Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A26924
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The English nonconformity as under King Charles II and King James II truly stated and argued by Richard Baxter ; who earnestly beseecheth rulers and clergy not to divide and destroy the land and cast their own souls on the dreadful guilt and punishment of national perjury ...
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing B1259; ESTC R2816
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234,586
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307
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Children in Distress and Want They are judged by the Iustices unworthy so much as to be summoned to Answer for themselves before they are judged or to be heard Plead their own Cause or to know and question their Accusers and Witnesses But as I my self was Distreined of all my Goods and Books on five Convictions before ever I heard of any Accusation or saw a Iudge so is it with many others and more In a word Lords Knights and Clergy-men take us for unsufferable Persons in the Land unfit for Humane Society Enemies to Monarchy Obedience and Peace and Corporations promise to choose such Parliament Men as are for our Extirpation And all this is for our Nonconformity which they all confess to be our Duty if it be any Sin that by the Impositions is required of us And if so small and easie a task as proving one or many such Sins required would recover the Charity and Iustice of all these Men and save themselves and the Land from the guilt of Prosecuting and Oppressing the Innocent and Condemning Men for Obedience to God and driving conscionable and loyal Persons out of the Land or overwhelming them with false Accusations because of other Mens Treasons or Sedition is not he that will forbear his Part and Duty in so dreadful a Case a greater Sinner than he that when the City is on fire will not do his best to quench it or that will not put out his hand to save a Friend or Child in fire or Water for fear of some trouble to himself I did in my first Plea for Peace only name the Matters which we dare not Conform to and durst not give the Reasons of our Fear and Nonconformity Whereupon many since have importuned me for those Reasons as without which I could not expect that Men should understand our Case Why should I deny this Is it through despair that Rulers and Clergymen will not regard Reason or will not bear it but answer it with Contempt or Prisons That is to accuse them of such Injustice Uncharitableness and Inhumanity as I must not accuse any of that do not by open practice accuse themselves Is it lest I should suffer by them My Life and Labours have been long Vowed to God He hath preserved my Life and succeeded my Labours above forty Years by a continued course of remarkable Providence beyond my own and other Mens expectations What he hath thus given me is doubly due to his Service which hath been still so good to me that it hath made even a painful life a continual pleasure He never failed or forsook me I dare not ask any longer life of him but for more and longer Service And if my Service be at an end why not my Life also If I refuse his Service I invite God to cut off my Life And what Service else can I now do I have neither leave nor strength to Preach I have these fourteen Months been disabled so much as to go to any Publick or Private Church or hear a Sermon My Body with pain and languid feebleness is a daily heavy load to me I suffer more by it every day than from all my Enemies in the World. And shall I be guilty of the heinous Sin of the Omission of my Duty in a time of such urgent and crying Necessity to save so calamitous a Life which I am still looking when it endeth Is not a Prison as near a Way to Heaven as my own House I will not do as those Christians that Cyprian writes to Comfort who were greatly troubled at Death because they died not by Martyrdom But I take a Death for so publick and pressing a Cause of Truth Love Innocency and Peace to be a more comfortable sort of Martyrdom than theirs that were Burnt in Smithfield for denying the Real Presence and such like and if God will so end such a painful Life when Sickness and Natural decay is ready to end it I hope he will teach me neither to repine nor to be utterly unthankful And as to the uncertainty of success He that observeth the Wind shall not sow God must be trusted to bless our Work while we Plant and Water It 's my part to do my Duty and God's part to give success I commend my self living and dying into the hands of my Creator and Redeemer and end this Preface in the words of St. Paul Act. 20. 23 24. Bonds and afflictions abide me But none of these things move me neither count I my life dear unto my self so that I might finish my course with Joy and the Ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testifie the Gospel of the Grace of God. Richard Baxter London Sept. 28. 1683. An Instance of the ACCUSATIONS which call for our Defence besides those in the Act for Banishment from Corporations c. Devon ss Ad General Quarterial Session Pacis Dom. Regis tent apud Castr. Exon. in pro Comitat. praed Secundo die Octobris Anno Regni Dom. nostri Caroli Secundi Dei gratia Angliae Scotiae Franciae Hiberniae Regis Fidei Defensor c. Tricessimo quinto Annoque Dom. 1683. WE have been so abundantly convinced of the Seditious and Rebellious Practices of the Sectaries and Phanaticks who through the Course of above One hundred years since we were first infested with 'em have scarce afforded this unhappy Kingdom any interval of rest from their Horrid Treasons as that we must esteem 'em not only the open Enemies of our Established Government but to all the common Principles of Society and Humanity it self Wherefore that we may prevent their Horrid Conspiracies for the time to come and secure as much as in us lies our most Gracious KING and the GOVERNMENT from the Fury and Malice of 'em we resolve to put the Severest of the Laws which we find too Easie and Gentle unless enlivened by a vigorous Execution in force against ' em 1. We Agree and Resolve in every Division of this County to require sufficient Sureties for the good Abearing and Peaceable Behaviour of all such as we may justly suspect or that we can receive any credible Information against that they have been at any Conventicles and Unlawful Meetings or at any Factious or Seditious Clubs or that have by any Discourses discovered themselves to be disaffected to the present Established Government either in Church or State or that have been the Authors or Publishers of any Seditious Libels or that shall not in all things duely conform themselves to the present Established Government 2. Because we have a sort of False Men and more perfidious than professed Phanatiques who either wanting Courage to appear in their own shape or the better to bring about their Treasonable Designs privately Associate with and encourage the Seditious Clubs of the Sectaries and with them Plot heartily against the Government and yet that they may pass unsuspected sometime appear in the Church with a false shew of Conformity only
Oath L. The end is but to secure your Loyalty M. The End is one thing and the Means another We are ready to give better security of our Loyalty than this which I before intimated to you Do you think in your Conscience that all the Souldiers in England and all the Corporation-Officers and entrusted Persons and all the Vestry-men and all the Ministers are so well skill'd in Politicks and Law above Bishop Bilson Grotius Barclay and all the Tribes of Learned Lawyers Casuists Canonists Philosophers c. before named as that they can take such an Oath in Truth Iudgment and Righteousness Swearing Allegiance and renouncing Rebellion is easily known to be every Subjects Duty But to unty knotty Controversies in Law is sure above every vulgar Brain Why was not this way found out to prevent all the Civil Wars in the days of the two Williams of Stephen of Henry the 1st and 3d. of K. Iohn of Edward 2d of Richard 2d of Henry 4th and Edward 4th and Henry 6th and Richard 3d. and to prevent the Insurrections in the days of Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth Why do they not this way decide all the Controversies at Liege Colen c. to make the People determine them by Oath All Politicks agree that the Difference between near Subjects and Slaves is that the former have propriety which none can take from them but by their Consent at least in their Wives Children and Lives and that Slaves have none such nor may resist a Commission to take them away though causlesly and Laws are there but the Will of the Lord who may cross them at his pleasure and that a Ruler of Subjects and an Owner of Slaves thus differ Now if it be a Controversy Whether the English be meer Subjects or Slaves the ignorant Vulgar are no fit Judges to decide it and that by Oath CHAP. LV. POINT XII Whether all Trusted in Corporations may declare That there is NO OBLIGATION on them or any other Person from the Oath called The League and Covenant M. I Spake to this before but a little on the by it being no XII part of the Ministerial Conformity Ministers are only to subscribe or swear that the said Oath bindeth no man to endeavour any Alteration of Government but the Corporations are to declare That there is no Obligation at all from that Oath on them or any other I have read much of the History of Heathens Mahometans and Christians and I confess I remember not that ever I read the like to this The likest to it that I remember was in the long Wars and Contentions between the Pope and the German Emperour when they sware and unsware and sware again as either Party got advantage And that Popes and Councils have Decreed the dissolving of Oaths of Fidelity to those Kings whom the Pope Excommunicates is commonly known but Protestants know no such power L. This Declaration is to be expounded by the many following Acts which only say there is no obligation to Change the Government M. That 's gratis dictum without proof that several Acts have the same meaning when the words so much differ is not to be presumed One of them is an Universal Negative without the least exception and the other a particular Negative only 2. And the Acts were made at several times to several men and the Parliament in the latter never pretended to limit or explain the former which sure they would have done if they repented of the Terms 3. And Parliament Men tell us That it was mentioned that the Non-Obligation of the Covenant should be limited and it was pleaded against it That if men believe that they are bound by it to any thing some will think that they are bound to all that is lawful and that it 's lawful to take Arms against the King and so there is no securing them from Rebellion as by that Covenant but by renouncing all its Obligation And this carried the Cause 4. It is not lawful for Subjects to put a particular Sence on Universal Words imposed unless the imposers first so expound the Terms which they have refused to do after twenty years complaint of the Dissenters and do justifie the universal sence to this day Therefore such forced Expositions of our Rulers words in so tremendous a matter are not to be feigned without good proof L. We say Bonum est ex Causis integris There is Evil in that Covenant therefore it is an Evil Covenant M. That 's none of the Question it may be Evil in that part that is Evil and the thing it self may thence be denominated Faulty or Evil and yet not all that is in it be Evil nor it Evil simpliciter but scundum quid Do you think all is Evil that is there Vowed L. If it be Evil no one is bound to keep it M. No not in the Evil part But do you think that the conjunction of some Ill things in a Vow or Covenant doth disoblige a man from all that 's good in it If so mark what will follow 1. Man is so ignorant and imperfect and faulty that he doth nothing that 's good without a mixture of some evil how can sinless perfection come from sinful Imperfection And so we should be bound by no Vow or Oath or Contract at all 2. If Knaves once learn this Lesson they will be sure to foist in some ill clause into their Vows to GOD and their Covenants with Man that so they may be bound by none 3. The Oath of Allegiance or Fedelity to the King and the King 's own Oath at his Coronation in the time of Popery had ill clauses in it for the Papal interest doth it follow that neither of them did bind 4. If an Irish Tory should on the high-way meet an English Lord and take his Purse pretend that he is against the King and should force him at once to take an Oath to be true to the King and to give him his Estate and conceal his theft The latter is evil and yet even that Oath bindeth to be true to the King. 5. If the Clergy in their Ordination in time of Popery had divers sinful clauses and promises doth it follow that their Ordination was null and obliged them to no Ministerial Duty 6. If the Clergy in former ages or in France or Spain be sworn to the King and the Pope doth it follow that this binds them not to the King because it binds them not to the Pope 7. If men were Married in time of Popery with unlawful Words and Clauses or lately in England by Justices in new terms was such marriage null 8. If a Papist make to you a Testament or Deed of Sale of his Estate and put in some unlawful clauses appealing to Angels or wishing you to pray for the Souls in Purgatory I do not think you would take that Will or Deed for a nullity 9. If in Popery or here some Clauses at Baptism prove bad it doth not