard the Cannon play and perceived
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
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
Reputation of his Word and Cause Major General Skippon fighting valiantly was here dangerously wounded but afterwards recovered The King's Army was utterly lost by the taking of Leicester for by this means it was gone so far from his own Garrisons that his Flying Horse could have no place of Retreat but were utterly scattered and brought to nothing The King himself fled to Lichfield and it is reported that he would have gone to Shrewsbury his Council having never suffered him to know that it was taken till now and so he went to Rayland Caâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 which was a strong Hold and the House of the Marquess of 〈◊〉 a Papist where his Dispute with the Marquess was said to be which Dr. Baâ—ly published and then turned Papist and which Mr. Christopher Cartright continued deâ—ending the King Fairfax's Army pursued to Leicester where the wounded Men and some others stayed with the Garrison in a day or two's time the Town was re-taken And now I am come up to the Passage which I intended of my own going into the Army § 73. Naâ—â—by being not far from Coventry where I was and the noise of the Victory being loud in our Ears and I having two or three that of old had been my intimate Friends in Cromwell's Army whom I had not seen of above two Years I was desirous to go see whether they were dead or alive and so to Naseby Field I went two days after the sight and thence by the Armies Quarters before Leicester to seek my Acquaintance When I found them I stayed with them a Night and I understood the state of the Army much better than ever I had done before We that lived quietly in Coventry did keep to our old Principles and thought all others had done so too except a very few inconsiderable Persons We were unfeignedly for King and Parliament We believed that the War was only to sive the Parliament and Kingdom from Papists and Delinquents and to remove the Dividers that the King might again return to his Parliament and that no Changes might be made in Religion but by the Laws which had his free consent We took the true happiness of King and People Church and State to be our end and so we understood the Covenant engaging both against Papists and Schismaticks And when the Court News-book told the World of the Swarms of Anabaptists in our Armies we thought it had been a meer lye because it was not so with us nor in any of the Garrison or County-Forces about us But when I came to the Army among Cromwell's Soldiers I found a new face of things which I never dreamt of I heard the plotting Heads very hot upon that which intimated their Intention to subvert both Church and State Independency and Anabaptistry were most prevalent Antinomianism and Arminianism were equally distributed and Thomas Moor's Followers a Weaver of Wisbitch and Lyn of excellent Parts had made some shifts to joyn these two Extreams together Abundance of the common Troopers and many of the Officers I found to be honest sober Orthodox Men and others tractable ready to hear the Truth and of upright Intentions But a few proud self-conceited hot-headed Sectaries had got into the highest places and were Cromwell's chief Favourites and by their very heat and activity bore down the rest or carried them along with them and were the Soul of the Army though much fewer in number than the rest being indeed not one to twenty throughout the Army their strength being in the Generals and Whalleys and Rich's Regiments of Horse and in the new placed Officers in many of the rest I perceived that they took the King for a Tyrant and an Enemy and really intended absolutely to master him or to ruine him and that they thought if they might fight against him they might kill or conquer him and if they might conquer they were never more to trust him further than he was in their power and that they thought it folly to irritate him either by Wars or Contradictions in Parliament if so be they must needs take him for their King and trust him with their Lives when they had thus displeased him They said What were the Lords of England but William the Conquerour's Colonels or the Barons but his Majors or the Knights but his Captains They plainly shewed me that they thought God's Providence would cast the Trust of Religion and the Kingdom upon them as Conquerours They made nothing of all the most wise and godly in the Armies and Garrisons that were not of their way Per fas aut nefas by Law or without it they were resolved to take down not only Bishops and Liturgy and Ceremonies but all that did withstand their way They were far from thinking of a moderate Episcopacy or of any healing way between the Episcopal and the Presbyterians They most honoured the Separatists Anabaptists and Antinomians but Cromwell and his Council took on them to joyn themselves to no Party but to be for the Liberty of all Two sorts I perceived they did so commonly and bitterly Speak against that it was done in meer design to make them odious to the Soldiers and to all the Land and that was 1. The Sots and with them all Presbyterians but especially the Ministers whom they call Priests and Priestbyters and Drivines and the Dissemby-men and such like 2. The Committees of the several Countries and all the Soldiers that were under them that were not of their Mind and Way Some orthodox Captains of the Army did partly acquaint me with all this and I heard much of it from the Mouths of the leading Sectaries themselves This struck me to the very Heart and made me Fear that England was lost by those that it had taken for its Chiefest Friends § 74. Upon this I began to blame both other Ministers and my self I saw that it was the Ministers that had lost all by forsaking the Army and betaking themselves to an easier and quieter way of Life When the Earl of Essex went out first each Regiment had an able Preacher but at Edg-hill Fight almost all of them went home and as the Sectaries increased they were the more averse to go into the Army It s true that I believe now they had little Invitation and its true that they must look for little Welcome and great Contempt and Opposition besides all other Difficulties and Dangers But it is as true that their Worth and Labour in a patient self-denying way had been like to have preserved most of the Army and to have defeated the Contrivances of the Sectaries and to have saved the King the Parliament and the Land And if it had brought Reproach upon them from the Malitious who called them Military Levites the Good which they had done would have wiped off that blot much better than the contrary course would do And I reprehended my self also who had before rejected an Invitation from Cromwell When he lay at Cambridge long before with that
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
the several Articles which I did in a small Book called Christian Concord In which I gave the reasons why the Episcopal Presbyterians and Independants might and should unite on such Terms without any change of any of their Principles But I confess that the new Episcopal Party that follow Grotius too far and deny the very being of all the Ministers and Churches that have not Diocesan Bishops are not capable of Union with the rest upon such Terms And hereby I gave notice to the Gentry and others of the Royalists in England of the great danger they were in of changing their Ecclesiastical Cause by following new Leaders that were for Grotianism But this Admonition did greatly offend the Guilty who now began to get the Reins though the old Episcopal Protestants confessed it to be all true There is nothing bringeth greater hatred and sufferings on a Man than to foreknow the mischief that Men in power are doing and intend and to warn the World of it For while they are resolutely going on with it they will proclain him a Slanderer that revealeth it and use him accordingly and never be ashamed when they have done it and thereby declared all which he foretold to be true § 170. 15. Having in the Postscript of my True Catholick given a short touch against a bitter Book of Mr. Thomas Pierce's against the Puritans and me it pleased him to write another Volume against Mr. Hickman and me just like the Man full of malignant bitterness against Godly men that were not of his Opinion and breathing out blood-thirsty malice in a very Rhetorical fluent style Abundance of Lies also are in it against the old Puritans as well as against me and in particular in charging Hacket's Villany upon Cartwright as a Confederate which I instance in because I have out of old Mr. Ash's Library a Manuscript of Mr. Cartwright's containing his full Vindication against that Calumny which some would fain have fastened on him in his time But Mr. Pierce's principal business was to defend Grotius In answer to which I wrote a little Treatise called The Grotian Religion discovered at the Invitation of Mr. Thomas Pierce In which I cited his own words especially out of his Discussio Apologetici Rivetaini wherein he openeth his Terms of Reconciliation with Rome viz. That it be acknowledged the Mistress Church and the Pope have his Supream Government but not Arbitrary but only according to the Canons To which end he defendeth the Council of Trent it self Pope Pius's Oath and all the Councils which is no other than the French sort of Popery I had not then heard of the Book written in France called Grotius Papizans nor of Sarravius's Epistles in which he witnesseth it from his own mouth But the very words which I cited contain an open Profession of Popery This Book the Printer abused printing every Section so distant to fill up Paper as if they had been several Chapters And in a Preface before it I vindicated the Synod of Dort where the Divines of England were chief Members from the abusive virulent Accusations of one that called himself Tilenus junior Hereupon Pierce wrote a much more railing malicious Volume than the former the liveliest Express of Satan's Image malignity bloody malice and falshood covered in handsome railing Rhetorick that ever I have seen from any that called himself a Protestant And the Preface was answered just in the same manner by one that stiled himself Philo-Tilenus Three such Men as this Tilenus junior Pierce and Gunning I have not heard of besides in England Of the Jesuites Opinion in Doctrinals and of the old Dominican Complexion the ablest Men that their Party hath in all the Land of great diligence in study and reading of excellent Oratory especially Tilenus junior and Pierce of temperate Lives but all their Parts so sharpened with furious persecuting Zeal against those that dislike Arminianism high Prelacy or full Conformity that they are like the Briars and Thorns which are not to be handled but by a fenced hand and breathe out Tereatnings against God's Servants better than themselves and seem unsatisfied with blood and ruines and still cry Give Give bidding as lowd defiance to Christian Charity as ever Arrius or any Heretick did to Faith This Book of mine of the Grotian Religion greatly offended many others but none of them could speak any Sence against it the Citations for Matter of Fact being unanswerable And it was only the Matter of Fact which I undertook viz. To prove that Grotius profest himself a moderate Papist But for his fault in so doing I little medled with it § 171. 16. Mr. Blake having replye to some things in my Apology especially about Right to Sacraments or the just subject of Baptism and the Lord's Supper I wrote five Disputations on those Points proving that it is not the reality of a Dogmatical or Justifying Faith nor yet the Profession of bare Assent called a Dogmatical Faith by many but only the Profession of a Saving Faith which is the Condition of Mens title to Church-Communion Coram Ecclèsiâ and that Hypocrites are but Analogically or Equivocally called Christians and Believers and Saints c. with much more to decide the most troublesome Controversie of that Time which was about the Necessary Qualification and Title of Church-Members and Communicants Many men have been perplexed about that Point and that Book Some think it cometh too near the Independants and some that it is too far from them and many think it very hard that A Credible Profession of True Faith and Repentance should be made the stated Qualification because they think it incredible that all the Jewish Members were such But I have sifted this Point more exactly and diligently in my thoughts than almost any Controversie whatsoever And fain I would have found some other Qualification to take up with 1. Either the Profession of some lower Faith than that which hath the Promise of Salvation 2. Or at least such a Profession of Saving Faith as needeth not to be credible at all c. But the Evidence of Truth hath forced me from all other ways and suffered me to rest no where but here That Profession should be made necessary without any respect at all to Credibility and consequently to the verity of the Faith professed is incredible and a Contradiction and the very word Profession signifieth more And I was forced to observe that those that in Charity would belive another Profession to be the title to Church-Communion do greatly cross their own design of Charity And while they would not be bound to believe men to be what they profess for fear of excluding many whom they cannot believe they do leave themselves and all others as not obliged to love any Church-Member as such with the love which is due to a True Christian but only with such a Love as they owe to the Members of the Devil and so deny them the Kernel of Charity by giving
186. 30. The third Sheet was called One Sheet for the Ministry against the Malignants of all sorts containing those Reasons for the present Ministry which shew the greatness of the Sin of those that set against them It was intended then against the Quakers and other Sectarian Enemies to the Ministry but is as useful for these Times and against those that on other pretences hate and silence and suppress them and might tell their Consciences what they do § 187. 31. The fourth Sheet I called A Second Sheet for the Ministry being a Defence of their Office as continued against the Seekers who pretend that the Ministry is ceased and lost And it may serve against the Papists that question our Call for want of a Succession and all their Spawn of Sectaries that are still setting themselves against the Ministry and against the Sacred Scriptures § 188. 32. Mr. William Montford being chosen Bayliff of Kiderminster desired me to write him down a few brief Instructions for the due Execution of his Office of Magistracy that he might so pass it as to have Comfort and not Trouble in the Review which having done considering how many Mayors and Bayliffs and Countrey Justices needed it as well as he I printed it in an open Sheet to stick upon a Wall Entituled Directions for Iustices of Peace especially in Corporations for the Discharge of their Duties to God suited to those Times § 189. 33. Mr. Iohn Dury having spent thirty Years in Endeavours to reconcile the Lutherans and Calvanists was now going over Sea again upon that Work and desired the Judgment of our Association how it should be successfully expedited which at their desire I drew up more largely in Latin and more briefly in English The English Letter he printed as my Letter to Mr. Dury for Pacification § 190. 34. About that time Mr. Ionathan Hanmer of Devonshire wrote a Treatise for Confirmation as the most expedient means to reform our Churches and reconcile all that disagree about the Qualification of Church Members I liked the Design so well having before written for it in my Treatise of Baptism that being requested I put a large Epistle before it and after that when some Brethren desired me to produce more Scripture Proof for it than he had done I wrote a small Treatise called Confirmation and Restauration the necessary means to Reformation and Reconciliation But the times changed before it could be much practised § 191. 35. Sergeant Shephard an honest Lawyer wrote a little Book of Sincerâ—ty and Hypocrisy and in the end of it Mr. Tho. Barlow afterward Bishop of Lincoln wrote without his Name an Appendix in Confutation of a supposed Opinion of mine that Saving Grace differeth not Specie but Gradu from Common Grace To which I replied in a short Discourse called Of Saving Faith c. I had most highly valued the Author whom I wrote against long before for his Six Exercitations in the end of Schibler's Metaphysicks But in his Attempt against me he came quite below himself as I made manifest and he resolved to make no Answer to it In this Tractate the Printer plaid his part so shamefully that the Book is scarcely to be understood § 192. 36. Being greatly apprehensive of the Commonness and Danger of the Sin of Selfishness as the Summ and Root of all positive Evil I preached many Sermons against it and at the Request of some Friends I published them entituled A. Treatise of Self-denial which found better acceptance than most of my other but yet prevented not the ruine of Church and State and Millions of Souls by that Sin § 193. 37. After that I published Five Disputations about Church-Government in order to the Reconciliation of the differing Parties In the first I proved that the English Diocesance Prelacy is intollerable which none hath answered In the Second I have proved the Validity of the Ordination then exercised without Diocesanes in England which no Man hath answered though many have urged Men to be re-ordained In the third I proved that there are dives sorts of Episcopacy lawful and desirable In the fourth and fifth I shew the lawfulness of some Ceremonies and of a Liturgy and what is unlawful here This Book being published when Bishops Liturgy and Ceremonies were most decryed and opposed was of good use to declare my Judgment when the King came in for if I had said as much then I had been judged but a Temporizer But as it was effectual to settle many in a Moderation so it made abundance of Conformists afterwards or was pretended at least to give them Satisfaction Though it never medled with the greatest Parts of Conformity Renouncing Vows Assent and Consent to all things in three Books c. and though it unanswerably confuted our Prelacy and Re-ordination and consequently the Renunciation of the Vow against Prelacy and opposed the Cross in Baptism But Sicvitant Stulti Vitia as my Aphorisms made some Arminians If you discover an Error to an injudicious Man he reeleth into the contrary Error and it is hard to stop him in the middle Verity § 194. 38. At the same time I published another Book against Popery fit for the defensive part and instructing Protestants how to answer any Papist It is entituled A Key for Catholicks to open the jugling of the Iesuits and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand whether the Cause of the Roman or Reformed Churches be of God In this Treatise proving that the Blood of the King is not by Papists to be charged upon Protestants I plainly hazarded my Life against the Powers that then were and grievously incensed Sir H. vane as is before declared And yet Mr. I. N. was so tender of the Papists Interest that having before been offended with me for a Petition against Popery and a Justice of all times spake against it on the Bench and his Displeasure encreased by this Book he took occasion since the King came in to write against me for those very Passages which condemned the King-killers Because comparing the Case with the Doctrine and Practice of the Papists I shewed that the Sectarians and Cromwelians had of the two a more plausible Pretence which I there recited he confuteth those Pretence of theirs as if they had been my own thereby to make the World believe that I wrote for the King's Death in the very Pages where to the hazard of my Life I wrote against it when he himself took the Engagement against the King and the House of Lords and was a Justice under Oliver and more than so signed Orders for the sequestring of others of the King's Party But the great Indignation against this Book and the former is that they were by Epistles directed to Ri. Cromwell as Lord Protector which I did only to provoke him that had Power to use it well when the Parliament had sworn Fidelity to him and that without any Word of Approbation to his Title Yet those that were
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.
I do believe all the Sacred Canonical Scripture which all Christian Churches do receive and particularly I believe in God the Father Almighty c. The second Part instead of Books of unnecessary Canons containeth seven or eight Points of Practice for Church-Order which so it be practised it is no great matter whether it be subscribed or not And here it must be understood that these are written for Times of Liberty in which Agreement rather than Force doth procure Unity and Communion The third Part containeth the larger-Description of the Office of the Ministry and consequently of all the Ordinances of Worship which need not be subscribed but none should preach against it nor omit the practice except Peace require that the Point of Infant Baptism be left free This small Book is called by the Name of Universal Concord which when I wrote I thought to have published a Second Part viz. a large Volume containing the particular Terms of Concord between all Parties capable of Concord But the Change of the Times hath necessarily changed that purpose § 198. 42. The next published was a Sermon before the Parliament the day before they voted in the King being a Day of Humiliation appointed to that end It is called A Sermon of Repentance of which more afterward § 199. 43. The next published was a Sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen at Pauls being on their Day of Rejoycing for General Monk's Success to bring in the King It is called A Sermon of Right Rejoycing § 200. 44. The next was a Sermon of the Life of Faith preached before the King being all that every I was called to preach before him when I had been sworn his Chaplain in Ordinary of which more afterward § 201. 45. The next was called A Believer's last Work being prepared for the Funeral of Mrs. Mary Hanmer Mother to my Wife then intended but after married Its use is to prepare for a Comfortable Death § 202. 46. Before this which I forgot in its proper place I published a Treatise of Death called The last Enemy to be overcome shewing the true Nature of the Enmity of Death and its uses Being a Funeral Sermon for Mrs. Elizabeth Baker Wife to Mr. Ioseph Baker Minister at Worcester with some Notes of her Life § 203. 47. Another was called The vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite A Discovery of the Nature and Mischief of a Formal vain Religion preached at Westminister-Abby with a Sermon annexed of the Prosperity of Fools This being preached at Covent-Garden was unjustly accused and published by way of Vindication with the former § 204. 48. The next was a Treatise on Luke 10. 42. One thing is needful called A Saint or a Bruit shewing the Necessity Utility Safety Honour and Pleasure of a Holy Life and evincing the Truth of our Religion against Atheists and Infidels and Prophane ones § 205. 49. The next was a Treatise of Self-knowledge preached at Dunstan's West called The Mischiefs of Self-ignorance and Benefits of Self-acquaintance which was published partly to vindicate it from many false Accusations and partly at the desire of the Countess of Balcarres to whom it was directed It was fitted to the Disease of this â—urious Age in which each man is ready to devour others because they do not know themselves § 206. 50. The next was a Treatise called The Divine Life which containeth three Parts The first is of the Right Knowledge of God for the imprinting of his Image on the Soul by the knowledge of his Attributes c. The second is Of walking with God The third is Of improving Solitude to converse with God when we are forsaken by all Friends or separated from them The Occasion of the publishing of this Treatise was this The Countess of Balcarres being going into Scotland after her adobe in England being deeply sensible of the loss of the Company of those Friends which she left behind her desired me to preach the last Sermon which she was to hear from me on those words of Christ Iohn 16. 32. Behold the hour cometh yea is now come that ye shall be Scattered every man to his own and shall leave me alone and yet I am not alone because the Father is with me At her request I preached on this Text and being afterward desired by her to give it her in Writing and the Publication being her design I prefixed the two other Treatises to make it more considerable and published them together The Treatise is upon the most Excellent Subject but not elaborate at all being but Popular Sermons preached in the midst of diverting Businesses Accusations and malicious Clamours When I offered it to the Press I was fain to leave out the quantity of one Sermon in the end of the second Treatise That God took Henoch wherein I shewed what a mercy it is to one that hath walked with God to be taken to him from this World because it is a dark a wicked a malicious and implacable a treacherous deceitful World c. All which the Bishop's Chaplain must have expunged because men would think it was all spoken of them And so the World hath got a Protection against the force of our Baptismal Vow § 207. Because I have said so much in the Epistles of these two Books of the Countess of Balcarres the Reader may expect some further satisfaction of her Quality and the Cause She is Daughter to the late Earl of Seaforth in Scotland towards the High-lands and was married to the Earl of Balcarres a Covenanter but an Enemy to Cromwell's perfidiousness and true to the Person and Authority of the King with the Earl of Glencarne he kept up the last War for the King against Cromwell and his Lady through dearness of Affection marched with him and lay out of doors with him on the Mountains At last Cromwell drove them out of Scotland and they went together beyond Sea to the King where they long followed the Court and he was taken for the Head of the Presbyterians with the King and by evil Instruments fell out with the Lord Chancellor who prevailing against him upon some advantage he was for a time forbidden the Court the Grief whereof added to the Distempers he had contracted by his Warfare on the cold and hungry Mountains cast him into a Consumption of which he died He was a Lord of excellent Learning Judgment and Honesty none being praised equally with him for Learning and Understanding in all Scotland When the Earl of Lauderdaile his near Kinsman and great Friend was Prisoner in Portsmouth and Windsor-Castle he fell into acquaintance with my Books and so valued them that he read them all and took Notes of them and earnestly commended them to the Earl of Balcarres with the King The Earl of Balcarres met at the first sight with some Passages where he thought I spake too favourably of the Papists and differed from many other Protestants and so cast them by and sent the
reason of his distaste to the Earl of Lauderdaile who prest him but to read one of the Books over which he did and so read them all as I have seen many of them marked with his hand and was drawn to over-value them more than the Earl of Lauderdaile Hereupon his Lady reading them also and being a Woman of very strong Love and Friendship with extraordinary Entireness swallowed up in her Husband's Love for the Books sake and her Husband's sake she became a most affectionate Friend to me before she ever saw me While she was in France being zealous for the King's Restoration for whose Cause her Husband had pawned and ruined his Estate by the Earl of Lauderdaile's direction she with Sir Robert Murray got divers Letters from the Pastors and others there to bear witness of the King's sincerity in the Protestant Religion among which there is one to me from Mr. Gaches Her great Wisdom Modesty Piety and Sincerity made her accounted the Saint at the Court. When she came over with the King her extraordinary Respects obliged me to be so often with her as gave me Acquaintance with her Eminency in all the foresaid Vertues She is of solid Understanding in Religion for her Sex and of Prudence much more than ordinary and of great Integrity and Constancy in her Religion and a great Hater of Hypocrisie and faithful to Christ in an unfaithful World and she is somewhat over-much affectionate to her Friend which hath cost her a great deal of Sorrow in the loss of her Husband and since of other special Friends and may cost her more when the rest forsake her as many in Prosperity use to do those that will not forsake their Fidelity to Christ. Her eldest Son the young Earl of Balcarres a very hopeful Youth died of a strange Disease two Stones being found in his Heart of which one was very great Being my constant Auditor and over-respectful Friend I had occasion for the just Praises and Acknowledgments which I have given her which the occasioning of these Books hath caused me to mention § 208. 51. After our Dispute at the Savoy somebody printed our Papers most of them given in to them in that Treaty of which the Petition for Peace the Reformed Liturgy except the Prayer for the King which Dr. W. wrote the large Reply to their Answer of our Exceptions and the two last Addresses were my writing But in the first Proposals and the Exceptions against the Liturgy I had less to do than some others § 209. 52. When the grievous Plague began at London I printed a half-sheet to stick on a Wall for the use of the Ignorant and Ungodly who were sick or in danger of the Sickness for the Godly I thought had less need and would read those large Books which are plentifully among us And I the rather did it because many well-winded People that are about the Sick that are ignorant and unprepared and know not what to say to them may not only read so short a Paper to them but see there in what method such Persons are to be dealt with in such a Case of Extremity that they may themselves enlarge as they see Cause § 210. 53. At that time one Mr. Nathaniel Lane wrote to me to intreat me to write one sheet or two for the use of poor Families who will not buy or read any bigger Books Though I knew that brevity would unavoidably cause me to leave out much necessary matter or else to write in a Stile so concise and close as will be little moving to any but close judicious Readers yet I yielded to his perswasions and thought it might be better than nothing and might be read by many that would read no larger and so I wrote two Sheets for poor Families The first containing the method and motives for the Conversion of the Ungodly The second containing the Description or Character of a true Christian or the necessary Parts of Christian Duty for the direction of Beginners in a Godly Life These three last Sheets were printed by the favour of the Archbishop's Chaplain when the Bishop of London's Chaplain had put me out of hope of printing any more With all these Writings I have troubled the World already and these are all except Epistles to other mens Works as one before Mr. Swinnock's Books of Regeneration one before Mr. Hopkin's Book one before Mr. Eedes one before Mr. Matthew Pool's Model for Advancing Learning one before Mr. Benjamin Baxter's Book one before Mr. Ionathan Hanmer's Exercitation of Confirmation one before Mr. Lawrence of Sickness two before two of Mr. Tombe's Books and some others of which there are two that I must give some account of The Bookseller being to print the Assembly's Works with the Texts cited at length desired me by an Epistle to recommend it to Families I thought it a thing arrogant and unfit for a single Person who was none of the Synod to put an Epistle before their Works But when he made me know that it was the desire of some Reverend Ministers I wrote an Epistle but required him to put it into other mens hands to publish or suppress according to their Judgment but to be sure that they printed all or none The Bookseller gets Dr. Manton to put an Epistle before the Book who inserted mine in a differing Character in his own as mine but not naming me But he leaveth out a part which it seems was not pleasing to all When I had commended the Catechisms for the use of Families I added That I hoped the Assembly intended not all in that long Confession and those Catechisms to be imposed as a Test of Christian Communion nor to disown all that scrupled any word in it If they had I could not have commended it for any such use though it be useful for the instruction of Families c. All this is left out which I thought meet to open lest I be there misunderstood Also take notice that the Poem prefixed to Mr. Vines's Book of the Sacrament was not printed by any order of mine Having received the Printed Book from the Stationer as Gift it renewed my Sorrow for the Author's Death which provoked me to write that Poem the same Night in the Exercise of my Sorrow and gave it the Donor for his Book and he printed it without my knowledge § 211. Manuscripts that are yet unprinted which lye by me are these following 1. A Treatise in Folio called A Christian Directory or Sum of Practical Divinity In four Tomes The first called Christian Ethicks The second Christian Ecclesiasticks The third Christian Oeconomicks The fourth Christian Polisticks It containeth bare Directions for the practice of our Duties in all these respects as Christians as Church-Members as Members of the Family and as Members of the Commonwealth But there is a sufficient Explication of the Subject usually premised and the Directions themselves are the Answers of most useful Cases of Conscience
pretence of promoting Godliness so they fear'd the enraged Prelatical Party would renew their Persecution under pretence of Order and Government And some that thought R. Cromwell's Resignation was not plain and full did scruple it Whether they were not at present obliged to him for though they knew that he had no Original Right and though the condemned the Act of those Men as Treason who set up both his Father and him yet when he was set up and the Government had been Twelve years in their Hands and the House of Commons had sworn Subjection to him they thought it was very doubtful whether they were not obliged to him as the Possessor And withal many had alienated the Hearts of Men from the King making them believe that he was uncertain in his Religion c. and that the Duke of York was a Papist and that they would set up the revengeful Cavaliers but these things were quickly at an end For many Gentlemen who had been with the King in Scotland especially the Earl of Lauderdaile and Colonel Greavâ—â— who were of Reputation with the People did spread abroad mighty Commendations of the King both as to his Temper and Piety whereby the Fears of many at that time were much quieted § 69. As for my self I came to London April the 13th 1660. where I was no sooner arrived but I was accosted by the Earl of Lauderdale just then released from his tedious Confinement in Windsor Castle by the restor'd Parliament who having heard from some of the Sectarian Party that my Judgment was that our Obligations to Richard Cromwell were not dissolved nor could be till another Parliament or a fuller Renunciation of the Government took a great deal of pains with me to satisfie me in that point And for the quieting People's Minds that were in no small Commotion through clandestine Rumours he by means of Sir Robert Murray and the Countess of Balcares then in France procured several Letters to be written from thence full of high Elogiums of the King and Assurances of his firmness in the Protestant Religion which he got translated and publisht Among others one was sent to me from Monsieur Gaches a famous pious Preacher at Chatenton wherein after an high strain of Complements to my self he gave a pomâ—ous Character of the King and assured me that during his Exile he never forbore the Publick Profession of the Protestant Religion no not even in those places where it seemed prejudicial to his Affairs that he was present at Divine Worship in the French Churches at Roan and Rochel though not at Charenton during his stay at Paris and earnestly press't me to use my utmost interest that the King might be restored by means of the Presbyterians c. The Letter being long and already publisht shall not be here inserted But I could not forbear making divers Reflections upon the Receipt of such a Letter as this was § 70. This Excellent Divine with divers others living at a distance knew not the state of Affairs in England so well as we that were upon the place They knew not how much the Presbyterians had done to bring in the King or else they would not have thought it needful to use any Exhortations to them to that end And they knew not those Men who with the King were to be restored so well as we did What the Presbyterians did to preserve and restore the King is a thing that we need not go to any Corners or Cabinets to prove The Votes for Agreement upon the King's Concessions in the Isle of Wight prove it The Ejection and Imprisonment of most of the House of Commons and all the House of Lords prove it The Calamitous overthrow of two Scottish Armies prove it The Death of Mr. Love with the Imprisonment and Flight of other London Ministers prove it The wars in Scotland and their Conquest by Cromwell prove it The Rising of Sir George Booth and his Army's overthrow prove it The Surprize of Dublin-Castle from the Anabaptists by Colonel Iohn Bridges and others in Ireland and the Gratulations of General Monk in England the Concurrence of the Londonners and the Ministers there the Actual Preparations of the Restored Members of the Long Parliament and the Consent of the Council of State left by them and the Calling in of the King hereupon by the next Parliament without one contradicting Voice and finally the Lords and Gentlemen of the King 's old Party in all Countreys addressing themselves to the Parliamentarians and the King 's grateful Acknowledgments in his Letters and his Speeches in Parliament do all put this Matter out of question Of which I have said more in my Key for Catholicks § 71. And when I read this Reverend Man's excessive Praises and his concluding Prayer for the Success of my Labours I thought with my self how little doth the good Man understand how ill the beginning and end of his words accord He prayeth for my Congregation and the Blessing of my Labours when he hath perswaded me to put an end to my Labours by ssetting up those Prelates who will Silence me and many a hundred more He perswadeth me to that which will separate me from my Flock and then prayeth that I may be a Blessing to them He overvalueth and magnifieth my Service to the Church and then perswadeth me to that which will put a Period to my Service and to the Service of many hundreds better than my self But yet his Cause and Arguments are honest and I am so far from being against him in it that I think I am much more for it than he for he is for our Restoring the King that our Ministry may be freed from the obloquy of malicious Enemies but I am for restoring of the King that when we are Silenced and our Ministry at an end and some of us lye in Prisons we may there and in that Condition have Peace of Conscience in the Discharge of our Duty and the Exercise of Faith Patience and Charity in our Sufferings § 72. And I confess at that time the Thoughts of Mens hearts were various according to their several Expectations The Sectarian Party cried out that God had in Justice cut off the Family that Reigned over us and to return to it again was to betray the Church and the Souls of Men. Some others said That the Sectaries had traiterously and wickedly pull'd down the King and Parliament and set up themselves and broken their Oaths and pull'd down all Government and made the Name of Religion a Reproach and brought that Blot upon it which is never till the Day of Judgment like to be wiped off But yet that after Twelve years alienation of the Government and when a House of Commons hath sworn Fidelity to another and the King 's own Party had taken the Engagement their Obligations to that Family were by Providence against their Wills dissolved and that they were not bound to be Actors in that which will Silence
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
and those of them that had taken the contrary Course had thereby broken themselves to pieces Wherefore I humbly craved his Majesty's patience that we might have the freedom to request of him that as he was our lawful King in whom all his People save a few inconsiderable Persons were prepared to Centre as weary of their Divisions and glad of the Satisfactory means of Union in him so he would be pleased to undertake this blessed Work of promoting their Holiness and Concord for it was not Faction or Disobedience which we desired him to indulge And that he would never suffer himself to be tempted to undo the Good which Cromwell or any other had done because they were Usurpers that did it or discountenance a faithful Ministry because his Enemies had set them up But that he would rather out go them in doing good and opposing and rejecting the ignorant and ungodly of what Opinion or Party soever For the People whose Cause we recommend to him had their Eyes on him as the Officer of God to defend them in 〈◊〉 possession of the helps of their Salvation which if he were pleased to voucâ—â—â—â—â— them their Estates and Lives would cheerfully be offered to his Service And I humbly besought him that he would never suffer his Subjects to be tempted to have favourable Thoughts of the late Usurpers by seeing the Vice indulged which they suppressed or the godly Ministers or People discountenanced whom they encouraged For the Common People are apt to judge of Governours by the Effects even by the Good or Evil which they feel and they will take him to be the best Governour who doth them most good and him to be the worst that doth them most hurt And all his Enemies cannot teach him a more effectual way to restore the Reputation and Honour of the Usurpers than to do worse than they and destroy the Good which they had done that so he may go contrary to his Enemies and so to force the People to cry out We are undone in loss of the Means of our Salvation It being a hard matter ever to bring the People to love and honour him by whom they think they are undone in comparison of those that they think made them happy though the one have a just Title to be their Governour which the other hath not And again I humbly craved That no misrepresentation might cause him to believe that because some Fanaticks have been Factious and Disloyal therefore the Religious People in his Dominions who are most careful of their Souls are such though some of them may be dissatisfied about some Forms and Ceremonies in God's Worship which others use And that none of them might go under so ill a Character with him by misreports behind their backs till it were proved of them personally or they had answered for themselves For we that better knew them than those that were like to be their Accuseâ—s did confidently testifie to his Majesty on their behalf that they are resolved Enemies of Sedition Rebellion Disobedience and Divisions which the World shall see and their Adversaries be convinced of if his Majesty's Wisdom and Clemency do but remove those Occasions of Scruple in some Points of Discipline and Worship of God which give Advantage to others to call all Dissenters Factious and Disobedient how Loyal and Peaceable soever And I humbly craved That the Freedom and Plainness of these Expressions to his Majesty might be pardoned as being extracted by the present Necessity and encouraged by our revived hopes I told him also that it was not for Presbyterians or any Party as such that we were speaking for but for the Religious part of his Subjects as such than whom no Prince on Earth had better and how considerable part of the Kingdom he would find them to be And of what great advantage their Union would be to his Majesty to the People and to the Bishops themselves and how easily it might be procured 1. By making only things Necessary to be the Terms of Union 2. And by the true Exercise of Church Discipline against Sin 3. And not casting out the faithful Ministers that must Exercise it nor obtruding unworthy Men upon the People And how easie it was to avoid the violating of Mens Solemn Vows and Covenants without any hurt to any others And finally I requested that we might but be heard speak for our selves when any Accusations were brought against us These with some other such things I then spake when some of my Brethren had spoken first Mr. Simeon Ash also spake much to the same purpose and of all our Desires of his Majesty's Assistance in our desired Union § 91. The King gave us not only a free Audience but as gracious an Answer as we could expect professing his gladness to hear our Inclinations to Agreement and his Resolution to do his part to bring us together and that it must not be by bringing one Party over to the other but by abating somewhat on both sides and meeting in the Midway and that if it were not accomplished it should be long of our selves and not of him Nay that he was resolved to see it brought to pass and that he would draw us together himself with some more to this purpose Insomuch that old Mr. Ash burst out into Tears with Joy and could not forbear expressing what Gladness this Promise of his Majesty had put into his heart § 92. Either at this time or shortly after the King required us to draw up and offer him such Proposals as we thought meet in order to Agreement about Church Government for that was the main Difference if that were agreed there would be little danger of differing in the rest And he desired us to set down the most that we could yield to § 93. We told him 1. That we were but a few Men and had no Commission from any of our Brethren to express their Minds And therefore desired that his Majesty would give us leave to acquaint our Brethren in the Country with it and take them with us The King answered That that would be too long and make too much Noise and therefore we should do what we would our selves only with such of the City as we would take with us And when we then professed that we presumed not to give the Sense of others nor oblige them and that what we did must signify but the Minds of so many Men as were present He answered That it should signify no more and that he did not intend to call an Assembly of the other party but would bring a few such as he thought meet and that if he thought good to advise with a few of each side for his own Satisfaction none had cause to be offended at it § 94. Also we craved that at the same time when we offered our Concessions to the King the Brethren on the other side might bring in theirs containing also the uttermost that they could abate and
yield to us for Concord that seeing both together we might see what probability of success we had And the King promised that it should be so § 95. Hereupon we departed and appointed to meet from day to day at Sion Colledge and to consult there openly with any of our Brethren that would please to join with us that none might say they were excluded Some City Ministers came among us and some came not and Divers country Ministers who were in the City came also to us as Dr. Worth since a Bishop in Ireland Mr. Fulwood since Archdeacon of Totnes c. But Mr. Matth. Newcomen was most constant in assisting us § 96. In these Debates we found the great inconvenience of too many Actors though there cannot be too many Consenters to what is well done For that which seemed the most convenient Expression to one seemed inconvenient to another and that we that all agreed in Matter had much ado to agree in Words But after about two or three Weeks time we drew up the following Paper of Proposals which with Archbishop Usher's Form of Government called his Reduction c. we should offer to the King Mr. Calamy drew up most with Dr. Reynolds Dr. Reynolds and Dr. Worth drew up that which is against the Ceremonies I only prevailed with them to premise the four first Particulars for the countenancing Godliness the Ministry Personal Profession and the Lord's Day They were backward because they were not the Points in Controversy but yielded at last on the Reasons offered them About Discipline we designedly adhered to Bishop Usher's Model without a Word of alteration that so they might have less to say against our Offers as being our own and that the World might see that it was Episcopacy it self which they refused and that they contended against the Archbishop as well as against us and that we pleaded not at all with them for Presbytery unless a Moderate Episcopacy be Presbytery Yet was there a Faction that called this Offer of Bishop Usher's Episcopacy by the Name of the Presbyterians impudent Expectations I also prevailed with our Brethren to offer an Abstract of our larger Papers lest the reading of the larger should seem tedious to the King which Abstract verbatim as followeth at their Desire I drew up and have here after adjoined The first Address and Proposals of the Ministers May it please Your most excellent Majesty WE your Majesty's most Loyal Subjects cannot but acknowledge it as a very great Mercy of God that immediately after your so wonderful and peaceable Restoration unto your Throne and Government for which we â—less his Name he hath stirred up your Royal Heart as to a zealous Testimony against all Prophaneness in the People so to endeavour an happy composing of the Differences and healing of the sad Breaches which are in the Church And we shall according to our bounden Duty become humble Suitors at the Throne of Grace that the God of Peace who hath put such a thing as this into your Majesty's Heart will by his heavenly Wisdom and holy Spirit to assist you therein and bring your Resolutions unto so perfect an Effect and Issue that all the good People of these Kingdoms may have abundant Cause to rise up and bless you and to bless God who hath delighted in you to make you his Instrument in so happy a Work That as your glorious Progenitor Henry VII was happy in uniting the Houses of York and Lancaster and your Grandfather King Iames of blessed Memory in uniting the Kingdoms of England and Scotland so this Honour may be reserved for your Majesty as a Radiant Jewel in your Crown that by your Princely Wisdom and Christian Moderation the Hearts of all your People may be united and the unhappy Differences and Misunderstandings amongst Brethren in matters Ecclesiastial so composed that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the midst of your Dominions In an humble Conformity to this your Majesty's Christian Design we taking it for granted that there is a firm Agreement between our Brethren and us in the Doctrinal Truths of the reformed Religion and in the substantial parts of Divine Worship and that the Differences are only in some various Conceptions about the ancient Form of Church-Government and some particulars about Liturgy and Ceremonies do in all humble Obedience to your Majesty represent That in as much as the ultimate end of Church-Government and Ministry is that Holiness of Life and Salvation of Souls may be Effectually promoted we humbly desire in the first place that we may be secured of those things in Practice of which we seem to be agreed in Principles 1. That those of our Flocks who are serious and diligent about the matters of their Salvation may not by Words of Scorn or any abusive Usages be suffered to be reproachfully handled but have Liberty and Encouragement in those Christian Duties of exhorting and provoking one another unto Love and good Works of building up one another in their most holy Faith and by all religious and peaceable means of furthering one another in the ways of eternal Life they being not therein opposite to Church-Assemblies nor refusing the guidance and due Inspection of their Pastors and being responsible for what they do or say 2. That each Congregation may have a learned orthodox and godly Pastor residing amongst them to the end that the People might be publickly instructed and edified by preaching every Lord's Day by Catechising and frequent Administration of the Lord's Supper and of Baptism and other Ministerial Acts as the Occacasions and the Necessity of the People may require both in Health and Sickness and that effectual Provision of Law be made that such as are Insufficient Negligent or Scandalous may not be admitted to or permitted in so Sacred a Function and Imployment 3. That none may be admitted to the Lord's Supper till they competently understand the Principles of Christian Religion and do personally and publickly own their baptismal Covenant by a credible Profession of Faith and Obedience not contradicting the same by a contrary Profession or by a Scandalous Life And that unto such only Confirmation if continued in the Church may be administred And that the Approbation of the Pastors to whom the catechising and instructing of those under their Charge do appertain may be produced before any Person receive Confirmation which Course we humbly conceive will much conduce to the quieting of those sad Disputes and Divisions which have greatly troubled the Church of God amongst us touching Church-Members and Communicants 4. That an effectual Course be taken for the Sanctification of the Lord's Day appropriating the same to holy Exercises both in publick and private without unnecessary Divertisements it being certain and by long Experience found that the Observation thereof is a special means of preserving and promoting the Power of God liness and obviating Prophaneness Then for the Matters in Difference viz. Church-Government
you know that there are many Dissenters as Papists Quakers c. for whom we never medled And we think this an unjust Answer to be given to them who craved of his Majesty that they might send to their Brethren through the Land to have the Testimony of their common Consent and were denied it and told that it should be our work alone and imputed to no others In Conclusion we perceive your Counsels against Peace are not likely to be frustrated Your Desires concerning us are like to be accomplished You are like to be gratified with our Silence and Ejection and the Excommunication and Consequent sufferings of Dissenters And yet we will believe that blessed are the Peace-makers and though Deceit be in the Heart of them that imagin Evil yet there is Ioy to the Counsellors of Peace Prov. 12. 20. And though we are slopt by you in our following of Peace and are never like thus publickly to seek it more because you think that we must hold our Tongues that you may hold your Peace yet are we resolved by the help of God if it be possible and as much as in us lieth to live peaceably with all Men Rom. 12. 18. § 102. Hereupon some very very learned godly Men renewed their former Speeches That it was a vain Attempt to Endeavour a Reconciliation with such Men that their Minds were exasperated and they were resolved to monopolize the Favour of our Prince and all Honours and Preferments to themselves That there was no hope they would do any thing for the promoting of strict serious Godliness or any thing that deserved the Name of Ecclesiastical Discipline That undoubtedly they do but draw us on partly to spin out the time till they are ready to persecute us without any danger to themselves and partly to set us together by the Ears and otherwise abuse us by drawing us to grant them that which they know our Brethren cannot grant § 103. To all this I answered for my own part That though Charity commanded me to hope that there were some Men among them better than this Description doth import yet my Reason forced me all things considered to have as low Expectations of this Conference as they had and that I made no doubt but that the End would verefie much that was said that for my own part I looked e're long to be silenced by them with many hundred more and that all this was but to quiet Men till the time But yet for all that I was fully convinced that it was our Duty not only to yield to an offered Treaty but to be the Seekers of it and follow it on till we see the Issue 1. Because we are commanded if possible as much as in us lieth to live peaceably with all Men. 2. Because though we have too great a probability of such an issue as they describe yet we are not certain of it and the least possibility of a better Issue may shew us that we should wait on God in the use of the Means till we are disappointed 3. Because we have no other means at all to use To keep our Flocks and publick Work we cannot For the old Laws will be in force again if we say nothing and new ones will further enforce them if there be need And for our parts we are not formidable to the Bishops at all were our Number five times as great as theirs For we abhor all Thoughts of Sedition and Rebellion and they know that this is our Judgment and therefore how should they be afraid of Men whose Consciences bind them to make no resistance to the legal Exercise of a lawful Authority If it were the Anabaptists Millinaries or Levellers they would fear them But for my part I thought it very unmeet that such a Word as intimated any formidableness in us should ever come out of our Mouths either to them or to our People or among our selves for it seemeth to intimate either that we would resist or would have them think so 4. And I looked to the end of all these Actions and the chief things that moved me next the pleasing of God and Conscience is that when we are all silenced and persecuted and the History of these things shall be delivered to posterity it will be a just Blot upon us if we suffer as refusing to sue for Peace and it will be our just Vindication when it shall appear that we humbly petitioned for and earnestly pursued after Peace and came as near them for the obtaining it as Scripture and Reason will allow us to do and were ready to do anything for Peace except to sin and damn our Souls And for my own part I could suffer much more comfortably when I had used these means and been repulsed than if I had used none 5. And Lastly I gave them all notice that I hoped if we got no more to have an opportunity by this Treaty to state our Difference right to the understanding of Foreigners and Posterity and to bear my Testimony to the Cause of Truth and Peace and Godliness openly under the Protection of the King's Authority both by Word and Writing which they that sat still would never do but look on with secret silent Grief till all is gone and then have their Consciences and others tell them that they never made any just attempt or spake a Word to prevent the Ruine § 104. But as to the point of yielding too far to them I told them first that moderate Episcopacy was agreeable to my Judgment and that they knew that I medled not as a Presbyterian but as a Christian that is obliged to seek the Churches Peace And also that others may accept of those Terms as better than worse which yet they cannot take to be the best And if we mist it as to the way or terms our Brethren that thought so had the Liberty to acquaint us with our Error and to set us right § 105. Shortly after this instead of the Diocesans Concessions it was told us that the King would put all that he thought meet to grant us into the Form of a Declaration and we should see it first and have Liberty to give notice of what we liked not as not consistent with the desired Concord◠and so the Diocesans cannot be charged with any mutability as having ever granted us such Abatements which after they receded from We thankfully accepted of this Offer and received from the Lord Chancellor the following Copy of the Declaration This Copy of a Declaration the Lord Chancellor next sent us to peruse and alter before it were published that it might satisfie our Desires Received on Sept. 4. His Majesty's Declaration to all his loving Subjects of his Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs HOW much the Peace of the State is concerned in the Peace of the Church and how difficult a thing it is to preserve Order and Government in Civil whilst there is no Order
pretend to Divine Authority or true Antiquity It granteth them much more than Reverend Bishop Hall in his Peâ—â—re-maker and many other of that Judgment do require who would have accepted the fixing of the President for Life as sufficient for the Reconciliation of the Churches 2. It being most agreeable to the Scripture and the Primitive Government is likest to be the way of a more Universal Concord if ever the Churches arrive on Earth at such a Blessing However it will be most acceptable to God and to well informed Consciences 3. It will promote the Practice of Discipline and Godliness without Disorder and promote Order without the hindering of Discipline and Godliness 4. And it is not to be silenced though in some respects we are loath to mention it that it will save the Nation from the Violation of the Solemn Vow and Covenant without wronging the Church at all or breaking any other Oath And whether the Covenant were lawfully imposed or not we are assured from the Nature of a Vow to God and from the Cases of Saul Zedekiah and others that it would be a terrible thing to us to violate it on that pretence Though we are far from thinking that it obligeth us to any Evil or to go beyond our Places and Callings to do Good much less to resist Authority yet doth it undoubtedly bind us to forbear our own Consent to those Luxuriances of Church-Government which we there renounced and for which no Divine Institution can be pretended It is not only the Presbyterians but multitudes of the Episcopal Party and the Nobility Gentry and others that adhered to his late Majesty in the late unhappy Wars that at their Composition took this Vow and Covenant And God forbid that ever the Souls of so many thousands should be driven upon the Sin of Perjury and upon the Wrath of God and the Flames of Hell Or that under Pretence of calling them to repent of what is evil they should be urged to commit so great an Evil. If once the Consciences of the Nation should be so debaâ—ched what good can be expected from them or what Evil shall they ever after be thought to make Conscience of or what Bonds can be supposed to oblige them or how can your Majesty place any Conâ—idence in them notwithstanding the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy which they take or how can they be taken for competent Witnesses in any Cause or Persons meet for human converse or how should those Preachers be regarded by their Auditors that dare wilfully violate their solemn Vows and it would be no Comfort nor Honour to your Majesty to be the King of a Persideous Nation And whatever Palliation Flattery might at Hand procure undoubtedly at distance of time and place where Flattery cannot silence Truth it would be the Nations perpetual Infamy And what Matter of Reconciliation would it be to the guilty Papists when we blame their impious Doctrines that have such a tendency How loose would it leave your Majesty's Subjects that are once taught to break such sacred Bonds Till the Covenant was decried as an Almanack out of date and its Obligation taken to be null that odious Fact could never have been perpetrated against your Royal Father Nor your Majesty have been so long expulsed from your Dominions And the Obligation of the Covenant upon the Consciences of the Nation was not the weakest Instrument of your Return We therefore humbly beseech your Majesty with greater importunity then we think we should do for our Lives that you will have Mercy on the Souls and Consciences of your People and will not urge or tempt them to this grievous Sin nor drive them on the insupportable Wrath of the Almighty whose Judgment is at hand where Princes and People must give that account on which the irreversible Sentence will depend For the honour of our Religion and of your Majesty's Dominions and Reign we beseech you suffer us not to be tempted to the violating of such Solemn Vows and this for nothing when an Expedient is before you that will avoid it without any detriment to the Church nay to its honour and advantage The Prelacy which we disclaimed is That of Diocesans upon the Claim of a Superiour Order to a Presbyter assuming the sole Power of Publick Admonition of particular Offenders injoyning Penitence Excommunicating and Absolving besides Confirmation over so many Churches as necessitated the Corruption or Extirpation of Discipline and the using of Humane Officers as Chancellors Surrogates Officials Commissaries Arch-Deacons while the undoubted Officers of Christ the Pastors of the particular Churches were hindered from the Exercise of their Office The Restoration of Discipline in the particular Churches and of the Pastors to the Exercise of their Office therein and of Synods for necessary Consultation and Communion of Churches and of the Primitive Presidency or Episcopacy for the avoiding of all shew of Innovation and Disorder is that which we humbly offer as the Remedy beseeching your Maiesty that if any thing asserted seem unproved an Impartial Conference in your Majesty's hearing may be allowed us in order to a just Determination Concerning the Preamble in your Majesty's Declaration we presume only to tender these Requests 1. THAT as we are perswaded it is not in your Majesty's Thoughts to intimate that we are guilty of the Offences which your Majesty here reciteth so we hope it will rather be a motive to the hastening of the Nation 's Cure that our Unity may prevent Mens Temptations of that Nature for the time to come 2. Though we have professed our willingness to submit to the Primitive Episcopacy and a Reformed Liturgy hoping it may prove an Expedient to an happy Union yet have we expressed our dislike of the Prelacy and present Liturgy while unreformed And though Sacriledge and unjust Alienation of Church-Lands is a Sin that we detest yet whether in some Cases of true Superfluities of Revenues or true Necessity of the Church there may not be an Alienation which is no Sacriledge and whether the Kings and Parliaments have been guilty of that Crime that have made some Alienations are Points of high Concernment of which we never had a Call to give our Judgment And therefore humbly beseech your Majesty that concerning these Matters we may not to our Prejudice be otherwise understood than as we have before and here expressed 3. That as your Majesty hath here vouchsafed us your gracious Acknowledgment of our Moderation it might never be said That a Ministry and People of such moderate Principles consenting to Primitive Episcopacy and Liturgy could not yet be received into the Settlement and countenanced Body of your People nor possess their Stations in the Church and Liberty in the Publick Worship of God 4. And whereas it is expressed by your Majesty That the Essence and Foundation of Episcopacy might be preserved though the Extent of the Jurisdiction might be altered this is to us a ground of Hope
them when I have heard them plead for moderate Episcopacy and Liturgy my self and they would have drawn us to yield further than we did § 113. And if ever any hereafter shall say That at King Charles the Second's Restoration the Presbyterian Cause was pleaded and that they yielded to all that was in the King's Declaration I leave it here on Record to the Notice of Posterity that to the best of my knowledge the Presbyterian Cause was never spoken for nor were they ever heard to petition for it all for the rest of the Ministers who came not to us sate still and said nothing and for my self I ever professed my Judgment to be so far for Episcopacy Liturgy c. as I have expressed in my fifth Disputation for Church-Government and I drew on this Treaty not as a Presbyterian but as a Reconciler and for Mr. Calamy he pleaded for no more than I did whatever his Judgment was only at the Meeting before the King he pleaded well that the words Bishops and Presbyters are in Scripture of the same signification and that they differ but gradu not ordine which abundance of Episcopal Men also hold as did Bishop Usher and even many Schoolmen and other Papists And as for Dr. Reignolds he was always of Mr. Stillingfleet's mind as I have heard him profess That no Form of Church-Government is determined of in the Word of God but it is variable as occasion requireth And as for Mr. Ash though he was a Presbyterian yet that good Man being all for Holiness and Heaven and Peace and being no Disputer he went along with us and spake for no more than we did Never did we write or speak a word that I knew of who was always with them for Ruling Elders nor for the Government of Synods or Presbyteries without Bishops or stated Presidents nor against Liturgy in general nor against Holydays in general nor against Kneeling at the Sacrament but only against the rejecting those from the Churches-Communion who dare not kneel as supposing it Idolatrous nor for any one thing which is proper to Presbytery Insomuch that when they still supposed us to plead for Presbytery in one Paper I drew up an Enumeration of abundance of Particulars which we never pleaded for which the Presbyterians usually hold and shewed that we never medled with their proper Cause partly because we were not all of a mind our selves in every small matter and partly because we knew such a Plea would not now be heard and partly because we took those Terms to be insufficient for the Churches Union nor would our selves lay its Concord on so narrow a Foundation But Mr. Calamy would not let it pass because it might offend the Presbyterian Brethren who expected more from us § 114. But to return to the History When I went out from the Meeting on Octob. 22. I went dejected as being fully satisfied that the Form of Government in that Declaration would not be Satisfactory nor attain that Concord which was our end because the Pastors had no Government of the Flocks and I was resolved to meddle no more in the Business but patiently suffer with other Dissenters But two or three days after I met the King's Declaration cried about the Streets and I presently stept into a House to read it and seeing the word Consent put in about Confirmation and Sacrament though not as to Jurisdiction and seeing the Pastoral perswasive power of Governing left to all the Ministers with the Rural Dean and some more Amendments I wondered at it how it came to pass but was exceeding glad of it as perceiving that now the Terms were though not such as we desired yet such as any sober honest Ministers might submit to And I was presently resolved to do my best to perswade all according to my Interest and Opportunity to Conform according to the Terms of this Declaration and chearfully to promote the Concord of the Church and Brotherly Love which this Concord doth bespeak § 115. Having frequent Business with the Lord Chancellour about other Matters of which somewhat anon I was going to him when I met the King's Declaration in the Street and I was so much pleased with it that having told him why I was so earnest to have had it suited to the desired end I gave him hearty thanks for the Additions and told him that if 1. The Liturgy may be but altered as the Declaration promiseth 2. And this may be setled and continued to us by a Law and not reversed I should take it to be my Duty to do my best to procure the full Consent of others and promote our happy Concord on these Terms and should rejoyce to see the Day that Factions and Parties may all be swallowed up in Unity and Contentions turned to Brotherly Love At that time he began to offer me a Bishoprick of which more anon § 116. I shall here a little look to a passage of another Nature Before this I was called to preach at Court before the King by the Lord Chamberlain who had sworn me his Chaplain and invited me under that Name And afer Sermon it pleased his Majesty to send the Lord Chamberlain to require me to print it And the Earl of Lauderdale told me that when he spake to the King of the great number of Citizens that wrote it in Characters and said that some of them would publish it the King answered I will prevent that for I will have it published Yet when this Sermon came abroad Dr. Thomas Pierce went up and down raging against me for calling my self on the Title page His Majesty's Chaplain which if I had not it would have been taken as a Contempt and for saying it was printed by his Majesty's Special Command and he renewed all the Railings which in print he had lately vented against me I admired that a Man whom the Diocesan Party so much gloried in should be guilty of so great folly and imprudency and could no better cloak his Malice When he could not but know that the King himself would have sought Satisfaction if I had so foolishly belied him on my Title Page Therefore I desired some that told me to give it me under their Hands that I might convince him of it And so I received these following Testimonies from two of his Familiars but honest understanding Men vix Mr. Griggi of Blackfryars and Mr. Brent of Creed-lane To my honoured Friend Mr. William Allen at his House in Broad-street SIR YOU being so well acquainted with Mr. Baxter I desire you will please to ask him whether he be the King's Chaplain in Ordinary or not And whether he had as he hath printed his Majesty's special Command for the printing of his Sermon For lately Dr. Pierce told me that he was the King's Chaplain no more than I was and that he had no order from the King for the printing of his Sermon which did so amaze me that I took the boldness to make you
this Trouble who am SIR Your true Friend to serve you Iohn Griggs Aug. 30. 1660. The other was as followeth Dr. Pierce called Mr. Baxter bold impudent sawcy Fellow for preaching such a Sâ—rmon to the King and for printing himself his Majesty's Chaplain and his Sermon to be printed at his Majesty's Command when neither were true and called Mr. Baxter Thief Murderer the greatest of Rebels worse than a Whore-master or Drunkard c. Some of this I heard him speak my self the rest I had from a Friend which heard it from Mr. Price George Brent By this taste the Reader that knew not the Men may judge with what sort of Men we had to do for Dr. Pierce was not without too many Companions of his Temper These Men that witness these Words of his were godly Men who having been Mr. Iohn Goodwin's Disciples had been made Arminians by him and fell in with Dr. Pierce for his Agreement with them in the Arminian Points But they could not lay by Piety and Charity in Partiality for Opinions and being impatient of his Impudence thus made it known to me I purposed to have produced it before all the Bishops when Dr. Pierce was there having no other Opportunity to see him But I had no fit Occasion and was loth in Business of publick respect to interpose any thing that meerly concerned my self and so I never yet told him of it § 117. That the Reader may understand this the better by knowing the occasion of his Malice this Mr. Tho. Pierce being a confident Man that had a notable Stile and Words at Will and a venomous railing Pen and Tongue against the Puritans and Calvanists having written somewhat in Defence of Grotius as a judicious peaceable Protestant in Opposition to some Passages in my Christian Concord where I warn the Episcopal Party to take heed of Grotianism that was creeping in upon them I did thereupon write a little Collection out of the late Writings of Grotius especially his Discussio Apologetici Rivetiani to prove him to have turned Papist and that Popery was indeed his Religion though he communicated with no Church for he expresly pleadeth for our consenting to the Council of Trent and all other general Councils as the Churches Law and to the Pope's Sovereign Government so it be according to those Laws and to the Mistressship of the Church of Rome over all other Churches and to Pope Pius's Oath with much more to that purpose and telleth us that he was turned from us because he saw that the Protestant Churches had no possibility of Union among themselves c. and there is a Book written I think by Vincentius a French Minister called Grotius Papizans which proveth it And Claud Suravia an honourable learned Counsellor of Paris in his printed Epistles publisheth the same from Grotius's own Mouth But Mr. Pierce was vehemently furious at my Book and wrote a Volume against me full of ingenuous Lies and Railing for he had no better way to defend Grotius or himself In that Book he scrapes up all the Words through all my Writings where I speak any thing of my self and puts them together more impudently interpreting them than could have been expected from a Man Because I confess that the place I liv'd in was a Sequestration whence an ignorant Reader had been put out before my coming to them therefore he calls me Thief as if I liv'd on another's Bread As if no Man must ever have been the Teacher of the People till that ignorant Wretch were restored to his Soul-murdering Condition Because I had written to persuade some honest scrupulous Persons that they should not forsake the Churches Communion though some were there that had been drunken or otherwise scandalous and had spoken some Words to draw them to some charitable hopes of a Man that had been drunken or adulterous if he were not impenitent and all this to reconcile them to the Prelatical Party whom they took to be the scandalous People of the Land so little Thanks doth he give me for this Excusing of his Party that he calls me worse than a Drunkard or Whoremonger as if I had pleaded for these Sins and yet in his former Book he had said that if I came that way and would communicate with him and his Church no Man in the whole World should be more welcome dreaming that I had disowned Communion with the Prelatists which I never did for all their publick and personal Corruptions But his Venom against the Puritans is meerly Serpentine He describeth them as the most bloody traiterous wicked Generation unworthy to live and blameth the former Bishops that used them so gently and provoketh the Governors to hang them in greater Numbers than heretofore and especially against Cartwright he falsly but confidently writeth that he was confederate with Hacket Copinger and Arthington whom he feigneth to have been Presbyterians or Puritans who were distracted Fanaticks one calling himself Christ and the other his two Witnesses But Mr. Cartwright himself long ago publish'd a Defence against the Accusations of Dr. Sutcliff on this very Matter § 118. But to return from this Digression A little before the Meeting about the King's Declaration Collonel Birch came to me as from the Lord Chancellor to persuade me to take the Bishoprick of Hereford for he had bought the Bishop's House at Whitburne and thought to make a better Bargain with me than with another and therefore finding that the Lord Chancellor intended me the Offer of one he desired it might be that I thought it best to give them no positive Denyal till I saw the utmost of their Intents And I perceived that Coll. Birch came privately that a Bishoprick might not be publickly refused and to try whether I would accept it that else it might not be offered me for he told me that they would not bear such a Repulse I told him that I was resolved never to be Bishop of Hereford and that I did not think that I should ever see cause to take any Bishoprick but I could give no positive Answer till I saw the King's Resolutions about the way of Church-Government For if the old Diocesan Frame continued he knew we could never accept or own it After this having not a flat denyal he came again and again to Dr. Reignolds Mr. Calamy and my self together to importune us all to accept the Offer for the Bishoprick of Norwich was offered Dr. Reignolds and Coventry and Litchfield to Mr. Calamy But he had no positive Answer but the same from me as before At last the Day that the King's Declaration came out when I was with the Lord Chancellor who did all he asked me whether I would accept of a Bishoprick I told them that if he had asked me that Question the day before I could easily have answered him that in Conscience he could not do it â— for though I would live peaceably under whatever Government the King should set up I could not
hath been granted will be easilier granted again than that which was never granted before This Testimony is more worth than all our labour for it 2. The Ministers and People of the Land that were concerned in it had a Twelve months time by it in their Ministerial Liberty and Maintenance for this suspended the Execution of the old Laws which were in force against them till the new ones were made 3. We got which was a valuable benefit the Liberty in our Treaty to speak for our Cause under the protection of the King's Commission and justly to state our Differences which else would have been fasly stated to our prejudice and none might have contradicted them § 132. But for the fulfilling of it there was nothing at all done which the Declaration mentioneth save only this years Suspension of the Law against us And some Men were so violent at a distance in the Country that they indicted Ministers at the Assizes and Sessions notwithstanding the Declaration taking it for no Suspension of the Law which put us on many ungrateful Addresses to the King and the Lord Chancellour for their Deliverance For the Brethren complained to us from all Parts and thought it our Duty who had procured the Declaration to procure the Execution of it And when we petitioned for them they were commonly delivered from that Suffering But as to the Matter of Church-Government mentioned in the Declaration 1. The Power of Godliness hath been promoted as the Act of Uniformity and the Act against Conventicles and the Ejecting of 1800 Ministers at once and many Hundred before with much more to the same purpose express 2. The publick and private Exercises of Religion have been encouraged just as those two forementioned Acts express Of which to English-men I need not give an Exposition 3. Of the applying the Lord's Day wholly to holy Exercises without unnecessary Divertisements I have least to say because in these Times we expect only Liberty to do so our selves leaving all others to take their own way And through God's mercy we have liberty to meditate or pray in our Closets and to pray in our Families so there be not above four others present and to hear Common Prayer and Sermon too in Publick in those Parishes that have a Minister that can and will preach And if others think a Play or publick Games or Drinking or Ryoting to be necessary Divertisements they cannot constrain us to the like 4. That Clause of not permitting insufficient negligent scandalous Ministers for the word Non-resident could not pass I believe is executed according to the Judgment of the Executors for I suppose they take him that cannot discern the lawfulness of the Subscriptions Declarations and Practises of Conformity about Oaths Prelacy and Ceremonies to be more insufficient for the Ministry how learned and able otherwise soever than an ignorant Reader is And I suppose they take one that renounceth not the Obligations of the Vow and Covenant and Subscribeth not to Prelacy and Ceremonies to be more scandalous than a Drunkard or a Whoremonger and one that neglecteth any of these to be more negligent than he that neither preacheth to his Flock nor personally instructeth them § 133. As to the Appointment of such a number of Suffragan Bishops in every Diocess as is necessary to the due performance of the Work there was never a one appointed in any one Diocess in the Land that ever I heard of but yet this may be thus far excused that the Parliament having done so much of the Work of Church Discipline themselves as to cast out 1800 of us at once there was the less need of Suffragans afterwards and the Bishops themselves were sufficient to cast out or keep out the rest if ever any such more as we should seek to get into the Ministry § 134. That no Bishop shall ordain or exercise any part of Iurisdiction c. without the Advice and Assistance of the Presbyters may be performed for ought I know for perhaps the Bishop or Chancellor hath the Advice of his Chaplain in private to do it himself and I believe many of his Presbyters assist him by their Information telling him who they be that scruple Ceremonies and who meet in private to Worship God and what nonconformable Ministers presume to preach the Gospel § 135. That no Lay Chancellor Commissaries or Officials as such shall excommunicate absolve c. may for ought I know be fulfilled For though they do it Familiarly as they did before and few Countries have not some that are excommunicated by them for not receiving the Sacrament against their Consciences or some such Matter Yet whether they do it as such or in any other unknown Capacity is more than a Stander-by can tell and they say that when it comes to the Sentence of Excommunication some of them use a Priest pro Formâ § 136. Nor did I ever yet hear of an Archdeacon who exercised his Iurisdiction by the Advice and Assistance of six Ministers chosen as is there mentioned p. 11. § 137. Nor did I ever hear that an equal Number to the Canons and Prebends were annually or ever once chosen in any one Diocess by the Vote of the Presbyters to be always assisting to the Bishop in all Church-censures c. But indeed the Suffragans did never exercise their Iurisdiction without them because such Suffragans never were § 138. Nor did I ever hear that the Ministers Consent was desired for the Confirming of any in his Parish nor of any other than the old way of Confirmation that is for any that will run into the Church though never so unknown to kneel down and have the few Words mentioned in the Liturgy said with the Bishop's Hand on his Head § 139. Nor did I yet ever hear of any one who before he was admitted to the Sacrament was called to any other credible Profession of Faith and Promise of Obedience than to stand up at the Creed or to be present at the Common-Prayer Nor of refussing Scandalous Offenders till they have openly declared themselves to have truly repented and amended their former naughty Lives But I have oft heard them threatned for not receiving § 140. Much less did I ever hear of any such thing as a Rural Dean with his Neighbour-Minister meeting monthly or ever once for any of those excellent Works there mentioned Nor of any Attempt of such a thing § 141. As for the Bishop's not using Arbitrary Power but according to the known Law of the Land I suppose they take the Canons to be the Law of the Land or according to it which other Men never dream'd of that desired that Provision § 142. And whether ever the Alterations mentioned were made of the Liturgy and the additional Forms in Scripture Phrase suited to the Nature of the several Parts of Worship you may know by perusing it and by that which here followeth § 143. Yet I think
the rest might not be unintelligible and the whole defective 6. I put in the Forms and Order of Discipline partly because else we should never have had Opportunity therein to express our Minds and partly because indeed it belongeth to the Integrity of the Work and to shew the difference between their kind of Discipline in Chancellors Courts and ours by Pastors in Christian Congregations 7. Note that the method of the Litany and general Prayers is according to the Direction of the Lord's Prayer of which and the Ten Commandments it is a Commentary The first Commandment falleth in with the Preface and the three first Petitions of the Lord's Prayer All the other Commandments with the Evangelical Precepts come in under the third Petition Thy Will be done and then I proceeded to the other three Petitions and the Conclusion Doubtless the Lord's Prayer is the most perfect method for universal Prayer or holy Desires that can be possibly invented § 174. When I brought my Draught to the Brethren I found them but entring on their Work of Exceptions against the Common-Prayer and so I was fain to lay by mine above a Fortnight longer till their work was done In which divers of them took their Parts The chief Actors in that part were Dr. Reignolds Dr. Wallis Mr. Calamy Mr. Newcomen Dr. Bates Mr. Clarke Dr. Iacomb c. Dr. Horton never came among us at all nor Dr. Tuckney alledging his backwardness to speak though he had been the Doctor of the Chair in Cambridge nor Dr. Lightfoot but once or twice nor Mr. Woodbridge but twice or thrice dwelling far off Mr. Clarke brought in that large Enumeration of Corruptions in the Liturgy recited in the Abridgment of the Lincolnshire Ministers but it was refused because we would be as little querulous as possible lest it should offend and hinder our desired Accommodation and what Passages soever seemed to make the Common-Prayer-Book odious or savour of Spleen and Passion they did reject whoever offered them My principal Business was to keep out such Accusations as would not bear weight and to repress the Opinions of one of the Brethren who came from far and so came not till late among us who was absolutely against all parts of the Common-Prayer because they had been used by Papists to Idolatry And I drew up such Faults as in perusing the Common-Prayer-Book it self did occur to me and which were they which I most disliked in the Forms being not so much offended with some other things as some others were But the Brethren reduced it to a few brief Exceptions in general and would not by so particular an Enumeration of Faults provoke those that we had to do with which I misliked not But from the begining I told them that I was not of their Mind who charged the Common-Prayer with false Doctrine or Idolatry or false Worship in the Matter or Substance nor that took it to be a Worship which a Christian might not lawfully join in when he had not Liberty and Ability for better And that I always took the Faults of the Common Prayer to be chiefly Disorder and Defectiveness and so that it was a true Worship though imperfect and Imperfection was the Charge that we had against it considered as distinct from the Ceremonies and Discipline I looked at it as at the Prayers of many a weak Christian that I have heard who prayed with Disorder and Repetitions and unfit Expressions I would not prefer such a weak Christian in Prayer before a better but yet if I separated from such an one or thought it unlawful to join with him I should be sinfully Curious and Uncharitable And I think this was the Mind of all our Brethren save one as well as mine And old Mr. Ash hath often told us that this was the Mind of the old Nonconformists and that he hath often heard some weak Ministers so disorderly in Prayer especially in Baptism and the Lord's Supper that he could have wish'd that they would rather use the Common-Prayer Yet when we desired the Reformation of it especially at a time when the Peoples Hearts were so much set against it I thought it best to open the true Disorders that they might be reformed The Paper which I offered and we laid by lest it should offend them was this following The Exceptions against the Common-Prayer which I offered the Brethren when they were drawing up theirs The Common-Prayer-Book is guilty of great Defectiveness Disorder and vain Repetitions and therefore unfit to be the common imposed Frame of Worship to the God of Order without Amendment when we may do it 1. ORDER requireth that we begin with Reverent Prayer to God for his Assistance and Acceptance which is not done 2. That the Creed and Decalogue containing the Faith in which we profess to assemble for God's Worship and the Law which we have broken by our Sins should go before the Confession and Absolution or at least before the Praises of the Church which they do not 3. The Confession omitteth not only Original Sin but all actual Sin as specified by the particular Commandments violated and almost all the Aggravatious of those Sins and instead thereof it containeth only the repeated Confession that we have erred and strayed from God's ways That we have followed the Devises and Desires of our Hearts That we have offended against his Laws That we have left undone those things that we ought to have done c. which is but to say We have sinned by Omission and Commission Whereas Confession being the Expression of Repentance should be more particular as Repentance it self should be 4. When we have craved help for God's Prayers before we come to them we abruptly put in the Petition for speedy Deliverance O God make speed to save us O Lord make haste to help us without any Intimation of the Danger that we desire deliverance from and without any other Petition conjoined 5. It is disorderly in the Manner to sing the Scripture in a plain Tune after the manner of reading 6. The Lord be with you And with thy Spirit being Petitions for Divine Assistance come in abruptly in the midst or near the end of Morning Prayer And Let us Pray is adjoined when we were before in Prayer 7. Lord have Mercy upon us Christ have Mercy upon us Lord have Mercy upon us seemeth an affected Tautologie without any special Cause or Order here And the Lord's Prayer is annexed that was before recited And yet the next Words are again but a Repetition of the foresaid oft repeated General O Lord shew they Mercy upon us 8. The Prayer for the King O Lord save the King is without any Order put between the foresaid Petition and another General Request only for Audience And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee 9. The second Collect is intitled for Peace and hath not a Word in it of Petition for Peace but only for Defence in Assaults of Enemies and
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
that all the Snares that ever they could lay for us never procured them just advantage once truly to say that we disagreed among our selves For though there were enow at a distance who could not have agreed to all that we did yet we so far left them out though to the displeasure both of the Prelatists and them that no discord was found in any of our Proposals or Debates which cut some of them more to the heart than all that else we did to their displeasure § 209. By this time our frequent crossing of their Expectations I saw had made some of the Bishops angry above all Bishop Morley who over-ruled the whole business and did interess himself in it deeplier than the rest and was of a hotter Spirit and a readier Tongue But that which displeased them most was the freedom of my Speeches to them that is that I spake to them as on terms of Equality as to the Cause yet with all honourable Titles to their Persons For I perceived that they had that eminency of Power and Interest that the greatest Lords were glad of their favour did expect that the presence of so many of them should have awed us into such a silence or cowardliness as should have betrayed our Cause or at least that their Vehemency and Passions and Interruptions should have put us out of Countenance But I intreated them to give us leave with the due honour of their Persons to use that necessary liberty of Speech to them as beseemed such as are very confident that they plead for the Cause of God and the happiness and healing of a bleeding Church and that upon the warrant of the King's Commission And I must say that though they frowned at my freedom of Speech they never once accused me of any unmannerly or unreverent Language § 210. When we were going to our Disputation Dr. Pierce asked whether he that was none of the three deputed by them to that Service might joyn with the rest And we told that we cared not how many joyned the more the better for if any one of them could see any Evidence of Truth which the rest did overlook it would redound to our Benefit who desired nothing but the Victory of Truth § 211. And before he began with them he would fain have had one bout with me himself Whereas I moved them to some Christian Charity to all those Consciencious Christians that were to be put away from the Communion of the Church if they did but scruple the lawfulness of kneeling in the reception of the Sacrament though I still profest to them that I held it not unlawful my self when the Sacrament could not be otherwise had Dr. Pierce offered himself to a Disputation to prove that let them be never so many it is an Act of Mercy to them to put them all from the Communion of the Church I easily perceived what advantage his Confidence and Passion gave me and I intreated him to try his skill but his Brethren would not give him leave I earnestly entreated them to give him leave but to try one Argument but I could not prevail with them being wiser than to suffer his Passion to expose their Cause to Laughter and Contempt But yet he could not forbear to cast out his medium and tell us how he would have argued viz. That they that receive the Sacrament being in judgment against kneeling in the Act of Receiving do receive it Schismatically and so to their own Damnation Ergo it is an Act of Charity to keep them from the Communion of the Church Where note That our Dispute was only whether the Legistators should by Laws or Canons keep them away and not whether a Pastor supposing such Laws existent should keep them away And therefore by making it damnable Schism antecedently to our Laws he must needs mean that some Foreign Laws or General Councils do prove it Schism or else the Custom of the Universal Church And as to the first I did at large there prove that the Twentieth Canon of the Council at Nice and the Concil Trull and the most ancient Writers do unanimously decree against kneeling and make it universally unlawful and that by Apostolical Tradition to adore kneeling on any Lord's Day in the Year and on any other Day between Easter and Whitsunday and that no General Council hath reversed this till meer Disuse and contrary Custom did it And for Custom the Protestant Churches concur not in that Custom nor are they Schismaticks for differing from the Papists and others that do so nor is it better for them all to be without any Church Communion than not to kneel in the Act of Receiving Nor do the Papists themselves make every Man a Schismatick that followeth not the Custom of their Church in every particular Gesture unless he separate from their Church it self much less do they pronounce Damnation on all such But if it were the Law of our own Land or Church which he thought made it Schism then he might as well have so argued for sitting or standing and against kneeling viz. That it is Charity to make a Law is keep all from Church◠Communion that will kneel because when such a Law is made it is damnable Schism to kneel But the very truth is I perceived so little Compassion to Souls in the zealous and swaying Managers of these Controversies and so little regard of the Scruples and Tenderness of Godly People who were afraid of Sinning a◠that I scarce thought among Protestants there had been any such Whether they would have abated one Ceremony if they had had an hundred more to keep all the Dissenters in three Nations from being cast out of the Ministry and Church I know not but of those they have they would not abate one which made me oft think that their Spirits are much more like the Papists than their Formal Worship and Discipline is so much do they agree in destroying Men for their Opinions and Ceremonies sake and in Building the Tombs of the Prophets and over-honouring the dead Saints while they go on to hate and destroy the living And it made me oft remember Bishop Hall's Character of an Hyprocrite who boweth at the Name of Iesus and sweareth by the Name of God and would set all the World on fire for a Circumstances And it made me remember what that learned godly Minister Mr Spinage hath oft told me and many others and is still ready to justifie upon Oath that being heretofore familiar with this Mr. Thomas Pierce and saying once to him These Men that you so abhor are very godly Men and have much Communion with God he brake out into this Answer A pou on this Communion with God And it made me think of Augustine's Description of the sottish Worldlings that had far rather thus were one Star fewer in Heaven than one Cow or one Tree the fewer in their Grounds So had these Men rather One thousand eight hundred godly
Action I was commonly censured by them as one that had granted them too much and wronged my Brethren by entring into this Treaty oâ—t of too earnest a desire of Concord with them Thus were Men on both extreams offended with me and I found what Enmity Charity and Peace are like to meet with in the 〈◊〉 But when these Papers were printed the Independents confess that we had dealt faithfully and satisfactorily And indifferent men said that Reason had once whelmed the Cause of the Dioâ—esans and that we had offered them so much a test them utterly without Excuse And the moderate Episcopal Men said the same But the engaged Prelatist were vehemently displeased that these Papers should 〈◊〉 câ—me abroad Though many of them here published were never before printed because none had Copies of them but my self § 264. Bishop Morley told me when he Silenced me that our Papers would be answered 〈◊〉 long But no Man to this day that ever we could hear of hath answered them which were unanswered Either our Reasons for Peace or our Litugy or our large Reply or our Answers to Dr. Pierson's Argument c. only Roger L'Estrange the writer of the News Book hath raised out a great many words against some of them And a nameless Author thought to be Dr. Wommock hath answered one part of one Subject in our Reply which is about excluding all Prayers from the Pulpit besides Common Prayer and in very plausible Language he saith as much as can be said for so bad a Cause viz. for the prohibiting all Extemporary Prayer in the Church And when he cometh to the chief strength of our Reasons he passeth it by and faith that in answering so much as he did the Answer to the rest may be gathered And to all the rest of the Subjects he faith nothing much less to all our other Papers § 265. Also another nameless Author commonly said to be Sir Henry Yelverton wrote a Book for Bishop Morley against me But neither he nor Boreman nor Wommâ—â—k ever saw me for ought I know and I am sure he is as strange to the Cause as to me For he taketh it out of Bishop Morley's Book and supposing what he hath written to be true he findeth some words of Censorious Application to make a Book of § 266. And about the same time Sir Robert Holt a Knight of Warwickshire near Brâ—â—â—â—châ—m spake in the Parliament House against Mr. Calamy and me by name as preaching or praying seditiously but not one syllable named that we said And another time he named me for my Holy Commonwealth § 267. And about that time Bishop Morley having preferred a young Man named Mr. S Orator of the University of Oxford a fluent witty Satyrist and one that was sometime motioned to me to be my Curate at Kidderminster this Man being Houshold Chaplain to the Lord Chancellour was appointed to preach before the King where the Crowd had high Expectations of some vehement Satyr But when he had preached a quarter of an hour he was utterly at a loss and so unable to recollect himself that he could go no further but cryed The Lord be merciful to our Infirmities and so came down But about a Month after they were resolved yet that Mr. S should preach the same Sermon before the King and not lose his expected Applause And preach it he did little more than half an hour with no admiration at all of the Hearers And for his Encouragement the Sermon was printed And when it was printed many desired to see what words they were that he was stopped at the first time And they found in the printed Copy all that he had said first and one of the next Passages which he was to have delivered was against me for my Holy Common-wealth § 268. And so vehement was the Endeavour in Court City and Country to make me contemptible and odious as if the Authours had thought that the Safety either of Church or State did lye upon it and all would have been safe if I were but vilified and hated Insomuch that Durell the French Minister that turned to them and wrote for them had a senseless snatch at me in his Book and Mr. Stoope the Pastor of the French Church was banished or forbidden this Land as Fame said for carrying over our Debates into France So that any Stranger that had but heard and seen all this would have asked What Monster of Villany is this Man and what is the Wickedness that he is guilty of Yet was I never questioned to this day before a Magistrate Nor do my Adversaries charge me with any personal wrong to them nor did they ever Accuse me of any Heresie nor much contemn my Judgment nor ever accuse my Life but for preaching where another had been Sequestred that was an insufficient Reader and for preaching to the Soldiers of the Parliament though none of them knew my Business there nor the Service that I did them These are all the Crimes besides my Writings that I ever knew they charged my Life with But Envy and Carnal Interest was so destitute of a Mask that they every where openly confessed the Cause for which they endeavoured my Defamation and Destruction especially the Bishops that set all on work 1. As one Cause was their own over-valuing of my Parts which they made account I would employ against them 2. Another was that they thought the Reputation of my blameless Life would add to my ability to deserve them 3. Another was that they thought my Interest in the People to be far greater than indeed it was 4. But the principal of all was my Conference before the King and at the Savoy in both which it fell out that Bishop Morley and I were the bassest Talkers except Dr. Gunning and that it was my lot to contradict him who was not so able either to bear or seem to bear it as I thought at least his Honour would have instructed him to be 5. And my refusing a Bishoprick increased the indignation And Colonel Birth that first came to offer it me told me that they would ruine us if we refused it Yet did I purposely forbear ever mentioning it on all occasions 6. And it was not the least Cause that my being for Primitive Episcopacy and not for Presbytery and being not so far from them in some other Points of Doctrine and Worship as many Nonconformists are they thought I was the abler to undermine them 7. And another Cause was that they judged of the rest of my Talk and Life by my Conference at the Savoy not knowing that I took that to be my present Duty which Fidelity to the King and Church commanded me faithfully to do whoever was displeased by it and that when that time was over I took it to be my Duty to live as peaceably as any Subject in the Land and not to use mâ— Tongue or Pen against the Government which the King was pleased to appoint
fourth sort are the Independents who are for the most part a serious godly People some of them moderate going with Mr. Norton and the New-England Synod and little differing from the moderate Presbyterians and as well ordered as any Party that I know But others of them more raw and self-conceited and addicted to Separations and Divisions their Zeal being greater than their Knowledge who have opened the Door to Anabaptists first and then to all the other Sects These Sects are numerous some tolerable and some intolerable and being never incorporated with the rest are not to be reckoned with them Many of them the Behmâ—nists Fifth-Monarchy-men Quakers and some Anabaptists are proper Fanaticks looking too much to Revelations within instead of the Holy Scriptures And thus I have truly told you of all the Sorts among us except the Papists who are sufficiently known and are no more of us than the other Sects are The Atheists and Infidels I name not because as such they have no Pastors § 286. Next it will not be amiss if I briefly give you the Sum of their several Causes and the Reasons of their several Ways I. The Conformists go several Wâ—ys according to their forementioned Differences 1. Those that are high Prelatists say 1. For Episcopacy it is of Divine Institution and perpetual Usage in the Church and necessary to Order among the Clergy and People and of experienced Benefit to this Land and most congruous to Civil Monarchy and therefore not to be altered by any no not by the King and Parliament if they should swear it Therefore the Oath called the Et caetera Oath was formed before the War to Swear all Men to be true to this Prelacy and not to Change it 2. Those that are called Conforming Presbyterians and Latitudinarians both say that our Prelacy is lawful though not necessary and that Mr. Edward Stillingfleet's Irenicon hath well proved That no Form of Church Government is of Divine Institution And therefore when the Magistrate commandeth any he is to be obeyed But since they grew up to Preferment they grow to be hot for the Prelacy § 287. And therefore as to the Covenant they all say 1. That the End of it was Evil viz. To Change the Government of the Church without Law which was setled by Law 2. That the Efficient Cause was Evil or Null viz. That the Imposers had no Authority to do it 3. That the Matter was Evil viz. to extirpate and change the Government of the Church by Rebellion and Combination against the King 4. That the Swearers Act in taking it was sinful for the foresaid Reasons 5. That the King's Prohibition and disowning it did nullifie all the Subjects Obligations if any were upon them by virtue of Numb 30. 6. That the People being all Subjects cannot endeavour the Change of Church Government without the King 7. That King Charles took not that same Covenant but another 8. That he was forced to it 9. That he was virtually pre-engaged to the contrary Matter in that he was Heir of the Crown and bound to take the Coronation Oath 10. That to cast so many Men as the Bishops out of all their Honours and Possessions is Injustice which none can be obliged to do 11. That if it were lawful before to endeavour an Alteration of the Government of the Church yet now it is not when King and Parliament have made a Law against it These are Mr. Fulwood's and Mr. Stileman's Pleas and the Sum of all that I have heard as to that Point § 288. But further as to the Interpretation of the Words of the Declaration hereabouts the Latitudinarians and Conforming Presbyterians and some of the Prelatists say as followeth 1. That the Declaration includeth not the King when it saith There is no obligation on me or any other person which they prove because that Laws are made only for Subjects and therefore are to be interpreted as speaking only of Subjects 2. Because the King is meant in the Counterpart or Object viz the Government of the State which is not to be altered 2. They say that it is only Rebellions or other unlawful Endeavours that are meant by the words to Endeavour 3. They say that by any Alteration is meant only any Essential Alteration and not any Integral or Accidental Alteration of the Government 4. And the leading Independents have taught them also to say that this Covenant was essentially a League between two Nations upon a certain occasion which therefore if ever it did bind is now like an Almanack out of date Et cessat obligatio cessantibus personis materiâ fine 5. They principally argue that all Mens words are to be taken charitative in the most honest and favourable sence that they will bear much more the King 's and Parliaments Therefore Charity permitteth us not to judge them so inhuman irrational irreligious and cruel as to command Men to be perjured and to change the constituted Government by prohibiting King Parliament or People to do any thing which belonged to them in their places These are the Reasons for the lawfulness of declaring against the Obligation of the Covenant § 289. 3. In the same Declaration it is professed That it is not lawful on any pictente whatsoever to take up Arms against the King or any Commissionated by him c. Concerning this they are also divided among themselves One Party say That this is true universally in the proper sence of the words The other say That it is to be understood of such as are legally Commissioned by him only and that if he should Commission two or three Men or more to kill the Parliament or burn the City or to dispossess Men of their Freeholds it were lawful forcibly to resist Or if the Sheriff be to raise the Posse Comitatus in obedience to a Decree of a Court of Justice to put a Man into possession of his House he may do it forcibly though the Defendant be Commissioned by the King to keep it Because they say that the Law is to be taken sano sensu and not as may lay the Law-givers under so heavy an Accusation as the literal unlimited sence would do § 290. 4. The fourth Matter of Difference being the Oath of Canonical Obedience they here also differ among themselves 1. Some of them think that as the Necessity of Monarchy and our Relation to the King doth make the Oath of Allegiance necessary or very meet so the Necessity of Prelacy and our Relation to the Prelates doth make the Oath of Obedience to them justifiable and meet For that which must be done may be promised and sworn 2. Others of them say That it is only to the Bishops as Magistrates or Officers of the King that we swear to them 3. And others say That as we may be subject to any Man in humility so we may promise or swear it to any Man And it being but in licit 〈◊〉 honestis that what we may
that Christ should have no one Witness that would ever scruple or contradict them either among the Orthodox or the Hereticks as far as any Records of Antiquity do make known § 300. 7. The seventh Controversie is about their own practice in Administrations and Church Discipline And 1. that they must Ministerially deny the Sacrament of Baptism to all Children whose Parents will not have them use the Cross they say that it is the Church that refuseth them by Law and not they who are by the Law disabled from receiving them 2. The same they say of their refusing to give the Lord's Supper to any that will not kneel in the Reception of it They say that it is better to Administer the Sacraments to some than to none at all which they must do if they refuse not them that kneel not 3. And for the giving of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to the unworthy for all are forced to use them they say that the Infants of all in the Church have right to Baptism at least for their Ancestor's sake and for the Godfathers and Godmothers or the Churches sake And for the Lord's Supper they have power to put away all that are proved impenitent in notorious Scandal § 301. Having told you what the Conformists say for themselves as faithfully as will stand with brevity before I proceed I think it best to set down here the words 1. Of the Covenant 2. Of the Subscription and Declaration 3. Of the Oath of Canonical Obedience before your Eyes that while the Subject of the Controversie is before you the Controversie it self may be the better understood And I suppose the Reader to have all the Books before him to which we are required to Assen◠〈…〉 The Solemn League and Covenant WE Noblemen Barons Knights Gentlemen Citizens â—â—â—gesses Ministers of the Gospel and Commous of all 〈◊〉 in the Kingdoms of Scotland â—England and Ireland by the Pâ—â—vidence of God living under one King and being of one Reformed Religion having before our Eyes the Glory of God and the Advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ the Honour and Happiness of the King's Majesty and his Posterity and the true Publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdoms wherein every ones private Condition is included And calling to mind the trâ—atherous and bloody Piots Conspiracies Attempts and Practises of the Enemies of God against the true Religion and Professors thereof in places especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their Rage Power and Presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised whereof the deplorable Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland the distressed Estate of the Church and Kingdom of England and the dangerous Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick Cestimonies We have now at last after other means of Supplication Remonstrance Protestations and Sufferings for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter Ruine and Destruction according to the Commendable Practice of these kingdoms in former times and the Example of God's People in other Nations after mature Deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a Mutual and Solemn League and Covenant Wherein we all Subscribe and each one of us for himself with our Hands lifted up to the most high God â—o swear 1. THat we shall sincerely really and constantly through the Grace of God endeavour in our several Places and Callings the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government against our Common Enemies The Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God and the Example of the best Reformed Churches And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church Government Directory for Worship and Catechizing That we and our Posterity after us may as Brethren live in Faith and Love the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us 2. That we shall in like manner without respect of Persons endeavour the Extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commistaties Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierachy Superstition Heresie Schism Prophaneness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues And that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the three Kingdoms 3. We shall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in our several Uocations endeavour with our Estates and Lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the King's Majesties Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the world may bear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatness 4. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindring the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant That they may be brought to publick Trial and receive Condign Punishment as the degree of their Offences shall require or deserve or the Supream Iudicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall â—udge convenient 5. And whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denied in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of God granted unto us and hath been latlely concluded and setled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and interest endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Union to all Posterity and that Iustice may be done upon the wilful Opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article 6. We shall also according to our Places and Callings in this common Cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof And shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever Combination Perswasion or Terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and Conjunction whether to make defection to the contrary part or to give our selves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this Cause which so much concerneth the Glory of God the Good of the Kingdoms and Honour of the King But shall all the days of our
as that the Bishop of the lowest degree instead of ruling one Church with the Presbyters ruleth many hundred Churches by Lay-Chancellors who use the Keys of Excommunication and Absolution c. And they take it for an Act of Rebellion against God if they should Swear never to do the Duty which he commandeth and so great a Duty as Church-Reformation in so great a Matter If it were but never to pray or never to amend a fault in themselves they durst not Swear it 12. This Oath seemeth to be the same in Sence with the Et caetora Oath in the Canons of 1640. That we will never consent to an alteration of the Government by Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans c. And one Parliament voted down that and laid a heavy charge upon it which no Parliament since hath taken off 13. As the National Vow and Covenant seemeth a great Snare to hinder the Union of the Church among us in that it layeth our Union on an exclusion of Prelacy and so excludeth all those learned worthy Men from our Union who cannot consent to that Exclusion so the laying of the Kingdoms and Churches Union upon the English Prelacy and Church-Government so as to exclude all that cannot consent to it doth seem as sure an Engine of Division We think that if our Union be centered but in Christ the King of all and in the King as his Officer and our Soveraign under him it may be easie and sure But if we must all unite in the English Frame of Prelacy we must never Unite § 15. Those that take the Oath do as those that Subscribe resolve that they will understand it in a lawful Sense be it true or false and so to take it in that Sense To which end they say that nullum iniquum est in Lege praesumendum and that all publick Impositions must be taken in the best Sense that the Words will bear And by force and stretching what words may not be well interpreted But the Nonconformists go on other grounds and think that about Oaths Men must deal plainly and sincerely and neither stretch their Consciences nor the Words nor interpret universal Terms particularly but according to the true meaning of the Law-givers as far as they can understand it and where they cannot according to the proper and usual signification of the Words And the Parliament themselves tell us That this is the true Rule of interpreting their Words Beyond which therefore we dare not stretch them § 16. And therefore 14. They dare not take the Oath because if it be not to be taken in the proper or ordinary Sense of the Words then they are sure that they cannot understand it for it doth not please the Parliament to expound it And Oaths must be taken in Truth Judgment and Righteousness and not ignoranatly when we know that we understand them not § 17. The Lawyers even the honestest are commonly for a more stretching Exposition And those that speak out say That an illegal Commission is none at all But we our selves go further than this would leads us for we judge That even an illegally commissioned Person is not to be resisted by Arms except in such Cases as the Law of Nature or the King himself by his Laws or by a contrary Commission alloweth us to resist him But if Commissions should be contradictory to each other or to the Law we know not what to Swear in such a case § 18. But because much of the Case may be seen in these following Questions which upon the coming out of that Act I put to an able worthy and sincere Friend with his Answers to them I will here Insert them viz. Serjeant Fountain Queries upon the Oxford Oath We presuppose it commonly resolved by Casuists in Theology from the Law of Nature and Scripture 1. That Perjury is a Sin and so great a Sin as tendeth to the ruin of the Peace of Kingdoms the Life of Kings and the Safety of Mens Souls and to make Men unfit for Humane Society Trust or Converse till it be repented of 2. That he that Sweareth contrary to his Iudgment is Perjured though the thing prove true 3. That we must take an Oath in the Imposer's Sense as near as we can know it if he be our Lawful Governour 4. That an Oath is to be taken sensu strictiore and in the Sense of the Rulers Imposing it if that be known if not by the Words interpreted according to the common use of Men of that Profession about that subject And Vniversals are not to be interpreted as Particulars nor must we limit them and distinguish without very good proof 5. That where the Sense is doubtful we are first to ask which is the probable Sense before we ask which is is the best and charitablest Sense and must not take them in the best Sense when another is more probable to be the true Sense Because it is the Truth and not the Goodness which the Vnderstanding first considereth Otherwise any Oath almost imaginable might be taken there being few Words so bad which are not so ambiguous as to bear a good Sense by a forced Interpretation And Subjects must not cheat their Rulers by seeming to do what they do not 6. But when both Senses are equally doubtful we ought in Charity to take the best 7. If after all Means faithfully used to know our Rulers Sense our own Vnderstandings much more incline to think one to be their meaning than the other we must not go against our Vnderstandings 8. That we are to suppose our Rulers fallible and that it 's possible their decrees may be contrary to the Law of God but not to suspect them without plain cause These things supposed we humbly crave the Resolution of these Questions about the present Oath and the Law Qu. 1. Whether upon any pretence whatsoever refer not to any Commissionated by him as well as to the King himself 2. Whether not lawful extendeth only to the Law of the Land or also to the Law of God in Nature 3. Whether I Swear that it is not lawful do not express my peremptory certain Determination and be not more than I Swear that in my Opinion it is not lawful 4. What is the Traytorous Position here meant for here is only a Subject without a Praedicate which is no Position at all and is capable of various Praedicates 5. If the King by Act of Parliament commit the Trust of his Navy Garrison or Militia to one durante vita and should Commissionate another by force to eject him whether both have not the King's Authority or which 6. If the Sheriff raise the Posse Commitatus to suppress a Riot or to execute the Decrees of the Courts of Justice and fight with any Commissioned to resist him and shall keep up that Power while the Commissioned Persons keep up theirs which of them is to be judged by the Subjects to have the King's Authority 7. If a Parliament or a
Court of Justice declare That the King by his Laws commandeth us to assist the Sheriffs and Justices notwithstanding any Commission to the contrary under the great or little Seal and one shew us a Commission to the contrary which must we take for the King's Authority 8. Whether this extendeth to the Case of King Iohn who delivered the Kingdom to the Pope Or to those Instances of Bilson Barcley Grotius c. of changing the Government putting by the true Heir to whom we are Sworn in the Oath of Allegiance c. if Subjects pretend Commission for such Acts 9. Whether Parliament Judges in Court or private Men may by the King's Authority in his Laws defend their Lives against any that by a pretended Commission invadeth them or their Purses Houses or Companions 10. Whether we must take every Affirmer to have a Commission if he shew it not Or every shewn Commission to be current and not surreptitious though contrary to Law 11. Whether he violateth not this Oath who should endeavour to alter so much of the Legislative Power as is in the Parliament or the Executive in the Established Courts of Justice Or is it meant only of Monarchy as such 12. Doth he not break this Oath who should endeavour to change the Person Governing as well as he that would change the Form of Government 13. If so doth it not also tye us to the Persons of Church-Governours seeing they are equally here twisted and Church-Government preposed 14. Is it the King 's Coercive Government of the Church by the Sword which is here meant according to the Oath of Supremacy Or Spiritual Government by the Keys Or both 15. Is it not the English Form of Church-Government by Diocesans that is here meant and not some other sort of Episcopacy which is not here And doth he not break this Oath who instead of a Bishop over 500 or 1000 Churches without any inferiour Bishop should endeavour to set up a Bishop in every great Church or Market-Town or as many as the Work requireth 16. Seeing Excommunication and Absolution are the notable parts of Spiritual Government and it is not only the Actions but the Actors or Governours that we Swear not to alter and Lay-Chancellors are the common Actors or Governours whether an endeavour to alter Lay-Chancellors Government as some did that procured his Majesty's Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs be not contrary to this Oath and excluded by any alteration 17. Whether petitioning or other peaceable means before allowed by Law be not any endeavour and a violation of this Oath 18. Whether not at any time c. tye us not to disobey the King if he should command us by Consultation or Conference to endeavour it Or if the Law be changed doth not this Oath still bind us Lastly Whether this following Sense in which we could take it be the true sense of the Oath I A B do Swear That a it is not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever b to take up Arms against the King c And that I do abhor that Traytorous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissionated by him d in pursuance of such Commission And that I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of Government either in Church or State e a In my Opinion b For the Subjects of his Majesty's Dominions c Either his Authority or his Person the Law forbidding both d Whether it be his Parliament Courts of Justice Legal Officers or any other Persons authorized by his publick Laws or his Commission supposing that no contrariety of Laws and Commissions by over-sight or otherwise do Arm the Subjects against each other e I will not endeavour any alteration of State-Government at all either as to the Person of the King or the Species of Government either as to the Legislative or Executive Power as in the King himself or his Parliament or Established Courts of Justice And therefore I declare That I take all the rest of this Oath only in a Sense consistent with this Clause implying no alteration in the Government And I will endeavour no alteration of the Coercive Government of the Church as it is in the King according to the Oath of Supremacy Nor any alienation of the Spiritual Power of the Keys from the Lawful Bishops and Pastors of the Church Nor will I endeavour to restore the Ancient Discipline by removing the Spiritual Government by the Keys out of the Hands of Lay-Chancellors into the Hands of so many able Pastors as the number of Churches and necessity of the work requireth nor any other Reformation of the Church by any Rebellious Schismatical or other unlawful means whatsoever nor do I believe that any Vow or Covenant obligeth me thereto declaring notwithstanding that it 's none of my meaning to bind my self from any Lawful Means of such Reformation nor to disobey the King if at any time He command me to endeavour the Alteration of any thing justly alterable The General Answer was as followeth UPon Serious Consideration of the Act of Parliament Entitled An Act for Restraining of Nonconformists from Inhabiting in Corporations And of the Oath therein mentioned I am of Opinion That there is nothing contained in that Oath according to the true Sense thereof But that it is not Lawful to take up Arms against the King or any Authorised by his Commission or for a private Person to endeavour the Alteration of the Monarchical Government in the State or the Government by Bishops in the Church And that any Person notwithstanding the taking of such Oath if he apprehend that the Lay-Judges in Bishop's Courts as to Sentence of Excommunication for Matters meerly Ecclesiastical or for any other Cause ought to be Reformed or that Bishopricks are of too large extent may safely Petition or use any lawful Endeavour for Reformation of the same For that such Petition or other Lawful Endeavour doth not tend to the Alteration of the Government but to the amendment of what shall be found amiss in the Government and Reformed by Lawful Authority and thereby the Government better Established And I conceive every Exposition of the said Oath upon Supposition or Presumption of an Obligation thereby to any thing which is contrary to the Law of God or the Kingdom is an illegal and a forced Exposition contrary to the intent and meaning of the said Oath and Act of Parliament for it is a Rule nullum iniquum est in Lege praesumendium And an Exposition tending to enjoyn any thing contrary to the Law of God would make the Act of Parliament void which ought not to be admitted when it bears a fair and plain Sense which is no more Than that Subjects ought not to take up Arms against their Lawful King or such as lawfully Commissionated by him and for private Persons to be unquiet in the place wherein they live to the disturbance of the Government in Church or State Iohn Fountain Feb. 6.
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
that was Governour of our Fort at Sheerness had not fortifyed it and deserted it And so they came up to Chatham and burnt some of our greatest Ships and took away some while we partly lookt on and partly resisted to no great purpose And had they but come up to London they might have done much more This cast us into a great consternation § 45. At this time the King came in person among the Citizens to perswade them not to desert him and made a Speech to them at Tower-Hill not here to be recited And he had now great Experience of the Loyalty of the Citizens who after such sufferings and under such pressures in matters of Conscience and of worldly Interest even in such extremity were neither proved to do or say any thing that was contrary to their fidelity to the King § 46. The firing of London which was most commonly suppos'd to be done by the Papists and the Wars with the French did raise greater Jealousies of the Papists than had appeared before so that weekly News came to London from many Counties that the Papists were gathering Horse and Arms and that some of them had got Troops under pretence of the Militia or Volunteers to be ready for our defence The Parliament hereupon declared themselves more against them than was expected which greatly troubled the Papists The Royalists in many Countries were almost ready to disarm them especially the E. of Derby in Lancashire was wholly true to the Protestant Interest Whereupon the Papists thought it policy to live more privately and to cease their oftentation and to obscure their Arms and Strength and to do their work in a more secret way And some of them Printed an Address to the Royalists to plead kindness and affinity of dispositions with them telling them that they hoped that they that had fought and suffered in one cause for the King against the Puritans should have continued in the same Union and Kindness and that they would not have been so much against them This was answered solidly by Dr. Loid And doubtless the Papists had never so great a dejection and disappointment since the King came in For they seemed to think that the Parliament and Royalists had been so distracted with malice and revenge against the Puritans as that they would have been content that London was burnt and would have done any thing that they would have them even against themselves their Countrey their Religion and Posterity so it had but favoured of that revenge But it proved otherwise § 47. Whilest that all these Calamities especially our loss and disgrace by the Dutch must be laid on some or other the Parliament at last laid all upon the Lord Chancellor Hide And the King was content it should be so Whereupon many Speeches were made against him and an Impeachment or Charge brought in against him and vehemently urged and among other things that he counselled the King to Rule by an Army which many thought as bad as he was he was the chief means of hindering And to be short when they had first sought his Life at last it was concluded that his banishment should satisfy for all And so he was banished by an Act during his Life The sale of Dunkirk to the French and a great comely House which he had new built increased the displeasure that was against him but there were greater Causes which I must not Name § 48. And it was a notable providence of God that this Man that had been the grand Instrument of State and done almost all and had dealt so cruelly with the Nonconformists should thus by his own friends be cast out and banished while those that he had persecuted were the most moderate in his Cause and many for him And it was a great ease that befell good people throughout the Land by his dejection For his way was to decoy men into Conspiracies or to pretend plots and when upon the rumour of a plot the innocent people of many Countries were laid in prison so that no man knew when he was safe Whereas since then tho Laws have been made more and more severe yet a Man knoweth a little better what to expect when it is by a Law that he is to be tryed And it is notable that he that did so much to make the Oxford Law for banishing Ministers from Corporations that took not that Oath doth in his Letter from France since his banishment say that he never was in favour since the Parliament Sat at Oxford § 49. Before this the Duke of Buckingham being the head of his Adversaries had been overtopt by him and was fain to hide himself till the Dutch put us in fear and then he appeared and rendered himself and went prisoner to the Tower but with so great Acclamations of the People in the Streets as was a great Discouragement to the Chancellor And the D. of Buckingham was quickly set at liberty Whereupon as the Chancellor had made himself the head of the Prelatical party who were all for setting up themselves by force and suffering none that were against them so Buckingham would now be the head of all those parties that were for liberty of Conscience For the Man was of no Religion but notoriously and professedly lustful And yet of greater wit and parts and sounder Principles as to the interest of Humanity and the Common good than most Lords in the Court Wherefore he Countenanced Fanaticks and Sectaries among others without any great suspicion because he was known to be so far from them himself Though he marryed the Daughter and only Child of the Lord Fairfax◠late General of the Parliament's Army and is his heir hereby yet far enough from his mind but yet a defender of the Priviledges of Humanity § 50. Before this also the Earl of Bristol had attempted to pull down the Chancellor and to bring in a Charge against him into the Parliament But the King soon quelled him And being a Papist he hath lain latent or quiet ever since as unfit to appear in publick businesses And Buckingham performed the Work § 51. In October following the Parliament gave thanks to the King for removing the Lord Chancellor But they were vehement in seeking an account of the Moneys which have been granted for the publick service and also to have an account of the business at Chatham by whose fault it was that the Dutch were unresisted and surprized our shipping And Committees were appointed for these purposes and a great deal of talk and stir was made about them for a long time but they could never attain their ends but they that were faulty had friends enow to procure their security And tho the Parliament grudged at it and sometimes talkt high yet this made no alteration in our Affairs § 52. One notable disadvantage which we had by the Dutch attempt was that it drew down our new raised In-land Souldiers into Kent towards Sherness where the unhealthful Air
the Churches of England and faithfully to preserve the peace and happiness thereof And all those who are qualified with abilities according to the Law and take the Oaths and Declarations abovesaid shall be allowed to preach Lectures and Occasional Sermons and to Catechize and to be presented and admitted to any Benefice or to any Ecclesiastical or Academical promotions or to the teaching of Schools 3. Every person admitted to any Benefice with cure of Souls shall be obliged himself on some Lord's day within a time prefixed to read the Liturgy appointed for that day when it is satisfactorily altered and the greatest part of it in the mean time and to be often present at the reading of it and sometimes to administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the said Liturgies And it shall by himself or some other allowed Minister be constantly used in his Church and the Sacraments frequently administred as is required by the Law 4. The 4th was against the Ceremonies without alteration in their own words save about bowing at the Name â—esus as after 5. No Bishop Chancellor or other Ecclesiastical Officers shall have power to silence any allowed Minister or suspend him 〈◊〉 officio vel beneficio arbitrarily or for any cause without a known Law And in case of any such arbitary or injurious silencing and suspension there shall be allowed an appeal to some of his Majestie 's Courts of Iustice so as it may be prosecuted in a competent time and at a tolerable expence being both Bishops and Presbyters and all Ecclesiastical persons are under the Government of the King and punishable by him for gross and injurious male-administrations 6. Though we judge it the Duty of Ministers to Catechize instruct exhort direct and comfort the people personally as well as publickly upon just occasion yet lest a pretended necessity of Examinations before the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or an unwarrantable strictness should introduce Church-Tyranny and wrong the faithful by keeping them from the Communion let all those be admitted to the Communion who since their Infant baptism have at years of discretion manifested to the Bishop or the Ministers of the Parish Church where they live a tolerable understanding of the Essential points of Faith and Godliness that is of the Baptismal Covenant and of the nature and use of the Lord's Supper and have personally owned before them or the Church the Covenant which by others they made in Baptism professing their Resolution to keep the same in a Faithful Godly Righteous Charitable and Temporal Life and are not since this profession revolted to Atheism Insidelity or Heresy that is the denying of some Essential Article of faith and live not impenitently in any gross and scandalous sin And therefore in the Register of each Parish let all their Names be written who have either before their Confirmation or at any other time thus understandingly owned their Baptismal Covenant and a Certificate thereof from the Minister of the place shall serve without any further examination for their admission to Communion in that or any other Parish Church where they shall after live till by the aforesaid revolts they have merited their suspension 7. Because in many families there are none who can read or pray â—or call to remembrance what they have heard to edify themselves and spend the Lords day in holy Exercises and many of these live so far from the Church that they go more seldom than the rest and therefore have great need of the assistance of their Neighbours it is not to be taken for a Conventicle or unlawful meeting when Neighbours shall peaceably joyn together in reading the Scripture or any good books or repeating publick Sermons and praying and â—ging â—salms to God whilst they do it under the inspection of the Minister and not in opposition to the publick Assemblies Nor yet that meeting where the Minister shall privately Catechize his Neighbours or pray with them when they are in sickness danger or distress tho persons of several Families shall be present 8. Whereas the Canon and Rubrick forbid the adâ—ission of notorious scandalous sinners to the Lords table be it enacted that those who are proved to deride or scorn at Christianity or the holy Scriptures or the Life of Reward and Punishment or the serious practice of a Godly Life and strict obedience to Gods Commands shall be numbered with the Scandalous sinners mentioned in the Canon and Rubrick and not admitted before repentance to the holy Communion § 69. The following paper will give you the reasons of all our alterations of their form of Words But I must add this that we thought not the form of Subscription sufficient to keep out a Papist from the established Ministery much less from a Toleration which we medled not with And here and in other alterations I bore the blame and they told me that no Man would put in such doubts but I. And I will here tell Posterity this Truth as a Mystery yet only to the blind which must not now be spoken that I believe that I have been guilty of hindering our own Liberties in all Treaties that ever I was employ'd in For I remember not one in which there was not some crevice or contrivance or terms offered for such a Toleration as would have let in the moderate Papists with us And if we would but have opened the Door to let the Papists in that their Toleration might have been charged upon us as being for our sakes and by our request or procuâ—ement we might in all likelihood have had our part But though for my own part I am not for Cruelty against Papists any more than others even when they are most cruel to us but could allow them a certain degree of liberty on Terms that shall secure the common Peace and the People's Souls yet I shall never be one of them that by any renewed pressures or severities shall be forced to petition for the Papists liberty if they must have it let them Petition for it themselves No craft of Iesuits or Prelates shall thunder me cudgel me or cheat me into the Opinion that it is now necessary for our own Ministry Liberty or Lives that we I say we Nonconformists be the famed Introducers of the Papists Toleration that so neither Papists nor Prelatists may bear the odium of it but may lay it all on us God do what he will with us his way is best but I think that this is not his way § 70. Upon these Alterations I was put to give in my Reasons of them which were as followeth The Reasons of our Alterations of your Proposals 1. I Put in Presidents c. to avoid Dispute whether such were meer Presbyters or as some think Bishops 2. I leave out time of disorder because it will else exclude all that were Ordained by Presbyters since the King came in 3. I put in Instituted and Authorized to intimate that it is not an Ordination to
ride them And all that never had skill to tame them or that had ever catch'd a fall by them were on this side Others said it was not lawful to use an Ass but yet they would have none denyed liberty herein save only that the Boys that see him should have leave to hoot The third sort preferred Horses but yet would have every Man have liberty to use a Horse or an Ass as he pleased and none to have liberty to hoot at them or openly deride them on either side The Matter came before the Judges The first sort confessed that Horses made a fairer shew but that was their Hypocrisie and that they went swiflier but it was to the Rider's overthrow And said what need you more than all our Experience when all we have been cast by them to the hazard of our Lives And we only are the King 's best Subjects and therefore by casting us you would depose the King and whatever you pretend you are Traytors and this lyeth at the bottom For no Subjects no King and if we must ride on Horses we shall be no Subjects long And â—o have some use Horses and some Asses will breed Factions and endless Divisions amongst us and what a ridiculous Monster will it make the Kingdom They that use Horses will still be deriding them that ride on Asses c. The other answered them 1. That the main cause of their misfortunes came from their own unskilfulâ—â—ss and disuse who had not Patience to learn to ride nor Humility to confess their unskilfulness And that it were better for the Kingdom that those that have more skill to â—ame Colâ—s and ride Horses were suffered to furnish the King and Kingdom with that nobler Breed than to dishonour it and wrong so many to serve the ignorance or slaggishness of some The first urged their Experience and the latter urged their contrary Experience till the Judge being a wise Man would have fain seen the Experience of the latter sort and have permitted them to ride a while before them But the other urged Will not all our past Experience warn you Will you yet be guilty of those Men's Blood The Judge answered It will be but the Rider's and none of yours Why pretend you to be more careful of their Lives than they are of their own even when you would have them Imprisoned or Banished So it came to the Tryal but the Accusers would needs choose the Horses and they chose none for the Tryal but unbroken Colts The other only desired that either they might have time to break these Colts first at their own peril or else might be tryed with such as they themselves had broken But the other cryed out Do you not hear now my Lord the impudence and unreasonableness of these brazen-faced Villains that will never be content Did not we tell you That nothing would satisfie them if you granted their Desires You have granted them a Tryal and now if they may not have their own Terms they are as unquiet as before Are these Fellows fit to be suffered in a peaceable Common-wealth But the King himself interposed as wiser than them all and said I will try them both on Colts and Horses so it came to the open Tryal and it so strangely happened that all the tamed Horses were ridden in a blameless Order and the Colts themselves cast not one of their Riders but only some time kick'd and bit at those that came too near them and strove a little against the Bit. This Experience had like to have carried it for Horses for the Judge said I see now it is but the Accusers fault that they have sped worse And the Defendents said We confess my Lord that Colts are Colts and must have labour and also that some Horses are too hot mettled and we are contented that you lay by those few if they prove untameable but not to banish all Horses and their Riders for their sakes This Motion seemed reasonable to some and I am persuaded it had prevailed but for two unhappy Arguments at the last 1. Said the Accusers my Lord you see that these Horses even the best ridden of them all are Factious They make a difference between the King's Subjects they will be ruled indeed but it is only by these Fellows that are used to them they would quickly cast Vs off if we should ride them And then they say it is our unskilfulness when it is nothing but their seditious unruly humour My Lord We can name you as worthy Men and skilful Riders as any are in the World that have been cast by Horses And moreover it appeareth That Nature never made them for Man's use for they have not their Gentleness as the Asses have by nature but only by much force and use And who knoweth not forced things will quickly return like an unstringed Bow to their natural state which here is nothing but unruly fierceness And besides when in all Ages it must cost so much ado to tame them with the hazard of Men's lives Men will at last be weary of so much pains as well as we 2. But if all this will not do in a word if you banish them not you are not Caesar's Friend for we can tell you of a Horse that once cast an Emperor to the loss of his life who was as good and as skilful a Rider as any in the World This last Word stopt the Defendent's Mouths For though they whispered among themselves 1. That the main fault was in the Riders that should have better tamed that Horse for the Emperor 2. And that a Man in white was seen to put Nettles under the Horses Tail and continually to keep and prick in his side and to beat him on 3. That many thousand Irish-Men frighted him with Guns and Fire-balls 'till he was not himself 4. That it was an extraordinary fierce natur'd Horse 5. The Accusers themselves were the unskilful Riders who first spoiled them 6. That it hath been revenged already by the Blood of many who had the last Hand in spoiling the Horse 7. That they abhor the Thoughts of the Action as well as the Accusers and are content that as strict Laws be made as may be for skilful Riders and for a careful choice for the King 's own Saddle with more such like yet this was so tender a Point that very few of the Defendents durst speak out and so And here also the defendents fell into differences among themselves when the point of necessity some that had pleaded most for Horses would make use of Asses rather than none And others for it called them Turn-Coats and the Servants of Tyranny But how the Controversie is like to end I told you before I have but one word to say for expounding my Parable that by Horses I do not mean Non-conformists unless as any of them fall under another Genus It is serious Religious Persons that I mean who are scorned as Puritans Zealots and Precisians
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
required but I think it should be the Congregation's And what if the Elders dissent Shall that hinder the Relation or not 93. The number of chosen Ministers in National Synods will be inconsiderable as to the rest 96. The use of a National Synod where all Bishops and Moderators are chosen by the King and the Commissioner ruleth being before-hand resolved to be to Compile a Liturgy and Rules for all Points of Divine Worship with the Methods Circumstances and Rites to be observed therein Many knowing what Liturgy Subscriptions Declarations and Rites are pleasing to Authority in England will imagine them in fierâ— if not virtually set up already in Scotland when these Rules are set up 107. Publick Pennance And why not and Suspension from Communion till penitent Confession be made But I know not why Compensations should serve instead of Confession and Promise of Reformation without which Money will not make a Man a Christian nor fit for Church-Communion But for any other Pennance besides one penitent Confession and Promise of Amendment and desire of the Churches Prayers for Pardon I know nothing of it and therefore meddle not with it 132. No Act Order nor Constitution may be Expounded to reach to Scripture Constitutions and Orders and the proper Acts of the Ministerial Office if not better explained 133. The Word Ecclesiastical Meeting may be interpreted of particular Synaxes or Congregations of a Parish for Worship if not limited which Convocating of the People is part of the Pastor's proper Office and for a thousand Years was so accounted by the Catholick Church And if in case of Discord or Heresie a few Neighbour Ministers meet for a Friendly Conference to cure it it seemeth hard to charge them with Sedition 140. If the Parties be able to come 143. Many of these Faults should be Corrected by Mulcts before Men be forbidden to Preach the Gospel If every Man be Suspended which I suppose is prohibiting him to Preach and Endeavour Mens Salvation who useth unsound Speeches Flattery or Lightness I doubt so many will talk themselves into Silence that a sharp Prosecution will leave many Churches desolate 145. But what if there be no Preachers to be had May not the Suspended Preach 146. Disobedience to some of the small Ecclesiastical Rules may be punished with Mulcts without absolute Silencing especially when able Preachers are wanting Shall the instructing of the Peoples Souls so much depend on every Word in all these Canons But oh that you would make that good in Practice that Labouring to get Ecclesiastical Preferment should be punished if it were with less than Deposition It would be a happy Canon 147. But shall the Synod or Presbytery carry by Vote or not 149. If every Church-Session have this power of Suspension with power but to say We declare you unfit for Communion of this particular Church till you repent it would give me great Satisfaction were I in Scotland For to speak freely I take these two Things to be of Divine Appointment 1. That each particular Church have its proper Pastor who have the Ministerial Power of Teaching Worship Sacraments Prayer Praise and Discipline and I desire no more Discipline than you here grant that is Suspension from Communion in that particular Church if also the Person may be declared unfit for it till he Repent 2. That these Pastors hold such Correspondency as is necessary to the Union of the Churches in Faith and Love And 3. For all the rest I take them to be Circumstances of such prudential Determination that I would easily submit to the Magistrates determination of them so they be not destructive to the Ends and would not have Ministers take too much of the trouble of them upon themselves without necessity 152. But then you seem here to retract the particular Churches Power again For if a Man may be debarred the Communion for once sinning by Fornication Drunkenness c. why not much more for doing again after Repentance I differ more from this than all the rest Is it not enough that the Party may Appeal to the Presbytery And that the Sessions or Pastor be responsible for Male-Administration or Injury if proved This one Canon would drive me out of the Ministry in Scotland I would never be a Pastor where I must after the first Crime ever after give the Sacrament to every flagitioâ—s Offender till the Presbytery suspend him unless they do it very quickly which perhaps they may never do 153 154. No doubt but Iure Divino every true particular Church hath the Power of Excommunicating its own Members out of that particular Church-Communion Delivering up to Satan is a doubtful Phrase which I shall not stand on But an Excommunication which shall bind many Churches to avoid the Sinner must be done or Consented to by those many Churches Therefore Excommunication should be distinguished 156. Sure some few Ecclesiastical Rules and Proceedings may be so low as that a Contempt of them may be easilyer punished than with this terrible Excommunication Impenitency must be joyned with Scandalous Sins or else they make not the Person Excommunicable as is implyed in what followeth 162. No doubt but every Church may absolve its own Members from that sort of Excommunication which it self may pass And so may a Presbytery But if the Magistrate will have a more formidable Diocesane or National Excommunication and an answerable Absolution those Circumstances are to be left to his Prudence so be it he deprive not each particular Pastor and Church of their proper Power and Priviledge plainly found in Scripture and used many hundred Years through the Catholick Church Honourable Sir The Copy which you sent me goeth no further than to the Visitation of the Sick viz. to Can. 176. And so much according as I was desired I have freely and faithfully Animadverted And in general here are many excellent Canons though of many things I cannot Judge and those few Exceptions I humbly offer to your Consideration craving your Pardon for this boldness which I should not have been guilty of if the worthy Messenger had not told me that it was your desire Sir I rest Your Humble Servant Rich. Baxter Iuly 22. 1670. § 173. I had forgotten one passage in the former War of great remark which put me into an amazemeut The Duke of Ormond and Council had the cause of the Marquess of Antrim before them who had been one of the Irish Rebels in the beginning of that War when in the horrid Massacre two hundred thousand Protestants were murthered His Estate being sequestred he sought his restitution of it when King Charles II. was restored Ormond and the Council judged against him as one of the Rebels He brought his cause over to the King and affirmed that what he did was by his Father's Consent and Authority The King referred it to some very worthy Members of his Privy-Council to examine what he had to shew Upon Examination they reported that they found that he had
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
uncapable of a Conjunction who do not and cannot desire it or seek it For the One that which we propose is a farther Latitude in the present Constituted Order that such may be received and this we call Comprehension or Accommodation Let us suppose that nothing else were required of a Man to be a Minister of a Parish than there is to the Parishioner to be a Member of a Parish Church as part of the National If a person Baptised will come to Church and hear Common-Prayer and receive the Sacrament and does nothing worthy of Excommunication he is he may he must be received for a Parochial Member In like manner If a Minister first ordained and so Episcopally or Classically approved for his Abilities for that function will but read the book of Liturgy and Administer the Sacraments according to it and does nothing which deserves suspension we appeal to all this indifferently sober why should not this suffice a Man for the enjoying his Living and exercising the Office unto which he is called For the other there is indeed nothing can be done to bring those in and joyn them with us in Parochial Union yet is there this to be proposed that you bear with them and not let any be persecuted meerly for their Consciences and that we call Indulgence or Toleration If the Presbyterian now may be comprehended he will be satisfied to act at his Ministry without endeavouring any Alteration otherwise of Episcopacy If the Congregationalist be indulged he will be satisfyed tho he be not Comprehended for that he cannot submit unto and so shall there be no Disobligation put on any but all be pleased and enjoy the ease of this Bill Let but the Grounds of Comprehension be laid wide enough to take in all who can own and come into the publick Liturgy which we suppose as yet to be the greater weight ofâ— the Nation and when the Countenance of Authority and all State-Emoluments are cast into one Scale and others let alone to come of it without persecution to inflame them or preferment to encourage them especially if one Expedient be used which shall not pass unmentioned in the close that such as came in may find it really better to them to be a priest to a Tribe than a Levite to a Family we need not doubt but time the Mistress of the Wise and Unwise will discover the peaceable Issue of such Counsels And here let me pause a little for methinks I see what Icesicles hang on the Eeves of the Parliament-House at this Motion what prejudices I mean and Impressions have been laid on the Members by former Acts. There was a speech delivered by the then Chancellour in Christ-Church Hall in Oxford to the Parliament there and the Schollars assembled Wherein the Glory of contriving the Oxford-Oath and Consequently of the like former Impositions was most magnificently as well as spitefully enough arrogated to its proper Author It wasâ— it seems the designed Policy of that Great Man to root those Principles out of Men's minds upon which the late Wars as he supposed were builded and he would do it by this Invention to wit the Imposing upon them new Declarations Oaths and Subscriptions of a strain framed contrary to those Principles I do remember now the sentence of Esdras to the Apologue of the Angel where the Woods and the Seas would encounter one another Verily says he it was a foolish purpose for the trees could not come down from the hills nor the Waves get up from the shoars I must say the same of this Policy It was really a great vanity to think that folk should be made to swear away their thoughts and beliefs Whatsoever it is we think or believe we do think it we must think it we do believe it we must believe it notwithstanding any of these outward Impositions The honest Man indeed will refuse an Injunction against his Conscience the knave will swallow it but both retain their Principles which the last will be the likeliest to put any villanous Practice on On the Contrary there is nothing could be advised more certain to keep the Covenant and such Principles alive in Mens heart 's and memories than this perpetual injoyning the Renunciation of it Nor may you wonder if that Lesson sink deep into Men's flesh which you will teach them with Briars and Thorns as Gideon taught the Men of â—uccoth Besides it is the most impolitick thing that ever could have been for such Contents as are of that dangerous Consequence to Majesty and the Government to have them once disputed or brought into question to be put into these Declarations Oaths and Subscriptions which necessitates the Examination of them to so many It was the wisdom of the Ancient Church instead of Contention about the Jewish Ceremonies to take care they might have an honourable burial And I dare say if that great Lord Chancellor had but put off his Cap to the Covenant and bidden it a fair Adieu only he should have done more towards its Extirpation than by all this iterated trouble to Men's Consciences And if it shall therefore please the succeeding Ministers of our State instead of going to root out the Principles of Innovation which are got into people by this means which is no means to do it but the means to rivet them more in us to endeavour rather to root out the Causes from us which make men willing to entertain such Principles and desire Change I suppose their Policy will prove the sounder The way to establish the Throne of the King is this to make it appear that all those Grievances and all those Good things which the People in the late times expected to be removed or to be obtained by a Common Wealth or a Change of the Government may be more effectually accomplished by a King in the Acts of his Parliament I am sensible how my Threm riseth upon me and that I begin to shoot wide I take my Aim therefore again and two things in earnest I would expect from this Bill as the summ of what is necessary to the end of it our Ease if it be made to serve the turn The one is that Bishop Laud be confined to his Caththedrals and the other that Chancellour Hide be totally expelled our Acts of Parliament By the first I mean that the Ceremonies in the ordinary Parish Churches be left to the Liberty of the Minister to use or use them not according to his Conscience and Prudence toward his own Congregation And by the latter that all these new devised Oaths Subscriptions and Declarations together with the Canonical Oath and the Subscription in the Canons be suspended for the time to come If that be too much I shall content my self with a modester motion that whatsoever these Declarations â—e that are required to be made subscribed or sworn they may be imposed only as to the Matter and End leaving the Takers but free to the use of their own
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
Hostility is Disunion and Dissolution Therefore no Head or Soveraign hath power to destroy or sight against his Kingdom nor any Common-wealth or Kingdom against their King or Soveraign Rulers unless in any case the Law of Nature and Nations which is above all Humane Positive Laws should make the dissolution of the Republick to become a Duty As if some Republick should cast off the Essential Principles of Society By Law neither King nor Kingdom may destroy or hurt each other For the Governing Laws suppose their Union as the Constitution and the Common good with the due Welfare of the Soveraign is the end of Government which none have power against But it must be noted that the words are against the King and not against the King's Will for if his Will be against his Welfare his Kingdom or his Laws though that Will be signified by his Commissioners the Declaration disclaimeth not the resisting of such a Will by Arms. 3. And if there be any that assert that the King's Authority giveth them right to take up Arms against his Person or Lawful Commissions it must needs be a False and Traiterous Assertion For if his Person may be Hostilely fought against the Common-wealth may be dissolved which the Law cannot suppose for all Laws die with the Common-wealth And it is a contradiction to be authorized by him to resist by Arms his Commissions which are according to Law For the Authority pretended to be his must be his Laws or Commissions and to be Authorized by his Laws or Commissions to resist his Laws must signifie that his Laws are contradictory when by one we must resist another But so far as they are contradictory both cannot be Laws or Lawful Commissions For one of them must needs nullifie the other either by Fundamental Priority or by Posteriority signifying a Repeal of the other And it must be noted that yet the Trayterous Position medleth not with the Question of taking Arms against the King's Person or Commissioners by the Law of God of Nature or of Nations but only of doing it by his own Authority 4. And that it is not lawful to take Arms against any Commissioned by him according to Law in time of Rebellion and War in pursuance of such Commission is a Truth so evident that no sober Persons can deny it The Long Parliament that had the War did vehemently assert it and therefore gave out their Commissions to the Earl of Essex and his Soldiers to fight against Delinquent Subjects for the King and Parliament 5. And the Oath containeth no more than our not endeavouring to Alter the Protestant Religion established or the King's Government or Monarchy It cannot with any true reason be supposed to tie us at all to the Bishops-much less to the English Disease or Corruption of Episcopacy or to Lay-Chancel lours c. but only to the King as Supreme in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil so far as they fall under Coercive Government This is thus proved past denyal 1. The word Protestant Religion as estalished in the Church of England cannot include the Prelacy For 1. The Protestant Religion is essentially nothing but the Christian Religion as such with the disclaiming of Popery aud so our Divines have still professed But our Prelacy is no part of the Christian Religion 2. The Protestant Religion is common to us with many Countreys which have no Prelacy And it is the same Religion with us and them 3. The words of the Oath distinguish the Religion of the Church of England from the Church of England it self and from Government 4. If Episcopacy in general were proved part of the Protestant Religion the English Accidents and Corruptions are not so They that say that Episcopacy is Iure Divino and unalterable do yet say that National and Provincial Churches are Iure Humano and that so is a Diocesane as it is distinct from Parochial containing many Parishes in it And if the King should set up a Bishop in every Market-Town yea every Parish and put down Diocesanes it is no more than what he may do And if by the Protestant Religion established should be meant every alterable mode or circumstance then King-James changed it when he made a new Translation of the Bible and both he and our late Convocation and King and Parliament by their Advice did change it when they added new Forms of Prayer And then this Oath bindeth all from endeavouring to make any alteration in the Liturgie or mend the Translation or the Metre of the Psalms c. or to take the keys of Excommunication and Absolution out of the hands of the Lay-Chancellour's c. which none can reasonably suppose 2. And that our Prelacy is not at all included in the word Government of the Kingdom in Church and State but only the King 's Supreme Government in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil is most evident 1. Because it is expressly said The Government of the Kingdom which is all one with the Government of the King For a Bishop or a Justice or a Mayor is no Governour of the Kingdom but only in the Kingdom of a Particular Church City Corporation or Division The summa potestas only is the Government of the Kingdom as a Kingdom And because forma denominat we cannot take the Kingdom to signifie only a Church or City 2. Because else it would change the very constitution of the Kingdom by making all the inferiour Officers unalterable and so to be essential constitutive parts Whereas only the pars Imperans and pars Subdita are constitutive parts of every Kingdom or Republick and the Constitutive pars Imperans is only the summa potestas except where the mixture and fundamental Contract is such as that Inferiour Officers are woven so into the Constitution as that they may not be changed without it's Dissolution which is hardly to be supposed even at Venice Tbe Oaths between the summa potestas and the Subject are the bonds of the Commonwealth their Union being the form that must not be dissolved But to make Oaths of Allegiance or Unchangeableness â—each to the Inferiour Magistrates or Officers is to change the Government or Constitution 3. And so it destroyeth the Regal power in one of it's chief properties or prerogatives which is to alter inferiour Officers who all receive their power from the Supreme and are alterable by him even by the Majestas which hath the Legislative powers And this would take away all the King's power to alter so much as a Mayor Justice or Constable For mark that Government of the Kingdom in Church and State are set equally together without any note of difference as to alteration If therefore it extend to any but the Supreme even to inferiour Officers it were to extend to them as Governing the State even to the lowest as well as the Church But this is a supposition to be Contemned 4. And if the Distinction should be meant de personis Imperantibus and should
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
be Schismaticks with them that unite not in their Center or at least be not tyed to union by their ligaments So he is a Schismatick to a Papist that Centers not in the Pope as the Principium unitatis and visible Head of the Church and in the Roman Church as the Heart of the Church Catholick denominating the whole He is a SchismatiÌ„ck with some others that owns not every Order or Ceremony which they maintain For my part I should think that he that 〈◊〉 in â—hrâ—â—t and â—â—â—deth the sound and wholsome Doctrine contained in the Creeds of the Church and maintaineth love and unity with all Christians to the utmost extent of his natural capacity even with all that he is capable of holding Communion with is no Schismatick nor his attempts for that end Schismatical Combinations If there were a Bishop in this Diocess and he should go one way suppose he command that all Church Assemblies be at such a time and all worship in such a form and all the Presbyters and People go another way whether they do well or ill so the thing itself be tollerable and will not meet at the time nor worship God in the form which he prescribeth I should think I were guilty of Schism if I separated from all these Churches and guilty of ungodliness if I wholly forsook and forbore all publick worship of God because I could have none according to the Bishops commanding Much more if there were no Bishop in the Diocess at all This seems to be our case in respect of both Worship and Discipline at least for the most part Is that man guilty of no Schisme nor Impiety who will rather have no Discipline exercised at all on the profane and scandalous but all Vice go without controul and the rage of Mens sins provoke Heaven yet more against us who will rather have no Ministerial Worship of God in Prayer or Praise no Sacraments no Solemn Assemblies to this end no Ministerial Teaching of the people but have all Mens Souls given over to perdition the bread of life taken from their mouths and God deprived of all his Worship then any of this should be done without Bishops That had rather the Church doors were shut up and we lived like Heathens than we should Worship God without a Bishops Commands and that when we have none to command us 3. We distinguish of the necessity of Bishops either it is a necessity ad bene esse for the right ordering of the Church when it may be had or it is a necessity ad esse to the very being of a Church or of Gods Worship without which we may not offer God any publick Service or have any Communion with any Congregation that so doth The former we leave as not fit for our determination and therefore we do not contradict you in it nor seek to draw you to own any Declaration against it The latter we do deny there is no such necessity of Bishops as that God can have no Church without them and that we must rather separate from all our Assemblies and never offer God any publick Worship then do it without them remembring still that we speak of those Bishops whom we are charged with rejecting and not the Pastors of particular Congregations And in this distinction of necessity and in this conclusion I have the consent of the generality of the Protestant Bishops so far as I know to a Man as far as their Writings declare to us their Minds and therefore Episcopal Divines may consent Except to Sect. 2. 1. Whether in this Worcestershire Association whoever will enter into it doth not therein oblige himself to acknowledge those for Presbyters and Pastors of Churches who profess themselves to have been made such in a Church where there are and were Bishops that never denyed them Orders without the Hands Consent or Knowladge of the Bishop yea in a time when Bishops were without any accusation before any Ecclesiastical Superiour Synod or other unheard ejected laid by by their own sheep and Presbyters that owed them obedience Reply to Sect. 2. To your first Question I answer 1. You must distinguish of punishing and ejecting Bishops that deserve it and casting out their Order 2. Between casting out the appurtenances and corruptions which made up the English sort of Prelacie as differing from the Primitive and casting out the Order and Office of Bishops simply in itself 3. Between those Men that do cast them out and those that do not 4. Between a Church that hath Bishops and one that hath none 5. Between them that can have Ordination by them and those that cannot 6. Between those Ministers of this Association that were Ordained by Bishops and those that were not 7. Between the Irregularity and sinfulness or Ordination and the nullity thereof and so between a Minister regularly Ordained and a Minister Irregularly Ordained who is a Minister still Hereupon I answer further in these conclusions 1. That too many of the Bishops lately ejected did deserve it is beyond dispute 2. Whether the Parliament in the state that they were in had not power to punish them by Imprisonment or Ejection as Solemon did Abiathar without an Ecclesiastical Superior or whether the Clergy be exempted from such punishment by the Secular power till they are delivered up to them by the Ecclesiastical Head hath been voluminously disputed in the world already Sutcliffe Bilson Iewel and a multitude more have proved that Kings have power in all Causes and over all Persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil and that the Pope hath no power of Jurisdiction in England let the Oath of Supremacy judge and if the Metropolitan of Canterbury or the highest Ecclesiastical Power miscarry who shall restrain or eject them but the Civil Power unless we go to the Pope for more acceptable witnesses I commend to you Spalatensis Grotius and Saravia yea Fr. de Victoria and several Parisians The two former one de Republ. Eccles. the other de Imperio summarum potestatum will never be well answered If it be said the King did it not I answer I think the Authority by whom that much was done that we now speak of will be acknowledged sufficient by most that were against the fact and that fought against the Parliament that understood the Laws It was long before the King withdrew 3. Many of those that approved of the Ejection of those unworthy men yet approved not of the dissolution of the Office and such may be many and for ought you know most or all of the Ministers here Associated Though I suppose rather it is otherwise yet while Men do for peace silence their opinions who knows what they are And sure I am many among us had no hand in the downfall of the Bishops and whether any at all be lyable in this to your Charge besides my self whereof more anon I know not most of our Association were in the Universities in the Wars and the rest were some I
grant the Necessity of such Succession yet we need not grant the Nullity of our Calling 2. I deny that the English Bishops much less the Church of England did ever judge it necessary any farther than ad Hominem 1. Because it is apparent that they do ordinarily in their Writings speak against the Papists supposed Necessity of Ordination as I instanced out of some of them in my Book It is known to be a Point wherein the Protestants have commonly opposed the Papists 2. It is known to be but the later declining Generation of Bishops such at Montague Laud and their Confederates most in King Charles his Days very few in King Iames's and scarce any at all in Queen Elizabeth's that do join with the Papists in pleading the Necessity of Succession Even such Men as were as zealous against Queen Elizabeth's Episcopal Protestants as against the Papists at least many of them 3. The rest do expresly mention Succession and confute the Fâ—ble of the Nag's-Head Ordination in Cheapside to prove the Papists Slanderers So much to your Minor 3. If that will not serve I deny your Major All is not necessary that they thought necessary Protestants pretend not to Infallability in Controversals Many more perhaps ten to one at least of the English Clergy held it not necessary unless as aforesaid Ad 2 um Your second Argument hath all the Strength in it or rather shew of Strength â— first we must needs distinguish of your Terms Mediately and Immediately A Constitution may be said to be from Christ mediately either in Respect to a mediating Person or to some mediating Sign only Also it may be said to be mediante persona 1. when the Person is the cause totalâ—â— subordinata constituendi as having himself received the Power from God and being as from himself to convey it unto Man 2. Or when the Person is but Causa per accidens 3. Or when he is only Causa sive qua non vel quatenus impedementa â—emovit vel quatenus ejus Actiones sunt conditiones necessarie And so I answer 1. Immediately in the first absolute Sense excludendo personâ—â— res no Man ever had any Right communicated or Duty imposed on him by God unless perhaps the immediate Impress or supernatural Revelation of the Holy Ghost to some Peophet or Apostle might be said to do this Moses himself had the Ten Commandments written in Stone which were signa mediantia Those that heard God speak if any immediately without Angelical Interposition did receive God's Commands mediante verborum signo So did the Apostles that which they had from the Mouth of Christ. 2. God is so absolutely the Fountain of all Power that no Man can either have or give any Power but derivatively from him and by his Commission Man being no farther the Efficient of Power than he is so constituted of God the general way of his giving it must be by the Signification of God's Will and so far as that can be sufficiently discovered there needs no more to the Conveyance of Power Whether Men be properly efficient Causes of Church Power at all is a very hard Question especially as to those over whom they have no superior governing Power As Spalatensis hath taken great pains to prove that Kings or other Sovereigns of the Common-wealth have their Commission and Power immediately from God though the People sometimes may choose the Man for the Power was not given to the People first and then they give it the King but God lets them name the Man on whom he will immediately confer it so possibly may it be in Ordination of Church-Officers Three ways do Men mediate in the Nomination of the Person 1. When they have Authority of Regiment over others and explenitudine potestatis do convey efficiently to inferior Officers the Power that these have Thus doth the supream Rector of the Commonwealth to his Officers and Ergo they are caled the Kings Officers and he hath the choice of the very Species as well as of the individual Officers Now this way of mediating is not always if at all necessary or possible in the Church for the Papists themselves confess that the Pope is Ordained or authorized without this way of Efficiency for none have a Papal Power to convey to him His Ordination cannot be Actus Superioris And the Council of Trent could not agree whether it were not the Case of all Bishops to hold their Office immediately from Christ though under the Pope or whether they had their Power immediately from the Pope as the prime Seat on Earth of all Church Power who is to convey their Parts to others How the Spanish Bishops held up their Cause is known And it was the old Doctrine of the Church that all Bishops were equal and had no Power one over another but all held their Power directly from Christ as Cyprian told them in the Council of Carthage Add to this that the true old Apostolical Episcopacy was in each particular Church and not over many Churches together I speak of fixed Bishops till the matter becoming too big to be capable of the old Form Corruptio unius fuit generatio alterius and they that upon the increase of Christians should have helpt the Swarm into a new Hive did through natural Ambition of ruling over many retaine divers Churches under their Charge and then ceased to be of the Primitive sort of Bishops Non eadem fuit res non munus idem etiamsi idem nomen retinerent So that truly our Parish Ministers who are sole or chief Pastors of that Church are the old sort of Bishops for as Ambrose and after him Grotius argues qui ante se alterum non habebat Episcopus er at That is in eadem Ecclesia qui superiorem non habet So that not only all Diocesan Bishops but also all Parochial Bishops are Ordained per pares and so not by a governing Communication of Power which is that second way of Ordination when men that are of equal Authority have the Nomination of the Person Now whether or no he that ordaineth an Inferior as a Deacon or any other do convey Authority by a proper Efficiency as having that first in himself which he doth Convey yet in the Ordination of Equals it seems not to be so for they have no Government over the particular Persons whom they Ordain or Churches to whom they Ordain them nor could they themselves exercise that governing Power over that other Congregation which they appoint another to so that they seem to be but Causae Morales or sine quibus non as he that sets the Wood to the Fire is of its burning or as he that openeth you the Door is of your bringing any thing into the House So that if you will call the Ordainer of an Inferior causam equivocam and the Ordainer of an Equal causam univocam yet it is but as they morally and improperly cause The Third way of Mediating in the
as the Roman Emperors then were Rom. 13. who had no such Conveyance 2. Else it would be hard to know what Power to acknowledge For what Nation is there where the Line of Succession as to a lawful Conveyance hath not been interrupted William the Conqueror's Title being bad so must all that hold from him King Stephen's was worse The Houses of York and Lancaster had rather neither of them a good Title than both What Nation is there that must not acknowledge the Original from the Sword I shall not need to answer the Arguments drawn from the Peoples Power to convey it to any that approveth of the Arguments lately used in England against the Parliaments Cause And I think if it were proved that People have the Power of making a King it would soon be proved that that way of Succession hath been oft enough interrupted And for the Sword of unjust War if Violence gives right in one case why not in another but this will not I suppose be owned Moreover if an Interruption of the Succession of Legitimate Conveyance of Power do leave us uncapable of any just Succession hereafter or any true Power then either all Commonwealths or most are dissolved for ever or ours at least till God immediately shall choose a new But that is not true It being a Conclusion destructive to all Civil Government and all Obedience of Subjects to the World's End The Consequence is proved in that there is the same Necessity of uninterrupted Succession in Legitimate Conveyance of Secular Power as is of the foresaid Conveyance of Ecclesiastical Power for there is no Power but of God And therefore I would have you here answer all your own Questions whether King Charles did receive his Power immediately from God or mediately if mediately then whether by an uninterrupted Succession of Legitimate Conveyance or by some Scripture Mediation And how Scripture which meddles not with the individua should confer Power on him as a fit Medium For my part I shall answer this as I do the other I think Providence doth Signare individuum 9. If undeniable Usurpation did not null the Ministerial Actions of the Priests before Christ's Death then want of Authoritative Ecclesiastical Ordination in case of Necessity will not null the Actions of Church-Governors now At verum prius Ergo and consequently if their Actions be not null then their Ordinations are not null That the Priests then came not in God's way which was to succeed by Birth from Aaron but that the Priesthood was usurped by others yea commonly bought with Money of the Romans and became at last but annual if not two at once is known beyond doubt That their Actions were not null as to others appears by Christ's teaching Men to submit to them and make use of them as he did the Lepers and by many other Passages The Reason of the Consequence lyeth in the equal necessity of uninterrupted Succession then and now Yea the necessity then was far more apparent in that God had more clearly fixed it to the Tribe of Levi and the Line of Aaron than he hath done now to Ecclesiastical Legitimate Ordination and because under that Law of Ceremonies whereof the High-Priesthood was the Topas typifying Christ c. God would not so easily dispense with them as now 10. When God tyes his People to Duty there he is ready to give them the Blessing which is its end if they obey But God tyeth his People to submit to the Ministerial Actions of some Usurpers Ergo he is ready to give them the Blessings which are the end of those Actions and consequently they are not null to them and consequently Ordination is not null to such which is one Action The Major is proved before and indeed needs no Proof For the Minor God tyes us to submit to the Ministerial Actions of him that is in sede at least if we know him not to be an Usurper but many may be Usurpers in sede whom yet we know not to be such nor can well know Yea many such have been already Ergo If the Major be denyed all peoples Ecclesiastical Obedience is unavoidably overthrown The Minor is apparent 1. In that it is not the Peoples Duty so much as narrowly to pry into his Call whom they find in sede so as to require Satisfaction as to his Just Ordination if they find him fit for and faithful in the Ministerial Work 2. In that the People cannot know it There is not one of Ten Thousand in England could know whether their Bishops were truly Consecrated at all much less whether justly much less whether from an uninterrupted Succession of just Ordination No nor do they know whether their Ministers were ever ordained or not And it hath been known that many have proved Usurpers especially at Rome which the Common People could not know and therefore could not by such Knowledge be disobliged 11. If the Administrations of all Usurpers were null and so the Ordination of such then innocent Persons and Churches should suffer yea Ruine it self meerly through other Mens Faults But no Man is to suffer for other Mens Faults meerly Ergo The Minor is evident The Major is as evident 1. It is none of the Churches Fault or at least not of each Member that a Usurper secretly intrudeth and deceiveth them pretending right when he hath none At least it is not always and in all Cases their Fault And yet that the Church would suffer by it yea Ruine it self is apparent in that all the Ordination of such Men would be null and so all their Churches would be no true Organized Political Churches but meer Communities and all the Baptism and other Administrations of all such Ordained Men would be null Moreover it is evidently against common Equity If the Deputy of Ireland or the Pro-rex of Naples were dead and one should so counterfeit the King's Hand and Seal as that the Nobles and People could not discern it and should annex this to a Grant for the Place aud shew it the People and claim the Power by it If this Man continue the exercise of this Power for a Year before the King displace him or the Deceit be discovered all his Actions must be valid as to the Benefit of the Commonwealth though they are Treasonable to himself And he conveys Power from the King to inferior Officers who yet never received any himself So is it in this present Case 12. If the Ordination of Magistrates did serve turn in case of a failing in the regular way before Christ's Incarnation then it may do so now But the former is true Ergo The Reason of the Consequence is both that God was as strict in Positives then as now and that there was as great Necessity then of an uninterrupted Succession for derivation from God as now there is Solomon put out Abiathar from being High-Priest and put Zadock in his stead 1 King 2. 27 35. David and the Captains of the Hosts
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
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
Controversies against the Anabaptists first and then against the Separatists and in private some of my Worcestershire Neighbours and many of the Foot Soldiers were able to baffle both Separatists Anabaptists and Antinomians and so kept all the Garrison sound Whereupon the Anabaptists sent to Bedford for one Mr. Benjamin Cox an old Anabaptist Minister and no contemptible Schollar the Son of a Bishop and he and I had first a Dispute by Word of Mouth and after by Writing and his Surceasing gave me ease In conclusion a few poor Townsmen only were carried away about a Dozen Men and Women but the Souldiers and the rest of the City kept sound from all Infection of Sectaries and Dividers § 67. While I lived here in Peace and Liberty as Men in a dry House do hear the Storms abroad so did we daily hear the News of one Fights or other or one Garrison or other won or lost the two Newbery Fights Glocester Siege the marvellous Sieges of Plimouth Lime and Taunton Sir William Waller's Successes and Losses the Loss at Newark the Slaughter at Bolton the greatest Fight of all at York with abundance more So that hearing such sad News on one side or other was our daily Work insomuch that as duly as I awakened in the Morning I expected to hear one come and tell me Such a Garrison is won or lost or such a Defeat received or given And do you hear the News was commonly the first Word I heard So miserable were those bloody Days in which he was the most honourable that could kill most of his Enemies But among all these I was especially pleased with the Surprize of Shrewsbury both because it was done without loss of Blood and because my Father and many of my dear Friends were thereby redeemed for when I returned from Wem to Coventry it happily fell out that Sir Fulk Hunkes was made Governor of Shrewsbury by the King and he protected my Father while he was there But at last the Gentâ—y of the Countrey and he agreed not he being too much a Soldier and too civil for many of them and they procured him to be removed and Sir Rich. Oatley first and after Sir Mich. Earnley made Governors Sir Fulk Hunkes was confident when he went that their Drunkenness and Carelesness would shortly lose the Town and so it did indeed fall out His old Mother the Lady Hunkes he left with my Father where she died between 80 and 100 Years old But when he was gone my Father was made one of the Collectors of their Taxes for the King which he justly performed But he would not forcibly distrain of them that refused to pay as not knowing but they might hereafter recover it all of him for which he was laid in Prison by them that swore he should lie and rot there But he had been there but a few Weeks before the Keeper in the night came to him and beg'd his Favour to save him and his House for the Parliaments Souldiers had surprised the Town My Father would not believe it till he heard and saw that which compell'd his Belief and with what Joy I need not tell § 68. There were abundance of strange Providences in these times that fell out for some particular Persons The marvellous Preservation of Souldiers by Bibles in their Pockets which have received the Bullets and such like I will not mention When Prince Rupert put the Inhabitants of Bolton in Lancashire to the Sword Men Women and Children an Infant escaped alive and was found lying by her Father and Mother who were slain in the Streets an Old Woman took up the Child and carried it home and put it to her Breast for warmth having not had a Child her self of about 30 Years the Child drew Milk and so much that the Woman nursed it up with her Breast Milk a good while The Committee desired some Women to try her and they found it true and that she had a considerable proportion of Milk for the Child If any one doubt of this they may yet be resolved by Mrs. Hunt Wife to Mr. Rowland Hunt of Harrow on the Hill who living then in Manchester was one of them that by the Committee was desired to trie the Woman and who hath oft told it me and is a credible godly discreet Gentlewoman and Wife to a Man of most exemplary Holiness and of the primitive Sincerity without Self-seeking Hypocrisie and Guile The Maid her self thus nursed up lived after wards in London This putteth me in mind of that worthy Servant of Christ Dr. Teat who being put to fly suddenly with his Wife and Children from the Fury of the Irish Rebels in the Night without Provision wandred in the Snow out of all ways upon the Mountains till Mrs. Teat having no suck for the Child in her Arms and he being ready to die with Hunger she went to the Brow of a Rock to lay him down and leave him that she might not see him die and there in the Snow out of all ways where no Footsteps appeared she found a Suck-bottle full of new sweet Milk which preserved the Child's Life In Cornwall Sir Rich. Greenvile having taken many Souldiers of the Earl of Essex's Army sentenced about a dozen to be hanged when they had hanged two or three the Rope broke which should have hanged the next And they sent for new Ropes so oft to hang him and all of them still broke that they durst go no farther but saved all the rest Besides universal undeniable Report I had this oft told me by Mr. Woodhouse an honest godly sober Man a Sisters Son of Justice Kettleby of Shropshire who himself stood by expecting Death and was one of the Number of them whose Lives were saved by it If I would here give an account of all the Military Actions of those times which I had the certain knowledge of the manner of taking and losing Towns and Castles the Progress of the main Armies and of the Parties in the several Counties in Cheshire Lancashire Yorkshire Derbyshire Staffordshire Shropshire Lincolnshire Gloucestershire and other Counties where particular Wars were carried on and between Pembrokeshire and the rest of Wales and also the manner of the several great Fights especially that at Marston-moor near York it would fill of it self a greater Volume than I intend and is a matter besides my present purpose and fit to be done in another manner And therefore I shall pass that by and proceed in the Narrative of the passages of my own Life inâ—erposing only Generals and the passages which occasioned them § 69. When by the great Mercy of God I had lived two years in quietness at Coventry the Earl of Essex being weakened by a great loss in Cornwall fell under the great displeasure of some of the Parliament not as to his Person but as to the Conduct of Affairs who prevailed to have him laid by The Causes were all these in Conjunction 1. Though none could deny
but the Earl was a Person of great Honour Valour and Sincerity yet did some Accuse the Soldiers under him of being too like the King's Soldiers in Profaneness lewd and vitious Practices and rudeness in their Carriage towards the Country and it was withal urg'd that the Revolt of Sir Faithful Fortescue Sir Richard Greenvile Col. Urrey and some others was a satisfying Evidence that the irreligious sort of Men were not to be much trusted but might easily by Money be hired to betray them 2. And it was discovered that the Earl of Essex's Judgment and the wisest Mens about him was never for the ending the Wars by the Sword but only to force a Pacificatory Treaty He thought that if the King should Conquer the Government of the Kingdom would be changed into Arbitrary and the Subjects Propriety and Liberty lost And he thought that if he himself should utterly conquer the King the Parliament would be tempted to encroach upon the King's Prerogative and the Priviledges of the Lords and put too much Power in the Gentries and the People hands and that they would not know how to settle the State of the Kingdom or the Church without injuring others and running into Extreams and falling into Divisions among themselves Therefore he was not for a Conquest of the King But they saw the Delay gave the King advantage and wearied out and ruined the Country and therefore they now began to say that at Edghill at Newbury and at other times he had never prosecuted any Victory but stood still and seen the King's Army retreat and never pursued them when it had been easie to have ended all the Wars 3. But the chief Cause was that Sir H. Vane by this time had increased Sectaries in the House having drawn some Members to his Opinion and Cromwell who was the Earl of Manchester's Lieutenant General had gathered to him as many of the Religious Party especially of the Sectaries as he could get and kept a Correspondency with Vane's Party in the House as if it were only to strengthen the Religious Party And Manchester's Army especially Cromwell's Party had won a Victory near Horncastle in Lincolnshire and had done the main Service of the day at the great â—ight at York and every where the Religious Party that were deepliest apprehensive of the Concernment of the War had far better Success than the other sort of Common Soldiers These things set together caused almost all the Religious sort of Men in Parliament Armies Garrisons and Country to before the new modelling of the Army and putting out the looser sort of Men especially Officers and putting Religious Men in their steads But in all this Work the Vanists in the House and Cromwell in the Army joined together out-witted and over-reacht the rest and carried on the Interest of the Sectaries in Special while they drew the Religious Party along as for the Interest of Godliness in the general The two Designs of Cromwell to make himself great were 1. To Cry up Liberty of Conscience and be very tender of Men differing in Judgment by which he drew all the Separatists and Anabaptists to him with many soberer Men. 2. To set these self-esteeming Men on work to arrogate the Glory of all Successes to themselves and cry up their own Actions and depress the Honour of the Earl of Manchester and all others though Men of as much Godliness at least as they so that they did proclaim the Glory of their own Exploits till they had got the fame of being the most valiant and Victorious Party The truth is they did much and they boasted of more than they did And these things made the new modelling of the Army to be resolved on But all the Question was how to effect it without stirring up the Forces against them which they intended to disband And all this was notably dispatcht at once by One Vote which was called the Self-denying Vote viz. That because Commands in the Army had much pay and Parliament Men should keep to the Service of the House therefore no Parliament Men should be Members of the Army This pleased the Soldiers who looked to have the more pay to themselves and at once it put out the two Generals the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Manchester and also Sir William Waller a godly valiant Major General of another Army and also many Colonels in the Army and in other parts of the Land and the Governour of Coventry and of many other Garrisons and to avoid all Suspicion Cromwell was put out himself When this was done the next Question was Who should be Lord General and what new Officers should be put in or old ones continued And here the Policy of Vane and Cromwell did its best For General they chose Sir Thomas Fairfax Son to the Lord Ferdinando Fairfax who had been in the Wars beyond Sea and had fought valiantly in Yorkshire for the Parliament though he was over-powered by the Earl of Newcastle's Numbers This Man was chosen because they supposed to find him a Man of no quickness of Parts of no Elocution of no suspicious plotting Wit and therefore One that Cromwell could make use of at his pleasure And he was acceptable to sober Men because he was Religious Faithful Valiant and of a grave sober resolved Disposition very fit for Execution and neither too Great nor too Cunning to be Commanded by the Parliament And when he was chosen for General Cromwell's men must not be without him so valiant a Man must not be laid by The Self-denying Vote must be thus far only dispensed with Cromwell only and no other Member of either House must be excepted and so he is made Lieutenant General of the Army and as many as they could get of their Mind and Party are put into Inferiour Places and the best of the old Officers put into the rest But all the Scotch-men except only Adjutant Crey are put out of the whole Army or deserted it § 70. And here I must digress to look back to what I had forgotten of the Scots Army and the Covenant When the Earl of Newcastle had over-powered the Lord Fairfax in the North and the Queen had brought over many Papists Soldiers from beyond Sea and formed an Army under General King a Scot and the King had another great Army with himself under the Command of the Earl of Forth another old Scottish General so that they had three great Field Armies besides the Lord Goring's in the West and all the Country Parties the Parliament were glad to desire Assistance from the Scots whose Army was paid off and disbanded before the English Wars The Scots consented but they offered a Covenant to be taken by both Nations for a resolved Reformation against Popery Prelacy Schism and Prophaneness the Papists the Prelatists the Secfaries and the Prophane being the four Parties which they were against This Covenant was proposed by the Parliament to the Consideration of the Synod at Westminster
Prisoners and helpeth them to books and preacheth repentance to them The poor and the ignorant are those that he liveth for doing good to Soul and Body daily save that he Soliciteth the Rich to contribute to such uses The reading of Mr. Ios. Allen's Life hath raised his Resolution and Activity to such a Course of Life which was far higher than other Mens before § 268. Mr. Sherlock's book before mentioned making a great noise and he and the Author of the sober Inquiry and others of them when they reproached other Nonconformists being pleased to put in some Exceptions of me by Name I thought my self the more obliged to disown their Miscarriages And I first in Discourse sought to convince Mr. Sherlock and lest he should not either understand or report me aright Writings being surer Vindications than Memory I sent him some Animadversions which have since been Printed § 269. My old friend Dr. Thomas Good now published a book called Dubitantius and Firâ—ianus against Atheism Infidelity Popery and then Presbytery Independency and Anabaptistry very superficial He was formerly indeed a professed Prelatist but moderate and himself never hindered from his Ministerial work and maintenance and joyned with us in our Disputations at Kederminster and our Concord in Worcestershire among the dissenting parties Yet being Canon of Hereford and Mr. of Baliol Colledge in Oxford tho old waiting for more he asserted in his Book that they were confessed things indifferent that we refused Conformity for and that all the Nonconformists without Exception had a hand in the late King's Death one way or other by Consent c. The Impudency of which assertion moved me to write the Contradiction here adjoined To my Reverend Friend Dr. Good Mr. of Baliol Coledge in Oxford Reverend and Worthy Sir IT is now about a Month since I received a Letter from you for the furthering of a good work which I sent to Mr. Foley by his Son Mr. Paul F. not having opportunity my self to see him I have stayed so long for an Answer not hearing yet from him that I think it not meet any longer to forbear to acquaint you with the Reasons of the delay He liveth quite at the other end of London from me and my weakness and business keep me much within Doors and it 's hard to find him within except at those hours when I am constrained to be in bed But I have reason to Conjecture that his Answer will be 1. That the Rich men whose Judgments are for Conformity are far more Numerous than those of another mind and therefore fitter to promote that work And there are so very few that do any thing for the ejected Ministers that some of them live on brown bread and water which hindereth these Gentlemen from other kind of Charitable works 2. And I must crave your patience being confident by your ancient kindness of your friendly Interpretation while I tell you that this day I heard one say we can expect that Dr. Good do make his Scholars no beter than himself And what reason have we to maintain and breed up Men to use us as he hath done in his late Treatise I got the book and was glad to find much good and several moderate passages in it And I knew you so well that I could not but expect moderation But when I perused the passages referred to I could say no more for them but that I would write to you to hear your Answer about them For I confess they surprized me Tho at the same time I received many new books of a sanguine Complexion from other hands without Admiration I. The first passage referred to was pag. 104. Which are confessedly things indifferent This is spoken indefinitely of the Presbyterians Where have I lived I know not one Presbyterian living that divideth from you for any thing which he confesseth indifferent I crave your Answer containing the proof of this At least to name some one of them that we may reprove him We take conformity to be so far from indifferent that we forbear to tell the World the greatness of the Sin which we think to be in it lest Men cannot bear it and lest it should disaffect the people to the Ministry of the Conformists II. Your pag. 156. I pass by The main matter is pag. 160. 161. that tho All the Nonconformists were not in Actual Arms against the King nor did they all as natural Agents cut off his head but morally that is very sinfully and wickedly they had their hand stained with that Royal blood For whosoever did Abet these Sons of Belial in their Rebellions Treasons Murders of their King and fellow Subjects either by consenting to their Villanies praying for their Prosperity praising God for their Successes c. The Charge is high If it be not true 1. They are almost as deeply wronged as you can wrong them 2. Our Rulers are wronged by being so provoked to abhor them Silence and Destroy them 3. Posterity is wronged by a misinforming History I. You are too old to be ignorant that it was an Episcopal and Erastian Parliament of Conformists that first took up those Arms in England against the King The Members yet living profess that at that time they knew but one Presbyterian in the House of Commons Interest forced or led them to call in the Scots and Presbytery came in with them If you doubt of it see the Propositions to the King at Nottingham where a Limited Episcopacy is one II. The Lord Lieutenants that seized on the Militia were far most Conformists and scarce any Presbyterians at all III. The General Officers and Colonels of the Earl of Essex Army were ten to one Conformists and few if any Presbyterians save after deboist Mercenary Scots if they were such which I know not And the General Episcopal himself IV. The Major Generals of the Militia in the several Countries were mostly Conformists and Scarce any Presbyterians V. The assembly at Westminster when they went thither were all Conformists save about 8 or 9 and the Scots Commissioners VI. One of the two Arch-Bishops was a General in the Parliament's Army VII Many of the present Conformable Ministers were in Arms against the King and some wrote for his Death and many of them took the Covenant and Engagement VIII The most of the conformable Gentry of my acquaintance that were put upon it took the Engagement against the King and House of Lords IX The Non-conformable Ministers of Gloucestershier Mr. Geery Mr. Capell Mr. Marshall c. were against the Parliament's War though the Parliament's Gaâ—â—ison was over them Mr. Bampfield who hath lain 6 or 7 years in the common Jail for Preaching with his Brother sometimes Speaker of the House of Commons were so much against the Parliament's Cause that to this day even while he lay in Jail he most zealously made his followers renounce it Many Non-conformists in many Counties were of the same mind X. Many of the Non-conformists lived in
the King's Quarters and never were drawn the other way as Dr. Conant lately one of them and others in Oxford and so in other parts XI Some of the Non-conformists were in the King's Army Poor Martin of Weeden lost an Arm in his Army and yet the other Arm lay long with him in Warwick Jail for Preaching XII Almost all the Non-conformists of my acquaintance in England save Independents and Sectaries refused the Engagement and took Cromwell and the Common-wealth-Parliament for Usurpers and never approved what they did nor ever kept their daies of Fasting or Thanksgiving To tell you of the London Ministers prinâ—ed Declarations against the intended Death of the King you will say is unsatisfactory because too late XIII Most of the Non-conformable Ministers of my acquaintance were either boys at School or in the University in the Wars or never medled with it so that I must profess that setting them altogether I do not think that one in ten throughout the Kingdom can be proved to have done any of these things that you name against the King XIV We have oft with great men put it to this trial Let them give leave but to so many to Preach the Gospel as cannot be proved ever to have had any hand in the Wars against the King and we will thankfully acquiesce and bear the Silence of the rest make but this Match for us and we will joyfully give you thanks XV. Who knoweth not that the greatest Prelatists were the Masters of the Principles that the War was raised on Bilson Iewel c. and Hooker quite beyond them all XVI But because all proof must be of individuals I intreat you as to our own Countrey where you were acquainted tell me if you can I say it seriously if you can what ever was done or said against the King by Mr. Ambrose Sparre Mr. Kimberley Mr. Lovell Mr. Cowper Mr. Reignalds Mr. Hickman Mr. Trusham Mr. Baldwin senior Mr. Baldwin junior Mr. Sergeant Mr. Waldern dead Mr. Ios. Baker dead Mr. Wilsby Mr. Brain Mr. Stephen Baxter Mr. Badland Mr. Bulcher Mr. Eccleshall Mr. Read Mr. Rock Mr. Fincher of Wedbury Mr. Wills of Bremisham Mr. Paston c. I pass by many more And in Shropshire by old Mr. Sam. Hildersham old Mr. Sam. Fisher Mr. Talents Mr. Brain of Shreusbury Mr. Barnet Mr. Keeling Mr. Berry Mr. Malden of Newport Mr. Tho. Wright dead Mr. Taylor c. These were your Neighbours and mine I never heard to my remembrance of any one of them that had any thing to do with Wars against the King It is true except Mr. Fisher and some few they were not ejected but enjoyed their places And did not you as well as they If I can name you so many of your Neighbours that were innocent will you tell the King and Parliament and the Papists and Posterity that all the Non-conformists without any exception had their hands stained with the Royal blood What! Mr. Cooke of Chester and Mr. Birch c. that were imprisoned and persecuted for the King What! Mr. Geery that died at the news of the King's Dearh What! Sir Francis Nethersole and Mr. Bell his Pastor who wrote so much against the Parliament and was their prisoner at 〈◊〉 Castle almost all the Wars What may we expect from others when Dr. Good shall do thus I put not in any Excuse for my self among all these It may be you know not that an Assembly of Divines twice met at Coventree of whom two Doctors and some others are yet living first sent me into the Army to hazard my life after Nasby Fight against the Course which we then first perceived to be designed against the King and Kingdom nor what I went through there two years in opposing it and drawing the Soldiers off Nor how oft I Preached against Cromwel the Rump the Engagement but specially their Wars and Fasts and Thanksgivings Nor what I said to Cromwel for the King never but twice speaking with him of which a Great Privy Counselloâ—r told me but lately that being an Ear-witness of it he had told his Majesty But yet while I thought they went on Bilsone's Principles I was then on their side and the Observator Parker almost tempted me to Hooker's Principles but I quickly saw those Reasons against them which I have since published His Principles were known by the first Book before the last came out And I have a friend that had his last in M.S. But I am willing unfeignedly to to be one of those that shall contiue Silenced if you can but procure leave to Preach Christ's Gospel only for those that are no more guilty of the King's blood than your self and that no longer than there is real need of their Ministerial Labour Reverend Sir If you will but so long put your self as in our Case I shall hope that with patience you will read these Lines and pardon the necessary freedom of Your truly Loving friend and obliged Servant Rich. Baxter London Feb. 10. 1673. § 270. Taking it to be my duty to preach while Toleration doth continue I removed the last Spring to London where my Diseases increasing this Winter a flatulent constant Headach added to the rest and continuing strong for about half a year constrained me to cease my Fryday's Lecture and an Afternoon Sermon on the Lord's daies in my house to my grief and to Preach only one Sermon a week at St. Iames's Market-house where some had hired an inconvenient Place But I had great encouragement to labour there 1. Because of the notorious Necessity of the people for it was noted for the habitation of the most ignorant Atheistical and Popish about London and the greatness of the Parish of St. Martins made it impossible for the tenth perhaps the twentieth person in the Parish to hear in the Parish-Church And the next Parishes St. Giles and Clement Daines were almost in the like case Besides that the Parson of our own Parish St. Giles where I lived Preached not having been about three years suspended by the Bishop ab Officio but not a beneficio upon a particular Quarrel And to leave ten or twenty for one untaught in the Parish while most of the City Churches also are burnt down and unbuilt one would think should not be justified by Christians 2. Because beyond my expectation the people generally proved exceeding willing and attentive and tractable and gave me great hopes of much success § 271. Yet at this time did some of the most Learned Conformists assault me with sharp accusations of Schism meerly because I ceased not to Preach the Gospel of Christ to people in such necessity They confess that I ought not to take their Oaths and make their imposed Covenants Declarations and Subscriptions against my Conscience but my Preaching is my sin which I must forbear though they accuse me not of one word that I say They confess the foresaid Matters of fact that not one of a multitude can possibly hear in