you so far as Christ appeareth in them let them have your special Love The Despondencies you mention are unreasonable Will you conclude you cannot suffer before you are called to Suffering Deny the Baits of fleshly Pleasure vain Glory and worldly Gain and live sincerely to God in your Prosperity and I dare say you may boldly expect his confirming sustaining Grace if he call you to Adversity I had almost said that with most Men it requireth greater Grace to overcome the Temptations of Prosperity and to contemn a flattering World for Christ than to die for him At least the one will prove you possessed with his Spirit and an Heir of Promise as well as the other And therefore the Spirit and Promise that enable you now to live to God would enable you to die for him if he required it Look you to your present Work and trust God for Strength for what he calls you to If my Advice be worth your regard it 's this 1. That you do as you have done offer Communion to other Churches but forbear yet a while to join your self as a Member to any 2. That if you like the Proposals I shall send and Mr. Goodwin like them you both with him do signifie so much and I will take some course that they may be the Introduction to a more general Agreement 3. And that at the time when we publish such Agreement you and your Fellow-labourer join in publishing your Reasons for Catholick Communion For I thank him he hath communicated his and yours set together will give much Evidence in the Cause But I must a little while crave your Patience before I send my Papers by reason of a Crowd of pressing Businesses But the Sweetness of the work will draw me from all wilful Delays Your Brother also I perceive is not yet ready for my Proposals I rest Your unworthy Fellow Servant Rich. Baxter To Mr. Lambe Jan. 22. 1658. Numb IV. Letters and Papers between Mr. Baxter and Mr. Allen. Dear Brother I Bless the Lord for the great Consolation I had in the perusal of your Papers All the Motions and Operations of Holy Love are lovely That is the way of God hat is the way of Love and that to be much suspected that quencheth it What is so much predicated through all the Gospel Above all other ways what a mellow sweetness doth the way of Love communicate to all the Duties and Conversings of those that are abounding in this Grace And it is the Manhood and Maturity of Christianity The Infancy of the Law had less of it than the full Age of the Gospel And young Christians usually are like young Fruit austere and unpleasant whom Age and Holy Experience must mellow by the growth of Love produced by the Sun-shine of Heavenly Love I had thought to have presently returned you my Answer to your Reasons about Infant Baptism but when I had read your other Papers I could not find in my Heart least Disputing should in any Measure abate in the Love that God was kindling Yet shortly if I can find the least leisure I shall give you a few Words to them if God will when that which hath a shew of contending will be more seasonable Your Arguments for Communion are very weighty My next Work to these Ends shall be to persuade some godly Ministers that differ from you to a more charitable Iudgment and walking towards them of your Opinion and if I live so long to persuade our Parliament Men against excessive Rigour and Bitterness against them Do you do the like with those of your way If Love reign in us it must command our Tongues to plead its Cause and to endeavour the promoting of it in the World And when Love shall Reign among the Nations the Lord shall Reign in a way of Love And this is the way to those glorious Times that some expect by other Ways And as the abounding of Iniquity and the cooling of Love are coupled by Christ as Cause and Effect so will the abounding of Love and the decay of Iniquity be conjoined The God of Love carry on this blessed Work in our frozen Souls and in all the Churches by keeping us under the Light of his Countenance and the the Sunshine of his most glorious Love I remain Your Brother Rich. Baxter To Mr. William Allen. Jan. 7. 1658. The Case of Separation Quest. 1. WHether Particular Churches be of Divine Institution Answ. Yea that is Christians associated for Personal Communion in Doctrine Worship and Discipline under the same Pastors one or more are a Church of Divine Institution Proved Act. 14. 23. Titus 1. 5. 1 Tim. Phil. 1. 1 2. 1 Thes. 5. 16 17. Heb. 15. 17. 24. and many other Texts Quest. 2. Whether the Parish Assemblies are such Answ. Parish-Assemblies are not of one sort some are not such that is Parish Assemblies which deny the Essentials of Christianity and are Hereticks or deny Church Essentials or that have no Pastors or such as want some Essentials of the Office as visible to Man's Judgment But Parish Assemblies are true particular Churches who profess the Essentials of Christianity and of Churches and have Pastors who visibly want not any thing essential to their Office though otherwise faulty 2. Churches are called true 1. In point of Essence as aforesaid 2. In point of Soundness and Integrity as a sick Man or a maimed Man or a Thief is a true Man in Essence but not in Soundness in Integrity and Honesty The Parish Churches as constituted by our Laws Articles Ordination and Canons are true Churches as to Essence but not without some Wants and Diseases that need a cure 3. Churches may be called True 1. In their Constitutions Or 2. In their Administration Ours in England as afore described are true in their Constitution But in the Administration some are excellent some are laudable some are tolerable and perhaps some have Ministers intolerable as the Parsons differ 4. The Society called the Church of England hath Pastors of several Minds most I hope hold all that is Essential to Christianity Ministry and Communion But some late Innovators and Corruptors seem to deny somewhat Essential to particular Churches and Ministry but these impeach no Mens Ministry but their own against these I wrote in my Treaties of Episcopacy 5. Distinguish between the Office as instituted by Christ and owned by the Church of England and the Exercise of the Office as restrained and hindred by Canons and by Laws the Parish Ministers and Churches are true Ministers and Churches as described by Ordination and the Church Doctrine but many Canons and some Laws dolefully fetter them and hinder the Exercise of their Office on pretence of governing them but neither do nor can destroy the Essence of the Office it self The Ministers have all essential Qualifications and the Consent of the People though not the first Choice and the People are professed Christians 6. A Parish and a Parish-Church are not
peaceable Reformation among us than to break down This Partition-Wall for there is nothing provokes more than this doth to deny such Churches to be true Churches of Christ. For do but think with your selves and I will give you a familiar Example You come to a Man whom you think to be a godly Man you tell him He hath these and these Sins in him and they are great ones It is as much as he can hear though you tell him he is a Saint and acknowledge him so but if you come to him and say besides this You are a Limb of the Devil and you have no Grace in you this provoketh all in a Man when there is any Ground in himself to think so or in another to judge him so so it is here Come to Church and say You have these Defects among you and these things to be reformed But if you will come and say Your Churches and your Ministers are Antichristian and come from Babylon there is nothing provoketh more Therefore if there be a Truth in it as I believe there is Men should be Zealous to express it For this is the great Partition Wall that hindreth of twain making one Then again This is that which I consider and it is a great Consideration also I know that Jesus Christ hath given his People Light in Matters of this Nature by degrees Thousands of good Souls that have been bred up and born in our Assemblies and enjoy the Ordinances of God and have done it comfortably cannot suddenly take in other Principles You must wait on Christ to do it In this Case Men are not to be wrought off by Falshoods God hath no need of them no rather till Men do take in Light you should give them all that is comfortable in the Condition they are in we should acknowledge every good thing in every Man in every Church in every thing and that is a way to work upon Men and to prevail with them as it is Philem. v. 6. That the Communication of thy Faith may become effectual acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Iesus It is that which buildeth Men up by acknowledgment of every good thing that is in them Lastly The last Inconvenience is this It doth deprive Men of all those Gifts that are found amongst our Ministers and in this Kingdom that they cannot hold any Communion or fellowship with them So that I profess my self as Zealous in this Point as in any other I know And for my part this I say and I say it with much Integrity I never yet took up Religion by Parties in the Lump I have found by tryal of things that there is some truth on all Sides I have found Holiness where you would little think it and so likewise Truth And I have learned this Principle which I hope I shall never lay down till I am swallowed up of Imortality and that is that which I said before To acknowledge every good thing and hold Communion with it in Men in Churches or Whatsoever else I learn this from Paul I learn this from Jesus Christ himself He filleth All in All He is in the Hearts of his People and filleth them in his Ordinances to this Day And where Jesus Christ filleth why should we deny an Acknowledgment and a right Hand of Fellowship and Communion My Brethren this Rule that I have now mentioned which I profess I have lived by and shall do while I live I know I shall never please Men in it Why It is plain for this is the Nature and Condition of all Mankind if a Man dissents from others in one thing he loseth himself in all the rest And therefore it a Man do take what is good of all sides he is apt to lose them all But he pleaseth Christ by it and so I will for this particular Thus far Dr. T. Goodwin prefaced and commended by Thankful Owen and Iames Barron worthy and peaceable Men deceased The Transcriber craveth judicious Resolutions of these two Questions 1. Whether it be lawful to be a fixed Member of a grosly Schismatical Church that is guilty of such separating from slandering almost all others as is here reproved when Communion with better may be had Quest. 2. How far others are bound to reprove and Testify against such dividing Principles Ministers and Churches especially after and under doleful Experience of their sinful calamitous Effects Dear Brother I Have felt that in my own Soul and seen that upon my Brethren for these two or three Years last past which persuadeth me that God is about the healing of our Wounds having communicated more healing Principles and Affections and poured out more of the Spirit of Catholick Love and Peace than I have perceived heretofore Love is arisen and shineth upon the Children of the Day and your congealed Stiffness begins to vanish and a Christian Tenderness to succeed The Prince of Peace erects his Banner and the Sons of Peace flock in apace It is a shame to be the last but a misery to be none God will bring his divided distracted Servants nearer together and it is Pity he should be put to bear down any resisting Saints among the Instruments of Satan and that any of their Carcasses should be found on the Ground when he conquereth the Enemies of Peace The Lord is about revealing to his Servants the Error of their Consoriousness Harshness Uncharitableness and Divisions and how grievously they have wronged him and themselves by departing so far from Christian Love and Unity He will let them see how much of the Cause was secret and undiscerned Pride and Self-conceitedness and want of Holy Christian Love while little was pretended or discerned but Strictness and Obedience He will shew them more fully wherein the true Nature of Grace and Holy Obedience doth consist and teach them by the Impress of his Spirit what he so emphatically commanded them by his Word to go learn what that meaneth I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice It 's pity we should not understand the meaning of Words so plain but it 's Sin and Shame as well as Pity that we have studied them no better after such a Memorandum and Command as this But many of God's Servants have in the Points of Unity and Peace been like those miserable Souls that are described to have Eyes and see not Ears and hear not Hearts and understand not these blessed Precepts of Love and Unity though none more plain and frequent and urgent for the time was not come that they should be recovered and healed though this Defection be not in the Essence of Christianity but the Degrees nor for Perpetuity but a Time yet it 's sad that such a Spirit of deadness should so far prevail that Men inquisitive after Truth and zealous of Holiness should least understand the plainest nearest frequent Precepts and so little feel their Obligations to such weighty Duties that the Lord is pleased to stir upon their
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
Church the bowing to Altars the Book for Sports on Sundays the Casting out of Ministers the troubling of the People by the High-Commission Court the Pilloring and Cutting off Mens Ears Mr. Burtons Mr. Prins and Dr. Bastwicks for speaking against the Bishops the putting down Lectures and Afternoon Sermons and Expositions on the Lord's Days with such other things which they thought of greater weight than Ship-money But because these later agreed with the former in the Vindication of the Peoples Propriety and Liberties the former did the easilier concur with them against the Proceedings of the Bishops and High Commission Court And as soon as their Inclination was known to the People all Countreys sent in their Complaints and Petitions It was presently known how many Ministers Bishop Wren and others of them had suspended and silenced how many thousand Families had been driven to flie into Holland and how many thousand into New-England Scarce a Minister had been Silenced that was alive but it was put into a Petition Mr. Peter Smart of Durham and Dr. Layton a Scotch Physician who wrote a Book called Sion's Plea against the Prelates were released out of their long Imprisonment Mr. Burton Mr. Prin and Dr. Bastwick who as is said had been pillored and their Ears cut off and they sent into a supposed perpetual Imprisonment into the distant Castles of Gernsey Iersey and Carnarvon were all set free and Damages voted them for their wrong And when they came back to London they were met out of the City by abundance of the Citizens with such Acclamations as could not but seem a great Affront to the King and be much displeasing to him The Lord Keeper Finch and Secretary Windebank fled beyond Sea and saved themselves The guilty Judges were deeply accused and some of them imprisoned for the Cause of Ship-money But the great Displeasure was against the Lord Deputy Wentworth and Archbishop Laud Both these were sent to the Tower and a Charge drawn up against them and managed presently against the Lord Deputy by the ablest Lawyers and Gentlemen of the House This held them work a considerable time The King was exceeding unwilling to consent unto his death and therefore used all his skill to have drawn off the Parliament from so hot a Prosecution of him And now began the first Breach among themselves For the Lord Falkland the Lord Digby and divers other able Men were for the sparing of his Life and gratifying the King and not putting him on a thing so much displeasing to him The rest said If after the Attempt of Subverting the Fundamental Laws and Liberties no one Man shall suffer Death it will encourage others hereafter to the like The Londoners petitioned for Iustice And too great numbers of Apprentices and others being imboldened by the Proceedings of the Parliament and not fore-knowing what a Fire the Sparks of their temerity would kindle did too triumphingly and disorderly urge the Parliament crying Iustice Iustice. And it is not unlikely that some of the Parliament-men did encourage them to this as thinking that some backward Members would be quickned by Popular Applause And withal to work on the Members also by disgrace some insolent Painter did seditiously draw the Pictures of the chief of them that were for saving the Lord Deputy and called them the Straffordians he being Earl of Strafford and hang'd them with their Heels upward on the Exchange Though it cannot be expected that in so great a City there should be no Persons so indiscreet as to commit such disorderly Actions as these yet no sober Men should countenance them or take part with them whatever ends might be pretended or intended The King called these Tumults the Parliament called them the Cities Petitioning Those that connived at them were glad to see the People of their mind in the main and thought it would do much to facilitate their Work and hold the looser Members to their Cause For though the House was unanimous enough in condemning Ship-money and the Et caetera Oath and the Bishops Innovations c. yet it was long doubtful which side would have the major Vote in the matter of the Earl of Strafford's Death and such other Acts as were most highly displeasing to the King But disorderly means do generally bring forth more Disorders and seldom attain any good end for which they are used § 28. The Parliament also had procured the King to consent to several Acts which were of great importance and emboldened the People by confirming their Authority As an Act against the High Commission Court and Church-mens Secular or Civil Power and an Act that this Parliament should not be dissolved till its own Consent alledging that the dissolving of Parliaments emboldened Delinquents and that Debts and Disorders were so great that they could not be overcome by them in a little time Also an Act for Triennial Parliaments And the People being confident that all these were signed by the King full sore against his will and that he abhorred what was done did think that the Parliament which had constrained him to this much could carry it still in what they pleased and so grew much more regardful of the Parliament and sided with them not only for their Cause and their own Interest but also as supposing them the stronger side which the Vulgar are still apt to follow § 29. But to return to my own matters This Parliament among other parts of their Reformation resolved to reform the corrupted Clergy and appointed a Committee to receive Petitions and Complaints against them which was no sooner understood but multitudes in all Countreys came up with Petitions against their Ministers The King and Parliament were not yet divided but concurred and so no partaking in their Differences was any part of the Accusation of these Ministers till long after when the Wars had given the occasion and then that also came into their Articles but before it was only matter of Insufficiency false Doctrine illegal Innovations or Scandal that was brought in against them Mr. Iohn White being the Chair-man of the Committee for Scandalous Ministers as it was called published in print one Century first of Scandalous Ministers with their Names Places and the Articles proved against them where so much ignorance insufficiency drunkenness filthiness c. was charged on them that many moderate men could have wished that their Nakedness had been rather hid and not exposed to the Worlds derision and that they had remembred that the Papists did stand by and would make sport of it Another Century also was after published Among all these Complainers the Town of Kederminster in Worcestershire drew up a Petition against their Ministers The Vicar of the place they Articled against as one that was utterly insufficient for the Ministry presented by a Papist unlearned preached but once a quarter which was so weakly as exposed him to laughter and perswaded them that he understood not the very Substantial Articles of
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
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
prosecute them or cast them out as it is against the nature of the body to dismember it self by cutting off any of the parts And it is easie to bring such Persons to Agreement at least to live in Charitable Communion But on the other side the Carnal Selfish and Unsanctified of what Party or Opinion soever have a Nature that is quite against holy Concord and Peace They want that love which is the natural Balsom for the Churches wounds They are every one Selfish and ruled by Self-Interest and have as many Ends and Centres of their Desires and Actions as they are individual Men. They are easily deceived and led into Errour especially in Practicals and against Spiritual Truths for want of Divine Illumination and Experience of the Things of God and a Nature suitable thereto Their Designs are Carnal Ambitious Covetous as Worldly Felicity is their Idol and their End God is not taken for their highest Governour his Laws must give place to the Desires of their Flesh Their very Religion is but Pride and Worldliness or subject to it They have a secret Enmity against a holy spiritual Life and therefore against the People that are holy They love not them that are serious in their own Religion and that go beyond their dead Formality This Enmity provoked by Self-interest or Reproof doth easily make them Persecutors of the Godly if they have but power And their carnal worldly hearts incline them to the carnal worldly side in any Controversies about Religion and to corrupt it and make it a carnal thing These Hypocrites in the Church do betray its Purity and Peace and â—ell Christ's Interest and the Gospel for as small a price as Iudas sold his Lord for And though in a time when God's Providence setteth his own Cause on the higher ground and giveth it the advantage of holy Governours these Men may possibly be serviceable to its welfare as finding it to serve their carnal Ends yet ordinarily they will â—ell the Peace of the Church for Preferment and are either imposing persecuting Dividers or discontented humourous Dividers and hardly brought to the necessary terms of a just and holy and durable Peace of whom I have more largely written in my Book called Catholick Unity These and many more Impediments do rise up against all conciliatory endeavours § 22. But I found not all these alike in all the disagreeing Parties though some of both Sorts in every Party The Erastian Party is most composed of Lawyers and other Secular Persons who better understand the Nature of Civil Covernment than the Nature Form and Ends of the Church and of those Offices appointed by Christ for Men's Spiritual Edification and Salvation The Diocesan Party with us consisted of some grave learned godly Bishops and some sober godly People of their mind and withal of almost all the carnal Politicians Temporizers Prophane and Haters of Godliness in the Land and all the Rabble of the ignorant ungodly Vulgar Whether this came to pafs from any thing in the Nature of their Diocesan Government or from their accommodating the ungodly Sort by the formal way of their Publick Worship or from their heading and pleasing them by running down the stricter sort of People whom they hated or all these together and also because the worst and most do always fall in with the Party that is uppermost I leave to the Judgment of the considerate Reader The Presbyterian Party consisted of grave orthodox godly Ministers together with the hopefullest of the Students and young Ministers and the soberest godly ancient Christians who were equally averse to Persecution and to Schism and of those young ones who were educated and ruled by these As also in those places where they most prevailed of the soberest sort of the well-meaning Vulgar who liked a godly Life though they had no great knowledge of it And this Party was most desirous of Peace The Independant Party had many very godly Ministers and People but with them many young injudicious Persons inclined much to Novelties and Separations and abounding more in Zeal than Knowledge usually doing more for Subdivisions than the few sober Persons among them could do for unity and Peace too much mistaking the Terms of Church Communion and the difference between the Regenerate invisible and the Congregate or visible Church The Anabaptists Party consisted of some but fewer sober peaceable Persons and orthodox in other Points but withal of abundance of young transported Zealots and a medley of Opinionists who all hasted directly to Enthusiasm and Subdivisions and by the Temptation of Prosperity and Success in Arms and the Policy of some Commanders were led into Rebellions and hot Endeavours against the Ministry and other Ioandalous Crimes and brought forth the horrid Sects of Ranters Seekers and Quakers in the Land § 23. But the greatest Advantage which I found for Concord and Pacification was among a great number of Ministers and People who had addicted themselves to no Sect or Party at all though the Vulgar called them by the Name of Presbyterians And the truth is as far as I could discover this was the Case of the greatest number of the godly Ministers and People throughout England For though Presbytery generally took in Scotland yet it was but a stranger here And it found some Ministers that lived in conformity to the Bishops Liturgies and Ceremonies however they wisht for Reformation and the most that quickly after were ordained were but young Students in the Universities at the time of the change of Church Government and had never well studied the Point on either side And though most of the Ministers then in England saw nothing in the Presbyterian way of practice which they could not cheerfully concur in yet it was but few that had resolved on their Principles And when I came to try it I found that most that ever I could meet with were against the Ius Divinum of Lay Elders and for the moderate Primitive Episcopacy and for a narrow Congregational or Parochial Extent of ordinary Churches and for an accommodation of all Parties in order to Concord as well as my self I am sure as soon as I proposed it to them I found most inclined to this way and therefore I suppose it was their Judgment before Yea multitudes whom I had no converse with I understood to be of this mind so that this moderate Number I am loth to call them a Party because they were for Catholicism against Parties being no way pre-engaged made the Work of Concord much more hopeful than else it would have been or than I thought it to be when I first attempted it § 24. Things being in this Case I stood still some years as a looker on and contented my self to wish and pray for Peace and only drop now and then a word for it in my practical Writings which hath since been none of my smallest troubles The Reasons were 1. Because I was taken up in Practicals and in such
daily expect the Communications of his Grace and Comfort especially seeing that these Ceremonies have been imposed and urged upon such Consideratioms as draw too near to the significancy and moral efficacy of Sacraments themselves That they have together with Popery been rejected by many of the Reformed Churches abroad amongst whom notwithstanding we doubt not but the Lord is worshipped decently orderly and in the beauty of Holiness That ever since the Reformation they have been Matter of Contention and endless Disputes in this Church and have been a Cause of depriving the Church of the Fruit and Benefit which might have been reaped from the Labours of many Learned and Godly Ministers some of whom judging them unlawful others unexpedient were in Conscience unwilling to be brought under the power of them That they have occasioned by the offence taken at them by many of the People heretofore great Separations from our Church and so have rather prejudiced than promoted the Unity thereof and at this time by reason of their long disuse may be more likely than ever heretofore to produce the same Inconveniencies That they are at best but indifferent and in their Nature mutable and that it 's especially in various Exigencies of the Church very needful and expedient that things in themselves mutable be sometimes actually changed lest they should by perpetual permanency and constant use be judged by the People as necessary as the Substancials of Worship themselves And though we do most heartily acknowledge your Majesty to be Custos utriusque Tabulae and to be Supream Governour over all Persons and in all Things and Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil in these your Majesty's Dominions yet we humbly crave leave to beseech your Majesty to consider whether as a Christian Magistrate you be not as well obliged by that Doctrine of the Apostle touching Things indifferent not occasioning an offence to weak Brethren as the Apostle himself then one of the highest Officers in the Church of Christ judged himself to be obliged and whether the great Work wherewith the Lord hath intrusted your Majesty be not rather to provide by your Sacred Authority that the things which are necessary by virtue of Divine Command in his Worship should be duly performed then that Things unnecessary should be made by Humane Command necessary and penal And how greatly pleasing it will be to the Lord that your Majesty's heart is so tenderly and religiously Compassionate to such of his poor Servants differing in so small matters as to preserve the Peace of their Consciences in God's Worship above all their Civil Concernments whatsoever May it therefore please your Majesty out of your Princely Care of healing our Breaches graciously to grant That Kneeling at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and such Holydays as are but of Humane Institution may not be imposed upon such as do conscientiously scruple the Observation of them And that the use of the Surplice and Cross in Baptism and bowing at the Name of Iesus rather than the Name of Christ or Emanuel or other Names whereby that Divine Person or either of the other Divine Persons is nominated may be abolished these things being in the Judgment of the Imposers themselves but indifferent and mutable in the Judgment of others a Rock of Offence and in the Judgment of all not to be valued with the Peace of the Church We likewise humbly represent unto your most Excellent Majesty That divers Ceremonies which we conceive had no Foundation in the Law of the Land as erecting Altars bowing towards them and such like have been not only introduced but in some places imposed whereby an Arbitrary Power was usurped divers Ministers of the Gospel though Conformable to the Established Ceremonies troubled some Reverend and Learned Bishops offended the Protestants grieved and the Papists pleased as hoping that those Innovations might make way for greater Changes May it therefore please your Majesty by such ways as your Royal Wisdom shall judge meet effectually to prevent the imposing and using of such Innovations for the future that so according to the pious intention of your Royal Grandfather King Iames of blessed memory the Publick Worship may be free not only from blame but from suspicion In obedience to your Majesty's Royal Pleasure graciously signified to us we have tendered to your most Excellent Majesty what we humbly conceive may most conduce to the Glory of God to the Peace and Reformation of the Church and to the taking away not only of our Differences but the Roots and Causes of them We humbly beg your Majesty's favourable Acceptance of these our Loyal and Conscientious Endeavours to serve your Majesty and the Church of Christ and your gracious Pardon if in any Thing or Expression we answer not your Majesty's Expectation professing before your Majesty and before the Lord the Searcher of Hearts that we have done nothing out of strife vain Glory or Emulation but have sincerely offered what we apprehend most seasonable and conducing to that happy End of Unity and Peace which your Majesty doth so piously prosecute We humbly lay our selves and these our Addresses at your Majesty's feet professing our unfeigned resolution to live and die your Majesty's faithful loyal and obedient Subjects and humbly implore your Gracious Majesty according unto your Princely Wisdom and Fatherly Compassion so to lay your Hand upon the bleeding Rents and Divisions that are amongst us that there may be an healing of them so shall your Throne be greater than the Throne of your Fathers in your days the Righteous shall flourish Peace shall run down like a River and the Generations to come shall call you blessed This following Paper I drew up at this time and offered to the Brethren to have been presented to the King as the Summary of our Judgment that he might see in a few plain words what it was that we indeed desired But it was not consented to both because that all of us were not agreed among our selves in granting so much of Episcopacy and because we would not hinder our Success by adding any more to Bishop Usher's Model hoping that his Authority might have facilitated the Reception of it to which Reasons I consented The brief Sum of our Iudgment and Desires about Church-Government 1. POwer is 1. Imperial and Coercive by Mulcts and Penalties 2. or Doctoral and Suasory The first belongeth only to the Magistrate The second to the Pastors of the Church 2. Though in Cases of Necessity the same Man may be both a Magistrate and a Pastor yet out of such Case it is unlawful or very unmeet Each Calling will find a Man work enough alone And our work being perswasive is successful but as it procureth Complacency and Consent and therefore we should be put upon no such Actions as will render us more feared and hated than desired to our Flocks We therefore humbly beseech your Majesty to trust no Church-men with the Sword with any degree of Imperial
said than never to hear it and also that it was said That this Baker was one that he had elected to be a Bishop This greatly troubled the King and he called for the Book that had the Catalogue of the Bishops which Secretary Nicholas brought and said there was no such Name But the King presently spied the Name and said There it was and charged that he should be enquired after The next day we learned that it was another Baker of the same Name with the Bishop And though we also learned that the Bishop himself was a Good-fellow yet because it was not the same Man I went the next day to Mr. Secretary Morrice and intreated him to certifie the King that it was another Baker that so the Bishop might receive no wrong by it which he promised to do Yet was it given out that we were Lyers and â—anderers that maliciously came to defame the Clergy And shortly after the Bishop put it into the News-Book That some Presbyterians had maliciously defamed him and that it was not he but another of his Name So that though the Fact was never questioned or denied yet was it a heinouser matter in us to say that it was reported to be an elect Bishop when it was as ancient a Priest of the same name than for the Man to preach and pray in his Drunkenness I never heard that he was rebuked for it but we heard enough of it § 147. Upon this Fact when we met and dined one day at the Lord Chamberlains among other talk of this Business I said That if I wished their hurt at one of their Enemies I should wish they were more such that their shame might cast them down Mr. Horton a young Man that was Chaplain to the Lord Chamberlain and then intended to conform answered That we must not wish evil that good may come of it To which I replyed There is no doubt of it far is it from me to say that I wish it but if I were their Enemy I could scarce wish them greater hurt and injury to their Cause than to set up such Men and that those are their Enemies whoever they be that perswade them to cast out learned godly Ministers and set up such in their room as these Yet did this Mr. Horton in his complying weakness to please that Party tell Dr. Bolton That I wished that they were all such And Dr. Bolton told it from Table to Table and published it in the Pulpit And when he was questioned for it alledged Mr. Horton as his Author When I went to Mr. Horton he excused it and said That he thought I hâ—d said so and when I told him of the additional words by which then I disclaimed such a sence he could not remember them and that was all the remedy I had though none of the Brethren present remembred any such words as he reported But when the Lord Chamberlain knew of it he was so much offended that I was fain to intercede for Mr. Horton that it might not prove any hurt to him And by this following Letter he exprest his distast For my esteemed Friend Mr. Baxter These SIR I Have just Cause to intreat your Excuse for so abrupt a breaking from you I confess I was under very great trouble for the folly of my Chaplain and could not forbear to express it to him I am concerned with a very true resentment for so imprudent a Carriage Let me intreat you that it may not reflect upon me but that you will believe that I have so great a value of you and am so tender of your Credit as I cannot easily pass by my Chaplain's indiscretion Yet I shall endeavour to clear you from any untrue Aspersions and shall approve my self Your assured Friend Ed. Manchester § 148. I shall next insert some account of the Business which I had so often with the Lord Chancellour at this time Because it was most done in the inter-space between the passing of the King's Declaration and the Debates about the Liturgy In the time of Cromwell's Government Mr. Iohn Elliot with some Assistant in New-England having learnt the Natives Language and Converted many Souls among them not to be baptized and forget their Names as well as Creed as it is among the Spaniards Converts at Mexico Peru c. but to serious Godliness it was found that the great hinderance of the progress of that Work was the Poverty and Barbarousness of the People which made many to live dispersed like wild Beasts in Wildernesses so that having neither Towns nor Food nor Entertainment fit for English Bodies few of them could be got together to be spoken to nor could the English go far or stay long among them Wherefore to build them Houses and draw them together and maintain the Preachers that went among them and pay School-masters to teach their Children and keep their Children at School c. Cromwell caused a Collection to be made in England in every Parish and People did contribute very largely And with the Money beside some left in stock was bought 7 or 800 l. per Annum of Lands and a Corporation chosen to dispose of the Rents for the furthering of the Works among the Indians This Land was almost all bought for the worth of it of one Colonel Beddingfield a Papist an Officer in the King's Army When the King came in Beddingfield seizeth on the Lands again and keepeth them and refuseth either to surrender them or to repay the Money because all that was done in Cromwell's time being now judged void as being without Law that Corporation was now null and so could have no right to Money or Lands And he pretended that he sold it under the worth in expectation of the recovery of it upon the King's return The President of the Corporation was the Lord Steele a Judge a worthy Man The Treasurer was Mr. Henry Ashurst and the Members were such sober godly Men as were best affected to New-Englands Work Mr. Ashurst being the most exemplary Person for eminent Sóbriety Self-denial Piety and Charity that London could glory of as far as publick Observation and Fame and his most intimate Friends Reports could testifie did make this and all other Publick Good which he could do his Business He called the Old Corporation together and desired me to meet them where we all agreed that such as had incurred the King's Displeasure by being Members of any Courts of Justice in Cromwell's days should quietly recede and we should try if we could get the Corporation restored and the rest continued and more fit Men added that the Land might be recovered And because of our other Business I had ready access to the Lord Chancellour they desired me to solicit him about it so Mr. Ashurst and I did follow the Business The Lord Chancelloor at the very first was ready to further us approving of the Work as that which could not be for any Faction or Evil end but honourable to
only your Labours but also your special Assistance in a time of need unto the promoting the welfare of this poor Country certified unto us by Captain Leveret upon which account our General Court thought good to return unto you their Thanks in a Letter which I hope before this is received have made your Name both known and precious to us in these Parts The Occasion of these is in the behalf of one Mr. William Leet Governour of New Heven Jurisdiction whose Case is this He being conscious of indiscretion and some neglect not to say how it came about in relation to the expediting the Execution of the Warrant according to his Duty sent from his Majesty for the apprehending of the two Colonels is not without fear of some displeasure that may follow thereupon and indeed hath almost ever since been a Man depressed in his Spirit for the neglect wherewith he chargeth himself therein His endeavours also since have been accordingly and that in full degree as besides his own Testimony his Neighbours attest they see not what he could have done more Sir If any report prejudicial to this Gentleman in this respect come unto your Ear by your prudent Enquiry upon this Intimation or otherwise so far as the signification of the Premises unto his Majesty or other eminent Person may plead for him or avert trouble towards him I assure my self you may report it as a real Truth and that according to your Wisdom you would be helpful to him so far therein is both his and my desire The Gentleman hath pursued both others and my self with Letters to this effect and yet not satisfied therewith came to Boston to disburden his heart to me formerly unacquainted with him only some few times in Company where he was upon issue of which Conference no better Expedient under God presented it self to us than this So far as you shall see cause as the matter requireth to let the Premises be understood is finally left with your self under God Sir The Author of these Lines it shall be your favour and a pledge of Love undeserved to conceal farther than the necessity of the End desired shall call for And if hereby you shall take occasion being in place of discovery to intelligence the Writer touching your observances with relation to the concernments of this People your Advertisements may not only be of much use unto this whole Country but further your account and minister unto many much cause of Thansgiving on your behalf And I shall be bold upon such encouragement if God permits to give you a more distinct account how it fareth with us I mean of the steps of Divine Providence as to the Publick both in our Civils and Ecclesiasticks which at some spare time may hapâ—y be looked at as a matter of contentful Meditation to your self I crave now pardon for being thus bold with you and will not presume any further to detain you The Lord Jesus be with your Spirit and let him also be remembred by you in your Prayers who is in chief SIR Yours in any Service of the Gospel John Norton Boston Sept. 23. 1661. For the Reverend and his much Honoured Friend Mr. Baxter Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty Reverend and much esteemed in the Lord HOwever black the Cloud is and big the Storm yet by all this the Work and Design of Jesus Christ goeth on and prospereth and in these Clouds Christ is coming to set up his Kingdom Yea is he not come in Power and great Glory When had the Truth a greater or so great and glorious a Cloud of Witnesses Is not this Christ in Power and great Glory and if Christ hath so much Glory in the slaughter of his Witnesses what will his Glory be in their Resurrection Your Constancy who are in the heat of the Storm and Numbers ministers matter of humbling and quickning to us who are at a distance and ready to totter and comply at the noise of a probable approach of our Temptation We are not without our Snares but hitherunto the Lords own Arm hath brought Salvation Our Tents are at Ebenezer However the trials and troubles be we must take care of the present Work and not cease and tarry for a calm time to work in And this Principle doth give me occasion to take the boldness to trouble you with these Lines at present My Work about the Indian Bible being by the good hand of the Lord though not without difficulties finished I am meditating what to do next for these Sons of this our Morning they having no Books for their private use of ministerial composing For their help though the Word of God be the best of Books yet Humane Infirmity is you know not a little helped by reading the holy Labours of the Ministers of Jesus Christ. I have therefore purposed in my heart seeing the Lord is yet pleased to prolong my life to translate for them a little Book of yours intituled A Call to the Unconverted The keenness of the Edge and liveliness of the Spirit of that Book through the blessing of God may be of great use unto them But seeing you are yet in the Land of the Living and the good Lord prolong your days I would not presume to do such a thing without making mention thereof unto your self that so I might have the help and blessing of your Counsel and Prayers I believe it will not be unacceptable to you that the Call of Christ by your holy Labours shall be made to speak in their Ears in their own Language that you may preach unto our poor Indians I have begun the Work already and find a great difference in the Work from my former Translations I am forced sometime to alter the Phrase for the facilitating and fitting it to our Language in which I am not so strict as I was in the Scripture Some things which are fitted for English People are not fit for them and in such cases I make bold to fit it for them But I do little that way knowing how much beneath Wisdom it is to shew a Man's self witty in mending another Man's Work When this Work is done if the Lord shall please to prolong my Life I am meditating of Translating some other Book which may prescribe to them the way and manner of a Christian Life and Conversation in their daily Course and how to worship God on the Sabbath fasting feasting Days and in all Acts of Worship publick private and secret and for this purpose I have Thoughts of translating for them the Practice of Piety or some other such Book In which Case I request your Advice to me for if the Lord give opportunity I may hear from you if you see cause so far to take Notice hereof before I shall be ready to begin a new work especially because the Psalms of David in Metre in their Language are going now to the Press which will be some Diversion of me from a present
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
latter end where I had purposely been brief because I had been too large in the beginning and because Particulars may be answered satisfactority in a few Words when the General Differences are fully cleared § 188. By this time our Commission was almost expired and therefore our Brethren were earnestly desirous of personal Debates with them upon the Papers put in to try how much Alteration they would yield to Therefore we sent to the Bishops to desire it of them and at last they yielded to it when we had but Ten Days more to treat § 189. When we met them I delivered them the Answer of their former Papers the largeness of which I saw displeased them and they received it And we earnestly prest them to spend the little time remaining in such pacifying Conference as tended to the ends which are mentioned in the King's Declaration and Commission and told them that such Disputes which they had called us to by their manner of Writing were not the thing which we desired or thought most conducing to those ends § 190. I have reason to think that the Generality of the Bishops and Doctors present never knew what we offered them in the reformed Liturgy nor in this Reply nor in any of our Papers save those few which we read openly to them For they were put up and carried away and I conjecture scarce any but the Writers of their Confutations would be at the Labour of reading them over And I remember in the midst of our last Disputation when I drew out the short Preface to this last Reply which Mr. Calamy wrote to enumerate in the beginning before their Eyes many of the grossest Corruptions which they stifly defended and refused to reform the Company was more ashamed and silent than at any thing else that I had said by which I perceived that they had never read or heard that very Preface which was as an Epistle to themselves Yea the chief of them confessed when they bid me read it that they knew no such thing So that it seems before they knew what was in them they resolved to reject our Papers right or Wrong and to deliver them up to their Contradictors § 191. When we came to our Debates I first craved of them their Animadversions on our Additions and Alterations of the Liturgy which we had put in long before and that they would tell us what they allowed or disallowed in them that we might have the use of them according to the Words in the King's Declaration and Commission But they would not by any Importunity be intreated at all to debate that nor to give any of their Opinions about those Papers There were no Papers that ever we offered them that had the Fate of those Though it was there that some of them thought to have found recriminating matter of Exception yet could we never prevail with them to say any thing about them in Word or Writing but once Bishop Morley told us of their length to which I answered that we had told them in our Preface that we were ready to abbreviate any thing which on debate should appear too long but that the Purity of the Prayers made the ordinary Lord's day Prayers far should than theirs And since we had given our Exceptions against theirs if they would neither by Word nor Writing except against ours nor yet give their Consent to them they would not honour their Cause or Conference But all could not extort either Debates on that Subject or any Reprehensions of what we had offered them Nor have they since to this Day in any of their Writings which ever I could see or hear of said a Word in way of Exception against those Papers Yea when Roger L'Estrange himself wrote according to his manner a malicious Invective against our several Papers when they were afterwards printed he could find little to say against our Liturgy but that we left it to the Liberty of the Minister in several Cases to pray in these Words or to this Sense And is that all the fault besides the Length forementioned Did they not know that it belongeth to the Prelates and not to such as we to deprive Men of their Liberty in praying If they had desired it how easy had it been for them to have dasht out that one Clause or to this Sense and then it had been beyond their Exception What measure of Liberty Ministers shall have it is not we but they that must determine § 192. When they had cast out that part of our desired Conference our next business was to desire them by friendly Conference to go over the Particulars which we excepted against and to tell us how much they could abate and what Alterations they could yield to This Bishop Reignolds oft prest them to and so did all the rest of us that spake But they resolutely insisted on it that they had nothing to do till we had proved that there was any necessary of Alteration which we had not yet done and that they were there ready to answer to our Proofs We urged them again and again with the very Words of the King's Declaration and Commission 1. That the ends expressed are for the removal of all Exceptions and Occasions of Exceptions and Differences from among our good Subjects and for giving Satisfaction to tender Consciences and the restoring and continuance of Peace and Unity in the Churches 2. And the means is to make such reasonable and necessary Alterations Corrections and Amendments therein as shall be agreed upon to be needful and expedient for the giving Satisfaction to tender Consciences and restoring and continuing Peace c. We plainly shewed hence that the King supposeth that some Alterations must be made But the Bishops insisted on two Words necessary Alterations and such as should be agreed on We answered them That the Word necessary hath reference to the Ends expressed viz. the satisfying tender Consciences and is joined with Expedient And its strange if when the King hath so long and publickly determined of the End and called us to consult of the means we should presume now at last to contradict him and to determine that the End it self is unnecessary and consequently no means necessary thereto What then have we all this while been doing 2. And when they are called to agree on such necessary means if they will take the Adventage of that Word to agree on nothing that so all Endeavours may be frustrated for want of their Agreement God and the World would judge between us who it is that frustrateth the King's Commission and the Hopes of a divided bleeding Church Thus we continued a long time contending about this Point Whether some Alterations be supposed by the King's Declaration and Commission to be made by us or whether we were anew to dispute that Point But the Bishops would have that to be our Task or none to prove by Disputation that any Alteration was necessary to be made while
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
gravissime mihi succenseres meque judicares indignum iis laudibus iisque benevolentiae tuoe significationibus quibus me prosequi ac decorare voluisti Illico igitur calamum arripui nulla interposita mora scripsi ad D. Simonium Gallice quoe velim à te legi atque intelligi posse ut qualis sit animus erga te meus liquido cognosceres Tibi vero Vir Reverende hanc Epistolam destino in qua quantâ possum bonâ fide luculentis verbis testor atque pronuntio falsa illa omnia esse emendacii officina profecta quoe vel audivisti vel legisti quasi dicta de te à me secus quam oportuit Non enim te novi nisi de fama quoe de tua pietate atque eruditione eloquentia egregie loquitur nec aliter erga te sum affectus quam ut decet erga virum multis laudibus ornatum proeterea de me optime meritum cui eo nomine multum debeo Noli ergo quaeso Vir Reverende quidquam istiusmodi credere ubicunque id vel occasio feret vel necessitas postulabit ostende hasce literas me à manu ex Animi mei Sententia conscriptas ut post hocce testimonium quid de te judicem nemo dubitare queat Vale Vir Reverende communis ille noster Doctor atque Dominus qui nos redemit sanguine suo cum Ecclesioe Anglicanoe tum tui perculiarem curam suscipere dignetur Quid de rebus vestris existimem◠scire potes ex Epistola quâ Paraphrasmi meam in Psalmos serenissimo vestro Regi dicavi Itaque nihil hic addam nisi quod qui ad te scribit est tibi Vir Reverende Ad omne obsequium paratissimus AMYRALDVS To the Reverend and most Learned Mr. Richard Baxter a Zealous Minister of the Gospel of Christ his most worthy and most honoured Brother in Christ at Kidderminster Recommended to the care of Mr. Dorvile The Grace of our Lord Iesus and the Peace of God be increased among us Most worthy and most honoured Sir THE Occasion of two Cosins of mine going for London invites me to take the liberty to write this Letter to you most honoured Sir and hope you will excuse my boldness in so doing being unknown to you I should have forborn troubling you in your weighty Affairs which besides the great zeal and care for your Parishioners yea for the whole Church of God are made known But I could not pass by so good an Opportunity to acquaint you how much your Name and your Person although with your Body so far from us is esteemed by me an unworthy Servant of Jesus Christ and by many other faithful Brethren in the Lord in this our Town and also in our Neighbour Protestant Confederate Cities of Zuric and Schaffhousen insomuch that we often remember one another the great cause we have to pray the Lord joyntly and constantly with your beloved Parishioners yea with whole England for your health and long life that you may further continue to us all your edifying Doctrines and Admonitions I dare not write to you most godly Sir in what fame you are among us that you may not suspect me of flattery which doubtless you despise as a great vanity But I pray Sir to believe me confidently that after Providence had led me some years agone into England but time would not permit to stay long there but as speedily as possible to learn the English Tongue and am heartily sorry I did not visit you most worthy Sir at Kidderminster that time for to take upon several Points your godly Advice being in ten Months time as long as I stayed in London Oxford and Cambridge I did learn God be thanked so much English that I could understand reading and preaching And by the Advice of the most zealous and worthy Men Mr. Edmund Calamy Mr. Cranford Mr. Nalton of whom I received great Courtesie and Friendship though a Stranger I bought a good number of English Divinity Books of your most solid and selected Divines and among others your Everlasting Rest Item Gildas Salvianus or Reformed Pastor Item True Christianity Item A Sermon of Iudgment c. being at that time recalled to my own Country I had no time to peruse those heavenly Meditations but since have made it my chief work and cannot express the great Advantage I received by them so that I commended the very same Books to others of our Brethren who have endeavoured without delay to get them by means of some of our Merchants here and also the remainder of your Works that we could bring to our notice viz. The Unreasonableness of Infidelity your Confession of Faith The right Method for a setled Peace of Conscience The safe Religion Key for Catholicks The Crucifying of the World Item of Self-denial Item A Treatise of Conversion Call to the Unconverted your Apology against Mr. Blake c. Item your Holy Commonwealth The Catholick Unity your Treatise of Death For which Works we thank God with one accord for the great and heavenly Gifts he hath so largely bestowed upon you for the common good of his Church and wish that by this occasion we might also be partakers of what we want of your Works that are extant Sermons or other Treatises Particularly I must acquaint you with the high esteem we make of those two Chief Pieces the Everlasting Rest and Reformed Pastor in which latter you strike home to the very heart many Ministers and we must needs confess that living among a rude and unlearned People ignorant and self-conceited that according to your Advice in the Reformed Pastor it is most necessary to take in hand with all speed and care the private Instruction and Catechizing But we can find no way to obtain it And being your Admonitions and Perswasions to the Practice thereof are very home and close upon all Ministers that they must make it their chief Business and neglect nothing until they have perswaded and brought their Flock to it I pray you most worthy Sir to resolve this Enquiry to me and others of my Neighbours and fellow Brethren who in reading your Reformed Pastor made the same Scruple of Conscience viz. Whether a Minister that heartily strives for the honour of God and the Edification of his Church doth not discharge his Duty when according to your wholsome and true Doctrine he hath conferred and made known his mind and willingness to the performance of it to his Fellow-Brethren that joyntly with him are Shepherds of the same Flock yea perswaded them of the necessity and usefulness of it yet can get no Assistance by Ministers nor Magistrates We long also heartily to know being you have perswaded the Ministers of the County of Worcester to that most necessary and useful Catechizing and Private Instruction Whether by the present great Change in England both in Churches and Government and chiefly being that we hear that Episcopacy prevaileth the
went away to another place And this especially with the great discontents of the people for their manifold payments and of Cities and Corporations for the great decay of Trade and the breaking and impoverishing of many Thousands by the burning of the City together with the lamentable weakness and badness of great Numbers of the Ministers that were put into the Nonconformist's places did turn the hearts of the most of the Common people in all parts against the Bps. and their ways and enclined them to the Nonconformists tho fear restrained men from speaking what they thought especially the richer fort § 59. Here Ralph Wallis a Cobler of Glocester published a book containing the Names and particular histories of a great Number of Conformable Ministers in several Parishes of England that had been notoriously scandalous and named their scandals to the great displeasure of the Clergy And I fear to the great temptation of many of the Nonconformists to be glad of other Mens sin as that which by accident might diminish the interest of the Prelatists § 60. The Lord Mohune a young man gave out some words which caused a Common Scandal in Court and City against the Bp. of Rochester as guilty of most obscure Actions with the said Lord the reproach whereof was long the talk of many sorts of persons who then took liberty to speak freely of the Bishops § 61. About this time Ian. 1668. the news came of the Change in Portugal where by no means of the Queen the King who was a debanched person and Charged by her of insufficiency or frigidity was put out of his Government tho not his Title and his brother by the consent of Nobles was made Regent and marryed the Queen after a Declaration of Nullity or a divorce and the King was sent as a Prisoner into an Island where he yet remaineth Which News had but an ill sound in England as things went at that time § 62. In Ian. 1668. I received a Letter from Dr. Manton that Sir Iohn Barber told him that it was the Lord Keeper's desire to speak with him and me about a Comprehension and Toleration Whereupon coming to London Sir Iohn Barber told me that the Lord keeper spake to him to bring us to him for the aforesaid end and that he had certain proposals to offer us and that many great Courtiers were our friends in the business but that to speak plainly if we would carry it we must make use of such as were for a Toleration of the Papists also And he demanded how we would answer the Common Question What will satisfie you I answered him That other Mens Judgments and Actions about the Toleration of Papists we had nothing to do with at this time though it was no work for us to meddle in But to this question we were not so ignorant whom we had to do with as to expect full satisfaction of our desires as to Church-Affairs But the Answer must be suited to the Sense of his Question And if we knew their Ends what degree of satisfaction they were minded to grant we would tell them what means are necessary to attain them There are degrees of satisfaction as to the Number of Persons to be satisfied and there are divers degrees of satisfying the same Person 1. If they will take in all Orthodox Peaceable Worthy Ministers the Terms must be the larger 2. If they will take in but the greater part somewhat less and harder Terms may do it 3. If but a few yet less may serve for we are not so vain as to pretend that all Nonconformists are in every particular of one mind And as to the Presbyterians now so called whose Case alone we were called to consider 1. If they would satisfie the far greatest part of them in an high degree so as they should think the Churches setled in a good condition the granting of what was desired by them in 1660. would do it which is the setling of Church-Government according to that of A. Bp. Vsher's Model and the granting of the Indulgences mentioned in his Majestie 's Declaration about Eccles. Affairs 2. But if they would not give so high satisfaction the Alterations granted in his Majestie 's Declaration alone would so far satisfie them as to make them very thankful to his Majesty and not only to exercise their Office with Chearfulness but also to rejoice in the Kingdom 's happiness whose Union would by this be much promoted 3. But if this may not be granted at least the taking off all such impositions which make us uncapable of Exercising our Ministry would be a mercy for which we hope we should not be unthankful to God or the King § 63. When we came to the Lord Keeper we resolved to tell him That Sir Iohn Barber told us his Lordship desired to speak with us left it should be after said that we intruded or were the movers of it or left it had been Sir Iohn Barber's Forwardness that had been the Cause He told us why he sent for us to think of a way of our Restoration to which end he had some Proposals to offer to us which were for a Comprehension for the Presbyterians and an Indulgence for the Independents and the rest We askt him Whether it was his Lordship's pleasure that we should offer him our Opinion of the means or only receive what he offered to us He told us That he had somewhat to offer to us but we might also offer our own to him I told him That I did think we could offer such Terms no way injurious to the welfare of any which might take in both Presbyterians and Independents and all found Christians into the Publick Established Ministry He answered That that was a thing that he would not have but only a Toleration for the rest Which being none of our business to debate we desired him to consult such persons about it as were concerned in it And so it was agreed that we should meddle with the Comprehension only And a few Days after he sent us his Proposals § 64. When we saw the Proposals we perceived that the business of the Lord Keeper and his way would make it unfit for us to debate such Cases with himself And therefore we wrote to him requesting that he would nominate Two Learned peaceable Divines to treat with us till we agreed on the fittest Terms and that Dr. Bates might be added to us He nominated Dr. Wilkins who we then found was the Author of the Proposals and of the whole business and his Chaplain Mr. Burton And when we met we tendered them some Proposals of our own and some Alterations which we desired in their Proposals for they presently rejected ours and would hear no more of them so that we were fain to treat upon theirs alone § 65. The Copy of what we offered them is as followeth I. That the Credenda and Agenda in Religion being distinguished no Profession of Assent be required but
his doing and to prove it told me all the Story before mentioned that such a Letter he received from Wolverhampton and being treasonable he was fain to acquaint the King with it And when he saw my Meeting mentioned in the Letter he examined him about them and he could not deny but they were very numerous and the King against his Will sent him to the Bishop of London to see it supprest I told him that I came not now to expostulate or express any Offence but to endeavour that we might part in Love And that I had taken that way for his assistance and his People's good which was agreeable to my Judgment and now he was trying that which was according to his Judgment and which would prove the better the end will shew He expostulated with me for not receiving the Sacrament with him and offered me any Service of his which I desired and I told him I desired nothing of him but to do his People good and to guide them faithfully as might tend to their Salvation and his own and so we parted § 118. As I went to Prison I called of Serjeant Fountain my special Friend to take his Advice for I would not be so injurious to Judge Hale And he perused my â—ittimus and in short advised me to seek for a Habeas Corpus yet not in the usual Court the King's-Bench for reasons known to all that know the Judges nor yet in the Exchequer lest his Kindness to me should be an Injury to Judge Hale and so to the Kingdom and the Power of that Court therein is questioned but at the Common-Pleas which he said might grant it though it be not usual § 119. But my greatest doubt was whether the King would not take it ill that I rather sought to the Law than unto him or if I sought any release rather than continued in Prison My Imprisonment was at present no great Suffering to me for I had an honest Jaylor who shewed me all the Kindness he could I had a large room and the liberty of walking in a fair Garden and my Wife was never so chearful a Companion to me as in Prison and was very much against my seeking to be released and she had brought so many Necessaries that we kept House as contentedly and comfortably as at home though in a narrower room aad I had the sight of more of my Friends in a day than I had at home in half a Year And I knew that if I got out against their Will my sufferings would be never the nearer to an end But yet on the other side 1. It was in the extreamest heat of Summer when London was wont to have Epidemical diseases And the hope of my dying in Prison I have reason to think was one great inducement to some of the Instruments to move to what they did 2. And my Chamber being over the Gate which was knockt and opened with noise of Prisoners just under me almost every Night I had little hope of sleeping but by day which would have been likely to have quickly broken my strength which was so little as that I did but live 3. And the number of Visiters by day did put me out of hope of Studying or doing any thing but entertain them 4. And I had neither leave at any time to go out of Doors much less to Church on the Lord's Days nor on that Day to have any come to me nor to Preach to any but my Family Upon all these Considerations the advice of some was that I should Petition the King but to that I was averse 1. Because I was indifferent almost whether I came out or not and I was loth either to seem more afflicted or impatient than I was or to beg for nothing 2. I had avoided the Court and the Converse of all great Men so many years on purpose that I was loth to creep to them now for nothing 3. And I expected but to be put upon some promise which I could not make or to be rejected 4. I had so many great Men at Court who had profest extraordinary Kindness to me tho' I was never beholden to one Man of them all for more than Words that I knew if it were to be done they would do it without my seeking And my Counsellor Serjeant Fountain advised me not to seek to them nor yet refuse their Favour if they offered it but to be wholly passive as to the Court but to seek my Freedom by Law because of my great weakness and the probability of future Peril to my Life And this Counsel I followed § 120. The Earl of Orery I heard did earnesty and speedily speak to the King how much my Imprisonment was to his dis-service The Earl of Manchester could do little but by the Lord Arlington who with the Duke of Buckingham seemed much concerned in it But the Earl of Lauder dale who would have been forwardest had he known the King's mind to be otherwise said nothing And so all my great Friends did me not the least Service but made a talk of it with no Fruit at all And the moderate honest Part of the Episcopal Clergy were much offended and said I was chosen out designedly to make them all odious to the People But Sir Iohn Babor often visiting me assured me That he had spoken to the King about it and when all had done their best he was not willing to be seen to relaxe the Law and discourage Justices in executing it c. but he would not be offended if I sought my Remedy at Law which most thought would come to nothing § 121. Whilst I was thus unresolved which way to take Sir Iohn Babor desiring a Narrative of my Case I gave him one which he shewed the Lord Arlington which I will here insert and I will joyn with it two other Scripts one which I gave as Reasons to prove That the Act against Conventicles forbad not my Preaching Another which I gave all my Counsellors when they were to plead my Cause about the Error of the Mittimus § 122 The Narrative of my Case The Oath cannot be imposed on me by the Act. First Because I never kept any Conventicle or Unlawful Assembly proved 1. By Conventicles and Unlawful Assemblies for Religious Exercises the Laws do mean only the Meetings of Recusants Separatists or such as Communicate not with the Church of England or such Assemblies as are held in opposition to the Church-Assemblies and not such as are held only by the Conformable Members of the Church in meer Subordination to the Church-Assemblies to promote them But all Meetings which I have held are only of this latter sort The former Proposition is thus proved 1. The Canons give the Sense of the Word Conventicles for it is a Church-Term about Church-Matters But the Canons mention but two sorts of Conventicles one of Presbyters when they meet to make Orders or Canons for Church-Discipline the other of People who meet
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
received as gifts of Bounty from any whosoever since I was silenced till after An. 1672. amount not in the whole to 20 l. besides ten Pouud per Annum which I received from Serjeant Fountain till he died and when I was in Prison twenty pieces from Sir Iohn Bernard ten from the Countess of Exeter and five from Alderman Bard and no more which just paid the Lawyers and my Prison Charge but the expences of removing my Habitation was greater And had the Bishop's Family no more than this In sum I told the Bishop that he that cried out so vehemently against schism had got the Spirit of a Sectary and as those that by Prisons and other sufferings were too much exasperated against the Bishops could hardly think or speak well of them so his cross Interests had so notoriously spoiled him of his Charity that he had plainly the same temper with the bitterest of the Sectaries whom he so much reviled Our Doctrinal Discourse I overpass § 236. This May a Book was Printed and cried about describing the horrid Murther of one 〈◊〉 Baxter in New-England by the Anabaptists and how they tore his Flesh and flead him alive and persons and time and place were named And when Mr. Kiffen sensible of the Injury to the Anabaptists searcht it out it proved all a studied Forgery Printed by a Papist and the Book Licensed by Dr. Sam. Paâ—ker the Arch-bishop's Chaplain there were no such Persons in being as the Book mentioned nor any such thing ever done Mr. â—issen accused Dr. Parker to the Kiug and Council The King made him confess his Fault and so it ended § 237. In Iune was the second great Fight with the Dutch where again many were killed on both sides and to this day it is not known which Paâ—ty had the greater Loss § 238. The Parliament grew into great Jealousies of the prevalency of Popery There was an Army raised which lay upon Black-Heath encamped as for Service against the Dutch They said that so many of the Commanders were Papists as made Men fear the design was worse Men feared not to talk openly that the Papists having no hope of getting the Parliament to set up their Religion by Law did design to take down Parliaments and reduce the Government to the French Model and Religion to their State by a standing Army These Thoughts put Men into dismal Expectations and many wish that the Army at any rate might be disbanded The Duke of York was General The Parliament made an Act that no man should be in any office of Trust who would not take the Oaths of Supremacy aud Allegiance and receive the Sacrament according to Order of the Church of England and renounee Transubstanstiation Many supposed Papists received the Sacrament and renounced Transubstantiation and took the Oaths Some that were known sold or laid down their Places The Duke of York and the new Lord Treasurer Clifford laid down all It was said they did it on supposition that the Act left the King impowered to renew their Commissions when they had laid them down But the Lord Chancellor told the King that it was not so and so they were put out by themselves This settled Men in the full belief that the Duke of York and the Lord Clifford were Papists and the Londoners had before a special hatred against the Duke since the burning of London commonly saying that divers were taken casting Fire-balls and brought to his Guards of Soldiers to be secured and he let them go and both secured and concealed them 239. The great Counsellors that were said to do all with the King in all great matters were the Duke of York the Lord Clifford the Duke of Lauderdaile the Lord Arlington the Duke of Buckingham the Lord Chancellor that is Sr. Anthony Ashley-Cooper Earl of Shaftsbury and after them the Earl of Anglesey lately Mr. Annesley Among all these the Lord Chanchellor declared so much Jealosie of Popery and set himself so openly to secure the Protestant Religion that it was wondered how he kept in as he did but whatever were his Principles or Motives it is certain he did very much plead the Protestant Cause § 240. In Iune Mastricht was taken by the French but with much loss where the Duke of Monmouth with the English had great Honour for their Valour § 241. In August four of the Dutch East-India Ships fell into our Hands and we had the third great Sea-fight with them under the Command of Prince Rupert where we again killed each other with equal Loss But the Dutch said they had the Victory now sand before and kept days of Thanksgiving for it Sir Edward Sprag was killed whose death the Papists much lamented hoping to have got the Sea-power into his Hands But Prince Rupert who declared himself openly against Popery and had got great Interest in the Hearts of the Soldiers complained sharply of the French Admiral as deserting him to say no worse And the success of these Fights was such as hindered the Transportation of the Army against the Dutch and greatly divided the Court-Party and discouraged the Grandees and Commanding Papists c. § 242. In September I being out of Town my House was broken by Thieves who broke open my Study-Doors Closets Locks searcht near 40 Tills and Boxes and found them all full of nothing but Papers and miss'd that little Money I had though very near them They took only three small pieces of Plate and medled not considerably with any of my Papers which I would not have lost for many hundred Pounds Which made me sensible of Divine Protection and what a Convenience it is to have such a kind of Treasure as other men have no mind to rob us of or cannot § 343. The Duke of York was now married to the Duke of Modena's Daughter by Proxy the Earl of Peterborough being sent over to that end § 244. The Lady Clinton having a Kinswoman wife to Edward Wray Esq who was a Protestant aâ—d her Husband a Papist throughly studied in all their Controversies and oft provoking his Wife to bring any one to dispute with him desired me to perform that office of Conference They differed about the Education of their Children he had promised her as she said at Marriage that she should have the Education of them all and now would not let her have the Education of one but would make them Papists I desired that either our Conference might be publick to avoid mis-reports or else utterly secret before no one but his Wife that so we might not seem to strive for the Honour of Victory nor by dishonour be exasperated and made less capable of benefit The latter way was chosen but the Lady Clinton and Mr. Goodwin the Lady Worsep's Chaplain prevailed to be present by his consent He began upon the point of Transubstantion and in Veron's Method would have put me to prove the Words of the Article of the Church of England by express Words of
would stand to it Not that we take any Men for the Lords of our Faith but let them hear us speak and if they say that it is lawful or not a heinous sin in us to Conform we will acquiesce and never more accuse you as Persecutors but silently undergo all the Accusation of Schism But then by the Churches you must not mean any odd persons but the Churches indeed Strict Especially in this Conjuncture of time when we have so great reason to fear the prevailing of the Common Enemy against us both and consequently not only the Endangering but the utter ruining of the Protestant Religion and that not only here but perhaps in all the World besides the guilt whereof will lie especially at our Doors if we do not agree Ans. 1. What is the great reason you have to fear the prevailing of the Common Enemy and utter ruin of the Protestant Religion Is it from our State at home Or from abroad If the later we understand it not nor who is the Cause If the former Where lyeth the danger Is it in the increase of Papists as to Quality or Number of persons Did not you cause the Silencing of 1800 Ministers and thereby and otherwise the disaffecting of many Hundred thousand people I think who would have loved and Served you Did not you help to Banish them Five Miles from not the Court only but all Cities and Corporations and Places of their former Ministery Did you not undertake all the Ministerial Work without them And say you could do it better without them than with them as being sufficient your selves Did not one of you tell me that you thought any Congregation was better to have none then such as I Do you not still here conclude that unless we will conform to every Oath Subscription Word c. It 's better that we be out of your Church than in it And do you after all your Undertakings and Sufficiency now bring us so sad an account of your success Have you been bringing our Religion to no better a pass Have high and low been no better instructed and prefered by you Hath Popery been no better resisted by you in those Places whence you Bunished us Do you now come and tell us that we have great reason to fear the utter ruin of the Protestant Religion Is this your account of your undertaken Stewardship What hands then is the Church faln into if it be so used 2. O let us all hear and fear what Man may come to Would our Agreement do any thing to prevent this terrible danger which you describe And will you still tell all the World That rather than we shall not be compelled against our Consciences to our Damnation if we obey to Declare that we assent and consent to every word yea and use every word in all your Liturgy to Declare That Millions whom we know not if they Vow in their Places and Calling to endeavour a Reformation of the Church were it but in Lay-Men's power of the Keys are not obliged by that Vow rather than we shall be suffered not to Swear Obedience to the Bishops though we are responsible to the Law for any Disobedience rather than we shall be Suffered to forbear the Image of the Cross in Baptism or to forbear to pronounce every wicked Man saved that we Bury or to suffer a Parent to Covenant in Baptism for his own Child or rather than we shall be endured to forbear turning Godly People that dare not kneel from Church-Communion and pronouncing them Excommunicate every six Months if the Chancellor or Bishop bid us Rather than this shall be granted us we shall have no Agreement the Common Enemy shall prevail the Protestant Religion shall not only be endangered but utterly ruin'd here and throughout the World And is it so indeed And yet would you make us believe that you are against the ruin of it who will not prevent it at so easie a rate What good doth it do you for me to subscribe as ex Animo that there is not a word in your Liturgy or Ordination contrary to the Word of God and that I assent and consent to all that is in it When I am without this responsible for all Omission or Opposition to it We offer if necessary to take our Oaths as in the presence of God the Judge of all that we would agree with you and obey you too in any thing except that which we judge to be forbidden of God We offer our Reasons which perswade us that your Impositions obeyed would be our sin and heinous sin We are past doubt that your Answers to them are frivolous You dare not allow us to bring all into the Light and to Print our Case and Reasons that the World may Judge of them We that pay so dear for our Dissent are as likely to be Unbiassed as you that have the Wealth and Honours of the World And were it not liker to be moved by our Reputation with the poorer sort than you by your Reputation with the Great and Honourable if not the most And if yet we be mistaken so is all the World in as great a Matter as most things now in Question You call them Indifferent We think them not so And yet shall Protestant Religion be ruin'd in all the World rather than you should not have your will in our obedience to you in every prescribed Word Ceremony Covenant or Oath after all this Strict And at Ours indeed of the Church-party if we require what cannot be consented to without sin Ans. Ex ore tuo 〈◊〉 What you required of old we debated 1660 and you never gave us an Answer to what we largely offered you in Confutation of your Defence And how then did you think we should know we Erred Not by what you kept secret in your thoughts And as to the New Conformity we never had leave to give our Reasons against it by Word or Writing Grant us but that leave and if we do not openly prove that to Conform would be our sin and very heinous sin not medling with any Men's Conscience but our own call us Schismaticks and go on to use us as you have done Which I say as to my self who offer to assume that suffering as the penalty of my Error if I err but not to justifie you if it were so who are no more allowed by Christ to shut all that err out of the Church than to Un-church every person in the World Strict But at theirs that refuse to come in to us if they may without sin submit to all that their acknowledged Superiours require of them Ans. Which they are most confident they cannot do And if Quoad Materiam they should mistake I think yet St. Paul mistook not in saying He that doubteth is condemned if he eat because he eateth not in Faith And him that is weak in the Faith receive c. And therefore I would deny your Consequence comparatively There
I was then desired to Communicate it to some Nonconforming Brethren Dr. Manton was gone into the Countrey Dr. Bates was sick I Communicated it to Mr. Iohn Corbet Mr. aâ—ents Mr. Pool Dr. Iacomb and Mr. Humphrey When we had made such further small Corrections as all agreed on Mr. Pool and I were desired to meet the two Doctors for a further procedure They met us and we again read the Draught but would give them no Copy and agreed with them that they should take the present time while Bishop Morley was out of Town as likest to frustrate and to desire Bishop Ward and Bishop Pierson of Chester a Learned sober Man to meet us and to hear what we had agreed on and promise us secrecy Bishop Ward once came in upon us when we were together but withdrew They promised us to try it speedily But when they had only in General told Bishop Ward c. how far we had gone and how fair we were for Agreement and told them some of the particular Materials there was a full end of all the Treaty The Bishops had no further to go We had already carryed it too far Hearing no more of the Doctors we sent to know how the Case went and understood by them that their Hopes and Labours were at an end I sent to Dr. Tillotson to know whether they would give me leave to tell any to promote our Concord how far they agreed with us that their Names might be some advantage to the work And he wrote to me as followeth Apr. 11. 1675. Sir I took the first opportunity after you were with us to speak to the Bishop of Sal. who promised to keep the matter private and only to acqaint the Bishop of Ch. with it in order to a Meeting But upon some General Discourse I plainly perceived several things could not be obtained However he promised to appoint a time of Meeting but I have not heard from him since I am unwilling my Name should be used in this Matter not but that I do most heartily desire an Accommodation and shall always endeavour it But I am sure it will be a prejudice to me and signify nothing to the effecting of the thing which as Circumstances are cannot pass in either House without the Concurrence of a considerable part of the Bishops and the Countenance of His Majesty which at present I see little reason to expect I am Your affectionate Brother and Servant Iohn Tillotson § 288. A short time after told these Doctors what these same Bishops were even then contriving when they cryed up Agreement and set them on this work even to bring things much higher than they were by putting on Oath on the Lords Commons and Magistrates of which more anon But because some would know the Terms which we agreed on I shall here annex the Form to a word only telling them that would understand it 1. That it is not what we would have had we our Choice but what we would possibly hope might have been granted us We had not the least hopes of more 2. That we did not so annex the latter Particulars as if we would not have been glad of the former alone could no more be had For the bare opening of the Door for our Entrance would have done something for a present shift 3. That the passage that shortening Common Prayer in extraordinary Cases should not be punishable had several uses which unless we had opportunity here to open as we debated it cannot be suddenly understood by each Reader And many will say that too much or too little is yielded that know not our Circumstances and hear not our Reasons But it may somewhat satisfy considering Men that both parties did agree in the form here annexed tho the Bishops had rather all our Distractions and Miseries were by the greatest Cruelty continued An Act for the Healing and Concord of his Majestie 's Subject 's in matters of Religion WHereas the Concord and Conjunct Labours of all able Godly Ministers of Christ are of great use to the safety of the true Religion and peace of the Kingdom and the Salvation of their Flocks and Experience proveth that this Concord cannot be now obtained without some Abatement of the terms of Uniformity required by the present Laws Be it enacted by His Majesty c. I. That no other Oath Subscription Declaration Covenant or promise shall henceforth be necessary to or required of any Priests or Deacons for their Ordination Institution Induction License to preach and perform their Office nor of Students in the Universities nor School-Masters besides the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the promises at Ordination of Ministerial fidelity contained in the form of Ordination and the subscribing to the Doctrine and Sacraments of the Church of England according to the statute of Eliz. 13. in the words J. A. B. do unfeignedly assent to the Doctrine of Faith and Sacraments of the Church of England as they are expressed in the Articles of the Church And the Oaths for the proper privileges of the Universities and Colledges and to this following Declaration against Rebellion and Disloyalty J. A. B. do hold that it is not lawful for any of his Majestie 's Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King his Person Authority or Rights and Dignity nor against any Authorized by his Laws or Legal Commission and that there lyeth no obligation on me or any of his Majestie 's Subjects from the Oath commonly called the solemn League and Covenant to endeavour any Change of the present Government of his Majestie 's Kingdoms nor to endeavour any reformation or alteration of the Church Government as it is not by Law established by Rebellion Sedition or any other unlawful means II. And be it enacted by c. That in such Churches or places of publick worship where the Liturgy is read and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper accordingly administred by the Incumbent or the Lecturer or Curate or other Minister no other shall be punished for not using it there or for not baptizing or not administring the Lord's Supper provided that such other Minister be oft present at the reading of the Liturgy and that he read it himself at least twice a year and as often baptize Children if offered thereto and administer the Lord's Supper according to the Liturgy if he have cure of Souls Provided that no Minister shall be punished as guilty of Omission for any brevity which is caused unavoidably by sickness weakness or any just extraordinary cause But if otherwise the Liturgy be in any Church disused the Incumbent shall be punishable as is already appointed by the Law And Be it enacted that no Parent shall be forbidden to enter his own Child into Covenant with God in baptism by speaking such promising and undertaking words as by the Liturgy and Canon are now required of the Godfathers and Godmothers alone Nor shall any Minister be forced against
Stomach and extream Acrimony of Blood by some Fault of the Liver About the Year 1658. finding the Inflation much in the Membranes of the Reins I suspected the Stone and thought that one of my extream Leanness might possibly feel it I felt both my Kidnies plainly indurate like Stone But never having had a Nephritick Fit nor Stone came from me in my Life and knowing that if that which I felt was Stone the Greatness prohibited all Medicine that tended to a Cure I thought therefore that it was best for me to be ignorant what it was And so far was I from melancholy that I soon forgot that I had felt it even for about Fifteen Years But my Inflations beginning usually in my Reins and all my Back daily torn and greatly pained by it 1673. it turned to terrible Suffocations of my Brain and Lungs So that if I slept I was suddenly and painfully awakened The Abatement of Urine and constant Pain which Nature almost yielded to as Victorious renewed my Suspicion of the Stone And my Old Exploration And feeling my Lean Back both the Kidneys were greatlier indurate than before and the Membrane so sore to touch as if nothing but Stone were within them The Physicians said That the Stone cannot be felt with the Hand I desired Four of the Chief of them to feel them They all concluded that it is the Kidneys which they felt and that they are hard like Stone or Bone but what it is they could not tell but they thought if both the Kidneys had Stones so big as seemed to such feeling it was impossible but I should be much worse by Vomiting and Torment and not able to Preach and go about I told them besides what Skenkius and many Observators say That I could tell them of many of late times whose Reins and Gall were full of Stone great ones in the Reins and many small ones in the Gall who had some of them never suspected the Stone and some but little But while One or Two of the Physicians as they use did say It could not be lest they should as they thought discourage me I became the Common Talk of the City especially the Women as if I had been a melancholy Humourist that conceited my Reins were petrified when it was no such matter but meer Conceit And so while I lay Night and Day in Pain my supposed Melancholy which I thank God all my Life hath been extraordinary free from became for a Year the Pity or Derision of the Town But the Discovery of my Case was a great mercy to my Body and my Soul For 1. Thereupon seeing that all Physicians had been deceived and perceiving that all my Flatulency and Pains came from the Reins by Stagnation Regurgitation and Acrimony I cast off all other Medicine and Diet and Twice a Week kept clean my Intestines by an Electuary of Cassia Terebinth Cypr. and Rhab. c. or Pills of Rhab. and Terebinth Scio. Using also Syrup of Mallows in all my Drink and God hath given me much more Abatements and Intermissions of Pain this Year and half than in my former overwhelming Pains I could expect 2. And whether it be a Schyrrus or Stones which I doubt not of I leave to them to tell others who shall dissect my Corps But sure I am that I have wonderful Cause of Thankfulness to God for the Ease which I have had these Forty Years Being fully satisfied that by ill Diet Old Cheese Raw Drinks and Salt Meats whatever it is I contracted it before Twenty Years of Age and since Twenty One or Twenty Two have had just the same Symptoms as now at Sixty saving the different strength of Nature to resist And that I should in Forty Years have few hours without pain to call me to redeem my Time and yet not one Nephritick Torment nor Acrimony of Urine save One Day of Bloody Urine nor intolerable kind of Pain What greater Bodily Mercy could I have had How merciful how suitable hath this Providence been My Pains now in Reins Bowels and Stomach c. are almost constant but with merciful Alleviations upon the foresaid means § 312. As I have written this to mind Physicians to search deeper when they use to take up with the General Hiding Names of Hypochondriacks and Scorbuticks and to caution Students so I now proceed to that which occasioned it I had tried Cow's Milk Goats Milk Breast Milk and lastly Asses Milk and none of them agreed with me But having Thirty Years ago read in many great Practitioners That for Bloody Vrine and meer Debility of the Reins Sheeps Milk doth Wonders see Gordonius Forestus Schoubo c. I had long a desire to try it and never had Opportunity But as I was saying this to my Friend a Child answered That their next Neighbour a Quaker did still milk their Sheep a Quarter of a Year after the usual time or near Whereupon I procured it for six Weeks to the greatest increase of my Ease Strength and Flesh of any thing that ever I had tried 2. And at the same time being driven from Home and having an Old License of the Bishop's yet in Force by the Countenance of that and the great industry of Mr. Berisford I had Leave and Invitation for Ten Lord's Days to Preach in the Parish-Churches round about The first Parish that I Preach'd in after Thirteen Years Ejection and Prohibition was Rickmersworth and after that at Sarrat at Kings Langley at Chessam at Chalford and at Amersham and that often Twice a Day Those heard that had not come to Church of Seven Years and Two or Three Thousand heard where scarce an Hundred were wont to come and with so much Attention and Willingness as gave me very great Hopes that I never spake to them in vain And thus Soul and Body had these special Mercies § 313. But the Censures of Men pursued me as before The Envious Sort of the Prelatists accused me as if I had intruded into the Parish-Churches too boldly and without Authority The Quarrelsome Sectaries or Separatists did in London speak against me for drawing People to the Parish-Churches and the Liturgy and many gave out That I did Conform And all my Days nothing hath been charged on me so much as my Crimes as my costliest and greatest Duties But the pleasing of God and saving Souls will pay for all § 314. The Countries about Rickmersworth abounding with Quakers because Mr. W. Pen their Captain dwelleth there I was desirous that the Poor People should Once hear what was to be said for their Recovery Which coming to Mr. Pen's Ears he was forward to a Meeting where we continued speaking to Two Rooms full of People Fasting from Ten a Clock till-Five One Lord and Two Knights and Four Conformable Ministers besides others being present some all the Time and some part The Success gave me Cause to believe that it was not labour lost An Account of the Conference may be published ere
long if there be cause § 315. Whilst this was my Employment in the Countrey my Friends at home had got one Mr. Seddon a Nonconformist of Derbyshire lately come to the Gity as a Traveller to Preach the Second Sermon in my New Built Chappel He was told and over-told all the Danger and desired not to come if he feared it I had left word That if he would but step into my House through a Door he was in no danger they having not Power to break open any but the Meeting-house While he was Preaching Three Justices with Soldiers supposed by Secretary Coventry's sending came to the Door to seize the Preacher They thought it had been I and had prepared a Warrant upon the Oxford Act to send me for Six Months to the Common Goal The good man and Two Weak Honest Persons intrusted to have directed him left the House where he was safe and thinking to pass away came to the Justices and Soldiers at the Door and there stood by them till some one said This is the Preacher And so they took him and blotted my Name out of the Warrant and put in his Though almost every Word fitted to my Case was false of him To the Gatehouse he was carried where he continued almost Three Months of the Six and being earnestly desirous of Deliverance I was put to Charges to accomplish it and at last having Righteous Judges and the Warrant being found faulty he had an Habeas Corpus and was freed upon Bonds to appear again the next Term. § 316. By this means my Case was made much worse For 1. The Justices and other Prosecutors were the more exasperated against me 2. And they were now taught to stop every Hole in the next Warrant to which I was still as liable as ever So that I had now no Prospect that way of Escape And yet though my Charge Care and Trouble had been great for his Deliverance and Good People had dealt very kindly with him my usual Back-biters the Prelatists and Separatists talk commonly of me as one that had unworthily saved my self from Danger and drawn a Stranger into the Snare and therefore deserved to bear all the Charges Though as is said 1. I was Twenty Miles off Preaching publickly 2. They that askt him to Preach told him the Worst 3. He went into Danger from Safety by the Conduct of some Persons of that censorious humour 4. My Danger was Increased by it as well as my Charges But Man's Approbation is a Poor Reward § 317. Just when I came home and was beginning to seek Mr. Seddon's Deliverance Mr. Rosse Died the Fiercest of the Justices who had sent me to Goal before The other Two are one Mr. Grey and Sir Philip Matthews § 318. The Parliament being sate again a Letter was secretly printed containing the History of the Debate in the Lord's House the former Sessions about the Test and it was Voted to be burnt by the Hangman but the more desired and read it In which it appeareth That when it came to be their own case more was said by the Lords for the Cause of the Nonconformists than ever they were permitted to say for themselves § 319. A most Excellent Book was written for the Nonconformists for Abatements and Forbearance and Concord by Dr. Herbert Crofts Bp. of Hereford without his Name of which more afterward § 320. The Lords and Commons Revived their Contests about their Powers and Priviledges and the Lords appointed Four Lawyers to plead their Cause and the Commons set up Orders or Votes to forbid them And the Duke of Buckingham made a Notable Speech against Persecution and desired the Consent of the Lords that he might bring in a Bill for the Ease of His Majesty's Protestant Subjects in matters of Religion but while it was preparing the King on Monday November 21st Prorogued the Parliament till February come Twelve-month § 321. The Speeches of the Earl of Shaftsbury and others about the Test were secretly Printed and a Paper of Reasons for Dissolving this Parliament and Calling a New One which were given in the House of Lords And the Debates of this Test opening a little of the Noncouformists Cause as to the Oxford Oath together with what the Earl of Shaftsbury hath done with Wit and Resolution hath alienated many even of the Conformists from the present prevailing Bishops § 322. The other of the fierce Justices that Subscribed a Warrant for my imprisonment died shortly after viz. Colonel Grey The Death of Mr. Barwell Sir Iohn Medlicot Mr. Ross and Mr. Grey besides the Death of some Informers and the Repentance of others and the Death of some late Opposers of the Clergy made me and some others the more to compassionate Persecutors and dread God's Judgments § 323. The Town of Northampton lamentably burnt § 324. An Earthquake in divers Counties § 325. My Dear Friend Sir Matthew Hale Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench falling into a Languishing Disease from which he is not like to Recover resolvedly petitioned for a Dismission and gave up his Place having gone through his Employments and gone off the Stage with more universal love and honour for his Skill Wisdom Piety and resolved Justice than ever I heard or read that any English Man ever did before him or any Magistrate in the World of his rank since the days of the Kings of Israel He resolved in his weakness that the place should not be a burden to him nor he to it And after all his great practice and places he tells me That with his own Inheritance and all he is not now worth above Five hundred Pounds per Annum so little sought he after gain He may most truly be called The Pillar and Basis or Ground of Iustice as Paul called not the Church but Timothy in the Church the Pillar and Basis of Truth His digested knowledge in Law above all Men and next in Philosophy and much in Theology was very great His sincere honesty and humility admirable His Garb and House and Attendance so very mean and low and he so resolutely avoided all the Diversions and Vanities of the World that he was herein the Marvel of his Age. Some made it a Scandal but his Wisdom chose it for his Convenience that in his Age he Marryed a Woman of no Estate suitable to his Disposition to be to him as a Nurse He succeeded me in one of the meanest Houses that ever I had lived in and there hath ever since continued with full content till now that he is going to his Native Countrey in likely-hood to die there It is not the least of my pleasure that I have lived some years in his more than ordinary Love and Friendship and that we are now waiting which shall be first in Heaven Whither he saith he is going with full content and acquiescence in the Will of a gracious God and doubts not but we shall shortly live together O what a blessed World were this were the
and also how the Plot was laid to Kill the King Thus Oates's Testimony seconded by Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey's Murder and Bedlow and Pranse's Testimonies became to be generally believed Ireland a Jesuit and Two more were Condemned as designing to Kill the King Hill Berry and Green were Condemned for the murder of Godfrey and Executed But Pranse was by a Papist first terrified into a Denyal again of the Plot to Kill the King and took on him to be Distracted But quickly Recanted of this and had no Quiet till he told how he was so Affrighted and Renewed all his Testimony and Confession After this came in one Mr. Dugdale a Papist and confessed the same Plot and especially the Lord Stafford's interest in it And after him more and more Evidence daily was added â—â—â—man the Dutchess of York's Secretary and one of the Papists great Plotters and Disputers being surprized though he made away all his later Papers was hanged by the Old Ones that were remaining and by Oates his Teâ—â—imony But the Parliament kept off all Aspersions from the Duke The Hopes of some and the Fears of others of his Succession prevailed with many § 28. At last the Lord Treasurer Sir Thomas Osborne made Earl of Danby came upon the stage having been before the object of the Parliament and People's jealousy and hard thoughts He being afraid that somewhat would be done against him knowing that Mr. Montague his Kinsman late Ambassadour in France had some Letters of his in his keeping which he thought might endanger him got an order from the King to seize on all Mr. Montagues Letters who suspecting some such usage had conveyed away the chief Letters and telling the Parliament where they were they sent and fetcht them and upon the reading of them were so instigated against the Lord Treasurer they impeached him in the Lords House of High Treason But not long after the King disolved the long Parliament which he had kept up about 17 or 18 years But a new Parliament is promised § 29. Above 40 Scots men of which 3 Preachers were by their Council sentenced to be not only banished but sold as servants called slaves to the American Plantations They were brought by ship to London Divers Citizens offered to pay their ransom The King was petitioned for them I went to the D. of Lauderdale but none of us could prevail for one man At last the Ship-Master was told that by a Statute it was a Capital crime to Transport any of the King's Subjects out of England where now they were without their consent and so he set them on shoar and they all escaped for nothing § 30. A great number of Hungarian Ministers had before been sold for Gally slaves by the Emperour's Agents but were released by the Dutch Admiral 's Request and some of them largely relieved by Collections in London § 31. The long and grievous Parliament that silenced about 2000 Ministers and did many works of such a nature being dissolved as aforesaid on Ian. 25. 1678. A new one was chosen and met on March 6 following And the King refusing their chosen speaker Mr. Segmore raised in them a greater displeasure against the Lord Treasurer thinking him the cause and after some days they chose Serjeant Gregory § 32. The Duke of York a little before removed out of England by the King's Command who yet stands to maintain his Succession § 33. The Parliament first impeached the foresaid Papist Lords for the Plot or Conspiracy the Lord Bellasis Lord Arundel Lord of Powis Lord Scafford and Lord Peter and after them the Lord Treasurer 34. New fires breaking out enrage the People against the Papists A great part of Southwark was before burnt and the Papists strongly suspected the cause Near half the buildings of the Temple were burnt And it was greatly suspected to be done by the Papists One Mr. Bifeild's house in Holbourn and Divers others so fired but quenched as made it very probable to be by their Conspiracy And at last in Fitter-Lane it fell on the house of Mr. Robert Bird a Man employed in Law of great Judgment and Piety who having more wit than many others to search it out found that it was done by a new Servant Maid who confessed it first to him and then to a Justice and after to the Lords that one Nicholas Stubbes a Papist having first made her promise to be a Papist next promised her 5 l. to set fire on her Master's house telling her that many others were to do the like and the Protestant Hereticks to be killed by the middle of Iune and that it was no more sin to do it than to kill a Dog Stubbes was taken and at first vehemently denyed but after confessed all and told them that one Giffard a Priest and his Confessor engaged him in it and Divers others and told them all as aforesaid how the Firing and Plot went on and what hope they had of a French Invasion The House of Commons desired the King to pardon the woman Eliz. Oxley and Stubbes § 35. If the Papists have not Confidence in the French Invasion God leaveth them to utter madness to hasten their ruine They were in full junctness through the Land and the noise of rage was by their design turned against the Nonconformists But their hopes did cast them into such an impatience of delay that they could no longer stay but must presently Reign by rage of blood Had they studied to make themselves odious to the Land they could have found out no more effectual way than by Firing Murder and Plotting to kill the King All London at this day is in such fear of them that they are fain to keep up private Watches in all streets besides the Common ones to save their houses from firing Yea while they find that it increaseth a hatred of them and while many of them are already hanged they still go on which sheweth either their confidence in Foreign Aid or their utter infatuation § 36. Upon Easter day the King dissolved his privy Council and settled it a new consisting of 30 men most of the old ones the Earl of Shaftsbury being President to the great joy of the People then tho since all is changed § 37. On the 27th of April 1679. Tho it was the Lord's Day the Parliament State excited by Stubbes his Confession that the Firing Plot went on and the French were to invade us and the Protestants to be murdered by Iune 28 and they voted that the Duke of York's declaring himself a Papist was the cause of all our dangers by these Plots and sent to the Lords to concur in the same Vote § 38. But the King that week by himself and the Chancellour acquainted them that he should consent to any thing reasonable to secure the Protestant Religion not alienating the Crown from the Line of Succession and Particularly that he would consent that till the Successour should take the Test he should exercise
to leave God unworshipped Publickly and our People untaught and set Satan raign and Souls perish by Thousands for fear of saving them without Episcopal Ordination If you still say that we should be of your Mind and be ordained by Bishops we again say our judgments are not at our Command we cannot believe what we list I know multitudes of Anti-Episcopal Men that study as faithfully and seek God's Direction as heartily as any of you all and yet cannot see the Justness of your Cause though whether it be just or not I purposely forbear to pass my Censure if still you say it is our Wilfulness or Peevishness I leave you as Usurpers of God's Prerogative and pretending to that Knowledge of our Hearts which is a step above the Papal Arrogation of Infallability Nay seeing I have gone so far I will add this do you not imitate the Papists in the main Point of Recusansy by which we were wont to know them in England Nay we had many Church Papists that went not so far must not you as they have People disclaim our Ministry and Assemblies and not join in them for fear of owning unordained Men. Be not too angry with us I pray you if we call not such Protestants or at least if we take it for impossible to have Concord with them 2. I must also tell you that are offended at my Saying that those particular Bishops named deserved to be cast out that if you be one that dare own them in their Ways or would have the Church have such as they yea that do not detest and lament their Miscarriages seem to your self as Pious as you will you are no Man for our Company and Concord Do you complain of me for want of Christian Charity and yet would you have the Church have such Bishops as would cast out such Men as Aims Parker Baines Bradshaw Dod Hildersham with Multitudes of as painful able Godly Men as the World knew and leave so many drunken reading Sots some thereabouts Faggot Makers or Rope Makers many that did and that lately whether we will or not till the late Act get their Living by unlawful Marriages and such Courses as is a Shame to Mention yea would you have Bishops that would do as your Bishop Wren Pierce and the others did whose Accusations are upon Record For my part I think such Mens destroying the Church was the cause of all our wars and Misery and he that dare own them in it after all this is no Man for our Association I love no Man the worse for being for Bishops but for being for such Bishops and such Practices I do They are yet alive enquire what Men Mr. Dance and Mr. Turner are who were the Teachers of this Parish and what the People were then and what they are now Grant but Piety Love and Concord to be better than Ignorance and Debauchery and then judge of them Except to Sect. 22. Page 64. Speaking of Episcopal Divines he saith and if Liberty of Sects and Separations be publickly granted and confirmed to all you shall soon find that the Party that I am now dealing with will soon by their Numbers obscure all other Parties that now trouble our Peace ibid. pag. 64. n. 13. Reply to Sect. 22. It was my necessary care to distinguish between Protestant Bishops and Popish of Cassender's strain and it is your Care with all subtilty to obscure the Distinction that you may involve the honest Party in your Guilt and Snares That which I there spoke only of Popish Bishops and their Party you would intimate that I spake of the Episcopal Protestants then which nothing less is true as my Words fully shew I tell you plainly such Bishops as Usher Hall Morton Iewel c. are twenty fold nearer me in Judgment than they are to you if you be one of the Cassandrian Papists that there I speak against why then should they not sooner join with us than with you If ever God set up Episcopal Government where I live yea though I wer unsatisfied of its right I will obey them in all things not against the Word of God were it but for Peace and Unity Except to Sect. 23. They would have all the People take us for no Ministers c. and so all God's Worship be neglected in publick where no Bishops and their Missionaries are and so when all others are diseased or turned out the Papists may freely enter there being none but these few faithful Friends of their own to keep them out which how well they will do you may by these conjecture and n. 15. of the same Page But it is a higher Charge than Popery that these Episcopal Doctors that I now speak of are liable to c. Reply to Sect. 23. Is not this true How much of it do you plainly maintain in this Writing I had rather you had freed your selves of the Charge then called it Uncharitable Excep to Sect. 24. Pag. 66. N. 5. Speaking to those same Men he saith You must be certain that those same Men had Intentionem Ordinationis if you be right Papists indeed did ever any one ever hear and read any one single English Episcopal Doctor require Intention as necessary to Ordination If not call you that Speech of Mr. Baxter's Christian Charity Reply to Sect. 24. Remember this that no Protestants say Presbyters have no more Power than the Ordainer intended them You may see by that that I speak to Papists why then would you intimate that it was to Protestant Bishops Except to Sect. 25. Pag. 67. Do not these Mens Grounds leave it certain that Christ hath no true Church or Ministry or Ordinances or Baptized Christians in England nay in all the Western Church and perhaps not in the whole World and then see whether these Popish Divines must not prove Seekers Reply to Sect. 25. O that you would vindicate them from that Charge though heavy by proving the uninterrupted canonical Succession from the Apostles Except to Sect. 26. Pag. 47. Speaking of some under the Name of Episcopal Divines saith that they withdraw the People from obeying their Pastors by pretending a Necessity of Episcopacy c. and partly instil into them such Principles as may prepare them for flat Popery and yet in the next Page 48. saith that those same Men do themselves viz. Mr. Chisenhall against Vane Mr. Waterhouse for Learning Zealous Men for Episcopacy publish to the World what a pack of notorious ignorant silly Souls or wicked unclean Persons those are that are turned Papists How now can Mr. Baxter call those Men that so publish c. faithful Friends to Rome pag. 64. See how Uncharitableness betrays and accuses it self in its busy Accusations of others and must justify them per Force of Truth when it would condemn Reply to Sect 26. Why what is the Scope of this your Writing but to prove that we are not Pasters and would you not then draw the People from acknowledging us such
Spirit among others is a great rejoicing to me And I hope I may tell you that it is in vain as I am sure I may tell you it is no small Sin any more to resist and strive against him If the Hand of our dear and tender Lord be setting you in joint again shrink not on account of present pain much less should you fear the Reproach of being in Communion with the Body but impartially hearken unto him and yield but lay by all Tumults of Spirits and Passions and get out of the Noise of vulgar Clamours for the Voice of Peace is a still Voice and in Calmness must be attended unto And when you are restored if you find not the Sweetness and Advantages of Peace if you are indeed restored in Mind as well as Practice the Lord hath not spoken in this by me I can hardly think that he that hath raised these Thoughts within you and begun these Convictions will let them die In order to the Ends desired and hoped for I shall offer you so much of my present Thoughts as your described Case requires And 1. though I desire not to dispute the Case of Infant Baptism with you now yet I may say we believe you live in a constant Sin against the Lord in neglecting denying and opposing it and that if you will by one erroneous Supposition draw on a Chain of hurtful Consequences you are the Cause of your own Disorders At a fitter Season I should desire you but to answer me this one Argument All that should be sacramentally or solemnly inticed into the Holy Covenant with God as his People should be Baptized or at least be taken as true Members of the Church and their Entrance just but the Infants of believing Parents should be sacramentally and solemnly entred into Covenant with God or his People Ergo c. The Minor we give you the abundant Proof of Law and Promise for before Christ. It was Abraham's Duty and Priviledge according to the Tenour of the Promise which was made with him before the Law to enter his Children sacramentally and solemnly into the holy Covenant It was all the Churches Duty after both Jews and Proselytes both the uncircumcised Females and the circumcised Males and all the uncircumcised Church in the Wilderness Deut. 29 c. Tell me now how I should answer it before the Lord if I tell Parents that they are absolved from this Duty of solemn entring their Children into the Covenant and are divested of the blessed Priviledge especially when you here tell me well that you know of none but his Body that Christ is the Saviour of and that the Church is this Body Ergo you know of no Salvation for Infants if they be not of the Church Ergo Exclussion would be a heavy Case shall I say that Christ hath recalled this Law and Grant but how should I prove it I shew you the Law and Grant do you shew me the Repeal and we have done Christ never speaks a word to repeal it nor any of his Apostles Entring our Children into the holy Covenant is not a Ceremony If God say to a Father why didst thou not dedicate this Child to me and solemnly enter him into Covenant with me what can he say The Precept Promise and long Practice were plain was the Repeal also plain Yes if it be a Repeal for Christ to take such Children into his Arms and bless them and tell us of such is his Kingdom and to be offended with those that would have kept them from him and to command that all Disciples be Baptized He knew well enough when he instituted Baptism and exercised it first upon the adult that the Iews did so too with their Proselites And Ergo when he did in that no more than they did that yet admitted the Infants of Church-Members his baptizing the Adult could no more signify his Denial of Infants to be baptized than the Iews baptizing the Adult could signify it who at that time baptized Infants also nor could the Disciples interpret Christ's Doctrine and Will to be contrary to the Iews when his Practice was no more than theirs And when he never uttered a Syllable to intimate a Repeal of that great Mercy and Duty of entring Infants solemnly into the Covenant which by God's Appointment had continued so long And the Covenant was I will be thy God and thou shalt be my People But all this falls in besides my first intent and therefore I rather expect your Pardon than your regard of it at the present though time may shew you Light in that which now seems Darkness 2. But if our Infant Baptism were irregular how will you prove it a Nullity never by any sound Argument every Irregularity is not a Nullity Whether you take the Word as signifying Faedus Sacramentale a Sacramental Covenant as Scripture commonly doth more notably intending the Covenant than the outward Act or Sacramentum Faederale a Federal Sacrament or Action most notably signifying the Sign or Act it 's all one to our purpose for Infants are capable of both the Covenant and the outward Sign and of all that is essential to Baptism That they are capable of being entred into Covenant 1. Nature tells us we commonly enter them under Princes as their Subjects and into private Contracts with Landlords for Possessions 2. The ancient Law Promise and Practice of the Church before Christ tells us for then it was actually done by God's Command And that they are capable of the outward Sign is undeniable Prove it a Nullity if you can though it were a Sin 3. But if both were granted the Sin and Nullity I come now to give you my Reasons why it warrants you not to deny Communion with the Churches that were thus Baptized in Infancy And 1. I beseech you note that Baptism is as necessary if not much more to the Admission of Men into the universal visible Church as such or into a particular Church Ergo If Men may be admitted into the universal visible Church without adult Baptism then he may be admitted into a particular Church without it But yet here grant that he may be a Member of the universal Church without it Ergo Baptism is indeed appointed to be our regular entrance by way of Sacramental Covenant and Investiture into the Church Universal and not into a particular Church necessarily though it may be into both yet it is but indirectly into the particular Church The Eunuch and all that were baptized first in any place by the Apostles were baptized only into the Church universal and afterward setled in Order under Pastors in particular Churches Baptism as such as it was called our Christening doth only list Men under Christ as Christians and if it do any more as to the thing in Question it is accidentally and not always nor necessarily We are not directly sure baptized to our Pastors and so not to that Particular Church nothing then is more plain
est ut res ita tempora rerum c. The Lord Bacon nameth Four Causes of Atheism 1. Many Divisions in Religion 2. The Scandal of Priests 3. A Custom of Prophane Scoffing about Holy Matters 4. Corrupting prosperity Essay 16. p. 91. * Mr. Mitchel as it s said And since this Mr. Elliot of New-England hath sent me a printed Paper of his own contriving a Healing Form of Synods for constant Communion of particular Churches * This is since published She is since married to the Earl of Argyle * Of what is since published see after-ward * Since printed twice * Since printed Since printed as Directions for weak Christians * Now dead * Publisht since the Author's Death by Mr. Ios. Read * Since Printed * Since Printed * Archbishop Bilâ—on frequently and fully professeth See this matter fully cleared in Le Blancis Thesis * 〈…〉 In the Appendâ—x Pardon the tediousness of three or four Sections which repeat some of that which was mentioned before because it is here put in as part of my Pacificatory Endeavours only Though the Conjunction of the matter caused me to speak together of these things yet the matter of this Section and the following was for time about two or three Years after that which followeth In Ian. 1659. the Committee of Parliament the Rump as they were called Voted Liberty of Religion for all not excepting Papists Feb. 28. 1655 6. * This Writing being some how or other mistard cannot as yet be found March 10. 16â—9 A Petition was sent up from Worcestershire to have 〈◊〉 the Long Parliament â—ate till they had done that for King and Church and Country which they were restored for But it was not delivered because Mâ—â—k that recalled them was otherwise benâ— March 16. The Long Parliament â—â—â—tlolâ—ed it self March 25. Dr. Hammond died The last Day of April 1660. I preached to the Parliament May 1. 1660. the Parliament owned the King and voted his Recall This was in the end of Nov. 1660. Iune 25. 1660. I was Sworn the King's Chaplain in Ordinary This was put in because the serious practice of Religion had been made the common Scorn and a few Christians praying or repeating a Sermon together had been persecuted by some Prelates as a heinous Crime This was added because we knew what had been done and was like to be done again This was added because that the utter neglect of Discipline by the over-hot Prelates had caused all our Perplexities and Confusions and in this Point is the chiefest part of our Difference with them indeed and not about Ceremonies This was added because abundance of Ministers had been cast out in the Prelates Days for not reading publickly a Book which allowed Dancing and such Sports on the Lord's Day a a The Form of ordering of Priests b b Ibidem Acts 20 17 18. * * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so taken Matth. 2. 6. Rev. 12. â— 19. 15 c c Rev. 2. 1. e e Ibidem etiam exhortationes castigationes censurae divinae nam indicatur magno cum pondere ut apud certos de Dei conspectu summumque futuri Iudicii praejudicium esse Si quis ita deliquerit ut a communione orationis conventus omnis Sancti commercii relegatur Praesident probati quique seniores hoc norem istum non precio sed testimonio adepti Tert. Apol. Cap. 39. f f Nec de aliorum manibus quam praesidentium sumimus idem de corona militis Cap. 3. g g Dandi quidem baptismi habet jus Summus Sacerdos qui est Episcopus desint Presbyteri Diaconi Idem de Baptismo Cap. 17. h h Omni actu ad me periâ—to 〈◊〉 coâ—trahi Presbyterium Cornel apud Cyprian Epis. 46. i i Florentissimâ— illi clero lecum praesidenti Cyprian Epist. 55. ad Cornel. k k Vt Episcopus nullus caâ—â—sam audiat absque presentiâ clericorum suorum alioquin irrita erit sententia Episcopi nisi clericorum presentiâ confirmetur Concil Carthag 4. Cap. 23. l l Encerption Egberti Cap. 43. m m 15. qu. 7. Cap. Nullus The Parochial Government answerable to the Church-Session in Scotland The Presbyterical or Monthly Synods answerable to the Scottish Presbytery or Ecclesiastical Meeting Diocesane Synods answerable to the provincial Synods in Scotland * * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. Superintendentes unde nomen Episcopi tractum est Hieron Epist. 85. ad Evagrium See Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions and our 39 Articles This is spoken of the Old Common Prayer Book and not of the New where the Doctrine in point of Infants Salvation is changed All this enclosed part was left out of the Petition as presented to his Majesty This only being inserted in the room of it And on the contrary should we lose the Opportunity of our desired Reconciliation and Union it astonisheth us to foresee what doleful Effects our Divisions would produce which we will not so much as mention in particulars lest our Words should be misunderstood And seeing all this may safely and easily now be prevented we humbly beseech the Lord in Mercy to vouchsafe to your Majesty an Heart to discern a right of Time and Judgment * * This was thus expressed in the Petition that was presented not presuming to meddle with the Consciences of those many of the Nobility and Gentry c. ††What follows in this double inclosure was omitted in the Copy presented this only being inserted in the room of it We only crave your Majesty's Clemency to our selves and others who believe themselves to be under its Obligations And God forbid that we that are Ministers of the Word of Truth should do any thing to encourage your Majesty's Subjects to cast off the Conscience of an Oath * * This enclosed part was quite left out of the Copy that was presented * Dr. Wallis Declar. p. 11. p. 11. p. 11. p. 12. p. 12. p. 12. p. 12. p. 13. p. 14. This occasioned Mr. Durel after to say how hardly I was persuaded to let go the Place * But since it is licensed and printed called Directions for weak Christians c. Mr. Hales * Since Bishops of Chester Ely and Norwich upon enquiry of the Inhabitants since I understand that it is no such thing but that Aylesbury was well supplied either by a setled Incumbent or the Preacher of the Garison For somewhat the like Passage see Rushw. Hist. Callect 3 part Vol. 1. 134. Our Arguments Their Answer Note this great Bishop's Acquaintance with Antiquity * Here we had a great Debate they should have proved their penal Imposition lawful but I could get them to no more * This was a mistake in the Speaker or the Scribe * Frewen * Since of his death he made it his request that the ejected Ministers might be used again but his request was rejected by them that had overwitted him as being too late * Referring to something that past
Scripture without Exposition I distinguished the two parts of the Controversie 1. Whether there be Bread after Consecration 2. Whether there be Christ's Body And the first I proved by express Scripture and I thought gave him enough And after two or three hours he brake off fairly but yielding nothing He after affirmed that a Woman was but a Nurse aud no Governour to her Children and that if he commanded them to deny Christ they were bound to obey him else Families would be Confounded § 245. I had fourteen Years been both a necessary and voluntary stranger at the Court but at this time by another's invitation called to attend the Duke of Lauderdaile who still professed special kindness to me and some pious Scotsmen being under suffering one absconding another sequestred and undone and craving my interposition for them I went to him and desired his Pardon and Clemency for them which he readily granted And being to reprint my Key for Catholicks where his Name was in too low a manner in the Epistle he being then a Prisoner in Windsor-Castle I told him that to omit it might seem a Neglect and so to mention him would be an injurious dishonour and therefore if he pleased I would put to it an Epistle Dedicatory which he consented to and approved of the Epistle before it was Printed But being fain to leave out the second part of the Book and much of the first that the rest might be licensed I printed instead of that left out a new Treatise on the Subject on which I disputed with Mr. Wray called Full and easie Satisfaction which is the true Religion Wherein Popery is brought to sence of the meanest Wit But some were offended that I prefixed the Duke's Name as if it tended to honour him at that time when he was decried as a chief Counsellour for absolute Monarchy for the War with the Dutch and a standing Army and he was threatned as soon as the Parliament sat but went into Scotland as Commissioner and called a Parliament there for my part I never lookt for a Farthing Profit by any great Man nor to my remembrance ever received the worth of a farthing from any of them But I would not in Pride deny any Man his due honour nor be so uncharitable as to refuse to make use of any Man's favour for Sufferers in their distress The matters of their State Counsels are above my reach § 246. In October the Lord Clifford called the chief of the secret Council having the Summer before been at Tunbridge Water fell into several Distempers and shortly after died So near is the fall of the greatest to his Rising which was a great blow to his Party § 247. Mr. Falkener Minister of Lin a sober learned Man wrote a book for Conformity which that Party greatly boasted of as unanswerable Indeed he speaketh plausibly to many of the Nonconformists smallest Exceptions against some particular words in the Liturgy and some Ceremonies but as to the great Matters the Declaration and the Oxford Oath and Subscription and Re-ordination and the Image of the Cross as a Symbol of Christianity and dedicating sign in Baptism the Ministers denying Baptism to those that scruple the Cross or to the Children of those that dare not forbear Covenanting for their own Children in Baptism and lay it all on Godfathers the rejecting those from the Lord's Supper that dare not take it kneeling the Thanksgiving at Burials for the happiness of notorious impenitent wicked Men and other such like his Defence is so poor and slight as is fit to satisfie no Judicious Man that is not prepared for Errour by Interest and Will But pro captu Lectoris c. § 248. On the 20 th of October the Parliament met again and suddenly voted that the King should be sent to about the Duke of York's Marriage with an Italian Papist a-kin to the Pope and to desire that it might be stopt he being not yet come over And as soon as they had done that the King by the Chancellour prorogued them till Monday following because it is not usual for a Parliament to grant Money twice in one Session § 249. On Monday when they met the King desired speedy Aid of Money against the Dutch and the Lord Chancellour set forth the Reasons and the Dutch unreasonableness But the Parliament still stuck to their former resentment of the Duke of York's Marriage and renewed their Message to the King against it who answered them that it was debated at the open Council and resolved that it was too late to stop it § 250. Some one laid in the Parliament-House they say near the Speaker's Chair a wooden Shooe such as the Peasants wear in France with some Beads and on one end drawn the Arms of France and on the other the Arms of England and written between Vtrum horum mavis accippe And Henry Stubbs now Physician once under Library-Keeper in Oxford who was accounted an Infidel and wrote against Monarchy for Sir Henry Vane and against me perswading the Army and Rump to question me for my Life and after was drawn by the Court to write against the Dutch now Printed a Half-Sheet called The Parit Gazette containing many Instances where Marriage by Proxy had been broken for which he was sent to the Tower § 251. On Friday Oct. 31. The Parliament went so high as to pass a Vote that no more Money should be given till the eighteen Months of the last Tax were expired unless the Dutch proved obstinate and unless we were secured against the danger of Popery and Popish Counsellours and their Grievances were redressed 252. The Parliament Voted to ask of his Majesty a day of Humiliation because of the Growth of Popery and intended solemnly to keep the Powder-Plot and appointed Dr. Stillingfleet to Preach to them who is most engaged by writing against Popery but on the day before being Nov. 4. the King to their great discontent prorogued the Parliament to Ian. 7. § 253. The seventh of Ianuary the Parliament met again and voted that their first work should be to prevent Popery redress Grievances and be secured against the Instruments or Counsellours of them And they shortly after voted the Dukes of Buckingham and Lauderdale unfit for trust about the King and desired their Removal But when they came to the Lord Arlington and would have accordingly Characterized him without an Impeachment it was carried against that Attempt And because the Members who favoured the Nonconformists for considerable Reasons were against the rest and helped off the Lord Arlington the rest were greatly exasperated against him and reported that they did it because he had furthered the Nonconformists Licenses for tolerated Preaching § 254. Sir Anthony Ashley Cowper â—ometimes one of Oliver's Privy-Council having been a great Favourite of the King for great Service for him and made Earl of Shaftshury and Lord Chancellour and great in the secretest Councils at last openly set against others on the
account of Religion earnestly declaming against Popery and becoming the Head of the Party that were zealous for the Protestant Cause and awakened the Nation greatly by his Activity And being quickly put out of his place of Chancellourship he by his bold and skillful way of speaking so moved the House of Lords that they began to speak higher against the danger of Popery than the Commons and to pass several Votes accordingly And the Earl of Shaftsbury spake so plainly of the Duke of York as much offended and it was supposed would not long be born The Earl of Clare the Lord Hollis the Lord Hallifax and others also spake very freely And among the Bishops only that I heard of Sir Herbert Crofts who had sometimes been a Papist the Bishop of Hereford And now among Lords and Commons and Citizens and Clergy the talk went uncontrolled that the Duke of York was certainly a Papist and that the Army lately raised and encamped at Black-heath was designed to do their Work who at once would take down Parliaments and set up Popery And Sir Bucknall told them in the House of such Words that he had overheard of the late Lord Treasurer Clifford to the Lord Arundell as seemed to increase their Satisfaction of the Truth of all but common observation was the fullest satisfaction In a word the offence and boldness of both Houses grew so high as easily shewed men how the former War began aâ—d silenced many that said it was raised by Nonconformists and Presbyterians § 255. The third of February was a publick Fast against Popery the first as I remember that besides the Anniversary Fasts had ever been since this Parliament sate which hath now sate longer than that called the long Parliament did before the major part were cast out by Cromwell But the Preachers Dr. Cradock and Dr. Whitchcot medled but little with that Business and did not please them as Dr. Stillingfleet had done who greatly animated them and all the Nation against Popery by his open and diligent endeavours for the Protestant Cause § 256. During this Session the Earl of Orery desired me to draw him up in brief the Terms and Means which I thought would satisfie the Non-conformists so far as to unite us all against Popery professing that he met with many Great Men that were much for it and particulary the New Lord Treasurer Sir Thomas Osborn and Dr. Morley Bishop of Winchester who vehemently profess'd his desires of it And Dr. Fullwood and divers others had been with me to the like purpose testifying the said Bishop's resolution herein I wisht them all to tell him from me that he had done so much to the contrary and never any thing this way since his Professions of that sort that till his real Endeavours convinced Men it would not be believed that he was serious But when I had given the Earl of Orery my Papers he returned them me with Bishop Morley's Strictures or Animadversions as by his Words and the Hand I had reason to be confident by which he fully made me see that all his Professions for Abanement and Concord were deceitful Suares and that he intended no such thing at all And because I have inserted before so much of such transactions I will here annex my Proposals with his Strictures and my Reply To the Right Honourable the Earl of Orery My Lord I Have here drawn up those Terms on which I think Ministers may be restored to the Churches Service and much union and quietness be procured But I must tell you 1. That upon second Thoughts I forbore to distribute them as I intimated to you into several Ranks but only offer what may tend to a Concord of the most though not of every man 2. That I have done this only on the suppositions that we were fain to go upon in our Consultation with Dr. 〈◊〉 viz. That no change in the Frame of Church-Government will be consented to Otherwise I should have done as we did in 1660 offered you Arch-bishop Vsher's Reduction of the Government to the primitive state of Episcopacy and have only desired that the Lay-Chancellours have not the Power of the Keys and that if not in every Parish at least in every Rural Deanry or Market-Town with the adjacent Villages the Ministers might have the Pastoral power of the Keys so far as is necessary to guide their own Administrations and not one Bishop or Lay-Chancellour's Court to have more to do than Multitudes can well do and thereby cause almost all true Discipline to be omitted 3. I have forborn to enumerate the Particulars which we cannot subscribe or swear to or practise because they are many and I fear the naming of them will be displeasing to others as seeming to accuse them while we do but say what a Sin such Conformity would be in our selves But if it should be useful and desired I am ready to do it But I now only say that the matters are far from being things doubtful or indifferent or little Sins in our Apprehensions of which we are ready to render a Reason But I think that this bare Proposal of the Remedies is the best and shortest and least offensive way In which I crave your Observation of these two Particulars 1. That it is the matter granted if it be even in our own Words that will best do the Cure For while other men word it that know not our Scruples or Reasons they miss our Sence usually and make it ineffectual 2. That the Reason why I crave that Ministers may have impunity who use the greatest part of the Liturgy for the Day is 1. To shorten the Accommodation that we may not be put to delay our Concord till the Liturgy be altered to the Satisfaction of Dissenters which we have cause to think will not be done at all Now this will silently and quietly heal us and if a Man omit some one Collect or Sentence without debate or noise it will not be noted nor be a matter of offence 2. And he is unworthy to be a Minister that is not to be trusted so much as with the using or not using of a few Sentences or words in all his Ministration 3. And almost every Minister that I hear all the Year of the most Conformable do every day omit some part or other and yet are not Silenc'd nor taken notice of as offenders at all And may not as much for our Concord be granted to Dissenters in the present case He that thinks that these Concessions will be more injurious to the Church and the Souls of Men than our Uncharitableness and Divisions have been these Eleven Years and are yet like to be is not qualified to be at all an Healer In Conclusion I must again intreat you that this Offer may be taken but as the Answer of your desire for your private use and that no Copy be given of it nor the Author made known unless we have encouragement from our Governours to
fear God to obey Men in doing what they think God forbiddeth and leaving undone what they think he commandeth 3. Or else to punish those that will not do this to utter Disablement Extirpation or Death The two first ways I was sure would never prevail And I knew that the third would cost so dear as that no Ceremonies Forms or unnecessary Oaths or Covenants would finally bear the Charges of it The Blood of the faithful is of hard digestion and Iudas his Conscience hath an awakening Day when his Companions in Guilt will cast him off And God essemeth such Blood precious And when the Jobb is done by it it leaveth an Everlasting Odium on the Doers and Shame upon their Cause And their own Successors disown it and say If we had lived in the days of our Fathers we would not have been Partakers with them in this Blood And they build their Sepulchres whom their Fathers slew and Saint them that were despised as Martin c. And the Moderate must come after to heal all by crying Shame on the Cruelty of their Predecessors as Salvian Clemangis Erasmus Espencaeus Cassander Grotius and such others do and say as Tertullian Solitudinem faciunt pacem vocant But the final Reckoning will pay for all Some say We and other Countries have lived in Peace on the Terms that you call impossible Answ. It 's true of some kind of Peace So they do in Spain Italy Turky Moscovy c. keep Men so ignorant that they shall not know Duty from Sin nor trouble their Heads about God's Law and in Satan's Darkness you may keep Men in his Peace and they will venture their Souls on the Opinion of them that can hurt their Bodies But when Christ battereth this Garrison of Satan he breaks this Peace And I knew that in England many score Thousands would never return to this ignorant Peace XIX As I was sure that there was no hopes of Peace in any but the way of plain Christianity so I found that all the wisest and famoustest Lights of the Church and greatest Peace-makers had still been of the same mind The Primitive Churches for Three hundred years did lay their Unity on this ground and by Degrees Divisions grew up as needless Impositions grew Nazianzen Hillary Vincentius Lerin c. and since Erasmus Ferus Cassender Grotius Acontius Bergius Iunius Usher Hall Daâ—â—enant Chillingworth Hales c. go all this necessary way And when my dearest Friend the Lord Chief Justice Hale was not far from death I wrote to him to leave his Judgment in Writing to the World of the true way to Heal our present Breaches And he left for me to that use three small Tractates before written which I published shewing that all our Divisions and Calamities come by making that to seem part of Religion which is none and that to be necessary which is not so XX. But lest any racked words of mine should be interpreted to be for Sedition or Schism these being the things that my Soul abhorreth I wrote near Twenty Books almost wholly against Schism and Sedition and all the Principles and Reasonings that favour them on all Extreams I was discouraged a while to find that the Stream of Philosophies Politicks Canonists Casuists Papists and Protestants and the greatest Lawyers that I could meet with agreed that the People are the Fountain of Civil Power and give the Soveraign what he hath and many such Notions I feared to contradict such a stream as this But being satisfied I first confuted it in Harrington 1659. and then punctually in Richard Hooker though dedicated by a Bishop to the King and then in many others of all sorts And for Church-Concord no Man living hath written half so much as I. And now after all I am singled out as accused for that which I have written near Twenty Books purposely against and above an Hundred in which this Doctrine of Love Unity and Subjection hath it due part XXI The words which are misinterpreted as Seditious by feigning me to mean worse than I speak leave me and all Writers to the mercy of Mistakers which are most that have ignorance and ill-will I mean no more than I speak If other Men say that my words signifie more they thereby make them theirs and not mine God only is the Judge of secret Thoughts Humane Converse hath made these Rules of Exposition First That words be taken in the usual sence of Men that Treat on the Subject that they handle unless the Speaker otherwise expound them Secondly That the whole Scope and Context must expound particular words Thirdly That an odd strained word is not to be taken contrary to the Author's Declaration of his Judgment in many whole Copious Volumes such as I have written against Disloyalty and Schism XXII Almost all the most approved Writers speak far more sharply without Sedition The words of Nazianzen Eusebius Chrysostom Hillary Salvian and many Fathers the words of Petrarch Clemangis Alvarus Pelagius Erasmus Iansenius Glandav Grotius Iewel Bilson I am ready to cite far more sharply speaking of the Sins of Civil and Church Rulers than ever I did besides such as Gildas Grosthead c. XXIII By such Accusers measures I am condemnable if I say but the Lord's Prayer or the Common Prayer when I am commanded They may say that I accuse the Church when I say that we have left undone the things that we ought to have done and done the things that we ought not to have done and there is no health in us And that I mean Rulers when I say Deliver us from Evil and Forgive our Enemies Persecutors and Slanderers and turn their Hearts and From our Enemies defend us O Christ Graciously look upon our Afflictions That we thy Servants being hurt by no Persecution may evermore c. That God will defend us in all the Assaults of Our Enemies That the Evils which the Craft or Subtilty of the Devil or Man worketh against us be brought to nought If at the Sacrament a Minister say If any be a hinderer of God's Word Repent or come not to this Holy Table lest the Devil enter into you as he did into Iudas and fill you full of all Iniquities and bring you to Destruction of Body and Soul What Remedy have I if any will say that I mean Rulers by these words as Silencers and Persecutors Yea or when I read all the dreadful Passages against Persecutors in the Gospel There is bound up with our Bibles and Liturgies a Prayer for Families which saith Confound Satan and Antichrist with all Hirelings and Papists whom thou hast already cast off into a reprobate sense that they may not by Sects Schisms Heresies and Errours disquiet thy little Flock And because O Lord we be fall'n into the latter days and dangerous times wherein Ignorance hath got the upper hand and Satan by his Ministers seeks by all means to quench the Light of thy Gospel we beseech thee to maintain thy
Cause against those ravening Wolves and strengthen all thy Servants whom they keep in Prison and Bondage Let not thy Long suffering be an occasion to increase their Tyranny or to discourage thy Children c. The Homilies have many Passages liable to hard Interpretations The use of none of these is Sedition XXIV From 1650. to 1660. I had Controversies by Manuscript with some great Doctors that took up with Dr. Hammond's and Petavius's new singular way of Pleading for Episcopacy which utterly betrayed it They held that in Scripture time all called Presbyters were Diocesan Bishops and that there was no such thing as our Subject Presbyters and yet that every Congregation had a Diocesan Bishop and that it was no Church that had not such a Bishop and that there are no more Churches than there are such Bishops And so when Diocesses were enlarged as ours the Parishes were no Churches for no Bishop had more than one And that Subject Presbyters are since made and are but Curates that have no more power than the Bishop pleaseth to give them Dr. Hammond in his Vindication saith That as far as he knoweth all that owned the same Cause with him against the Presbyterians were come to be of his mind herein And we know not of four Bishops then in England And the Et caetera Oath and Canons of 1640. and the Writers that nullified the Reformed Churches Ordination and Ministry and pleaded for a Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and for our Re-ordination all looking the same way I thought they knew the Judgment of the few remaining Bishops better than I did and sometime called it The Iudgment of the present Church here that is of these Church-men and the English Diocesans but proved that the Laws and Doctrine still owned as the Churches was contrary to them and took the Parishes for true Churches and the Incumbents true Pastors and the Diocesans to be over many Churches and not one alone whereas the Men that I gainsayed overthrew the whole Sacred Ministry among us and all our Churches as of Divine Institution for our Presbyters they say were not in Scripture times Our Parishes are no Churches for want of Bishops our Diocesans are no Successors of such Apostolick Men as were over many Churches ours having but one And they are not like those that they call the Scripture Diocesans for they say these Doctors had but single Assemblies These Men I confuted in my Treatise of Episcopacy and other Books But the Scribe or Printer omitting my Direction to put still The fore-described Prelacy and Church instead of The English Prelacy and Church I was put to number it with the Errata and give the Reader notice of it in the Preface and Title Page and have since vindicated the Church of England hereform XXV I hear the angry Protestant Recusants say It is just with God that he that hath done more than all others to draw Men to the Parish-Churches and hath these Thirty years been Reconciling us to the Papists in Doctrinals and is now called Bellarminus junior for his Arguments for Liturgies and Forms and in his Paraphrase hath so largely and earnestly pleaded for Charity to Papists as not Babylonish or Antichristian should be the first that should suffer by them and that for this very Book that so extraordinarily doth serve their Interest To which I say take heed of mis-expounding Providence that Errour hath cost England dear If I be put to doath by them I shall not repent of any of those Conciliatory Doctrines and Endeavours I have reviewed my Writings and am greatly satisfied that I suffer not for running into either Extream nor for any false Doctrine Rebellion Treason or gross Sin but that I have spent my Labour and Life against both Persecuting and causeless Separating And that I shall leave my Testimony against both to Posterity and for what could I more comfortably suffer It is by decrying their Persecution and Cruelty that I have angred the hurtful Papists and by confuting their gross undoubted Crimes more effectually than you do by the Name of Antichrist Babylon and the Whore And if their Cruelty on me should prove my Charge against them true I shall not be guilty of it Nor will their Sin abrogate God's great Law of Love even to Enemies and if it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men follow peace with all men blessed are the peace-makers c. The disorderly tumultuous Cries and Petitions of such ignorant Zealots for Extreams under the Name of Reformation and crying down all moderate Motions about Episcopacy and Liturgies and rushing fiercely into a War and young Lads and Apprentices and their like pricking forward Parliament Men had so great a part in our Sin and Misery from 1641. till 1660. as I must give warning to Posterity to avoid the like and love Moderation I repent that I no more discouraged ignorant Rashness in 1662. and 1663. but I repent not of any of my Motions for Peace XXVI I am sure that my Writings besides Humane Imperfection have no guilt of what they are accused unless other Men put their sense on my words and call it mine and say I meant the Rulers when I spake of Popish Interdicts Silencings and Persecutions And by that measure no Minister must speak against any Sin till he be sure that the Rulers are neither guilty nor defamed of it lest he be thought to mean them and so our Office is at an end If the Text and the general Corruption of the World lead me to speak against Fornication Perjury Calumny Lying Murder Cruelty or any Vice must I tell Men whom I mean by Name I mean all in the World that are guilty And why must my meaning be any more confined when I with the Text speak against Persecution and unjust Silencing the faithful Ministers of Christ while I say that Rulers may justly Silence all that forfeit their Commission and do more hurt than good XXVII Can any Man that hath read Church-History Fathers and Councils be ignorant how dolefully Satan hath corrupted and torn the Church by the Ambition and Tyranny of many Popes Patriarchs and Metropolitans while the humble fort of Bishops and Pastors have kept up the Life and Power of Christianity Or can any Man that maketh not Christ and his Church a meer Servant to Worldly Interest think that this should not by all true Christians be lamented Let such read Nazianzen's sad Description of the Bishops of his time in striving for the highest Seats and his wish that they were equal And the same wish of Isidore Pelusiota and the sharp Reproof hereof by Chrysostom Great Grotius expoundeth Matth. 24. 29. of the Powers of Heaven shaken thus It is the Christian Laity who after the Apostles times began to be marvellously shaken by the Tyranny of the Prelates who loved Pre-eminence and to Lord it oyer the Clergy by rash Excommunications and a daily increase of Schisms He that will