a sober Christian hath the least reason to scruple Communion in Will you have a Pastor that shall not speak in the Name of the People to God or will you call his Prayers his own which he puts up by Virtue of his Office according to God's Word Ad 17m. I think they cannot without Sacriledge make such Alienation except where God's Consent can be proved For Example if the Ministers of the Church have full as much means given as is fit for the Ends to which it is given and yet the People will give more and more to the Burden and ensnaring of the Church and the impoverishing or ruin of the Common-wealth here I think God consents not to accept that Gift and therefore it was but an Offer and not plenarily a Gift for want of Acceptance for he accepts not that which he prohibits Here therefore the Magistrate may restore this to its proper use But whether this were any of the Case of these Sacrilegious Alienations too lately made in this Land is a farther Question I apprehend a deep Guilt of Sacriledge upon some Ad 18m. The Particulars here mentioned must be distinctly considered 1. About Fasts and Feasts the Question as referring to the Obligation of the Laws of the Land is of the same Resolution as all other Questions respecting those Laws which being a Case more out of my way I shall not presume to determine without a clearer Call Only I must say that I see little Reason why those Men should think themselves bound in this who yet suppose themselves loose from many other Laws and who obey many of the Laws or Ordinances of the present Powers 2. I much fear that not only the Querist but many more are much ensnared in their Consciences by misunderstanding the Nature and use of Synods It 's one thing for an Assembly of Bishops to have a superior Governing Power directly over all particular Churches and Bishops and another thing for such an Assembly to have a Power of determining of things necessary for the Concord of the several Churches I never yet saw it proved that Synods are over Bishops in a direct Governing Order nor are called for such Ends but properly in ordine ad Unitatem and so oblige only more than single Bishops by Virtue of the General Precept of maintaining Unity and Concord This is the Opinion of the most learned Bishop and famous antiquary that I am acquainted with 3. And then when the end ceases the Obligation is at an End So that this can now be no Law of Unity with us 4. All human Laws die with the Legislator farther than the surviving Rulers shall continue them The Reason is drawn from the Nature of a Law which is to be jussum Majestatis in the Common wealth and every where to be a sign of the Rectors Will de debito vel constituendo vel confirmando Or his Authoritative Determination of what shall be due from us and to us Therefore no Rector no Law and the Law that is though made by the deceased Rector is not his Law but the present Rector's Law formally it being the signifier of his Will And it is his Will for the continuance of it that gives it a new Life In all this I speak of the whole Summa potestas that hath the absolute Legislative Power If therefore the Church Governors be dead that made these Laws and no sufficient Power succeeds them to continue these Laws and make them theirs then they are dead with their Authors 5. The present Pastors of the Church though but Presbyters are the true Guides of it while Bishops are absent and the true Guides conjunctly with the Bishops if they were present according to the Judgment of your own side Whoever is the sole existent governing Powerâ— may govern and must be obeyed in things Lawful Therefore you must for all your unproved Accusation of Schism obey them The Death or Deposition of the Bishops depriveth not the Presbyters of that Power which they had before 6. Former Church Governors have not Power to bind all that shall come after them where they were before free But their Followers are as free as they were 7. The Nature of Church Canons is to determine of Circumstances only for a present time place or occasion and not to be universal standing Laws to all Ages of the Church For if such Determinations had been fit God would have made them himself and they would have been contained in his perfect Word He gives not his Legislative Power to Synods or Bishops 8. Yet if your Conscience will needs persuade you to use those Ceremonies you have no ground to separate from all that will not be of your Opinion 9. For the Cross the Canons require only the Minister to use it and not you and if he do not that 's nothing to you 10. Have you impartially read what is written against the Lawfulness of it by Amesius's fresh Suit Bradshaw Parker and others If you have you may at least see this that it 's no fit matter to place the Churches Unity or Uniformity in and they that will make such Laws for Unity go beyond their Commission Church Governors are to determine the Circumstances pro loco tempore in particular which God hath in Word or Nature made necessary in genere and left to their Determination But when Men will presume beyond this to determine of things not indeed circumstantial or no way necessary in genere nor left to their Determination as to institute new standing Symbols in and with God's Symbols or Sacraments to be engaging Signs to engage us to Christ and to Work Grace on the Soul as the Word and Sacraments do that is by a moral Operation and then will needs make these the Cement of Unity this is it that hath been the Bane of Unity and Cause of Divions 11. Kneeling at the Sacrament is a Novelty introduced many hundred years after Christ and contrary to such Canons and Customs of the Church to which for Antiquiâ—y and Universality you owe much more respect than to the Canons of the late Bishops in England 12. If your General Rule hold that you stand bound by all Canons not repealed by equal Power you have a greater burden on your back than you are aware of which if you bore indeed you would know how little this usurped Legislative Power befriends the Church And among others you are bound not to kneel in the Church on any Lord's Day in Sacrament or Prayer Grotius de Imperio Sumpotest would teach much more Moderation in these Matters than I here perceive Ad Q. 19m. 1. It 's too much Self-conceitedness and Uncharitableness to pass so bold a Censure as your Supposition doth contain of the visible ruling Church being Schismatical and so Heretical Which is the ruling Church I know none in England besides Bishops that pretend to rule any but their own Provinces and but few that pretend Order to Regiment Perhaps when the
between us whether Men should wait for farther objective Revelations or Additions to the written Word or whether we should condemn the Errors of the Enthusiasts herein we are agreed in all this 5. Nor is the Question de Officio whether it be the Duty of all Men to look out after the written Word as far as they can and rest in it 6. Nor is the Question whether the Scripture only have the proper Nature of a Rule to Judge Controversies by 7. Nor yet whether Scripture be of necessity to the Church in General 8. Nor whether it be necessary as a means to the Salvation of all that have it 9. Nor whether it be the only sufficient means of safe keeping and propagating the whole Truth of God which is necessary to the Church 10. But the Question is of every particular Soul on Earth whether we may thus assert that there is no Salvation for them unless they know Christ by the Revelation of the Scripture And I cannot assent to the Article for these Reasons 1. It seems a Snare by the unmeet Expressions 2. We cannot be certain of the Truth of it 3. It is not of so great necessity as that all should be cast out of the Ministry though in other things Orthodox that will not own it 4. Much less is it a Fundamental Nor dare I judge all to Damnation that are not herein of your Opinion 5. It seems to me to be injurious to Christianity it self 6. And to the present intended Reformation 7. And to the Parliament 8. And to our selves 1. For the First of these Reasons It is confessed by some here that a Man may be converted by the Doctrine of the Scripture before he know the Writings or their Authority and that you intend not to assert that the divine Authority of the Scripture is that primum credibile which must needs be believed before any Truth therein contained can be savingly believed And it is thought by some that your Assertion is made good if it be but proved that all saving Revelation that is now in the World is from Scripture originally and subordinate to it and not co-ordinate But the obvious Sense of your Words will seem to many to be this that the particular Knowledge of that Person who will be saved must be by Scripture Revelation as the objective Cause or Instrument even under that Consideration either in the Mind of the Speaker or Hearer or both If it should be said that the Revelation which converted this or that Sinner did arise from the Scriptures a Thousand Years ago But hath since been taken up as coming another way and so there hath been an Intermission of ascribing it to the Scripture as to those Men by whom it was carried down this will not seem to agree with your Expressions And seeing many others must be Judges of your Sense who shall have Power to trie Ministers hereby you enable them by your obscure Expressions to wrong the Church oppress their Brethren and introduce Errors And so it seems you frame a â—nare 2. And you will put every poor Christian in these Places where Christ's Faith is known to many but by Verbal Tradition into an Impossibility of knowing that they have any true Faith because they cannot know that it came from the Scriptures 2. That we are not certain of the Truth of this Assertion nor can I be Judge 1. Because there was Salvation from Adam to Moses by Traâ—â—â—ion without the written Word and there was a considerable space of time after Christ's Assention before the Scriptures of the New Testament were written The first Christians were savingly called and the Churches gathered without these Writings by the preaching of the Doctrine which is now contained in them And though that be now necessary to the Safety of the Church and Truth which was not so necessary when the Apostles were present yet it is unproved that there is more necessary to the Salvation of every Soul now than was in those Days And it is considerable that it was not only the preaching of the Apostles but of all other Publishers of the Gospel in those Times that was in suo genere sufficient for Conversion without Scripture Yea and to the Gentiles that knew not the Scriptures of the Old Testament 2. If there be no Salvation but by a Scripture Revelation then either because there is no other way of revealing the Marrow of the Gospel or because it will not be saving in another way But neither of these can be proved true Ergo for the latter 1. The Word of God and Doctrine of his Gospel may save if revealed supposing other Necessaries in their Kinds For it sufficeth to the formal Object of Faith that it be veracitas revelantis and to the material Object that it be Hoc verum bonum revelatum but it must be truly revelatum though not by Scripture Ergo 2. God hath promised Salvation to all that truly believe and not to those that believe only by Scripture-Revelation nor hath he any where told us that he will annex his Spirits help to no other Revelation 2. For the former That there is now in the World no other way of revealing the Marrow of the Gospel but by Scripture or from it 1. It cannot be proved by Scripture as will appear when your Proofs are tryed 2. The contrary is defended by most learned Protestants 1. A Praecepto another collateral way of Revelation is commanded by God Ergo there 's another 2. From certain History and Experience which speak of the Performance of those Commands and the Instances they give of both are these 1. Ministers are commanded to preach the Gospel to all Nations before it was written and a Promise annexed that Christ would be with them to the end of the World In Obedience whereunto not only the Apostles but Multitudes more did so preach which was by delivering the great Master-Verities which are now in the written Word This Command is not reverst by the writing of the Word And therefore is still a Duty as to deliver the Gospel Doctrine in and by the Scripture so collaterally to preach the Substance of that Doctrine as delivered from the Mouth of Christ and his Apostles 2. Christ commanded before the Gospel was written to baptize Men into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost for the Pardon of Sin upon repenting and believing and for the hope of everlasting Glory upon a holy Life This was done accordingly both before and since the writing of the Gospel And so the very Sum and Kernel of the Gospel and indeed all the true Fundamentals and Essentials of the Christian Faith have been most certainly and constantly delivered down by Baptism as a collateral way distinct from the written Word which is evident in the very Succession of Christians to this Day 3. Another means hath been by Symbols called Creeds and Catechising which was mostly by opening the Creeds As Reverend Bishop Usher hath
acquaintance at Court and get some office as being the only rising way I had no mind of his Counsel who had helped me no better before yet because that they knew that he loved me and they had no great inclination to my being a Minister my Parents accepted of his Motion He told them that if I would go up and live a while with Sir Henry Herbert then Master of the Revels he would quickly set me in a rising way I would not be disobedient but went up and stayed at Whiteball with Sir H. H. about a month But I had quickly enough of the Court when I saw a Stage-Play instead of a Sermon on the Lord's-days in the Afternoon and saw what Course was there in fashion and heard little Preaching but what was as to one part against the Puritans I was glad to be gone And at the same time it pleased God that my Mother fell sick and desired my return and so I resolved to bid farewel to those kind of Employments and Expectations While I was in London I fell into Acquaintance with a sober godly understanding Apprentice of Mr. Philemon Stephens the Bookseller whose Name was Humphrey Blunden who is since turned an extraordinary Chymist and got Iacob Behem his Books translated and printed whom I very much loved and who by his Consolatory Letters and Directions for Books did afterwards do me the Offices of an useful Friend § 11. When I was going home again into the Country about Christmas-day the greatest Snow began that hath been in this Age which continued thence till Easter at which some places had it many yards deep and before it was a very hard Frost which necessitated me to Frost-nail my Horse twice or thrice a day On the Road I met a Waggon loaded where I had no passage by but on the side of a bank which as I passed over all my Horses feet split from under him and all the Girths brake and so I was cast just before the Waggon Wheel which had gone over me but that it pleased God that suddenly the Horses stopt without any discernable cause till I was recovered which commanded me to observe the Mercy of my Protector § 12. This mindeth me of some other Dangers and Deliverances which I past over At Seventeen years of Age as I rode out on a great unruly Horse for pleasure which was wont on a sudden to get the Bitt in his Teeth and set on running as I was in a Field of high Ground there being on the other side a Quick-set Hedge a very deep narrow Lane about a Stories height below me suddenly the Horse got the Bridle as aforesaid and set on running and in the midst of his running unexpectedly turned aside and leapt over the top of the Hedge into that deep Lane I was somewhat before him at the Ground and as the Mire saved me from the hurt beneath so it pleased God that the Horse never touched me but he light with two feet on one side of me and two on the other though the place made it marvellous how his feet could fall besides me § 13. While I look back to this it maketh me remember how God at that time did cure my inclination to Gaming About Seventeen years of Age being at Ludlow Castle where many idle Gentlemen had little else to do I had a mind to learn to play at Tables and the best Gamester in the House undertook to teach me As I remember the first or second Game when he had so much the better that it was an hundred to one besides the difference of our skills the standers by laugh'd at me as well as he for not giving it up and told me the Game was lost I knew no more but that it was not lost till all my Table-men were lost and would not give it over till then He told me that he would lay me an hundred to one of it and in good earnest laid me down ten shillings to my six pence As soon as ever the Money was down whereas he told me that there was no possibility of my Game but by one Cast often I had every Cast the same I wished and he had every one according to my desire so that by that time one could go four or five times about the Room his Game was gone which put him in so great an admiration that I took the hint and believed that the Devil had the ruling of the Dice and did it to entice me on to be a Gamester And so I gave him his Ten shillings again and resolved I would never more play at Tables whilst I lived § 14. But to return to the place where I left When I came home from London I found my Mother in extremity of Pain and spent that Winter in the hearing of her Heart-piercing Groans shut up in the great Snow which many that went abroad did perish in till on May the 10th she died At Kiderminster the Town being in want of fire went all to shovel the way over the Heath to Stone-bridge from whence their Coals come and so great and sudden a storm of Snow fell as overwhelmed them so that some perished in it and others saved their Lives by getting into a little Core that standeth on the Heath and others scaped home with much ado § 15. Above a year after the Death of my Mother my Father married a Woman of great Sincerity in the Fear of God Mary the Daughter of Sir Tho. Hunkes whose Holiness Mortification Contempt of the World and fervent Prayer in which she spent a great part of her Life have been so exceeding Exemplary as made her a Special Blessing to our Family an Honour to Religion and an honourable Pattern to those that knew her She lived to be 96 years old § 16. From the Age of 21 till near 23 my Weakness was so great that I expected not to live above a year and my own Soul being under the serious apprehension of the Matters of another World I was exceeding desirous to Communicate those Apprehensions to such ignorant presumptuous careless Sinners as the World aboundeth with But I was in a very great perplexity between my Encouragements and my Discouragements I was conscious of my personal insufficiency for want of that measure of Learning and Experience which so great and high a Work required I knew that the want of Academical Honours and Degrees was like to make me Contemptible with the most and consequently hinder the Success of my Endeavours But yet expecting to be so quickly in another World the great Concernments of miserable Souls did prevail with me against all these Impediments and being conscious of a thirsty desire of Mens Conversion and Salvation and of some competent perswading Faculty of Expression which â—ervent Affections might help to actuate I resolved that if one or two Souls only might be won to God it would easily recompence all the dishonour which for want of Titles I might undergo from Men And
in to the King's Standard whereas the Londoners quickly fill'd up a gallant Army for the Earl of Essex and the Citizens abundantly brought in their Money and Plate yea the Women their Rings to Guildhall to pay the Army Hereupon the King sent to the Parliament from Nottingham the Offer of a Treaty with some General Proposals which in my Opinion was the likeliest Opportunity that ever the Parliament had for a full and safe Agreement and the King seemed very serious in it and the lowness of his Condition upon so much Trial of his People was very like to have wrought much with him But the Parliament was perswaded that he did it but to get time to fill up his Army and to hinder their Proceedings and therefore accepted not of his Offer for a Treaty but instead of it sent him Nineteen Proposals of their own viz. That if he would Disband his Army come to his Parliament give up Delinquents to a Legal Course of Justice c. he should find them dutiful c. And the King published an Answer to these Nineteen Propositions in which he affirmeth the Government to be mixt having in it the best of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and that the Legislative Power is in the King Lords and Commons conjunct and that the Lords are a sufficient skreen to hinder the King from wronging the Commons and to keep off Tyranny c. And he adhereth only to the Law which giveth him the power of the Militia Out of this Answer of the King 's to these Nineteen Proposals some one drew up a Political Catechism wherein the Answers of every Question were verbatim the words of the King's Declaration as if therein he had fully justified the Parliaments Cause The great Controversie now was the present power of the Militia The King said that the Supreme Executive Power and particularly the Power of the Militia did belong to him and not to the Parliament and appealed to the Law The Parliament pleaded that as the Execution of Justice against Delinquents did belong to him but this he is bound by Law to do by his Courts of Justice and their Executions are to be in his Name and by a Stat. Edw. 3. if the King by the Little Seal or the Great Seal forbid a Judge in Court to perform his Office he is nevertheless to go on Also that for the Defence of his Kingdoms against their Enemies the Militia is in his power but not at all against his Parliament and People whom Nature it self forbiddeth to use their Swords against themselves And they alledged most the present danger of the Kingdoms Ireland almost lost Scotland disturbed England threatned by the Irish and the Ruine of the Parliament sought by Delinquents whom they said the King through evil Counsel did protect And that they must either secure the Militia or give up the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the Land and their own Necks to the Will of Papists and Delinquents § 49. And because it is my purpose here not to write a full History of the Calamities and Wars of those Times but only to remember such Generals with the Reasons and Connexion of Things as may best make the state of those Times understood by them that knew it not personally themselves I shall here annex a brief Account of the Country's Case about these Differences not as a Justifier or Detender of the Assertions or Reasons or Actions of either Party which I rehearse but only in faithfulness Historically to relate things as indeed they were And 1. It is of very great moment here to understand the Quality of the Persons which adhered to the King and to the Parliament with their Reasons A great part of the Lords forsook the Parliament and so did many of the House of Commons and came to the King but that was for the most of them after Edghill Fight when the King was at Oxford A very great part of the Knights and Gentlemen of England in the several Counties who were not Parliament Men adhered to the King except in Middlesex Essex Suffolk Norfolk Cambridgeshire c. where the King with his Army never came And could he have got footing there it 's like that it would have been there as it was in other places And most of the Tenants of these Gentlemen and also most of the poorest of the People whom the other called the Rabble did follow the Gentry and were for the King On the Parliaments side were besides themselves the smaller part as some thought of the Gentry in most of the Counties and the greatest part of the Tradesmen and Free-holders and the middle sort of Men especially in those Corporations and Countries which depend on Clothing and such Manufactures If you ask the Reasons of this Difference ask also why in France it is not commonly the Nobility nor the Beggars but the Merchants and middle sort of Men that were Protestants The Reasons which the Party themselves gave was Because say they the Tradesmen have a Correspondency with London and so are grown to be a far more Intelligent sort of Men than the ignorant Peasants that are like Bruits who will follow any that they think the strongest or look to get by And the Freeholders say they were not enslaved to their Landlords as the Tenants are The Gentry say they are wholly by their Estates and Ambition more dependent on the King than their Tenants on them and many of them envied the Honour of the Parliament because they were not chosen Members themselves The other side said That the Reason was because the Gentry who commanded their Tenants did better understand Affairs of State than half-witted Tradesmen and Freeholders do But though it must be confessed That the Publick Safety and Liberty wrought very much with most especially with the Nobility and Gentry who adhered to the Parliament yet was it principally the differences about Religious Matters that filled up the Parliaments Armies and put the Resolution and Valour into their Soldiers which carried them on in another manner than mercenary Soldiers are carried on Not that the Matter of Bishops Or no Bishops was the main thing for Thousands that wished for Good Bishops were on the Parliaments side though many called it Bellum Episcopale And with the Scots that was a greater part of the Controversie But the generality of the People through the Land I say not all or every one who were then called Puritans Precisions Religious Persons that used to talk of God and Heaven and Scripture and Holiness and to follow Sermons and read Books of Devotion and pray in their Families and spend the Lord's Day in Religious Exercises and plead for Mortification and serious Devotion and strict Obedience to God and speak against Swearing Cursing Drunkenness Prophaneness c. I say the main Body of this sort of Men both Preachers and People adhered to the Parliament And on the other side the Gentry that were not so precise and
that the Armies were engaged when Sermon was done in the Afternoon the report was more audible which made us all long to hear of the success About Sun-setting Octob. 23. 1642. many Troops fled through the Town and told us that all was lost on the Parliament side and the Carriage taken and Waggons plundered before they came away and none that followed brought any other News The Towns-men sent a Messenger to Stratford upon Avon to know the certain truth About four a clock in the Morning the Messenger returned and told us That Prince Rupert wholly routed the left Wing of the Earl of Essex's Army but while his Men were plundering the Waggons the main Body and the Right Wing routed the rest of the King's Army took his Standard but it was lost again kill'd his General the Earl of Lindsey and his Standard-bearer took Prisoner the Earl of Lindsey's Son the Lord Willoughby and others and lost few Persons of Quality and no Noblemen but the Lord St. Iohn eldest Son to the Earl of Bullingbrook and that the loss of the left Wing was through the Treachery of Sir Faithful Fortescue Major to the Lord Fielding's Regiment of Horse who turned to the King when he should have Charged and that the Victory was obtained principally by Colonel Hollis's Regiment of London Red-Coats and the Earl of Essex's own Regiment and Life-Guard where Sir Philip Stapleton and Sir Arthur Haselrigge and Col. Urrey did much The next Morning being willing to see the Field where they had fought I went to Edghill and found the Earl of Essex with the remaining part of his Army keeping the Ground and the King's Army facing them upon the Hill a mile off and about a Thousand dead Bodies in the Field between them and I suppose many were buried before and neither of the Armies moving toward each other The King's Army presently drew off towards Banbury and so to Oxford The Earl of Essex's Army went back to provide for the wounded and refresh themselves at Warwick Castle the Lord Brook's House For my self I knew not what Course to take To live at home I was uneasie but especially now when Soldiers on one side or other would be frequently among us and we must be still at the Mercy of every furious Beast that would make a prey of us I had neither Money nor Friends I knew not who would receive me in any place of Safety nor had I any thing to satisfie them for my Diet and Entertainment Hereupon I was perswaded by one that was with me to go to Coventry where one of my old Acquaintance was Minister Mr. Simon King sometime School-master at Bridgenorth So thither I went with a purpose to stay there till one side or other had got the Victory and the War was ended and then to return home again For so wise in Matters of War was I and all the Country besides that we commonly supposed that a very few days or weeks by one other Battel would end the Wars and I believe that no small number of the Parliament-men had no more with than to think so to There I stayed at Mr. King 's a month but the War was as far from being like to end as before Whilst I was thinking what Course to take in this Necessity the Committee and Governour of the City desired me that I would stay with them and lodge in the Governour 's House and preach to the Soldiers The offer suited well with my Necessities but I resolved that I would not be Chaplain to the Regiment nor take a Commission but if the meer preaching of a Sermon once or twice a week to the Garrison would satisfie them I would accept of the Offer till I could go home again Mr. Aspinall one of the Ministers of the Town had a Commission from the Earl of Essex to be Chaplain to the Garrison Regiment but the Governour and Committee being displeased with him made no use of him And when he was displeased as thinking I would take his place I assured him I had no such intent and about a Twelve-month after he died Here I lived in the Governours House and followed my Studies as quietly as in a time of Peace for about a year only preaching once a week to the Soldiers and once on the Lord's Day to the People not taking of any of them a Penny for either save my Diet only Here I had a very Judicious Auditory among others many very godly and judicious Gentlemen as Sir Richard Skeffington a most noble holy Man Col. Godâ—rey Bosvile Mr. Mackworth with many others of all which Mr. George About was the chief known by his Paraphrase on Iob and his Book against Bread for the Lord's Day And there were about thirty worthy Ministers in the City who fled thither for Safety from Soldiers and Popular Fury as I had done though they never medled in the Wars viz. Mr. Richard Vines Mr. Anthony Burges Mr. Burdall Mr. Brumskill who lived with that Eminent Saint the old Lady Bromley Widow to Judge Bromley whose only discernable fault to me was too much Humility and Low thought of her self Dr. Bryan Dr. Grew Mr. Stephens Mr. Craddock Mr. Morton of Bewdley my special Friend Mr. Diamond good old Mr. Overton and many more whose presence commanded much respect from me I have cause of continual thankfulness to God for the quietness and safety and sober wise religious Company with liberty to preach the Gospel which he vouchsafed me in this City when other Places were in the Terrours and Flames of War § 62. When I had been above a year at Coventry the War was so far from being ended that it had dispersed it self into almost all the Land only Middlesex Hartfordshireâ— most of Bedford and Northamptonshire were only for the Parliament and had some quietness And Essex Suffolk Norfolk Cambridgeshire and Huntingtonshire with the Isle of Eli were called the Associated Countries and lived as in Peace because the King's Armies never came near them and so for the most part it was with Kent Surrey and Sussex And on the other side Herefordshire Worcestershire and Shropshire till this time and almost all Wales save Pembrokeshire which was wholly for the Parliament were only possessed for the King and saw not the Forces of the Parliament But almost all the rest of the Counties had Garrisons and Parties in them on both sides which caused a War in every County and I think there where few Parishes where at one time or other Blood had not been shed § 63. And here I must repeat the great Cause of the Parliaments Strength and the King's ruine and that was That the debauched Rabble through the Land emboldened by his Gentry and seconded by the Common Soldiers of his Army took all that were called Puritans for their Enemies And though Some of the King's Gentry and Superiour Officers were so Civil that they would do no such thing yet that was no Security to the Country while
Reputation of his Word and Cause Major General Skippon fighting valiantly was here dangerously wounded but afterwards recovered The King's Army was utterly lost by the taking of Leicester for by this means it was gone so far from his own Garrisons that his Flying Horse could have no place of Retreat but were utterly scattered and brought to nothing The King himself fled to Lichfield and it is reported that he would have gone to Shrewsbury his Council having never suffered him to know that it was taken till now and so he went to Rayland Caâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 which was a strong Hold and the House of the Marquess of 〈◊〉 a Papist where his Dispute with the Marquess was said to be which Dr. Baâ—ly published and then turned Papist and which Mr. Christopher Cartright continued deâ—ending the King Fairfax's Army pursued to Leicester where the wounded Men and some others stayed with the Garrison in a day or two's time the Town was re-taken And now I am come up to the Passage which I intended of my own going into the Army § 73. Naâ—â—by being not far from Coventry where I was and the noise of the Victory being loud in our Ears and I having two or three that of old had been my intimate Friends in Cromwell's Army whom I had not seen of above two Years I was desirous to go see whether they were dead or alive and so to Naseby Field I went two days after the sight and thence by the Armies Quarters before Leicester to seek my Acquaintance When I found them I stayed with them a Night and I understood the state of the Army much better than ever I had done before We that lived quietly in Coventry did keep to our old Principles and thought all others had done so too except a very few inconsiderable Persons We were unfeignedly for King and Parliament We believed that the War was only to sive the Parliament and Kingdom from Papists and Delinquents and to remove the Dividers that the King might again return to his Parliament and that no Changes might be made in Religion but by the Laws which had his free consent We took the true happiness of King and People Church and State to be our end and so we understood the Covenant engaging both against Papists and Schismaticks And when the Court News-book told the World of the Swarms of Anabaptists in our Armies we thought it had been a meer lye because it was not so with us nor in any of the Garrison or County-Forces about us But when I came to the Army among Cromwell's Soldiers I found a new face of things which I never dreamt of I heard the plotting Heads very hot upon that which intimated their Intention to subvert both Church and State Independency and Anabaptistry were most prevalent Antinomianism and Arminianism were equally distributed and Thomas Moor's Followers a Weaver of Wisbitch and Lyn of excellent Parts had made some shifts to joyn these two Extreams together Abundance of the common Troopers and many of the Officers I found to be honest sober Orthodox Men and others tractable ready to hear the Truth and of upright Intentions But a few proud self-conceited hot-headed Sectaries had got into the highest places and were Cromwell's chief Favourites and by their very heat and activity bore down the rest or carried them along with them and were the Soul of the Army though much fewer in number than the rest being indeed not one to twenty throughout the Army their strength being in the Generals and Whalleys and Rich's Regiments of Horse and in the new placed Officers in many of the rest I perceived that they took the King for a Tyrant and an Enemy and really intended absolutely to master him or to ruine him and that they thought if they might fight against him they might kill or conquer him and if they might conquer they were never more to trust him further than he was in their power and that they thought it folly to irritate him either by Wars or Contradictions in Parliament if so be they must needs take him for their King and trust him with their Lives when they had thus displeased him They said What were the Lords of England but William the Conquerour's Colonels or the Barons but his Majors or the Knights but his Captains They plainly shewed me that they thought God's Providence would cast the Trust of Religion and the Kingdom upon them as Conquerours They made nothing of all the most wise and godly in the Armies and Garrisons that were not of their way Per fas aut nefas by Law or without it they were resolved to take down not only Bishops and Liturgy and Ceremonies but all that did withstand their way They were far from thinking of a moderate Episcopacy or of any healing way between the Episcopal and the Presbyterians They most honoured the Separatists Anabaptists and Antinomians but Cromwell and his Council took on them to joyn themselves to no Party but to be for the Liberty of all Two sorts I perceived they did so commonly and bitterly Speak against that it was done in meer design to make them odious to the Soldiers and to all the Land and that was 1. The Sots and with them all Presbyterians but especially the Ministers whom they call Priests and Priestbyters and Drivines and the Dissemby-men and such like 2. The Committees of the several Countries and all the Soldiers that were under them that were not of their Mind and Way Some orthodox Captains of the Army did partly acquaint me with all this and I heard much of it from the Mouths of the leading Sectaries themselves This struck me to the very Heart and made me Fear that England was lost by those that it had taken for its Chiefest Friends § 74. Upon this I began to blame both other Ministers and my self I saw that it was the Ministers that had lost all by forsaking the Army and betaking themselves to an easier and quieter way of Life When the Earl of Essex went out first each Regiment had an able Preacher but at Edg-hill Fight almost all of them went home and as the Sectaries increased they were the more averse to go into the Army It s true that I believe now they had little Invitation and its true that they must look for little Welcome and great Contempt and Opposition besides all other Difficulties and Dangers But it is as true that their Worth and Labour in a patient self-denying way had been like to have preserved most of the Army and to have defeated the Contrivances of the Sectaries and to have saved the King the Parliament and the Land And if it had brought Reproach upon them from the Malitious who called them Military Levites the Good which they had done would have wiped off that blot much better than the contrary course would do And I reprehended my self also who had before rejected an Invitation from Cromwell When he lay at Cambridge long before with that
very young but that could not be helpt because there were no other to be had The Parliament could not make Men Learned nor Godly but only put in the learnedest and ablest that they could have And though it had been to be wisht that they might have had leisure to ripen in the Universities yet many of them did as Ambrose teach and learn at once so successfully as that they much increased in Learning themselves whilst they prosited others and proportionably more than many in the Universities do § 118. To return from this Digression to the Proceedings of Cromwell when he was made Lord Protector he had the Policy not to detect and exasperate the Ministers and others that consented not to his Government having seen what a stir the Engagement had before made but he let Men live quietly without putting any Oaths of Fidelity upon them except his Parliaments for those must not enter the House till they had sworn Fidelity to him The Sectarian Party in his Army and elsewhere he chiefly trusted to and pleased till by the Peoples submission and quietness he thought himself well settled And then he began to undermine them and by degrees to work them out And though he had so often spoken for the Anabaptists now he findeth them so heady and so much against any settled Government and so set upon the promoting of their Way and Party that he doth not only begin to blame their unruliness but also designeth to settle himself in the Peoples Favour by suppressing them In Ireland they were grown so high that the Soldiers were many of them re-baptized as the way to Preferment and those that opposed them they crusht with much uncharitable Fierceness To suppress these he sent thither his Son Henry Cromwell who so discountenanced the Anabaptists as yet to deal civilly by them repressing their Insolencies but not abusing them or dealing hardly with them promoting the Work of the Gospel and setting up good and sober Ministers and dealing civilly with the Royallists and obliging all so that he was generally beloved and well spoken of And Major General Ludlow who headed the Anabaptists in Ireland was fain to draw in his head In England Cromwell connived at his old Friend Harrison while he made himself the Head of the Anabaptists and Fanaticks here till he saw it would be an applauded acceptable thing to the Nation to suppress him and then he doth it easily in a trice and maketh him contemptible who but yesterday thought himself not much below him The same he doth also as easily by Lambert and layeth him by § 119. In these times especially since the Rump reigned sprang up five Sects at least whose Doctrines were almost the same but they sell into several Shapes and Names 1. The Vanists 2. The Seekers 3. The Ranters 4. The Quakers 5. The Behmenists 1. The Vanists for I know not by what other Name to make them known who were Sir Henry Vane's Disciples first sprang up under him in new England when he was Governor there But their Notions were then raw and undigested and their Party quickly confounded by God's Providence as you may see in a little Book of Mr. Tho. Welds of the Rise and Fall of Antinomianism and Familism in New-England where their Opinions and these Providences are recorded by him that was a reverend Minister there One Mrs. Dyer a chief Person of the Sect did first bring forth a Monster which had the Parts of almost all sorts of living Creatures some Parts like Man but most ugly and misplaced and some like Beasts Birds and Fishes having Horns Fins and Claws and at the Birth of it the Bed shook and the Women present fell a Vomiting and were fain to go forth of the Room Mr. Cotton was too favourable to them till this helpt to recover him Mrs. Hutchinson the chief Woman among them and their Teacher to whose Exercises a Congregation of them used to assemble brought forth about 30 mishapen Births or Lumps at once and being banished into another Plantation was killed there by the Indians Sir Henry Vane being Governor and found to be the secret Fautor and Life of their Cause was fain to steal away by Night and take Shipping for England before his Year of Government was at an end But when he came over into England he proved an Instrument of greater Calamity to a People more sinful and more prepared for God's Judgments Being chosen a Parliament man he was very active at first for the bringing of Delinquents to Punishment He was the Principal Man that drove on the Parliament to go too high and act too vehemently against the King Being of very ready Parts and very great Subtilty and unwearied Industry he laboured and not without Success to win others in Parliament City and Country to his Way When the Earl of Strafford was accused he got a Paper out of his Father's Cabinet who was Secretary of State which was the chief Means of his Condemnation To most of our Changes he was that Within the House which Cromwell was without His great Zeal to drive all into War and to the highest and to cherish the Sectaries and especially in the Army made him above all Men to be valued by that Party His Unhappiness lay in this that his Doctrines were so clowdily formed and expressed that few could understand them and therefore he had but few true Disciples The Lord Brook was slain before he had brought him to Maturity Mr. Sterry is thought to be of his Mind as he was his Intimate but he hath not opened himself in writing and was so famous for Obscurity in Preaching being said Sir Benj. Rudiard too high for this World and too low for the other that he thereby proved almost Barren also and Vanity and Sterility were never more happily conjoined Mr. Sprig is the chief of his more open Disciples too well known by a Book of his Sermons This Obscurity by some was imputed to his not understanding himself but by others to design because he could speak plainly when he listed the two Courses in which he had most Success and spake most plainly were His earnest Plea for universal Liberty of Conscience and against the Magistrates intermedling with Religion and his teaching his Followers to revile the Ministry calling them ordinarily Blackcoats Priests and other Names which then savoured of Reproach and those Gentlemen that adhered to the Ministry they said were Priest-ridden When Cromwell had served himself by him as his surest Friend as long as he could and gone as far with him as their way lay together Vane being for a Fanatick Democracie and Cromwell for Monarchy at last there was no Remedy but they must part and when Cromwell cast out the Rump as disdainfully as Men do Excrements he called Vane a Jugler and Martin a Whoremonger to excuse his usage of the rest as is aforesaid When Vane was thus laid by he wrote his Book called The retired Man's Meditations
long time in vain so that she was fain to take him home to her to Kidderminster where the Physician of the Place and my self did what we could for him in vain he had 4 or 5 violent fits in a Day they were fain to hold a Key between his Teeth to save his Tongue At last the People of the Town at her Request kept a Day of Fasting and Prayer at her House and the second day as I remember he was suddenly cured and never had a Fit since to this Day but some little Weakness of his Head sometimes He is now an Apothecary in Wolverhampton § 132. Another Instance Rich. Cook of Kinver a Mercer an ancient sober Godly Man being desirous to live at Kidderminster took the next House to mine The House proved so secretly crackt and Ruinous that he was afraid it would undo him to repair it This seized him with a Trouble on his Conscience whether he had done well to remove from Kinver where he had been long a comfortable Neighbour to old Mr. Crosse To revive his Spirits he drank much hot Waters which inflamed his Blood and so from Melancholy he fell quite Mad. We were forced by the Wars to leave him but his Wife procured what means she could but all in vain When he had continued thus four Years the excellentest skilful Men at that Disease undertook him and did what they could but all in vain He had exceeding Quantities of Blood taken from him Some that had seen the Success would have set upon Fasting and Praying for him in his Presence But I discouraged them as thinking it a tempting carnal Men to contemn Prayer when they saw it unsuccessful and I thought they had no cause to expect a Miracle I had no hope of his Cure because it was natural or heridatory to him his Father having much about his Age fallen Mad before him and never recovered When he had continued in this sad Case about ten or twelve Years some of these Men would not be dissuaded but would Fast and Pray at his House with great importunity and many Months they continued it once a Fortnight or thereabouts and he was never the better But at last he sensibly began to amend and is now as well almost as ever he was before and so hath continued for a considerable time § 133. I the rather mentioned these Passages of the Force of Prayer because being not one in any of them my self nor being present with them there is no matter of appearing Ostentation they being a few poor humble Weavers and other Tradesmen only and no Minister with them whose Prayers God hath thus frequently heard for others and for me though at this present some of the Chief of them lye in Prison only for praying and singing Psalms and repeating Sermons together when they come from the Publick Congregation And now I return to the Recital of my own Infirmities After abundance of Distempers and Languishings I fell at last into a Flux Hepaticus and after that into manifold other Dangers successively too long to be recited from all which upon earnest prayer I was delivered Once riding upon a great hot-metled Horse as I stood on a sidelong Pavement in Worcester the Horse reared up and both his hinder Feet slipt from under him so that the full Weight of the Body of the Horse fell upon my Leg which yet was not broken but only bruised when considering the Place the Stones the Manner of the Fall it was a Wonder that my Leg was not broken all to Pieces Another time as I sat in my Study the Weight of my greatest Folio Books brake down three or four of the highest Shelves when I sat close under them and they fell down on every side me and not one of them hit me save one upon the Arm whereas the Place the Weight and greatness of the Books was such and my Head just under them that it was a Wonder they had not beaten out my Brains one of the Shelves right over my Head having the six Volumes of Dr. Walton's Oriental Bible and all Austin's Works and the Bibliotheca Patrum and Marlorate c. An other time I had such a Fall from an high Place without much hurt which should I describe it it would seem a Wonder that my Brains were whole All these I mention as obliged to record the Mercies of my great Preserver to his Praise and Glory § 134. At last my Weakness was grown so great that I was necessitated to use Breast Milk four Months together and as much longer or more I remained somewhat repaired But then I fell into a Disease in my Eyes almost incredible I had near every Day for one Year and every second Day for another Year a fresh Macula commonly called a Pearl in one Eye besides very many in the other the first that I had continued divers Weeks till by the ordinary Method of Cure I had almost lost my Eye At last I found that Honey alone or with other things six or seven times a Day applied constantly discussed and cured it in one Day and the next Night in my Sleep another still came a spurious Opthalmy going before and leaving the Macula behind it And I found it came from the extreme thinness of the Blood with the extreme Laxity of the debilitated Vessels and the Fatulency pumping up the Matter Thus I continued two Years curing the Spot one Day and finding it still returned the next Morning so that I had about three hundred Pearls in those two Years and though for the first Month I could neither read nor endure the Light yet the rest of the time I went on with my Studies though not without Pain and much Disturbance No Purging nor outward Applications nor other Medicines would Prevent the Return of it till at two Years end I wrote to Dr. G. Bates for his Advice The Humidities of my Stomach at the same time tasting like boiled Vinegar or Vitrial he prescribed me the use of Chalk in Substance a spoonful shaved in a convenient Liquor which powerfully precipitateth and dulcifieth acid Humours and also hath a harmless corroborating Astriction like Magisterial of Corall or Crabs Eyes the use of this gave a check to my Distemper so that my Spots came seldomer than before At last I had a Conceit of my own that two Plants which I had never made trial of would prove accomodate to my Infirmity Heath and Sage as being very drying and astringent without any Acrimony I boiled much of them in my Beer instead of Hops and drank no other When I had used it a Month my Eyes were cured and all my tormenting Tooth-aches and such other Maladies Being desirous to know which of the two Hearbs it was which I was most beholden to I tryed the Heath alone one time and the Sage alone anotherwhile and I found it was the Sage much more than the Heath which did the Cure whereupon I have used it now this ten
our particular Churches we yet offer that we may at that distance that our Infirmities have set us maintain unfeigned Brotherly Love and acknowledge our several Churches for Christian Congregations and hold a Correspondency by Delegates or other convenient Means for the strengthening of each other and observe the Rules exprest in the following Offer 3. To all those that joyn with us in the foregoing Profession of Christianity and yet through their dissent from our Baptizing the Infants of Believers dare not hold Local Communion with us nor yet acknowledge our Churches to be true Instituted Particular Churches we yet offer 1. That we may acknowledge each other for Members of Christ supposing the foresaid Profession of Christianity to be solemnly and credibly made and Members of the Church Universal 2. And that we may converse in the World together in a faithful Observance of these following Rules 1. That we addict our selves heartily to the promoting and exercising of Brotherly Love towards one another and take heed of all things contrary thereto in Word and Deed. 2. That we addict our selves to preserve the Unity of the Church Catholick and Concord of true Christians and the Common Interest of the Godly and to farther the Cause of Christ in the World and take heed of so managing our different Opinions as may be a hinderance to these 3. That we study and addict our selves to promote the Conversion of ignorant ungodly People and the building up of the Weak and that we take great heed lest in the managing of our different Opinions or opposing one another we should hinder these Works hardening the Wicked and offending the Weak 4. That we always in our esteem and industry prefer the greater common Truths that we are all agreed in before the lesser Points that we differ in And that we take heed of so managing our Differences publickly or privately as may tend to hinder the Reception or Success of those greater common Truths in which we are agreed 5. That we publish our Agreements and profess our Christian Love and Resolutions for Peace in our several Congregations and profess there our joynt disowning and detestation of all Errours Heresies and Ungodliness contrary to the Profession wherein we are agreed 6. That we will not preach publickly for our differing Opinions in each others Congregations without the Pastor's consent nor privately to speak for them as is like to tend to the hinderance of God's greater Work in that Place nor hold any private Assemblies in one anothers Parishes which shall be more to the distracting of each others Societies than for common Christian Edification 7. That in our Preaching and Conference we will allow the greater and common Truths such a proportion of our Time and Zeal and Speech as the Nature Necessity and Number doth require and not lay out inordinately such an undue proportion of Zeal and Time and Speech for our different Opinions as shall be injurious to those Truths 8. That we will avoid in Publick and Private all unbrotherly scornful reproachful Speeches of each other especially before ungodly People And that we will not to them dishonour one anothers Ministry so as may hinder their profiting by it but will rebuke all such ungodly Persons that we hear reproaching the Ministers or Brethren of either part 9. That we will not receive into any of our Churches any Scandalous Persons that fly from the Discipline of other Churches and pretend a Change of Opinion to cloak their Scandals but will impartially hear what Accusations shall be sent in against them and proceed accordingly 10. That we will upon any Defamations or Accusations or Rumours of Injury against one another or of violating our Profession by contrary Doctrine or breaking this Agreement be responsible to each other as Brethren and will forbear divulging private or uncertain Faults or censuring or reproaching one another till we have either conferred together to give and receive Satisfaction and duly admonished each other or tendered such Conferences and Admonitions seasonably till we see they are wilfully rejected OFFERERS Richard Baxter Pastor of the Church at Kiderminster c. c. c. WE whose Names are Subscribed dissenting from Infant-Baptism heartily accept this Offered Agreement as followeth In the first Rank In the second Rank In the third Rank Optatus Adv. Parm. l. 3. p. 75. EUM qui ad Deum so conversum esse professus est Paganum vocas Paganum vocas eum qui Deum Patrem per filium ejus ante eram rogaverit 〈◊〉 enim crediderit in nomine Patris Filii Spiritâ—â— Sancti credidit Et tu eum Paganum vocas post confessionem Fidei Siâ—aliquid Christiâ—â—â—â— quod absit unâ—squisque delinquerit peccator dici potest Paganus iterum esse non potest Sed haeâ— omnia vultis nullius esse momenti At si tibi ipsi consenserit quem seducis unus consensus manâ—â— tuae porrectio pauca Verba jam tibi Christianum faciunt de Christiano Et ille vobie videbitur Christianus qui quod vultis fecerit non quem fides adduxerit Lib. 5. p. 86. Denique vos qui baptisma quasi libenter duplicare contenditis si datis alterum baptisma date alteram fidem si datis alteram Fidem alterum Christum Sidatis alternum Christum date alterum Deum Deus Unus est De Uno Deo Unus est Christus Qui rebaptizatur jam Christianus fuerat Quomodo dici potest iterum Christianus Lib. 4. p. 76. Sâ— tu non vis esse Frater ego esse incipio Impius si de nomine isto â—â—cuero Vid. Lib. 1. Fol. 1. § 46. Before this I had occasion to make a more particular tryal for Union with the Independent Brethren I knew Mr. Phil. Nye had very great power with them and he being in the Country I desired him to give me in Writing all those things which of necessity must be granted them by the Presbyterians in order to Concord and Conjunction in the same Associations and Communion He referred me to the Debates in the Assembly at Westminster which are in print I urged him to give them me under his Hand which at that time he did not but the next Year I prevailed with him and he wrote down these two as sufficient Concessions to our desired End The first was that they might have Liberty to take Church-Members out of other Parishes And the second that they might have all Church Power within themselves in their several Congregations I asked him if I accommodated them in both these whether really they would unite with us as aforesaid And he told me that they would Whereupon I drew up this Form of Agreement following which I thought granted them both these But so as that they should be Members of constant Associations and meet with us in our Synods and that they should do this not as subject to the Government of those Synods but as using them for Concord between the Churches and so
Church where he is President and where he Ordaineth if there be any left I suppose as to a Parochial or Congregational President in one Eldership you will grant this and why not to the President of the Association for Peace when he that is Ordained a Pastor of your particular Church is thereupon made an Officer in the Universal therefore others should have some care of it or else I 'le let Objections pass in silence only desire you if these two last dislike you not therefore presently to reject the rest but lay these by On these Terms in the two last Propositions Bishop Usher when I propounded them to him told me That the Episcopal Party might well agree with us and the moderate would but the rest would not To my Reverend Brother Mr. Philip Nye § 47. After this I was yet desirous to make a fuller Attempt for the reconciling of those Controversies so far as that we might hold Communion together And I drew up a larger Writing instancing in about Ten Points of Difference between the Presbyterians and Independants proving that the Differences were not such as should hinder Concord and Communion The Writing being too large to be here inserted you shall have with the rest at the end of the History Since Prelacy was restored there hath been no Opportunity to Debate these Matters for the Reasons aforesaid and many others Only I put these Papers into Mr. G. Grissith's hand who speaketh much for Reconciliation And when I call'd for them about a year after he had shewed them to none nor made any use of them which might tend to the desired Concord and so I took them away as expecting no more success § 48. About the same time the great Controversie that troubled all the Church being about the Qualification of Church Members I apprehended that the want of a due and solemn manner of Transition from the Number of Infant-Members into the Number of the Adult was the cause both of Anabaptistry and Independency and that the right performance of this as Calvin and our Rubrick in the Common Prayer would have Confirmation performed would be the most excellent Expedient both for Reformation and Reconciliation finding that the Independants themselves approved of it I meditated how to get this way of rectified Confirmation restored and introduced when in the mean time came forth a Treatise for this way of Confirmation by Mr. Ionathan Hanmer very judiciously and piously written And because it was sent me with a Request to write my Judgment of it I put an Epistle before it further to prove the desirableness of the thing The Book was very well accepted when it came abroad but some wrote to me desiring me not only to shew the usefulness of it but also to produce some fuller Scripture Proofs that it is a Duty whereupon I wrote a little Treatise that is called Confirmation the way to Reformation and Reconciliation And in my own Congregation I began so much of the Practice of it as is acknowledged to belong to Presbyters to do § 49. And about the same time while Cromwell professed to do all that he could for the equal promoting of Godliness and Peace and the Magistrates Assistance greatly facilitating the Work of the Ministers and many Ministers neglected their Duty because the Magistrate compelled not the People to submit to them and some never administred the Lord's Supper because they thought nothing but Constraint by the Magistrate would enable them to do it aright And on the other Extream Cromwell himself and such others commonly gave out that they could not understand what the Magistrate had to do in Matters of Religion and they thought that all Men should be left to their own Consciences and that the Magistrate could not interpose but he should be ensnared in the Guilt of Persecution I say while these Extreams prevailed upon the Discourses of some Independants I offered them a few Proposals suited to those Times containing those few Duties by which a willing Magistrate might easily settle the Church in a safe and holy Peace without incurring the guilt of Persecution or Profaneness or Licentiousness but having no Correspondency with Cromwell or any of his Council they were never shewed or made use of any further than for the perusal of him to whom I gave them who being one of their Faction I thought it possible he might have further improved them The Paper was this which followeth By the Establishment of what is contained in these Twelve Propositions or Articles following the Churches in these Nations may have a Holy Communion Peace and Concord without any Wrong to the Consciences or Liberties of Presbyterians Congregational Episcopal or any other Christians 1. FOrasmuch as God hath appointed Magistracy and Ministry as Functions of a different kind but both necessary to the welfare of Mankind and both for the Church and the Salvation of Men and the maintaining of due Obedience to God Therefore let not either of them invade the Function of the other Let Ministers have no Power of Violence by inflicting Corporal Penalties or Mulcts nor be the Judges though in Cases of Heresie or Impiety who is to be 〈◊〉 punished and who not but let them not be denied to be the Ministers of Christ and Guides of the Church And therefore let the Word of God be their only Rule what they must Preach and whom they must Baptize and receive into the Church and to whom they must Administer the Lord's Supper and whom they must Reprove Admonith Reject or Absolve and so for the rest of their Ministerial Work And let not Princes or Parliaments make them Rules and tell them whom to admit or reject otherwise than from the Word of God for according to this Rule we are bound to proceed whatever we suffer for it But yet as the Magistrate is by us to be instructed and guided according to the Word of God so we are by him to be commanded and punished if we offend And therefore we acknowledge it his Duty to command us to Teach and Govern the Churches according to the Word of God and to punish us if we disobey and we must submit to such commands and punishments And therefore if the Parliament see cause to make any Laws according to which their Judges and Officers shall proceed in punishing Ministers for Male-administration we shall not disobey them if agreeable to God's Word if not we shall obey God and patiently suffer from them 2. Seeing there is very much difference between an Infant state of Church-Membership and an Adult one being but imperfect Members in comparison of the other and one being admitted on the Condition they be but the Seed of the Faithful and the others Title having another Condition even a Faith or Profession of their own and one having right only to Infant Priviledges and not to the Lord's Supper and other parts of Communion proper to the Adult because they are not capable of it And seeing
Reasonings that are brought against co-ordinate Tradition you will invalidate subservient Tradition which is necessary to convey the very Scriptures from the Apostles and to assure us that these are all the same Writings and not corrupt and which is the Canonical and that there were no more 6. My sixth Reason against your Assertion is That it seems injurious to the Work we have in hand For 1. you will by any one Errour keep or cast out many godly Men from the Ministry 2. You will harden the Libertines when they discern it 3. And you will do more to introduce an Universal Toleration than can be done by most other Means imaginable For 1. One flaw found in your Work may cause it to be cast by 2. It will seem a potent Reason for such Toleration when the choicest Enemies shall mistake in their very Fundamentals 3. You will force us that are your Brethren to petition for Liberty and then others will think that they may come in at the same Gap 7. I added It will be a dishonour to the Parliament 1. When they shall send so hard a Work abroad and establish such a crooked Rule if they thus receive it from you if they reject or correct it it will be their grief to see our Division and Mistake 8. Lastly I added That it will be much to our own dishonour For 1. The Parliament will exactly scan it and no doubt discover the Mistake And 2. many too curious Eyes will examine it and what a reproach will it be to us to be the By-word of Gainsayers and to hear that such chosen Enemies have erred in their very Fundamentals and for the Papists to insult over us and say we can agree in no Confession and know not yet what Religion we are of And withal it may bring us under Jealousies with others that indeed we are Friends to Universal Toleration and made such flaws in our Work to destroy it and intended to undo all by our overdoing or misdoing I should not have presumed to have put you to so much trouble nor have made any stop in your Work when the dispatch is so desirable had not the Consequents of Silence seemed to me so intollerable I only add 1. I dare not think but Scripture is sufficient both for Matter and Words to afford us Fundamentals and to any thing which it speaks I am ready to subscribe 2. I dare not think that your late Reverend Assembly hath left out the very Fundamentals in their large Confession to which in this Article I offered to subscrible 3. I dare not undertake at the day of Judgment to justifie that Man from the Charge of damnable Infidelity who hath had only verbal Tradition of Gods Revelation of the Sum of Christianity as if this did not make his Infidelity inexcusable because he had it not from Scripture But I think that he shall be damned for his Infidelity who believeth not in Christ if he have all other Means besides the Scripture to help him to believe Ri. Baxter After this Paper they new worded the Article which occasioned the following Paper The Article All the means of Revealing Iesus Christ are subordinate and subservient to the Holy Scriptures and none of them co-ordinate It is no small trouble to me that I was necessitated to be the least delay to your Proceedings by reason of my unsatisfiedness with the former Article But that after our Endeavours for a Closure in that point and when we thought that all had been brought to Agreement the Matter of our Difference should be again received by the Addition of this Article is yet a greater trouble to me Not so much for my own sake as others lest it should offend the Parliament and open the Mouths of our Adversaries that we cannot our selves agree in Fundamentals and lest it prove an occasion for other to sue for an Universal Toleration I am unsatisfied in the last that is the Negative Clause of this Article as I was in the former 1. As to the Truth of it and 2. As to the weight of it as a Test for the Ministers that shall be allowed to preach 3. And as to the Necessity of it to Salvation as a Fundamental Concerning the first it must be remembred 1. That you speak of All means of revealing Christ without any Exception Limitation or Restriction no not so much as to ordinary means nor restraining it to means sufficient to Salvation 2. That you deny them to be co-ordinate absolutely also without any distinction exception or limitation 3. I desire it may be observed that I am not my self imposing any Terms on you or offering the Terms subordinate or any other to be put into the Article but only giving a Reason why I cannot subscribe it as it is which I shall now render having premised these Observations 1. The word co-ordinate being comprehensive and ambiguous I conceive doth among others contain these several Sences following 1. As the Species is subordinate to the Genus 2. As the nearer Causes in the same rank are subordinate to the higher and remote and all to the first Cause as in Generation the nearer Parents to the remote 3. As the Means are subordinate to the End in order thereto 4. As the less worthy is subordinate to the more worthy in degrees of Comparison Many other common Sences I now pass These being at least the three first common and the opposed Co-ordination universally denied I see no Evidence to warrant the denial 1. In the first respect I conceive that Divine Revelation being the Genus by word and by writing are distinct Species And as the delivery of the thing revealed is the Genus so the delivery of the perfect word in Scripture and of the Sum of the matter in Sacraments and other Means forementioned are distinct Species 2. In order of Efficiency I conceive that some Means are Supra-ordinate to Scripture and some Co-ordinate and Subordinate in several Respects and some Subordinate only of which I shall give Instances anon 3. In order to the nearer End those Means are subordinate to Scripture which are supra-ordinate in Efficiency and some of those which ab origine are co-ordinate when yet in order to the more remote End they are co-ordinate 4. In order of Dignity some Means are above Scripture some below it For Instances in these Cases 1. Jesus Christ himself both as the great Prophet of his Church inditing the Scriptures by his Spirit and sending the Apostles and still sending Ministers and owning his own Word is one Means of Revealing himself to Mankind And he is in order of Efficiency and of Dignity above the Scripture but subordinate as to the End which is near but not as to the ultimate End 2. The Holy Ghost inspiring the Apostles is a Means of Revelation supra-ordinate to the Scripture in Efficiency and Dignity And the Holy Ghost as enabling and sending forth Pastors is co-ordinate in Efficiency and subordinate as to one
the Quality of the Pastors 4. That no Pastors be forced upon the Flocks against their Consent the Church Governors being the Approvers and Ordainers and fit means being used to procure their Consent though meer Teachers may be forced on the Ignorant Heretical and obstinate that are unmeet for Church-Communion 5. That the Teachers of the Parishes may be urged to catechise the People and personally in due time and Place to confer with them all and instruct them in the Matters of Salvation and all the People may be urged to submit thereunto 6. That before any Person 's baptized in infancy be admitted among the adult Members of the Church to their holy Communion and Priviledges they make an open Profession of Faith and Holiness such as shall be approved by the Pastor of that particular Church who is responsible if he deny Approbation unjustly The solemnity of Confirmation we leave to the Wisdom of Church-Governors 7. That we may have Liberty in the Temples to assemble for God's Worship and may have no new Worship and Ordinances or symbolical mystical Ceremonies enforced on us against our Consciences And that such as dare not use the Cross Surplice or kneeling in the Act of Receiving may not be Penalties be forced to them nor therefore denied the Exercise of the Ministry or the Communion of the Church and those that Scruple the English Common Prayer-Book may have leave to exercise their Ministry without it at least that they may be allowed the use of a Liturgy to be drawn up in Scripture Words and approved by a Synod and besides that freely to pray according to the variety of Occasions and Subjects which they preach of they being responsible to their Governors for all that they say and do amiss 8. That the Pastors of each Parish-Church may have Liberty to hear Accusations of Hereby or Scandal and to admonish the Offenders publickly that hear not private Admonition to call them openly to Repent and confess their Sin and promise Reformation to absolve the Penitent and reject the Impenitent requiring the People to avoid them But yet if you require that no Pastor should proceed to the publick admonishing and rejecting any but upon the Judgment of the next Synod and their President we submit unless which God forbid they should defend Heresy and Wickedness and prohibit Discipline 9. That the Neighbour-Pastors associating for Union and Communion may hold monthly Synods in every Market-Town having a President stated for Life unless he prove unfit And that the Pastors of the Particular Churches be here responsible for their Doctrine and Practice if any shall accuse them And that Cases about Publick Confirmation Admonitions or Censures excepted from the Power of the Pastors of the particular Churches of that Association may be here decided But yet that the President and Synod may not be forced to undertake the special Charge of all the Souls of each Congregation as it belongeth to the several Pastors 10. That every Quarter and oftner if the President see cause there may be a Synod of all the Pastors of each County or Diocesses if that may not be granted who also shall have a stated President the Name we leave to you who shall maintain a more general Communion and without destroying the Power of the particular Pastors or lesser Synods shall receive Appeals and take Cognizance of such Cases as are proper to them And that no President of greater or lesser Synods shall ordain suspend deprive or excommunicate any Pastor or Deacon without the Consent of the Synod and the Presence of some of them nor censure the Members of any particular Church without the Consent of the Synod or of the Pastor of that Church And that all Presidents be freely chosen by the Synods where they must preside 11. That National Councils may consist of the Presidents of both the Diocesane and inferior Synods or else of the Diocesane and two out of each County freely chosen by the Major Vote of all the Pastors 12. That no Subscription be required of the Pastors to any thing about Religion but to the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds and to the necessary Articles of Faith and Practice exprest in Scripture Terms and to the Renunciation of all Heresies contrary thereto And that in the Matter of the Divine Right of Prelacy or Synodical Government or Ceremonies it may suffice that we are responsible for any Disobedience and be not forced to subscribe our Approbation they being not Articles of Faith but Points of Practice and if you see Cause to restrain Men from Preaching against any other controverted Opinions they may not be forced to approve them 13. That no Pastor be displaced unless for Insufficieney Negligence or Scandal committed within two Years before the Accusation or unless some able Godly faithful Pastor prove a better Title to the Place 14. Lastly That Persons Excommunicate may not be punished eo Nomine because Excommunicate by corporal Punishments unless it be by disfranchising that they be uncapable of Government or of choosing Governors seeing the same Men are also obnoxious to the Laws of the Land for such Crimes as the Laws condemn notwithstanding their Excommunication On these Terms we may hold a Christian Concord without any Danger of Persecution or Breach of Charity or Peace if the Magistrate should think meet to settle Episcopacy as we may on the forementioned Terms while the present Liberty continueth Iuly 1659. Dr. Hammond's Answer 1. WHAT concerns private Christians in their own Families will I suppose easily be granted care being taken that nothing contrary to known Laws be attempted under Pretence of convening for Christian Advantages 2. What concerns the Rectors of each Parish in the Discharge of the Duty by Law committed to them there can be no doubt of What is more required to be intrusted to them being now by Law in the Bishops cannot be removed without changing the Law which must be left to the Law-Makers upon due Consideration of Ancient Primitive Practice and what may probably most tend to Edification 3. What concerns the Observation of Ceremonies by Minister or People by Law established must be done by Tolleration or Exemption from Punishments allowed to tender Consciences with care had also to Uniformity 4. The Nomination of Persons to Offices in the Church must have respect to to the lawful right of Patrons unless by Law some Change be thought expedient to be introduced herein 5. If the Presidents of inferior Synods are to have Episcopal Power in Confirmation Censures Ordination then this being the multiplying of Bishops must be referred to the Supreme Power to judge whether all things considered it be best or whether some larger Diocesses being divided some lesser may not remain as they are But if inferior Presidents be not vested with Episcopal Power but be in the Nature of our rural Deans or of Archdeacons the use of them and their Synods may be good with Subordination to Bishops and regulated
hath been granted will be easilier granted again than that which was never granted before This Testimony is more worth than all our labour for it 2. The Ministers and People of the Land that were concerned in it had a Twelve months time by it in their Ministerial Liberty and Maintenance for this suspended the Execution of the old Laws which were in force against them till the new ones were made 3. We got which was a valuable benefit the Liberty in our Treaty to speak for our Cause under the protection of the King's Commission and justly to state our Differences which else would have been fasly stated to our prejudice and none might have contradicted them § 132. But for the fulfilling of it there was nothing at all done which the Declaration mentioneth save only this years Suspension of the Law against us And some Men were so violent at a distance in the Country that they indicted Ministers at the Assizes and Sessions notwithstanding the Declaration taking it for no Suspension of the Law which put us on many ungrateful Addresses to the King and the Lord Chancellour for their Deliverance For the Brethren complained to us from all Parts and thought it our Duty who had procured the Declaration to procure the Execution of it And when we petitioned for them they were commonly delivered from that Suffering But as to the Matter of Church-Government mentioned in the Declaration 1. The Power of Godliness hath been promoted as the Act of Uniformity and the Act against Conventicles and the Ejecting of 1800 Ministers at once and many Hundred before with much more to the same purpose express 2. The publick and private Exercises of Religion have been encouraged just as those two forementioned Acts express Of which to English-men I need not give an Exposition 3. Of the applying the Lord's Day wholly to holy Exercises without unnecessary Divertisements I have least to say because in these Times we expect only Liberty to do so our selves leaving all others to take their own way And through God's mercy we have liberty to meditate or pray in our Closets and to pray in our Families so there be not above four others present and to hear Common Prayer and Sermon too in Publick in those Parishes that have a Minister that can and will preach And if others think a Play or publick Games or Drinking or Ryoting to be necessary Divertisements they cannot constrain us to the like 4. That Clause of not permitting insufficient negligent scandalous Ministers for the word Non-resident could not pass I believe is executed according to the Judgment of the Executors for I suppose they take him that cannot discern the lawfulness of the Subscriptions Declarations and Practises of Conformity about Oaths Prelacy and Ceremonies to be more insufficient for the Ministry how learned and able otherwise soever than an ignorant Reader is And I suppose they take one that renounceth not the Obligations of the Vow and Covenant and Subscribeth not to Prelacy and Ceremonies to be more scandalous than a Drunkard or a Whoremonger and one that neglecteth any of these to be more negligent than he that neither preacheth to his Flock nor personally instructeth them § 133. As to the Appointment of such a number of Suffragan Bishops in every Diocess as is necessary to the due performance of the Work there was never a one appointed in any one Diocess in the Land that ever I heard of but yet this may be thus far excused that the Parliament having done so much of the Work of Church Discipline themselves as to cast out 1800 of us at once there was the less need of Suffragans afterwards and the Bishops themselves were sufficient to cast out or keep out the rest if ever any such more as we should seek to get into the Ministry § 134. That no Bishop shall ordain or exercise any part of Iurisdiction c. without the Advice and Assistance of the Presbyters may be performed for ought I know for perhaps the Bishop or Chancellor hath the Advice of his Chaplain in private to do it himself and I believe many of his Presbyters assist him by their Information telling him who they be that scruple Ceremonies and who meet in private to Worship God and what nonconformable Ministers presume to preach the Gospel § 135. That no Lay Chancellor Commissaries or Officials as such shall excommunicate absolve c. may for ought I know be fulfilled For though they do it Familiarly as they did before and few Countries have not some that are excommunicated by them for not receiving the Sacrament against their Consciences or some such Matter Yet whether they do it as such or in any other unknown Capacity is more than a Stander-by can tell and they say that when it comes to the Sentence of Excommunication some of them use a Priest pro Formâ § 136. Nor did I ever yet hear of an Archdeacon who exercised his Iurisdiction by the Advice and Assistance of six Ministers chosen as is there mentioned p. 11. § 137. Nor did I ever hear that an equal Number to the Canons and Prebends were annually or ever once chosen in any one Diocess by the Vote of the Presbyters to be always assisting to the Bishop in all Church-censures c. But indeed the Suffragans did never exercise their Iurisdiction without them because such Suffragans never were § 138. Nor did I ever hear that the Ministers Consent was desired for the Confirming of any in his Parish nor of any other than the old way of Confirmation that is for any that will run into the Church though never so unknown to kneel down and have the few Words mentioned in the Liturgy said with the Bishop's Hand on his Head § 139. Nor did I yet ever hear of any one who before he was admitted to the Sacrament was called to any other credible Profession of Faith and Promise of Obedience than to stand up at the Creed or to be present at the Common-Prayer Nor of refussing Scandalous Offenders till they have openly declared themselves to have truly repented and amended their former naughty Lives But I have oft heard them threatned for not receiving § 140. Much less did I ever hear of any such thing as a Rural Dean with his Neighbour-Minister meeting monthly or ever once for any of those excellent Works there mentioned Nor of any Attempt of such a thing § 141. As for the Bishop's not using Arbitrary Power but according to the known Law of the Land I suppose they take the Canons to be the Law of the Land or according to it which other Men never dream'd of that desired that Provision § 142. And whether ever the Alterations mentioned were made of the Liturgy and the additional Forms in Scripture Phrase suited to the Nature of the several Parts of Worship you may know by perusing it and by that which here followeth § 143. Yet I think
Lightfoot Dr. Collins Mr. Woodbridge and Mr. Drake shall from time to time supply the Place of each one of the said Commissioners last mentioned which shall happen to be hindred or be absent from the Meetings and Consultations and shall and may advise consult and determine and also certifie and execute all and singular the Powers and Authorities before mentioned in and about the Premises as fully and absolutely as such of the said last mentioned Commissioners which shall so happen to be absent should or might do by vertue of these Our Letters Patents or any thing therein contained in case he or they were personally present In Witness whereof we have caused these our Letters to be made Patents Witness Our self at Westminster the five and twentieth Day of March in the Thirteenth Year of Our Reign Per ipsum Regem Boocker Note that Dr. Roger Drake's Name being miswritten William Drake he there fore went not publickly with us § 171. A Meeting was appointed and the Savey the Bishop of London's Lodgings named by them for the Place There met us Dr. Frewen Archbishop of York Dr. Sheldon Bishop of London Dr. Morley Bishop of Worcester Dr. Saunderson Bishop of Lincoln Dr. Cosins Bishop of Durham Dr. Hinchman Bishop of Salisbury Dr. Walton Bishop of Chester Dr. Lany Bishop of Peterborough Dr. King Bishop of Rochester Dr. Sterne Bishop of Carlisle but the constaniest Man after was Dr. Gauden Bishop of Exeter On the other side there met Dr. Reignolds Bishop of Norwich Mr. Clerk Dr. Spurstow Dr. Lightfoot Dr. Wallis Dr. Manton Dr. Bates Dr. Iacomb Mr. Cooper Mr. Rawlinson Mr. Case and my self The Commission being read the Archbishop of York a peaceable Man spake first and told us that he knew nothing of the Business but perhaps the Bishop of London knew more of the King's Mind in it and therefore was fitter to speak in it than he The Bishop of London told us that it was not they but we that had been the Seekers of this Conference and that desired Alterations in the Liturgy and therefore they had nothing to say or do till we brought in all that we had to say against it in Writing and all the additional Forms and Alterations which we desired Our Brethren were very much against this Motion and urged the King's Commission which requireth us to meet together advise and consult They told him that by Conference we might perceive as we went what each would yield to and might more speedily dispatch and probably attain our End whereas Writing would be a tedious endless Business and we should not have that Familiarity and Acquaintance with each others Minds which might facilitate our Concord But the Bishop of London resolutely insisted on it not to do any thing till we brought in all our Exceptions Alterations and Additions at once In this I confess above all things else I was wholly of his Mind and prevailed with my Brethren to consent but I conjecture upon contrary Reasons For I suppose he thought that we should either be altogether by the Ears and be of several Minds among our selves at least in our new Forms or that when our Proposals and Forms came to be scanned by them they should find as much Matter of Exception against ours as we did against theirs or that the People of our Persuasion would be dissatisfied or divided about it And indeed our Brethren themselves thought either all or much of this would come to pass and our Disadvantage would be exceeding great But I told them the Reasons of my Opinion 1. That we should quickly agree on our Exceptions or offer none but what we were agreed on 2. That we were engaged to offer them new Forms which was the Expedient which from the Beginning I had aimed at and brought in as the only way of Accommodation considering that they should be in Scripture Words and that Ministers should choose which Forms they would 3. That verbal Disputes would be managed with much more Contention 4. But above all that else our Cause would never be well understood by our People or Foreigners or Posterity but our Conference and Cause would be misreported and published as the Conference at Hampton-Court was to our Prejudice and none durst contradict it And that what we said for our Cause would this way come fully and truly to the Knowledge of England and of other Nations and that if we refused this Opportunity of leaving upon Record our Testimony against Corruptions for a just and moderate Reformation we were never like to have the like in hast again And upon these Reasons I told the Bishops that we accepted of the Task which they imposed on us yet so as to bring all our Exceptions at one time and all our Additions at another time which they granted § 172. When we were withdrawn it pleased our Brethren presently to divide the undertaken Work The drawing up of Exceptions against the Common-Prayer they undertook themselves and were to meet from day to day for that end The drawing up of the Additions or new Forms they imposed upon me alone because I had been guilty of that Design from the beginning and of engaging them in that piece of Service and some of them thought it would prove odious to the Independents and others who are against a Liturgy as such Hereupon I departed from them and came among them no more till I had finished my Task which was a Fortnight's time My leisure was too short for the doing of it with that Accurateness which a Business of that Nature doth require or for the consulting with Men or Authors I could not have time to make use of any Book save the Bible and my Concordance comparing all with the Assemblies Directory and the Book of Common-Prayer and Hammond L'Estrange And at the Fortnight's end I brought it to the other Commissioners § 173. And here for the better understanding of this Work I must give the Reader these few Advertisements 1. That one of my chief Reasons for the doing of this Work was that if really the Declaration were in force and executed our Brethren that scrupled the use of the Common Prayer might have the Liberty of using such Forms taken out of the Word of God which they need not Scruple 2. And another was That the Nation might see that in our Desires of reforming the Liturgy we were not for none or for a worse 3. That it might be a standing Witness to Posterity both against the Sectarians who would have all Reformers run into Extreams and against our Slanderrers who would make the World believe that we do run into Extreams and are against all Liturgies and a Record that once such a thing was proposed which we could our selves agreee in 4. I made it an intire Liturgy but might not call it so because our Commission required us to call it Additions to or Alterations of the Book of Common Prayer 5. I put in the Directive Part called Rubricks that
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
nor Seditious but a People that quietly followed their hard Labour and learned the Holy Scriptures and lived a holy blameless Life in Humility and Peace with all Men and never had any Sect or separated Party among them but abhorred all Faction and Sidings in Religion and lived in Love and Christian Unity Yet when the Bishop was gone the Dean came and preached about three hours or near to cure them of the Admiration of my Person and a month after came again and preached over the same perswading the People that they were Presbyterians and Schismatical and were led to it by their over-valuing of me The People admired at the temerity of these Men and really thought that they were scarce well in their Wits that would go on to speak things so far from truth of Men whom they never knew and that to their own faces Many have gone about by backbiting to make People believe a false report of others but few will think to perswade any to believe it of themselves who know themselves much better than the Reprover doth Yet besides all this their Lecturers were to go on in the same strain and one Mr. Pitt who lived in Sir Iohn Packington's House with Dr. Hammond was often at this work being of the Judgment and Spirit of Dr. Gunning and Dr. Pierce calling them Presbyterians Rebellious Serpents and Generation of Vipers unlikely to scape the Damnation of Hell yet knowing not his Accusation to be true of one Man of them For there was but one if one Presbyterian in the Town but plain honest People that minded nothing but Piety Unity Charity and their Callings This dealing instead of winning them to the Preacher drove them from the Lecture and then as I said they accused the People as deserting it and put it down § 252. For this ordinary Preacher they set up one of the best parts they could get was far from what his Patrons spake him to be who was quickly a weary and went away And next they set up a poor dry Man that had been a School-master near us and after a little time he died And since they have taken another Course and set up a young Man the best they can get who taketh the contrary way to the first and over-applaudeth me in the Pulpit to them and speaketh well of them and useth them kindly And they are glad of one that hath some Charity And thus the Bishop hath used that Flock who say that till then they never knew so well what a Bishop was nor were before so guilty of that dislike of Episcopacy of which they were so frequently and vehemently accused I hear not of one person among them who is won to the Love of Prelacy or Formality since my removal § 253. Having parted with my dear Flock I need not say with mutual sense and tears I left Mr. Baldwin to live privately among them and oversee them in my stead and visit them from House to House advising them notwithstanding all the Injuries they had received and all the Failings of the Ministers that preached to them and the Defects of the present Way of Worship that yet they should keep to the Publick Assemblies and make use of such Helps as might be had in Publick together with their private Helps Only in three Cases to absent themselves 1. When the Minister was one that was utterly insufficient as not being able to teach them the Articles of the Faith and Essentials of true Religion such as alas they had known to their sorrow 2. When the Minister preached any Heresie or Doctrine which was directly contrary to any Article of the Faith or necessary part of Godliness 3. When in the Application he set himself gainst the Ends of his Office to make a holy Life seem odious and to keep Men from it and to promote the Interest of Satan Yet not to take every bitter Reflection upon themselves or others occasioned by difference of Opinion or Interest to be a sufficient Cause to say that the Minister preacheth against Godliness or to withdraw themselves § 254. When I was gone from them I wrote not a Letter to them past onec in a year left it should bring Suffering upon them the Cause also why I removed my Dwelling from them was because they apprehended themselves that my presence would have been their ruine as to Liberty and Estates For had they but received a Letter from me any displeasing thing that they had done would have been imputed to that As for instance not long after there came out the Act that all that had any Place of Trust in Cities Corporations or Countreys should be put out unless they declared that they held That there is no Obligation lying upon them or any other person from the Oath called The Solemn League and Covenant Hereupon all the Thirteen Capital Burgesses Bailiff Justice and all save one that had been an Officer in the King's Army were turned out though I suppose never any more than two or three of them took the Oath and Covenant themselves and almost all the 25 inferiour Burgesses were turned out with them Whereupon it was charged upon them that I had perswaded them to refuse this Declaration till it was manifest that I had never once spoke a word to them about it nor written one Line to them about that or anything else of a long time At such a distance were we forced to remain § 255. After a short time the Lord Windsor who was Lord Lieutenant of the County and Governour of Iamaica bought a House in the Town and lived among them as most thought to watch over them as a dangerous People which turned to their great Relief For before his coming they were many of them imprisoned and hardly used but when he lived among them and saw their honesty and innocency they have had Three years of as great quietness and liberty as any place I know in the Land When he first came thither I was there and went to wait upon him and told him truly that I was glad of his coming for my Neighbour's sakes for an innocent People are never so safe as under their Governour 's Eye seeing Slanders have their power most on strangers that are unacquainted with the persons or the things § 256. Just at the time that the Bishop was Silencing me it was famed at London that I was in the North in the Head of a Rebellion And at Kidderminster I was accused because there was a Meeting of many Ministers at my House which was no more than they knew had been their constant Custom many a year to visit me or dine with me And while we were at Dinner it fell out that by publick Order the Covenant was to be burnt in the Market-place and it was done under my Window and the Attendance was so small that we knew not of it till afterwards Yet because I had preached the Morning before which as I remember was my
August 24. 1662. and then they must be all cast out This fatal Day called to remembrance the French Massacre when on the same Day 30000 or 40000 Protestants perished by Religious Roman Zeal and Charity I had no place but only that I preached twice a Week by Request in other Men's Congregations at Milkstreet and Blackfriars and the last Sermon that ever I preached in Publick was on May 25. The Reasons why I gave over sooner than most others was 1. Because Lawyers did interpret a doubtful Clause in the Act as ending the Liberty of Lecturers at that time 2. Because I would let Authority soon know that I intended to obey them in all that was lawful 3. Because I would let all Ministers in England understand in time whether I intended to Conform or not For had I stayed to the last day some would have Conformed the sooner upon a Supposition that I intended it These with other Reasons moved me to cease three Months before Bartholomew-day which many censured me for a while but after better saw the Reasons of it § 279. When Bartholomew-day came about One thousand eight hundred or Two thousand Ministers were Silenced and Cast out And the Affections of most Men thereupon were such as made me fear it was a Prognostick of our further Sufferings For when Pastors and People should have been humbled for their Sins and lamented their former Negligence and Unfruitfulness most of them were filled with Disdain and Indignation against the Prelates and were ready with Confidence to say God will not long suffer so wicked and cruel a Generation of Men It will be but a little while till God will pull them down And thus Men were puft up by other Mens sinfulness and kept from a kindly humbling of themselves § 280. And now came in the great Inundation of Calamities which in many Streams overwhelmed Thousands of godly Christians together with their Pastors As for Example 1. Hundreds of able Ministers with their Wives and Children had neither House nor Bread For their former Maintenance served them but for the time and few of them laid up any thing for the future For many of them had not past 30 or 40 l. per Annum apiece and most but about 60 or 80 l. per Annum and very few above 100 l. and few had any considerable Estates of their own 2. The Peoples Poverty was so great that they were not able much to relieve their Ministers 3. The Jealousie of the State and the Malice of their Enemies were so great that People that were willing durst not be known to give to their ejected Pastors least it should be said that they maintained Schism or were making Collections for some Plot or Insurrection 4. The Hearts of the People were grieved for the loss of their Pastors 5. Many places had such set over them in their steads as they could not with Conscience or Comfort commit the Conduct of their Souls to And they were forced to own all these and all others that were thrust upon them against their Wills and to own also the undisciplined Churches by receiving the Sacrament in their several Parishes whether they would or not 6. Those that did not this were to be Excommunicated and then to have a Writ sued out against them de Excommunicatio capiendo to lay them in the Jail and seize on their Estates 7. The People were hereupon unavoidably divided among themselves For some would have nothing to do with these imposed Pastors but would in private attend their former Pastors only Others would do both and take all that they thought good of both Some would only hear the Publick Sermons Others would also go to Common Prayer where the Minister was tolerable Some would joyn in the Sacrament with them where the Minister was honest and others would not And this Division they long foresaw but could not possibly prevent 8. And the Ministers themselves were thus also divided who before seemed all one for some would go to Church to Common Prayer to Sacraments and others would not Some of them thought that it was their Duty to preach publickly in the Streets or Fields while the People desired it and not to cease their Work through fear of Men till they lay in Jails or were all banished Others thought that a continued Endeavour to benefit their People privately would be more serviceable to the Church than one or two Sermons and a Jail at such a time when the Multitudes of Sufferers and the odious Titles put upon them obscured and clog'd the benefit of Sufferings And some thought that the Covenant bound all to separate from Common Prayer and Prelates and Parish Communion And others thought that it rather bound them to this Communion and Worship in case they could have no better and that to teach from House to House in private and bring the People to attend in publick was the most righteous and edifying way where the imposed Minister was tolerable 9. Hereupon those Ministers that would not cease preaching were thrust into Prisons and Censured some of them the rest that did not do as they 10. The rest that preached only secretly to a few were lookt on as discontented and disaffected to the Government and on every rumour of a new Plot or Conspiracy taken up and many of them laid in Prison 11. The Prelatists and they were hereby set at a further distance and Charity more destroyed and Reconciliation made more hopeless and almost any thing believed that was said against a Nonconformist 12. The Conforming Part of the Old Ministry was also divided from the rest and Censures set them further at a distance But yet where serious Godliness appeared it kept up some Charity and Respect and united them in the main All these Calamities brought another 13. That the People were tempted to murmur at their Superiours and call them cruel Persecutors and secretly rejoyce if any hurt befel them and many forgot that they are to Honour their Governours even when they suffer by them and not only to forbear evil Thoughts and Words against them but to endeavour to keep up their Honour with their Subjects 14. By all these Sins these Murmurings and these Violations of the Interest of the Church and Cause of Christ the Land was prepared for that fâ—rther Inundation of Calamities by War and Plague and Scarcity which hath since brought it near to Desolation § 281. It fell out one day in Mr. Calamy's Church at Aldermanbury that the Preacher failed and the People desired Mr. Calamy to preach Which he did upon confidence that the Act did not extend to such an Occasional Sermon some Lawyers had told him so But for this he was sent to Newgate Jail where he continued in the Keeper's Lodgings many daily flocking to visit him till the Lord Bâ—â—dgman as is said had given it as his Judgment That his Sermon was not within that Penalty of the Act. And O what insulting there was by
It is a transient Image used as a means of Worship Therefore unlawful by the Second Commandment 2. It is a stated Human Ordinance in God's Worship an instituted fixed Sacramental dedicating Sign 3. It is no less than the Covenant of Grace which it signifieth yea somewhat of God's part as well as ours and acted by the Minister and not by the Parents as a professing Sign It signifieth the Cross and Sufferings of Christ the Ground and Seal of the Covenant on his part And if God would have had such Sacraments used he could as well have instituted them as he did the rest VII § 414. The 7th Controversie is about Actual Administrations according to the Common Prayer and Canons 1. We dare not when we give the Sacrament to others refuse it to all those faithful Persons who fear to take it kneeling lest it be Idolatry Though I can so take it my self I cannot execute so unjust an Imposition as to cast out Christ's Members upon that account no more than to cast out Children for crying or for being Children And I think it better for me not to meddle with the Sacrament at all than to be guilty of such Oppression Uncharitableness Injustice and Division and to do such actual wrong to one part that I may give the Sacrament to the other part § 415. 2. And I dare not knowingly Baptize those Children that are not in the Covenant of God nor call every Child regenerate without exception that can but have Godfathers Nor dare I while I receive all these reject all the Children of godly Parents who dare not bring them to be Baptized with the Sacrament of the Cross. To say that others forbid me is nothing while I must be the Executioner of their Decrees § 416. 3. And I dare not if I undertake a Pastoral Charge give the Sacrament to the notoriously unworthy though the Chancellor absolve him or never question him nor utterly neglect all that part of Discipline which belongeth to my Office though Men forbid it nor be guilty of all that corruption and confusion which the neglect of Discipline bringeth into the Church 4. Nor dare I absolutely pronounce a wicked Man forgiven if in his sickness he superficially say I repent 5. Nor dare I at the Burial of every notorious wicked Man that is not Unbaptized Excommunicate nor a Self-murderer solemnly pronounce That God hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother c. lest I harden the wicked in their damnable Presumption If the Child of the holiest Parent die unbaptized we must not say these words for it that is in their Language we must not bury it by the Office of the Church with Christian Burial but such are numbred with the Excommunicate and Self-murderers But if a hundred Thieves Adulterers Drunkards die or Murderers or Traytors be hanged for ther sin though they never so much as say I repent but justifie themselves to the last breath yet must we bury them all with these words God hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother to teach the People to give him the lie who giveth himself the lie by preaching that the Impenitent and Wicked are not saved And to teach all the most ungodly to look to speed as well as others Purgatory is a better Doctrine than this for it leaveth the Wicked under some awe Yet all this we must Assent and Consent to and use if we will have leave to preach in the Publick Churches Nor do the little poor Evasions used for these things seem worth the answering It tendeth to the vitiating also of the Commonwealth to pronounce thus the Salvation of every Traytor Thief Murderer as well as of Drunkards Whoremongers and Atheists who never so much as said We repent How can we preach the Misery of Sinners or the Necessity of Renovation and Sanctification without contradicting our selves when we must tell a Man in the Pulpit That except be repent be shall perish and if he live after the flesh he shall die and without holiness he shall not see God And yet if he die without one Penitent word we must say God hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother So much of the Controversie between the present Conformists and Non-conformists § 417. Having thus interposed the State of the Controversie and Cause of the Ejected Ministers of England and so being got past Barthelomew-day I proceed in the History of the consequent Calamities When I was absent resolving to meddle in such Businesses there no more Mr. Calamy and the other Ministers of London who had Acquaintance at the Court were put in hope that the King would grant that by way of Indulgence which was before denied them And that before the Act was past it might be provided That the King should have power to dispense with such as deserved well of him in his Restoration or whom he pleased But that was frustrate And after that they were told that the King had power himself to dispense in such Cases as he did with the Duteb and French Churches Ane some kind of Petition I have not a Copy of it they drew up to offer the King But when they had done it they were so far from procuring their Desires that there fled abroad grievous Threatnings against them that they should incur a Premunire for such a bold attempt when they were drawn to it at first they did it with much hesitancy through former Experience and they worded it so cauteously that it extended not to the Papists Some of the Independents presumed to say That the Reason why all our Addresses for Liberty had not succeeded was because we did not extend it to the Papists and that for their parts they saw no reason why the Papists should not have Liberty of Worship as well as others and that it was better for them to have it than for all us to go without it But the Presbyterians still answered to that motion That the King might himself do what he pleased and if his Wisdom thought meet to give Liberty to the Papists let the Papists petition for it as they did for theirs But if it be expected by any that it shall be forced upon them to become Petitioners for Liberty for Popery they should never do it whatever be the issue Nor shall it be said to be their work § 418. On the 26th of Decemb. 1662. the King sent forth a Declaration expressing his purpose to grant some Indulgence or Liberty in Religion with other matters not excluding the Papists many of whom had deserved so well of him When this came out the ejected Ministers began to think more confidently of some Indulgence to themselves Mr. Nye also and some others of the Independents were encouraged to go to the King and when they came back told us That he was now resolved to give them Liberty On the Second of Ianuary Mr. Nye came to me to treat about our
the Churches of England and faithfully to preserve the peace and happiness thereof And all those who are qualified with abilities according to the Law and take the Oaths and Declarations abovesaid shall be allowed to preach Lectures and Occasional Sermons and to Catechize and to be presented and admitted to any Benefice or to any Ecclesiastical or Academical promotions or to the teaching of Schools 3. Every person admitted to any Benefice with cure of Souls shall be obliged himself on some Lord's day within a time prefixed to read the Liturgy appointed for that day when it is satisfactorily altered and the greatest part of it in the mean time and to be often present at the reading of it and sometimes to administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the said Liturgies And it shall by himself or some other allowed Minister be constantly used in his Church and the Sacraments frequently administred as is required by the Law 4. The 4th was against the Ceremonies without alteration in their own words save about bowing at the Name â—esus as after 5. No Bishop Chancellor or other Ecclesiastical Officers shall have power to silence any allowed Minister or suspend him 〈◊〉 officio vel beneficio arbitrarily or for any cause without a known Law And in case of any such arbitary or injurious silencing and suspension there shall be allowed an appeal to some of his Majestie 's Courts of Iustice so as it may be prosecuted in a competent time and at a tolerable expence being both Bishops and Presbyters and all Ecclesiastical persons are under the Government of the King and punishable by him for gross and injurious male-administrations 6. Though we judge it the Duty of Ministers to Catechize instruct exhort direct and comfort the people personally as well as publickly upon just occasion yet lest a pretended necessity of Examinations before the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or an unwarrantable strictness should introduce Church-Tyranny and wrong the faithful by keeping them from the Communion let all those be admitted to the Communion who since their Infant baptism have at years of discretion manifested to the Bishop or the Ministers of the Parish Church where they live a tolerable understanding of the Essential points of Faith and Godliness that is of the Baptismal Covenant and of the nature and use of the Lord's Supper and have personally owned before them or the Church the Covenant which by others they made in Baptism professing their Resolution to keep the same in a Faithful Godly Righteous Charitable and Temporal Life and are not since this profession revolted to Atheism Insidelity or Heresy that is the denying of some Essential Article of faith and live not impenitently in any gross and scandalous sin And therefore in the Register of each Parish let all their Names be written who have either before their Confirmation or at any other time thus understandingly owned their Baptismal Covenant and a Certificate thereof from the Minister of the place shall serve without any further examination for their admission to Communion in that or any other Parish Church where they shall after live till by the aforesaid revolts they have merited their suspension 7. Because in many families there are none who can read or pray â—or call to remembrance what they have heard to edify themselves and spend the Lords day in holy Exercises and many of these live so far from the Church that they go more seldom than the rest and therefore have great need of the assistance of their Neighbours it is not to be taken for a Conventicle or unlawful meeting when Neighbours shall peaceably joyn together in reading the Scripture or any good books or repeating publick Sermons and praying and â—ging â—salms to God whilst they do it under the inspection of the Minister and not in opposition to the publick Assemblies Nor yet that meeting where the Minister shall privately Catechize his Neighbours or pray with them when they are in sickness danger or distress tho persons of several Families shall be present 8. Whereas the Canon and Rubrick forbid the adâ—ission of notorious scandalous sinners to the Lords table be it enacted that those who are proved to deride or scorn at Christianity or the holy Scriptures or the Life of Reward and Punishment or the serious practice of a Godly Life and strict obedience to Gods Commands shall be numbered with the Scandalous sinners mentioned in the Canon and Rubrick and not admitted before repentance to the holy Communion § 69. The following paper will give you the reasons of all our alterations of their form of Words But I must add this that we thought not the form of Subscription sufficient to keep out a Papist from the established Ministery much less from a Toleration which we medled not with And here and in other alterations I bore the blame and they told me that no Man would put in such doubts but I. And I will here tell Posterity this Truth as a Mystery yet only to the blind which must not now be spoken that I believe that I have been guilty of hindering our own Liberties in all Treaties that ever I was employ'd in For I remember not one in which there was not some crevice or contrivance or terms offered for such a Toleration as would have let in the moderate Papists with us And if we would but have opened the Door to let the Papists in that their Toleration might have been charged upon us as being for our sakes and by our request or procuâ—ement we might in all likelihood have had our part But though for my own part I am not for Cruelty against Papists any more than others even when they are most cruel to us but could allow them a certain degree of liberty on Terms that shall secure the common Peace and the People's Souls yet I shall never be one of them that by any renewed pressures or severities shall be forced to petition for the Papists liberty if they must have it let them Petition for it themselves No craft of Iesuits or Prelates shall thunder me cudgel me or cheat me into the Opinion that it is now necessary for our own Ministry Liberty or Lives that we I say we Nonconformists be the famed Introducers of the Papists Toleration that so neither Papists nor Prelatists may bear the odium of it but may lay it all on us God do what he will with us his way is best but I think that this is not his way § 70. Upon these Alterations I was put to give in my Reasons of them which were as followeth The Reasons of our Alterations of your Proposals 1. I Put in Presidents c. to avoid Dispute whether such were meer Presbyters or as some think Bishops 2. I leave out time of disorder because it will else exclude all that were Ordained by Presbyters since the King came in 3. I put in Instituted and Authorized to intimate that it is not an Ordination to
c. After Baptism put Seing this Child is Sacramentally Regenerated And in the Prayer following put it That it hath pleased Thee Sacramentally to Regenerate and Adopt this Infant and to incorporate him into thy Holy Church Instead of the new Rubrick it is certain by God's Word c. put True Christian Parents have no cause to doubt of the Salvation of their Children dedicated to God in Baptism and dying before they commit any actual sin In the Exhortation put it thus Doubt not therefore but earnestly believe That if this Infant be sincerely dedicated to God by those who have that power and trust God will likewise favourably receive him c. Let not Baptism be privately administred but by a lawful Minister and before sufficient Witnesses and when it is evident that any was so Baptized let no part of the Administration be reiterated Add to the Rubrick of Confirmation or the Preface And the tolerable Understanding of the same Points which are necessary to Confirmation with this owning of their baptismal Covenant shall be also required of those that are not confirmed before their admission to the holy Communion Let it be lawful for the Minister to put other Questions besides those in the Catechism to help the Learners to understand and also to tell them the meaning of the Words as he goeth along Alterations in the Catechism or another allowed Q. WHat is your Name A. N. Q. When was this Name given you A. In my Baptism Q. What was done for you in your Baptism A. I was devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and entred into his Holy Covenant and engaged to take him for my only God my reconciled Father my Saviour and my Sanctifier And to believe the Articles of the Christian Faith and keep God's Commandments sincerely all the Days of my Life Renouncing the Devil and all his works the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked World and all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh. Q. What Mercy did you receive from God in this Covenant of Baptism A. God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as my reconciled Father my Saviour and my Sanctifier did forgive my Original Sin and receive me as a Member of Christ and of his Church and as his Adopted Child and Heir of Heaven Q. Do you think that you are now bound to keep this Covenant and to believe and live according to it A. Yes Verily c. Q. Rehcarse c. A. I Believe c. Q. What c. A. First c. Q. What be the Commandments of God which you have Covenanted to observe A. The Ten Commandments written by God in Stone besides Christ's Precepts in the Gospel Q. Which be the Ten Commandments After the Answer to What is thy Duty towards God add And to keep holy the Day which he separateth for his Worship In the next let to bear no malice c. be put before to be true and just In the Answ. to the Quest. after the Lord's Prayer after all People put that we may Honour and Love him as our God That his Kingdom of Grace may be set up in our Souls and throughout the World and his Kingdom of Glory may come and that God's Law and not Men's sinful Lusts and Wills may be obeyed and Earth may be liker unto Heaven And I Pray c. Q. How many Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace hath Christ Ordained in his Church A. Two only Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Q. What meanest thou c. A. I mean that Solemn Covenanting with God wherein there is an outward visible sign of our giving up our selves to Him and of his giving his Grace in Christ to us being ordained by Christ himself as a means whereby we receive that Grace and a pledge to assure us of it To Q. What is the inward Spiritual Grace A. The pardon of our Sins by the Blood of Christ whose Members we are made and a death unto sin c. Q. Why are Infants Baptized A. Because they are the Children of the Faithful to whom God's Promises are made and are by them devoted unto God to be entered into Covenant with Him by his own appointment which when they come to Age themselves are bound to perform After the next Answer add And for our Communion with Him and with his Church To Q. What are the Benefits c. A. The renewed Pardon of our Sins and our Communion with Christ and his Church by Faith and Love and the strengthening c. In the Visitation of the Sick let the Minister have leave to vary his Prayer as Occasions shall require And let the Absolution be conditional If thou truly believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and truly repentest of thy sins I pronounce thee absolved through the Sacrifice and Merits of Iesus Christ. If any who is to kept from the Communion for Atheism Infidelity Heresie or Impenitency in gross sin shall in sickness desire Absolution or the Communion And if any Minister intrusted with the power of the Keys do perceive no probable sign of true Repentance and therefore dare not in conscience absolve him or give him the Sacrament left he profane God's Ordinance and harden the wicked in presumption and impenitency let not that Minister be forced to that Office against his conscience but let the sick chuse some other as he please And at the Burial of any who were lawfully kept from the Communion for the same causes and not absolved let the Minister be at liberty to change the words thus For asmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of this world the soul of this deceased person we commit his body c. believing a Resurrection of the just and unjust some to joy and some to punishment And to leave out in the Prayer We give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world And instead of it put And the souls of tne wicked to wo and miseryâ— We beseech thee to convert us all from sin by true and speedy repentance And teach us to spend this little time in an holy and heavenly conversation that we may be always prepared for Death and Iudgment And And in the next Collect to leave out as our hope is this our brother doth But in the Rubrick before Burial instead of any that die unbaptized put anythat die unbaptized at years of discretion That the Infants of Christian Parents who die unbaptized be not numbered with the Excommunicate and Self-murderers and denied Christian Burial Let the Psalms in the Parish-Churches be read in the last Translation Let the Liturgy either be abbreviated by leaving out the short Versicles and Responses Or else let the Minister have leave to omit them and in times of cold or haste to omit some of the Collects as he seeth cause In Churches where many cannot read let the Minister read all the Psalms himself because the confused
the loss of one Grain of Love was worse than a long Imprisonment And that it much more concerned us to be sure that we deserved not Suffering than that we be delivered from it and to see that we wronged not our Superiours than that they wrong not us seeing we are not near so much hurt by their Severities as we are by our Sins Some told me that they hoped this would make me stand a little further from the Prelates and their Worship than I had done To whom I answered That I wondred that they should think that a Prison should change my Judgment I rather thought now it was my Duty to set a stricter watch upon my Passions lest they should pervert my Judgment and carry me into Extreams in opposition to my Afflictors And not past a Year and half after two Gentlemen turned Quakers in Prison If Passion made me lose my Love or my Religion the loss would be my own And Truth did not change because I was in a Goal The temper of my Visitors called me much to this kind of talk § 126. When I was in Prison the Lord Chief Baron at the Table at Serjeant's Inn before the rest of the Judges gave such a Character of me openly without fear of any Man's displeasure as is not fit for me to own or recite who was so much reverenced by the rest who were every one Strangers to me save by hear-say that I believe it much settled their Resolutions The Lord Chief Justice Vaughan was no Friend to Nonconformity or Puritans but he had been one of Selden's Executors and so Judge Hale's old Acquaintance Judge Tyrell was a well-affected sober Man and Serjeant Fountain's Brother-in-Law by Marriage and sometime his Fellow-Commissioner for keeping the Great Seal and Chancery Judge Archer was one that privately favoured Religious People And Judge Wild though greatly for the Prelates way yet was noted for a Righteous Man And these were the Four Judges of the Court. § 127. My Habeas Corpus being demanded at the Common Pleas was granted and a Day appointed for my Appearance But when I came the Judges I believe having not before studied the Oxford-Act when Judge Wild had first said I hope you will not use to trouble this Court with such Causes asked whether the King's Council had been acquainted with the Case and seen the Order of the Court which being denied I was remanded back to Prison and a new Day set They suffered me not to stand at the Bar but called me up on the Table which was an unusual respect and they sent me not to the Fleet as is usual but to the same Prison which was a greater favour § 128. When I came next the Lord Chief Justice coming towards Westminster Hall went into White-Hall by the way which caused much talk among the People When he came Judge Wild began and having shewed that he was no Friend to Conventicles opened the Act aâ—d then opened many defaults in the Mittimus for which he pronounced it invalid but in Civility to the Justices said that the Act was so Penned that it was a very hard thing to draw up a Mittimus by it which was no Compliment to the Parliament Judge Archer next spake largely against the Mittimus without any word of disparagement to the main Cause And so did Judge Tyrell after him I will not be so tâ—dious as to recite their Arguments Judge Vaughan concluded in the same manner but with these two Singularities above the rest 1. That he made it an Error in the Mittimus that the Witnesses were not named seeing that the Oxford-Act giving the Justices so great a power if the Witnesses be unknown any innocent Person may be laid in Prison and shall never know where or against whom to seek remedy which was a Matter of great moment 2. When he had done with the Cause he made a Speech to the People and told them That by the apperance he perceived that this was a Cause of as great Expectation as had been before them and it being usual with People to carry away things by the halves and their misreports might mislead others he therefore acquainted them That though he understood that Mr. Baxter was a Man of great Learning and of a good Life yet he having this singularity the Law was against Conventicles and it was only upon the Error of the Warrant that he was released and that they use in their Charge at Assizes to enquire after Conventicles and they are against the Law so that if they that made the Mittimus had but known how to make it they could not have delivered him nor can do it for him on any that shall so transgress the Law This was supposed to be that which was resolved on at White-Hall by the way But he had never heard what I had to say in the main Cause to prove my self no Transgressor of the Law Nor did he at all tell them how to know what a Conventicle is which the Common Law is so much against § 129. Being discharged of my Imprisonment my Sufferings began for I had there better Health than I had of a long time before or after I had now more exasperated the Authors of my Imprisonment I was not at all acquit as to the main Cause they might ameâ—d their Mittimus and lay me in again I knew no way how to bring my main Cause whether they had power to put the Oxford-Oath on me to a legal Tryal And my Counsellors advised me not to do it much less to question the Justices for false Imprisonment lest I were born down by power I had now a great House of great Rent on my Hands which I must not come to I had no House to dwell in I knew not what to do with all my Goods and Family I must go out of Middlesex I must not come within five Miles of City Corporation c. where to find such a place and therein a House and how to remove my Goods thither and what to do with my House the while till my time expired were more trouble than my quiet Prison by far and the Consequents yet worse § 130. Gratitude commandeth me to tell the World who were my Benefactors in my Imprisonment and Calumny as much obligeth me because it is said among some that I was 〈◊〉 by it Serjeant Fountain's general Counsel ruled me Mr. Wallop and Mr. Offley sent me their Counsel and would take nothing Of four Serjeants that pleaded my Cause two of them Serjeant Windham afterwards Baron of the Exchequer and Serjeant Sise would take nothing Sir Iohn Bernard a Person that I never saw but once sent me no less than Twenty Pieces and the Countess of 〈◊〉 Ten Pound And Alderman Bard Five and I received no more but I confess more was offered me which I refused and more would have been but that they knew I needed it not And this much defrayed my Law and Prison Charges § 131. When
you had been unsatisfied in that which went before And you know what Mr. Nye is wont to say against drawing a Hose over our Differences though for my part I know no other way where we agree not in particulars but to take up with an Agreement in Generals But where indeed we do agree in Particulars I know no Reason why we should hide it to make our Difference to seem greater than it is 2. The Reasons why I make no larger a Profession necessary than the Creed and Scriptures are because if we depart from this old sufficient Catholick Rule we narrow the Church and depart from the old Catholicism And we shall never know where to rest From the same Reasons as you will take in Four Councils another will take in Six and another Eight and the Papists will say Why not the rest as well as these 3. Because we should Sin against the Churches 1200 Years Experience which hath been torn by this Conceit That our Rule or Profession must be altered to obviate every new Heresie As if you could ever make a Creed or Law which no Offender shall mis-interpret nor hypocritically profess By this means the Devil may drive us to make a new Creed every Year by Sowing the Tares of a new Heresie every Year Hilary hath said so much against this not sparing even the Nicene Creed it self that I need say no more than he hath done upon that Argument of Experience but only that if 30 or 40 Years Experience so much moved him against new Creed-making what should 1200 Years do by us 4. And the Means will be certainly Fruitless seeing that Hereticks are usually Men of wide Consciences and if their Interest require it they will Equivocate as Men do now with Oaths and Subscriptions and take any Words in their own Sense 5. And the Means is needless seeing there is another and fitter Remedy against Heresie provided and that is not making a new Rule or Law but judging Hereticks by the Law of God already made Either they are Hereticks only in Heart or in Tongue also and Expression If in Heart only we have nothing to do to Judge them Heart-Infidels are and will be in the Churches If they be proved to be Hereticks in Tongue then it is either before they are taken into the Communion of the Church or after If before you are to use them as in case of proved Wickedness that is call them to publick Repentance before they be admitted If it be after they must be admonished and Rejected after the first and second contemned Admonition And is not this enough And is not this the certain regular way Is it not confusion to put Law for Iudgment and say there wants a new Law or Rule when there wants but a due Iudgment by the Rule in being 6. Lastly We shall never have done with the Papists if we let go the Scripture-Sufficiency And it is a double Crime in us to do it who Dispute with them so vehemently for it And we harden and justifie Church-Tyranny and Impositions when we will do the like our selves If there be nothing against Socinianism in the Scripture it is no Heresie If there be as sure there is enough and plain enough Judge them by that Rule and make not new ones But if any will not hold to this truly Catholick Course I shall next like your Motion very well to take up with the Creed as Expounded in the 4 First Councils called General which I can readily subscribe my self but it 's better let them all alone and not to be so found of one onely Engine which hath torn the Church for about 1200 Years I mean departing from the Ancient Rule and making new Creeds and Forms of Communion To your Third Qu. 1. I suppose you observe that what I say about Separation is not under the third Head of the Concord of Neighbour Churches but under the second Head of the Concord of Members in the same particular Churches and were you not heretofore at Agreement in your own Churches And is it not the Duty and Interest of your own Churches to keep Unity and that the Members separate not unjustly whether you agree with other Churches or not 2. Either what I say about Separation is that which we are all now Uniting agreed in or not If it be iâ— honoureth our Brethren to profess it and can be no Reproach or Offence to them to declare it If any have sinned against their own present Judgment I hope they are not so Impenitent as to desire us to forbear agreeing with their own Iudgments because it is against their former sins And here is no Word said Historically to upbraid any with these Sins at all But if we are not all agreed thus far against Separation I desire you to name the Terms which we agree not in and then we shall see whether we may leave them out or whether it render our Concord desperate and impossible of which anon To your Fourth Qu. The Iealousies and Errors of these Times do make it necessary to our Peace to make some Profession of our Judgment about Magistracy and I think there is nothing questionable in this I am sure there is nothing but what many of the Congregational-Party do allow but if you come to Particulars I shall consider of them again The particular Exceptions which you Obliterate not your selves are but these 1. To Qu. Prop. 9. Whether I mean prescribed Forms and Homilies and Habits by the Terms what Words to use in Preaching and Prayer c. Answ. That which I say as plain as I can is 1. That a determination of such Circumstances is not a sinful Addition to God's Word nor will allow the People therefore to avoid the Churches Communion 2. That it belongs to the Pastor's Office to determine them what Words he shall Preach and Pray in c. Therefore you have no cause to ask my meaning about imposing upon him but only whether he may so far impose upon the Flock as to use his own Words in Preaching Prayer c. 3. That yet if the Pastor determine these Circumstances destructively the People have their Remedy And is not this enough Why must I tell you whether you may read a Sermon or Homily of your own Writing or another Man 's unto the People Or if you do whether they must separate Or else if you read a Prayer c. Either you determine these things to the Churches hurt or not If not why should they blame you or Separate If you do they have their Remedy But whether you do or not I now decide not If we meddle with all such Particulars we shall never agree more than those must be left to liberty You think our Particulars are too many already and would you have more And if the Controversies of the Times will tempt any to Expound our General Terms of Agreement amiss we must not go from Generals for that To the Tenth Prop. You say
Sorrow but such as tendeth to raise us to a high Estimation of Christ and to the magnifying of Grace and a sweeter taste of the Love of God and to the firmer Resolution against Sin And that Tears and Grief be not commended inordinately for themselves nor as meer Signs of a Converted Person And that we call Men more to look after Duty than after Signs as such â—â—t Self-love on Work and spare not so you will call them much more to the Love of God and let them know that that Love is their best sign but yet to be exercised on a higher Reason than as a sign of our own Hopes for that Motive alone will not produce true Love to God And as the Antinomians too much exclude Humiliation and signs of Grace so too many of late have made their Religion to consist too much in the seeking of these out of their proper time and place without referring them to that Obedience Love and Joy in which true Religion doth principally consist Reader I do but transcribe these three Counsels for thee from a Multitude of Melancholy Persons sad Experiences § 185. This Year Salisbury-Diocess was more fiercely driven on to Conformity by Dr. Seth Ward their Bishop than any place else or than all the Bishops in England besides did in theirs Many Hundreds were Prosecuted by him with great Industry And among others that learned humble holy Gentleman Mr. Thomas Grove an Ancient Parliament-Man of as great Sincerity and Integrity as almost any Man I ever knew He stood it out a while in a Law-Suit but was overthrown and fain to forsake his Countrey as many Hundreds more are quickly like to do § 186. And his Name remembreth me that Ingenuity obligeth me to Record my Benefactor A Brother's Son of his Mr. Rob. Grove is one of the Bishop of London's Chaplains who is the only Man that Licenseth my Writings for the Press supposing them not to be against Law which else I could not expect And besides him alone I could get no Licenser to do it And because being Silenced Writing is the far greatest part of my remaining Service to God for his Church and without the Press my Writings would be in vain I acknowledge that I owe much to this Man and one Mr. Cook the Arch-bishop's Chaplain heretofore that I live not more in vain § 187. And while I am acknowledging my Benefactors I add that this Year died Serjeant Iohn Fountain the only Person from whom I received an Annual Sum of Money which though through God's Mercy I needed not yet I could not in Civility refuse He gave me 10 l. per Ann. from the time of my Silencing 'till his Death I was a Stranger to him before the King's Return save that when he was Judge before he was one of the Keepers of the Great Seal he did our Countrey great Service against Vice He was a Man of a quick and sound Understanding an upright impartial Mind and Life of too much testiness in his weakness but of a most believing serious Fervency towards God and open zealous owning of true Piety and Holiness without owning the little Partialities of Sects as most Men that ever I came near in Sickness When he lay sick which was almost a Year he sent to the Judges and Lawyers that sent to visit him such Answers as these I thank your Lord or Master for his kindness Present my Service to him and tell him It is a great Work to Die well his time is near all worldly Glory must come down intreat him to keep his Integrity over-come Temptations and please God and prepare to Die He deeply bewailed the great Sins of the Times and the Prognosticks of dreadful things which he thought we were in danger of And though in the Wars he suffered Imprisonment for the King's Cause towards the end he came from them and he greatly feared an inundation of Poverty Enemies Popery and Infidelity § 188. The great Talk this Year was of the King 's Adjourning the Parliament again for about a Year longer and whether we should break the Triple League and desert the Hollanders c. § 189. Before they were Adjourned I secretly directed some Letters to the best of the Conforming Ministers telling them how much it would conduce to their own and the Churches Interest if they that might be heard would become Petitioners for such Abatements in Conformity as might let in the Non-conformists and unite us seeing two things would do it 1. The removal of Oaths and Subscriptions save our Subscription to Christianity the Scriptures and the 39 Articles and the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy 2. To give leave to them that cannot use all the Liturgy and Ceremonies to be but Preachers in those Churches where they are used by others submitting to Penalties if ever they be proved to Preach against the Doctrine Government or Worship of the Church or to do any thing against Peace or the Honour of the King and Governours But I could get none to offer such a Petition And when I did but mention our own petitioning the Parliament those that were among them and familiar with them still laught at me for imagining that they were reasonable Creatures or that Reason signified any thing with them in such Matters And thus we were Silenced every way § 190. During the Mayoralty of Sir Samuel Sterling many Jury's Men in London were Fined and Imprisoned by the Judge for not finding certain Quakers guilty of violating the Act against Conventicles They Appealed and sought remedy The Judges remained about a Year in suspense and then by the Lord Chief Justice Vaughan delivered their Resolution against the Judge for the Subject's Freedom from such force of Fines that when he had in a Speech of two or three Hours long spoke vehemently to that purpose never thing since the King's Return was received with greater Joy and Applause by the People and the Judges still taken for the Pillars of Law and Liberty § 191. The Parliament having made the Laws against Nonconformists Preaching and private Religious Meetings c. so grinding and terrible as aforesaid the King who consented to those Laws became the sole Patron of the Nonconformist's Liberties not by any Abatements by Law but by his own Connivance as to the Execution the Magistrates for the most part doing what they perceived to be his Will So that Sir Rich. Ford all the time of his Mayoralty in London though supposed one of their greatest and most knowing Adversaries never disturbed them The Ministers in several Parties were oft encouraged to make their Addresses to the King only to acknowledge his Clemency by which they held their Liberties and to profess their Loyalty Sir Iohn Babor introduced Dr. Manton and some with him Mr. Ennis a Scotch Non-conformist by Sir Rob. Murray introduced Mr. Whittakers Dr. Annesley Mr. Watson and Mr. Vincent's The King as they say themselves told them That though such Acts were made He was against
them as we could and not to hold any Communion with any that did Conform having Printed his Third Reviling Libel against me called for my Third Reply which I Entitled The Church told of c. But being Printed without License Lestrange the Searcher Surprized part of it in the Press there being lately greater Penalties laid on them that Print without License than ever before And about the Day that it came out Mr. Bagshaw died a Prisoner though not in Prison Which made it grievous to me to think that I must seem to write against the Dead While we wrangle here in the dark we are dying and passing to the World that will decide all our Controversies And the safest Passage thither is by peaceable Holiness § 196. About Ian. 1. the King caused his Exchequer to be shut up So that whereas a multitude of Merchants and others had put their Money into the Banker's hands and the Bankers lent it to the King and the King gave Order to pay out no more of it of a Year the murmur and complaint in the City was very great that their Estates should be as they called it so surprized And the rather because it being supposed â—o be in order to the Assisting of the French in a War against the Dutch they took a Year to be equal to perpetuity and the stop to be a loss of all seeing Wars use to increase Necessities and not to supply them And among others all the Money and Estate except 10 l. per Ann. for 11 or 12 Years that I had in the World of my own not given away to others whom Charity commanded me to give it to for their Maintenance before was there which indeed was not my own which I will mention to Counsel any Man that would do good to do it speedily and with all their might I had got in all my Life the just Sum of 1000 l. Having no Child I devoted almost all of it to a Charitable Use a Free-School c. I used my best and ablest Friends for 7 Years with all the Skill and Industry I could to help me to some Purchase of House or Land to lay it out on that it might be accordingly setled And though there were never more Sellers I could never by all these Friends hear of any that Reason could encourage a Man to lay it out on as secure and a tolerable Bargain So that I told them I did perceive the Devil's Resistance of it and did verily suspect that he would prevail and I should never settle but it would be lost So hard is it to do any good when a Man is fully resolved that divers such Observations verily confirm me That there are Devils that keep up a War against Goodness in the World § 197. The great Preparations of the French to invade the Vnited Provinces and of the English to assist them do make now the Protestants Hearts to tremble and to think that the Low Countries will be Conquered and with them the Protestant Cause deeply endangered Though their vicious worldly Lives deserve God's Judgments on themselves yet they are a great part of the Protestants Humane Strength But the Issue must expound God's purposes without which Men's Designs are vain § 198. This Year a new Play-House being built in Salisbury-Court in Fleet-Street called the Duke of York's the Lord Mayor as is said desired of the King that it might not be the Youth of the City being already so corrupted by Sensual Pleasures but he obtained not his desire And this Ian. 1671. the King's Play-House in Drury Lane took Fire and was burnt down but not alone for about fifty or sixty Houses adjoyning by Fire and blowing up accompanied it § 199. A Stranger calling himself Sam. Herbert wrote me a Letter against the Christian Religion and the Scriptures as charging them with Contradictions and urged me to answer them which I did And his Name inviting my memory I adjoyned an Answer to the Strength of a Book heretofore written by Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury some-time Ambassador in France the Author of the History of Henry VII called de Veritate being the most powerful Assault against the Christian Religion placing all the Religion that 's certain in the Common or Natural Notices I entitled the Book More Reasons for the Christian Religion and none against it Or a Second Appendix to the Reason for the Christian Religion § 200. The foresaid Mr. Hinkley by his impertinent Answer to my former Letters extorted from me a large Reply but when I was sending it him in Writing I heard that he intended to Print some scraps of it with his Papers the better to put them off Whereupon I sent him word he should not have them till he satisfied me that he would not so abuse them c. The rather because 1. The Subject of them was much to prove that the War was raised in England by an Episcopal Parliament jealous of other Episcopal Men as to Popery and Propriety 2. And it was so much against Diocesanes and their new Oaths as would much displease them 3. And in a sharper stile than was fit for publick View And as to the first Reason I was afraid lest any Papists would lay hold of it to make any Princes that already hate the the Non-conformists and Presbyterians to hate the Conformists and Prelatists also and so to seem themselves the most Loyal And I had rather they hated and cast off the Non-conformists alone than both This mindeth me to add that § 201. About a Year ago one Henry Fowlis Son to Sir David Fowlis an Oxford Man who had wrote against the Presbyterians with as filthy a Language almost as a man in his Wits could do having written also against the Papists His Book after his Death was Printed in a large Folio so opening the Principles and Practices of Papists against Kings their Lives and Kingdoms by multitudes of most express Citatioâ—s from their own Writers that the like hath not before been done by any Man nor is there extant such another Collection on that Subject though he left out the Irish Massacre But whereas the way of the Papists is to make a grievous Complaint against any Book that is written effectually against them as injurious as they did against Pet. Moulin's Answer to Philanax Anglicus and against Dr. Stillingfleet's late Book or the contrary this Book being copious true Citations and History is so terrible to them that their method is to say nothing of it but endeavour to keep it unknown for of late they have left the disputing way and bend all their endeavours to creep into Houses and pervert Persons in secret but especially to insinuate into the Houses and Fantiliarity of all the Rulers of the World where they can be received § 202. The Death of some the worthy Labours and great Sufferings of others maketh me remember that the just characterizing of some of the Ministers of Christ that now suffered for not
Conformity 12. At Shrewsbury was silenced Mr. Heath an ancient grave minister moderate sedate quiet religious eminent for his Skill in the Oriental Languages 13. In the same Town was silenced Mr. Francis Talents an ancient Fellow of Magdalen Colledge in Cambridge and a good Schollar a godly blameless Divine most eminent for extraordinary Prudence and moderation and peaceableness towards all who in our Wars lived at Saumours in France and is now there again 14. In the same Town was silenced Mr. Brian Son to Dr. Brian a Godly able Preacher of a quick and active Temper but very humble 15. At Whitchurch was silenced and cast out Mr. Porter an ancient grave Divine of great integrity blamelessness and Diligence and so excellent a Preacher that few arrived to his Degree that ever I have heard 16. At Baschurch was cast out and silenced Mr. Lawrence a solid calm peaceable godly man and a good Preacher who hath wrote a Treatise about Sickness He was lately in trouble and his Goods taken away for preaching in a private House where but four Neighbours were present on pretence that a little Daughter of the House that came newly from School and another Child made the Supernumeraries which put him to a tedious Suit Aâ—d Mr. Powis an able Lawyer of that Country who had ever before carried it moderately and soberly being entertained against him whether pro more or why I know not at the Bar called him a Seditious Fellow who was far from it and spake of him revilingly and eagerly and about a week or fortnight after died almost suddenly 17. At Wem was silenced and long imprisoned in the Common Goal Mr. Parsons a moderate ancient Minister having but used the word King in his Sermon relating to Christ an ignorant profane Enemy witnessed that he said somewhat against the King for which he so long suffered And for the very same Cause Dr. Brian was accused and Mr. Field before-mentioned kept in Prison in the Gatehouse till he there died 18. At Câ—un was silenced Mr. Froysell an ancient Divine of extraordinary worth for Judgment moderation Godliness blameless living and excellent Preaching who as many of the rest hath in poverty and Sickness and great Suffering continued to preserve the Peace of his Conscience 19. Many more worthy men in that County were cast out and silenced Mr. Barnes Mr. Taylor Mr. Thomas Mr. Berry Mr. Malden of Newport a very Learned Man Mr. Champian Mr. Thomas Wright of Kinnersley a Man of extraordinary Learning Ability and Moderation and Peaceableness and divers others all men of Godliness and upright Lives and great Ministerial Diligence those of them that survive living in great Poverty most of them having nothing or next to nothing of their own And the Charity that should maintain them and their Families is clogg'd with so great Poverty through the burning of London the decay of Trade Taxes c. that alass their Relief is very small § 204. To give any Description of the London Ministers so well known would be superfluous viz. 1. Old Mr. Simon Ash old Mr. Arthur Iackson Mr. Asalton all dead three Men of excellent Humility and sincere Godliness and good Abilities Mr. Calamy Dr. Seaman of great Learning Mr. Sheffield Mr. Cowper Mr. Gouge that wonder of Charity Humility Sincerity and moderation Mr. Wickins Mr. Hawler Mr. Cradacote Mr. Peter Vink Mr. Blackmore Mr. Haviland Mr. Samuel Clark Mr. Ienkins that Sententious Elegant Preacher Dr. Bates a Learned Judicious moderate Divine Mr. Matthew Pool that Learned most industrious Man known by his Abreviation of the Criticks Mr. Sangar Mr. Needler two very humble grave peaceable Divines Mr. Rawlinson an ancient grave Divine of great Ability Mr. Iohn Iackson Mr. Lie Mr. Case an old faithful Servant of God Dr. Drake that wonder of Humility and Sincerity now with God Mr. White such another now with him Mr. Croston Mr. Woodcock a Man of great ability and readiness Mr. Hurst Mr. Pledger Mr. Tatnall Mr. Lee known by his Learned Latin Tract on the Revelation Mr. Low an ancient grave Divine whom I have heard at Ludlow forty Years ago Mr. Church a calm worthy man lately dead that had abundance of Children and almost nothing Mr. Benton Mr. Barham Mr. Wells Mr. Parsons Mr. Strethill Mr. Dawkes with more that I cannot remember And those called Independents Mr. Nye Mr. Caryll Mr. Griffiths Mr. Greenhill Mr. Brookes Mr. Wood Mr. Rose an humble Godly man Mr. Mead Mr. Barker and Mr. Venning two excellent Preachers and moderate godly worthy men Besides those that are come thither since Dr. Tho. Goodwin and Dr. Owen from Oxford Men better known than my Description could make them Dr. Wilkinson thence also Mr. Collins c. Iohn Goodwin now dead I need not describe § 205. But because there are some few who by Preaching more openly than the rest and to greater Numbers are under more Men's displeasure and censure I shall say of them truly but what I know 1. Dr. Manton who lately lay six Months in Prison is a Man of great Learning Judgment and Integrity and an excellent most laborious unwearied Preacher and of moderate principles 2. Dr. Iacomb is known to be a Man of Gravity sober and moderate Principles and hath still held on Preaching in the House and under the Protection of the excellent sincere humble godly faithful Lady the Countess Dowager of Exeter Daughter to the Earl of Bridgewater to the utmost of her Power a comfort to all suffering faithful Ministers and People and in all this excelling those of her Rank and Generation 3. Dr. Annesley is a most sincere godly humble Man totally devoted to God worthily to be joyned with his two great intimate Friends Dr. Drake and Mr. White whose Preaching in those two greatest Auditories Giles's Cripplegate and Paul's Church did very much good till he was silenced 4. Mr. Thomas Vincent is a serious humble godly Man of sober Principles and great Zeal and Diligence whose Experience in the Plague time engaged him in the work as is before declared His Brother equal to him and is but lately come out of Prison 5. Mr. Ienoway is a Man of extraordinary devotedness to God and zeal for the good of Souls and of great humility and holiness of Life and an excellent Preacher 6. Mr. Wadsworth is an able judicious man devoted wholly to God and to do good Before he was cast out he preached constantly and zealously taught all his People also House by House hired another to help in that work gave Bibles to the poor People of his Parish and expended not only his time and strength but his Estate on these Works with much also which he got from others towards it Insomuch that when he was turned out the Peoples Lamentation might have melted a heart that had any Compassion Since then he preacheth through the Peoples desire and necessity at one Congregation there at Newington-Butts and another at Theobalds by turns and never taketh any maintenance from
operate a qualitative change on the Receiver's mind or heart is not necessary to the being of a Sacrament nor yet that it be instituted to do so by 〈◊〉 or Physical Operation per modum Naturae without Intellectual Consideration and Moral Operation The First will be granted that the effecting of such Qualities is not necessary to it And as to the 2d Observe that we grant as followeth 1. That Sacraments by Investiture or Delivery of Right as Instruments convey all that Relative Grace which the Covenant of God doth give immediately to Consenters 2. That it Morally worketh also Holy Qualifications by Man's Considering-Improvement 3. And that with the use of it though not by the Instrumentality of it God may Physically or Miraculously without any second cause give qualitative grace to Infants or whom he please in a way to us unknown But that this last is not Essential to a Sacrament I am now to prove 1. All that is essential to a Sacrament is found in the Sacrament as used by the Adult Yea they are the more notable and Excellent Subjects to whom it was first administred and the Case of Infants is more obscure and non notum per ignotius sed ignotius per notius probandum est But the Sacrament as administred to or used by the adult doth necessarily contain no more than 1. mutual covenanting 2. The Instrumental Conveyance or Confirmation of the Relative Grace of the Covenant or Ius 3. Moral Aptitude to work holy Qualities 4. And that it be Symbolum Ordinis id est Christianismi 1. This is proved as to the Baptism of the Adult 1. They make their solemn signal Profession of Federation Consent Reception c. 2. God by his Minister doth invest the Receiver in his Right of special relation to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and in his right to Pardon Reconciliation Justification and Adoption and Right to Glory 3. It is a Means adapted to work Morally on the Will by the just Considerations of the Understanding 4. It is the Symbol of Christianity called Our Christening 2. The same I say of the Lord's Supper and therefore crave leave not to repeal them 1. That Sacraments are acts of Solemn Mutual Covenanting none deny that know what Christianity is The Uninterrupted Form of Baptizing in all Ages proveth it 2. That God by their Instrumentality delivereth the Adult their Ius or Relative Grace or right to present Pardon c. is not denyed 3. That they are Moral Instruments of Holy Acts and so of Habits in the Adult neither Papist Arminians Lutherans or Calvinists deny And above all the Arminians should not deny it who I think acknowledge no means but Moral if any other Operations on Man's soul. 4. And that they are Tesserae vel Symbola Christianae Religionis none that I know of do deny But that they are instituted to operate on the Adult any any otherwise than Morally and this Essential to them I deny upon three Reasons 1. There is no Scripture that asserteth it Et quod Scriptum non est Credendum non est about such Matters 2. Else not only the Armenians but the greatest part of Christians should deny the Sacraments who deny such use and operations of them And specially all those Protestants who dealing with the Papists opus Operatum largely write to prove that Sacraments work but Morally 3. And the Nature of the thing sheweth it impossible without a Miracle For the Grace to be conveyed is the Act or Habit or Disposition of Love to God and the Conjunct Graces with that Antecedent Light of knowledge and faith which must excite it And how but Miraculously Water in Baptism should be an Instrument of conveying holy Love or Knowledge no Man conceive For 1. Our Love of God is not put into the Water 2. If it were the Water doth not touch the Soul 3. If it did Corporal Contact or attingencie would not cause Love The same is said of the â—ucharist And the truth is many Papists are by Protestants mistaken in their Doctrine de Opere Operato who speak but as distinguishing it ab Opere Operantis And when they have puzled themselves to tell what the Indelible Character given by Ordination is they can satisfactorily carry it no higher than with Durandus to say it is a Relation that is A fixed Relation to the Vndertaken Work and a power right and obligation to it And they that tell us as Ioseph Anges c. that Ordination is a true Sacrament though sinfully used when given to an Infant and a Bedlam and that none hut Durandus denieth it a false Doctrine no doubt quia deest dispositio recipientis yet can tell us of no more that it doth convey to the Infant or Bedlam-Priest or Bishop but a Relation Nor can they that say Receive the Holy Ghost assure us that any more is given by Ordination And so of Baptism And if they say that If the Water be not the Instrument of given-grace to the Adult yet it may be to me other means let them tell us if they can what they mean and what means besides a Moral means it can be If they say that if God give not grace qualitative or Active by it as a means yet he giveth grace with it without any second cause I answer God can do so no doubt He can give grace while we are hearing though inconsiderately without any use of the Word heard And so in the time of baptizing without any causality of Baptism But he that will assert as in any Miracles and Immediate Operations as Sacraments must bring very clear proof of his assertion Sure we are that Faith and Repentance are prerequisite in the Adult and therefore the Sacrament is not so much as the Time of first-giving them by Institution And we are all agreed that in the Sacraments Sacred truth and Goodness Christ and his Gracious benefits are objectively set before us as Moral means of our Information Excitation and increase of faith and hope and love And when we are sure that the Word and Sacraments are instituted for one way of giving gracious Acts or Qualities he that will add another must prove it 4. And the case being thus with the Adult the instance of Infants will not prove the Sacraments no Sacraments to the Adult the Noblest Subjects And though God may immediatly or Miraculously at the same time give holy Habits or Acts to Infants yet it is past Man's Conception how Water or Words should be any Cause of them any more on them than on the Adult as aforesaid And he that will say that yet so it is though We know not how as the Papists do about Transubstantiation must first prove that it is so indeed We grant that the Parents are to use it Morally in dedicating their Children to God and believing and Covenanting for them And that God useth it as his investing or delivering sign morally to give the Infant all the Relative Grace which
this 4. Prop. About compelling the Unfit to receive the Lord's Supper Strict The Church doth not compel any to receive the Sacrament that is unfit but punnisheth them that are unfit and neglect the making of themselves fit for it by breaking off their Sins by Repentance Answ. Alas poor Souls that must have such a Cure It seems by this that this Church supposeth 1. That all Men can Cure all their Unfitness 2. And that a Prison is the way to make them willing We Nonconformists contrarily think That 1. A Willing person may be Uncured of some unfitnesses 2. And that a Prison is no fit cure for such nor for some others We think that a Melancholly or Timerous Person is unfit who would be like to be distracted by the fear of unworthy Receiving We are sure that all that we can say will not Cure such Fears in very many If Conformists can do it and will not they are to blame We know that the Person himself though willing cannot do it We will not believe that Christ would have them laid in Goal to cure them But if the Bishops will take that course it must be suffered We judge all our present Infidels Sadducees and Socinians unfit if not the Papists And they offer their Protestations that they cannot change their Judgments We think a Goal unapt to change them but rather with meekness to instruct Opposers if God perhaps will give them Repentance to the acknowlegment of the Truth 2 Tim. 2. 25. Yea though after the Chancellour's admonition or better means they be erroneous still Verily if your way were throughly practised and such Church-Laws executed and all dwelt in Goals that are unfit for the Sacrament after your teaching and admonition and Excommunication the Landlords would find a great diminution of their Tenants and the Goalers would have more Tenants than many Lords and it were necessary to have a Goal in every Parish This is your way of comforting the timerous but who should there maintain them all I know not But if Goalers be the most effectual Converters of Souls I think more Clergy-Men than Non-conformists need their help that obtain it not And they may possibly put in for the Tythes and Church-Revenues Strict Is any Minister required to give the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood to any unbaptized Person Is not this a groundless and slanderous insinuation Nay is any Minister forced or required to give the Sacrament to any notoriously wicked or prophane Person See the Rubrick before the Communion That which follows seems to aim at an introducing of Auricular Confession or the setting up an Independent Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction in every Minister over his own Parish Ans. 1. Your Charge is causeless I find in the Canons and Rubrick that every Parishioner must receive And those unbapaized as many born of Anabaptists are I find not described or named as excepted in the Canon or Rubrick nor that any at age are forced to be Baptized and yet are forced by Penalty to Communicate So that I confess I am so ignorant as not to know whether I should be punished by the Bishop if I refused an un-baptized Parishioner But yet I verily think that the meaning of the Makers of the Liturgy and Canon was otherwise and I intended no more but to enumerate them whom we would have Power not to give the Sacrament to q. d. Not only the unbaptized plainly to be named but also the rest following 2. If by notoriously wicked you mean those that the Bishop or Chancellour hath Excommunicated we may keep them awayâ— Or if the Congregation will say that they are offended by their Crimes then they may be admonished to forbear but if they will not forbear upon the Admonition or at least will every time say that they are fully purposed to amend as most wicked Men will do I find not by the Rubrick that we can refuse them except it be one that is obstinate in Malice when at that time desired to be reconciled but the Canon seemeth to give more Power 3. Our Case is this We know that many are professed Infidels and many understand not what Baptism or Christianity or the Lord's Supper are in the very Essentials in many Places I doubt the greater part of the Parish A great number live in heinous Sins Drunkenness Fornication Swearing slandering c. The ignorant and Infidels the Minister would instruct but they will not come to him nor speak to him but refuse to give him any account or answer Almost all are Baptized in Infancy and at Age come to Church and never owned that the Minister knoweth of their Baptismal Covenant any otherwise We know not that we have Power to exclude the grosly ignorant If we had it must be if any will witness that his Neighbours are so Ignorant as to be uncapable which what private Man can and will do or else if they will come and say before others I am so Ignorant which few if any ever will till God do humble them And who will come and offend the scandalous by witnessing against them unconstrained though they will openly report it to one another How few of the Infidels Socinians gross Ignorants or scandalous here in London are by the Witnesses accused to the Ministers as such If we have the most credible Report that half our Country Parishioners or a quarter more or less are grosly Ignorant of the Essentials of Christianity and we find it true by so many of the suspected as will talk with us we must receive all the rest with all the Infidels and wicked Livers that none will become Accusers of though we know much our selves to confirm report And if they tell us we will have nothing to do with you out of the Pulpit we will give you no account of our knowledge or Faith nay we take you not for any of our Pastors yet must we do the office of a Pastor to them and give them the Sacrament and we are setting up Auricular Confession if we do but as their Teachers require on just Suspicion any account of their Knowledge or Faith or upon our Knowledge offer first personally to instruct them And if we desire else but to suspend our own Act tho they have their Appeal we arrogate Independent Power No wonder if under such Overseers our Parishes be but what they are 4. Prop. n. 8. To publish Excommunications against his Conscience Strict Against his viz. the Minister's Conscience Is not this to make every Minister an Independent Ecclesiastical Judge And that not only exclusively to Lay-Chancellours but to Bishops themselves also as appears by the words or any other Answ. 1. No let the Indifferent judge An Ecclesiastick Judge is Iudex publicus but here is nothing but Iudicium discretionis privatum suspending my own Act and medling with no Man's else Doth he judge Ecclesiastically who speaketh not a word nor medleth with the Cause any more than any one in the Congregation 2. How
his Conscience to baptize any Child who is not thus offered to God by one of the Parents or by such a pro parent as taketh the Child for his own and undertaketh the Christian Education Be it also Enacted that no person shall be constrained against his Conscience to the use of the Cross in Baptism or of the Surplice nor any Minister to deny the Lord's Supper to any for not receiving it kneeling nor read any of the Apocrypha for Lessons nor to punish any Excommunication or Absolution against his Conscience but the Bishop or Chancellour who decreeth it shall cause such to publish it as are not dissatisfyed so to do or shall only affix it on the Church-Door Nor shall any Minister be constrained at Burial to speak only words importing the salvation of any person who within a year received not the Sacrament of Communion or was suspended from it according to the Rubrick or Canon and satisfyed not the Minister of his serious Repentance III. And whereas many persons having been ordained as Presbyters by Parochial Pastors in the times of Usurpation and Distraction hath occasioned many Difficulties for the present remedy hereof be it Enacted That all such persons as before this time have been ordained as Presbyters by Parochial Pastors only and are qualifyed for that Office as the Law requireth shall receive power to exercise it from a Bishop by a written Instrument which every Bishop in his Diocess is hereby impowered and required to Grant in these words and no other To A. B. of C. in the Country of D. Take thou Authority to exercise the Office of a Presbyter in any place and Congregation in the King's Dominions whereto thou shall be lawfully called And this practice sufficing for present Concord no one shall be put to declare his Judgment whether This or That which he before received shall be taken for his Ordination nor shall be urged to speak any words of such signification but each party shall be left to Judge as they see cause IV. And whereas the piety of Families and Godly Converse of Neighbours is a great means of preserving Religion and Sobriety in the World and lest the Act for suppressing seditious Conventicles should be mis-interpreted as injurious thereto be it declared that it is none of the meaning of the said Act to forbid any such Family Piety or Converse tho more then four Neighbours should be peaceably present at the Reading of the Scriptures or a Licensed Book the singing of a Psalm repeating of the publick Sermons or any such Exercise which neither the Laws nor Canons do forbid they being performed by such as joyn with the allowed Church-Assemblies and refuse not the Inspection of the Ministers of the Parish Especially where persons that cannot read are unable to do such things at home as by Can. 13. is enjoyned V. And whereas the form of the Oath and Declaration imposed on persons of Office and Trust in Corporations is unsatisfactory to many that are Loyal and peaceable that our Concord may extend to Corporations as well as Churches Be it Enacted That the taking of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Declaration against Religion and Disloyalty here before prescribed shall to all Ends and purposes suffice instead of the said Oath and Declaration VI. And whereas there are many peaceable Subjects who hold all the Essentials of the Christian Faith but conform not to so much as is required to the Established Ministry and Church-Communion Be it Enacted that All and only they who shall publickly take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy before some Court of â—ustice or at the Open Sessions of the County where they live and that then and there Subscribe as followeth I. A. B. do unfeâ—gnedly stand to my Baptismal Covenant and do believe all the Articles of the Creeds called the Apostles the Nicene and Constantinopolitane and the truth of the holy Canonical Scriptures and do renounce all that 〈◊〉 contrary hereto shall be so far tolerated in the Excercise of their Religion as His Majesty with the advice of his Parliament or Council shall from time to time find consistent with the peace and safety of his Kingdoms VII And lest this Act for Concord should occasion Discord by emboldening unpeaceable and unruly or heretical men be it enacted that if any either in the allowed or the Tolerated Assemblies that shall pray or Preach Rebellion Sedition or against the Government or Liturgy of the Church or shall break the Peace by tumults or otherwise or stir up unchristian hatred and strife or shall preach against or otherwise oppose the Christan verities or any Article of the sacred Doctrine which they subscribe or any of the 39. Articles of Religion they shall be punished as by the Laws against such Offences is already provided I will here also Annex the Copies of some Petitions which I was put to draw up which never were presented I. The first was intended while the Parliament was sitting to have been offered but wise Parliament-Men thought it was better forbear it II. The second was thought fit for some Citizens to have offered but by the same Councel it was forborn III. The third was thus occasioned Sir Iohn Babor told Dr. Manton that the Scots being then suspected of some insurrection it was expected that we renewed the profession of our Loyalty to free us from all suspicion of Conspiracy with them We said that it seemed hard to us that we should fall under suspicion and no cause alledged We knew of no occasion that we had given But we were ready to profess our continued Loyalty but desired that we might with it open our just resentment of our Case They put me to draw it up but when it was read it was laid by none daring to plead our Cause so freely and signify any sense of our hard usage I. May it Please Your Majesty with the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament WHen the Common profession of resolved moderation had abated Men's fears of a Silencing Prelacy and the published Declarations of Nobilitie and Gentry against all dividing violence and revenge had helpt to unite the endeavours of Your Subjects which prospered for Your Majestie 's desired Restoration when God's wonderful providence had dissolved the Military Powers of Usurpers which hindered it and when Your welcome appearance Your Act of Oblivion Your Gracious Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs for which the House of Commons solemnly gave you thanks did seem to have done much to the Cure of our Divisions we had some hopes that our common revived Love and Concord would have tended to Your Majesty's and our common joy in the harmony strength and prosperity of Your Kingdoms and that we might among your inferiour Subjects have enjoyed our part in the common tranquility But the year 1662. dissolved those hopes fixing our old Difficulties and adding more which since then also have been much increased Beeing consecrated and vowed to the sacred Ministry we
Hostility is Disunion and Dissolution Therefore no Head or Soveraign hath power to destroy or sight against his Kingdom nor any Common-wealth or Kingdom against their King or Soveraign Rulers unless in any case the Law of Nature and Nations which is above all Humane Positive Laws should make the dissolution of the Republick to become a Duty As if some Republick should cast off the Essential Principles of Society By Law neither King nor Kingdom may destroy or hurt each other For the Governing Laws suppose their Union as the Constitution and the Common good with the due Welfare of the Soveraign is the end of Government which none have power against But it must be noted that the words are against the King and not against the King's Will for if his Will be against his Welfare his Kingdom or his Laws though that Will be signified by his Commissioners the Declaration disclaimeth not the resisting of such a Will by Arms. 3. And if there be any that assert that the King's Authority giveth them right to take up Arms against his Person or Lawful Commissions it must needs be a False and Traiterous Assertion For if his Person may be Hostilely fought against the Common-wealth may be dissolved which the Law cannot suppose for all Laws die with the Common-wealth And it is a contradiction to be authorized by him to resist by Arms his Commissions which are according to Law For the Authority pretended to be his must be his Laws or Commissions and to be Authorized by his Laws or Commissions to resist his Laws must signifie that his Laws are contradictory when by one we must resist another But so far as they are contradictory both cannot be Laws or Lawful Commissions For one of them must needs nullifie the other either by Fundamental Priority or by Posteriority signifying a Repeal of the other And it must be noted that yet the Trayterous Position medleth not with the Question of taking Arms against the King's Person or Commissioners by the Law of God of Nature or of Nations but only of doing it by his own Authority 4. And that it is not lawful to take Arms against any Commissioned by him according to Law in time of Rebellion and War in pursuance of such Commission is a Truth so evident that no sober Persons can deny it The Long Parliament that had the War did vehemently assert it and therefore gave out their Commissions to the Earl of Essex and his Soldiers to fight against Delinquent Subjects for the King and Parliament 5. And the Oath containeth no more than our not endeavouring to Alter the Protestant Religion established or the King's Government or Monarchy It cannot with any true reason be supposed to tie us at all to the Bishops-much less to the English Disease or Corruption of Episcopacy or to Lay-Chancel lours c. but only to the King as Supreme in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil so far as they fall under Coercive Government This is thus proved past denyal 1. The word Protestant Religion as estalished in the Church of England cannot include the Prelacy For 1. The Protestant Religion is essentially nothing but the Christian Religion as such with the disclaiming of Popery aud so our Divines have still professed But our Prelacy is no part of the Christian Religion 2. The Protestant Religion is common to us with many Countreys which have no Prelacy And it is the same Religion with us and them 3. The words of the Oath distinguish the Religion of the Church of England from the Church of England it self and from Government 4. If Episcopacy in general were proved part of the Protestant Religion the English Accidents and Corruptions are not so They that say that Episcopacy is Iure Divino and unalterable do yet say that National and Provincial Churches are Iure Humano and that so is a Diocesane as it is distinct from Parochial containing many Parishes in it And if the King should set up a Bishop in every Market-Town yea every Parish and put down Diocesanes it is no more than what he may do And if by the Protestant Religion established should be meant every alterable mode or circumstance then King-James changed it when he made a new Translation of the Bible and both he and our late Convocation and King and Parliament by their Advice did change it when they added new Forms of Prayer And then this Oath bindeth all from endeavouring to make any alteration in the Liturgie or mend the Translation or the Metre of the Psalms c. or to take the keys of Excommunication and Absolution out of the hands of the Lay-Chancellour's c. which none can reasonably suppose 2. And that our Prelacy is not at all included in the word Government of the Kingdom in Church and State but only the King 's Supreme Government in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil is most evident 1. Because it is expressly said The Government of the Kingdom which is all one with the Government of the King For a Bishop or a Justice or a Mayor is no Governour of the Kingdom but only in the Kingdom of a Particular Church City Corporation or Division The summa potestas only is the Government of the Kingdom as a Kingdom And because forma denominat we cannot take the Kingdom to signifie only a Church or City 2. Because else it would change the very constitution of the Kingdom by making all the inferiour Officers unalterable and so to be essential constitutive parts Whereas only the pars Imperans and pars Subdita are constitutive parts of every Kingdom or Republick and the Constitutive pars Imperans is only the summa potestas except where the mixture and fundamental Contract is such as that Inferiour Officers are woven so into the Constitution as that they may not be changed without it's Dissolution which is hardly to be supposed even at Venice Tbe Oaths between the summa potestas and the Subject are the bonds of the Commonwealth their Union being the form that must not be dissolved But to make Oaths of Allegiance or Unchangeableness â—each to the Inferiour Magistrates or Officers is to change the Government or Constitution 3. And so it destroyeth the Regal power in one of it's chief properties or prerogatives which is to alter inferiour Officers who all receive their power from the Supreme and are alterable by him even by the Majestas which hath the Legislative powers And this would take away all the King's power to alter so much as a Mayor Justice or Constable For mark that Government of the Kingdom in Church and State are set equally together without any note of difference as to alteration If therefore it extend to any but the Supreme even to inferiour Officers it were to extend to them as Governing the State even to the lowest as well as the Church But this is a supposition to be Contemned 4. And if the Distinction should be meant de personis Imperantibus and should
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
before I give any Answer I shall first willingly yield these two Propositions 1. That an infallibly lawful Ordination is necessary to make us infallibly lawful Ministers 2. That an infallible Proof that we have been lawfully ordained is necessary to make us infallibly know that we have been lawfully Ordained But I deny that an infallible Knowledge tâ—at we have been lawfully Ordained is necessary to make us lawful Ministers Or that an infallible Knowledge that we have been lawfully ordained is necessary to give us true Peace in the exercise of our Ministry The former Negative is so clear from the extrinsical Nature of Knowledge to the Essences of the things known and the Posteriority of the Nature of Scientiae a re Scibilis that it is altogether superfluous to say any thing in order to the Proof of it But the other being indeed the thing you doubt of I shall offer you what is upon my own Understanding and what it is that persuades me to take the negative part And my Reason is this I do therefore think that an infallible Knowledge that his Ordainers had full Authority is not necessary to give a Man true Peace in the Exercise of his Ministry Because true Peace according to Gospel Equity is not founded upon exactness but upon utmost diligence and sincere Endeavours And particularly in point of Knowledge or in the Question What is our Duty to know True Peace is not founded upon exact or infallible Knowledge but upon an utmost Diligence or sincere Endeavour to know And therefore if we can but truly say that we do use our utmost Diligence to know we have the Foundation of true Peace though we be in the mean time in much Ignorance about the thing we enquire after And to the Question in hand if we can truly say that we have used our utmost Endeavours to know whether our Ordainers had full Power to Ordain we may have true Peace in the Exercise of our Ministry though in the mean time we cannot infallibly prove and by consequence cannot infallibly know that they had any such Authority True Peace according to Gospel measure very well agreeing with inculpable Ignorance And the Truth is if it were not thus in óther things I do not see how any Man could with Peace of Conscience enjoy those things which we call their Inheritances For it can never be infallibly proved nor they by consequence infallibly know that they have just Right and Title to them If they be not lawfully begotten they have no just claim to their Inheritances Now if they do not or indeed cannot infallibly know that they have been lawfully begotten they cannot know infallibly that they have a just claim to their Inheritances But they can never come to an infallible Knowledge that they have been lawfully begotten and by consequence upon such Principles as these can never with Peace of Conscience enjoy that which all Men usually call their due Inheritances And I conceive upon the same Grounds The Levites and Iewish Priesthood could never with any Peace of Conscience have exercised their Sacred Offices in regard they could never come to an infallible certainty that they did descend from Aaron upon which account only they had their just claim to those holy Employments Yea and all the Princes in the World who derive by dissent their Titles to their Crowns would upon such a Principle as this fit either very loose or with little ease in their imperial Chairs being never able upon infallible Proof to make good that they were the true legitimate Heirs to their Predecessors Which Considerations a posterioris as the Argument alledged doth a priori over-rule my Iudgment to determine that an infallible Knowledge that our Ordainers had full Authority to Ordain is not necessary to give us true Peace in the Exercise of our Ministry which was the only thing intended at the present By Your Fellow-labourer and Enquirer after Truth M. Iohnson Wamborn Decemb. 26. 1653. Numb III. Letters between Mr. Baxter and Mr. Lambe Mr. Lambe's Letter to Mr. Baxter SIR PERHAPS my Boldness may seem much in this Address to one unknown by Face but want of that is no sufficient Plea to restrain me knowing it 's no Impediment to the Communion of Saints These Lines are writ out of much Affliction of Heart and in many Tears which have run over at the Throne of Grace many a time about the Case presented The Reason of my Address to you rather than any other is because of some Converse I have had with your Writings whereby I judge you to have the Tongue of the Learned to speak a Word in Season being experienc'd your self in Spiritual Affairs and Temptations the immediate Cause of this Address was my reading your last Direction in the Book of Getting and keeping Peace and Comfort The Case is mine only as it is the Case of one who is my self in the dear Relation of a Husband it is an unusual one and therefore will require I doubt you more Pains to reach it and so is the more boldness in me but from you will be the more Service to Christ Jesus if you engage in it I would be brief but must of necessity declare Circumstances This dear Husband of mine Mr. Lambe is one that hath been devoted to God's Fear from his Youth up and hath desired exceedingly and delighted greatly to serve Christ Jesus our Lord the Ministry he was nourished and bred up in was Mr. Iohn Goodwin's for Twelve or Thirteen Years where he joined a Member and afterward by common Consent and Prayer and Fasting was ordained an Elder over that Flock and did labour in the Word and Doctrine then with great delight striving to adorn the Gospel in all Acts of Love Righteousness and Mercy Going on thus with Joy about Five Years ago the great Controversion of Baptism had some access into his Judgment through the means of another Member of that Body Mr. Allen a very Holy and good Man who having had long doubts about Infant Baptism was carried to the other by means of Mr. Fisher since Quaker by these Arguments presented Mr. Lambe was taken in his Judgment and in Conscience of his Duty did practice accordingly not thinking then but still to hold communion with the Church notwithstanding but then suddenly was led farther namely to love the Communion of that Church and finding not where to find any Society in that Engagement where they could have such means of Edification as they had left they were induced to join in a Body with some others about Twenty that came off by their means from the same Fellowship and so for Five Years have gone on till there is an Addition of about an Hundred Pray Sir pardon my troubling of you with this Story but that which follows cannot so well be understood without it Which is That now about Nine Months last past by some Experiences and Sights of the Faults of some particularly that of Fishers and
Sin from dark and doubtful Providences which are not our Rule but only some Effects of the Will of God that as to Events are clear but as to Truth and Duty can tell us nothing or very little but in full Subordination to our Rule from which they must receive their Light And of all Providences few are darker than Motions and Troubles from our own Thoughts so many and secret and powerful Causes are there within us and about us of Misapprehensions and misled Passions that its very dangerous boldly to Judge of the Mind of God by our own disturbed Minds when it is our Duty to judge our own Minds by God's and God's Mind by his Word his particular Providences being mostly but to help the Word in working in a Subordination to it 2. I cannot be sure that know him not but I suspect by the Narrative that this is Mr. L.'s Case 1. His Heart being upright in what he had before done God in Mercy gave into his Mind that Light concerning Catholicism and Brotherly Love and other Truths contained in his Papers which tended to his Satisfaction and Recovery 2. Upon the sight of this much Truth it must needs raise some Trouble in his Mind that he had acted contrarily before and yet the Words of the contrary Minded holding him in suspence and unresolved about his future Practice at least increased his Trouble an unresolved Mind in great Matters being a Burden to it self 3. And the terrible Threats and hard Prognosticks of these Dissenters and their Censures of him might yet sink deeper For it is the way of some to fall upon our Passions instead of our Judgments and stir up Fears in us instead of convincing us As the Papists win abundance by telling them that no others can be saved as if we should be frightened to the Party that will be most uncharitable when Charity is the Christians Badge So I doubt too many do that we have now to speak of 4. The Apprehension of his Peoples Discontent and some bad Consequents to them and himself that he Apprehended would follow his Return did yet make the disturbance more 5. The long and serious Study of the Matter with much Intention might yet go farther 6. And by all these means I conjecture he is somewhat surprized with Melancholy 7. And then if that prove so its very hard to gather the Mind of God from his Disturbances for they will follow the Impresses on his own disturbed Mind But all these are but my distant Conjectures from what you write But to come nearer 3. Whether he have contracted any Melancholy or no this is my Judgment of the Causes of his Changes 1. God caused his Light and Convictions in much Mercy that 's evident by the Conformity of his Assertions here to the Word of God and the Principles of Christianity 2. Satan envyed him and others the Mercy that was given in and therefore I verily think he is the cause of his Horrors and Troubles when he thinks of returning to Unity with others and wholly withdrawing himself from the Schism My Reasons are 1. Because I know that the Work is of God and Ergo who but Satan should be against it 2. Because that Troubling and Terrifying and Disturbing the Passions is usually his Work especially when it is against God's Light God worketh by Light and drawing the Heart to Truth and Goodness But Satan usually worketh by stirring in the Passions to muddy the Judgment 3. Common Experience tells us That it is his ordinary way where once he hath got Power to give quiet in Sin and to trouble and terrify upon Thoughts of Recovery Quest. But how should he have such Power with a Servant of God This leadeth me more particularly to answer your first Question God frequently giveth him such Power over his own Servants 1. When the Service we are upon is a recovering Work which implyeth our former Guilt It was no small Sin though ignorantly committed by an honest Heart for Mr. L. to separate and draw so many with him and put so much Credit and Countenance upon a Cause that hath made such sad and miserable work among the Saints O! What Churches might we have had by this time in England if the Enemy had not made use of our dividing Friends to his Advantage and to do his Work Now you must not marvel if the Accuser and Executioner have some Power given him to be a Vexation to a Godly Man after such Guilt And indeed so few look back that fall into Divisions that Mr. L. should not grudge at a little Perplexity that meets him in the way of so great a Mercy An ingenuous Mind would not come out of so great a Sin whithout some moderate Trouble for it and for it it is meritoriously and should be intentionally 2. Especially if Melancholy give him advantage Satan that commonly worketh by that means and Instrument may do Wonders 3. And I shall tell you of some other ends in the conclusion that I conjecture at To your Second Question I say it seems to me as is said a hard thing yea impossible to judge of his Cause by these his Passions But it 's most probable by far that this Distress of Spirit is for his former Sin in separating to say nothing of Re-baptizing and that it is also a gracious Providence for some further Good that yet he knows not of To the Third Question I answer I know not the State of Mr. Goodwin's Church and Ergo can say nothing to it whether he should return thither But my Judgment is 1. That he should in Prudence a little forbear deserting his separated Church for the ends in the Conclusion mentioned 2. That when he removeth he should preach the Gospel on the Terms in the end 3. That if he must be a private Member he should rather go to Mr. Goodwin's Church than another if it be rightly constituted because he thence removed But if it be disorderly gathered out of many Parishes without Necessity were I in his case I would rather join with another Church and that in the Parish where he lives if there be a Church that is fit to be joined with if not I would remove my Dwelling to the Parish that I would join with Cohabitation is the Aptitude requisite to Church-Membership To Your Question Why his Conscience feels not this Duty I know not unless providence mean as I shall speak anon But I marvel if he feels not the Sin of his Separation To your Fourth I answer Having drawn so many into a Schism it is his great unquestionable Duty to do all that he can to get them out of it and if he cannot to leave them and partake no longer in their Sins yea and do more than this for his Recovery and theirs To your Fifth Question It is answered in the former he ought openly to disown the Sin of Separation To the Sixth If he be Melancholy let him forbear Studies if not he should
shall we find them and make them in our Brethren Christ gathereth and will you scatter he reconcileth and uniteth and will you divide he justifieth and will you be he that shall condemn Even them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit and all for want of delaying Baptism till your time when in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth nothing nor uncircumcision but the New Creature and Faith that worketh by Love Have you mark'd how Unity and Love is inculcated in the New Testament and that as Omnipotency is most eminently engraven upon the Creation and Wisdom on the Laws of God so Goodness is most eminently engraven on the Redeemer and that in this Glass the Father in his Love and Goodness must be known and hereby the Impress and Image of Love must be made upon our Souls They that are least for Love and holy Unity are least like God and least for him and most like his Enemy and ours 18. Christ is both King Prophet and Priest and no one is sincerely related unto him in any of these respects but is related to him in all And Ergo all Christians are to be under his Church-Government and Protection in his Family as well as under his Teaching If they are by your own confession Fellow Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God do not disfranchise them nor deny them their Priviledges 19. Will not your Principles lead to narrowness of holy Charity in Communication of worldly Goods and destroy Christian Communion in this Those that were in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship in breaking of Bread and Prayer not through levelling but charitable Community had all things as common sure you will refuse this when you refuse Communion in Sacrament you will on the same ground think that those few only of your Opinion are to partake of this Special Communication For the Reason is the same 20. Contrary to the Spirit and Scope of the Gospel you lay greater stress upon the very timing of a holy Ceremony than under the Law was laid upon the being of the Ceremony it self Women had Communion without Circumcision The Males in the Wilderness did hold all holy Communion even in the Passover without Circumcision To all this let me add these few Questions to you 1. Do you think in the most humble frame of your Soul that you have no failing as great as you suppose the mis-timing of our Baptism to be and would you be rejected for it 2. Is this norrowness of special loving Communion answerable to the Principles of Universal Redemption and Grace wherein I suspect you go beyond me 3. Have you well considered that God's Unity is the first of his Attributes next his Being The Lord our God is one God And so the Unity of the Church is next the very Essence of it so to be regarded and maintained The Unity cannot be destroyed without destroying the Essence and therefore many Truths and Duties must be put behind the Churches Unity when accidentally the use of them is made inconsistent with it 4. It hath been the common frame of the Church since the Apostles days till of late to consist of a mixture one half baptized at Age being converted at Age from Infidelity and their Baptism before neglected and the other half that were born of Christian Parents baptized in Infancy And both sorts lived in Peace and Love and no Church History that ever I read doth give us any the least intimation that ever these two Sorts disagreed hereupon or accused one anothers way or made it any occasion of a Division And will you advance Knowledge and Holiness in the end of the World by advancing Uncharitableness and Division 5. Bethink you with sobriety as before the Lord if you had lived in the Church in the second third fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth ninth and tenth Century or lower in all which though many were baptized at Age being not Christians by any Infant Covenant yet no Writer that ever I saw doth tell us of one Church or one Pastor no nor of one Man that was a Catholick Christian no nor of one Heretick that I remember that was against the lawfulness of Infant Baptism I say if you had then lived would you have separated from all the Churches on Earth What! from the Universal Church in your Communion or would you have had all these Ages have laid by all instituted Church Order and Worship The consequences of this would rise so high that I will not name them to you Only I would further ask you 6. If you think their Baptism a Nullity and consequently the instituted Churches Ministry Order Sacraments Nullities that were used in all those Ages the seventh eighth ninth tenth c. when almost none but such as were baptized in Infancy were Church Members how far then do you differ from the Seekers that tell us All these were lost in the Apostacy 2. And how easily will a Papist trample you in the dirt and laugh you to scorn when he puts you to prove Successive Church and Ordinances and Ministry 3. And what advantage give you the Infidels and our own Remnants of Infidelity to deny the Head by so far denying the Body 7. Would you have a Unity and do you ever expect such a thing or not If not If you do on what terms do you expect it You can never with the least Encouragement of Reason expect that all should deny Infant Baptism and come to you These late years have given you as much advantage as you can well expect and yet you see the most of the Godly dare not come to you If therefore you will neither come to them in Judgment nor yet close in Communion with Christians of different Judgment what do you but give up Unity as desperate and fix in your divided State 8. And will you give the Papist Disputants so much Encouragement as to confess to them that among us there is not any hopes of Unity or loving Christian Church Communion I have been longer than I intended upon these Reasonings but it is because I would not neglect you but some one of them at least may stick upon you of which success your lives declaring you so honestly impartially and happily disposed to Love and Peace I make no doubt And now to your Objections which should have been my whole Task but that I would make sure the Issue And 1. to your first Argument I answer 1. It is against you and overthrows your Cause for as ordinarily Women were admitted to the Passover without Circumcision but not without the Covenant and as in extraordinary Cases offered as of all Israel 40 years in the Wilderness the Males also were admitted uncircumcised so much more may it be now in case of Baptism 2. Either the Ordinances and Examples of the Jews about Circumcision afford us Arguments for regulating our Baptism and Communion or not If not then you urge them in
Publick Worship which yet Mahometans offer him some it is Schism not to obey But if the Bishop do but say the word we may meet daily without Schism and the Place Person Exercise that before was Schismatical if he do but licence them are presently lawful So that the Bishop's word against the King's yea against God's command to preach in season and out can make a thing Schism and his word can make it none again in a moment 17. Whether it be Schism to go to a better Minister in another Parish in the same Diocess though we separate from no Church in their sense the Diocesan being the lowest proper Church is not well agreed on Feigning Schisms is making Schism by turbulent noise and 〈◊〉 Accusations We that impose on no Man and that obey them in lawful things that we for Universal Love and Peace even with that meet in different Assemblies and in different Forms we that hold Communion with all true Churches as aforesaid and yet because we can be but in one place at once do choose the best obeying God's Command Let all things be done to edification and knowing best what edifieth our selves we suppose are farther from Schism than those that as from the Throne of Authority pronounce Schism and never help us to understand the sense and reason of their words but use it as for the advantage of their Cause And as one lately writeth Have led that Bear so long about the streets till the Boy lay by fear and do but laugh at it Nor are there many more effectual Causes of Schism and that harden true Schismaticks against all Conviction then when it is seen that Men of Contention Pride and Worldly Interest first make the Schism by sinful or impossible terms of Unity and next falsly call the most Innocent that obey not their Domination Schismaticks and the greatest Duties even Preaching where many and many thousands have no Preaching nor no Publick Worship of God by the Name of Schism as if we must let London turn Heathens for fear of being Schismaticks Dear Friend though these things have these Forty years had my deep and I hope impartial thoughts and I dare not for a thousand Worlds think to do otherwise than I do in the main yet I shall heartily thank you if by true light you help me to see any Errour which I yet perceive not And seeing Experience hath justly taught you to dread Anabaptistry and Separation think further 1. Whether they that forbid Parents to enter their Children into Covenant with God in Baptism and lay all that Office on those that have no power to covenant in their names nor shew any purpose to perform what they promise and deny Baptism as aforesaid to the Children of such as submit not to this and the Cross be not quantum in se Destroyers of Infant Baptism which is no Baptism if there be no Covenant 2. Again Whether they be not Separatists that both un-Church all the Parish-Churches quantum in se and also deny Communion with the Nonconformists Churches as null or unlawful even when they had his Majesties Licence Be impartial against Antipedobaptists and Separatists I constantly heard and communicated with the Parish-Church where I lived but the Conformists usually fly from the Nonconformists Assemblies as unlawful but if both sides were heard in their Charge against the other I know which would have the more to say Accept this freedom from the unfeigned Love of Your much obliged Friend Rich. Baxter May 13. 1626. The Instances promised you I. WHen I was cast out at Kidderminster and you know what a Minister was there I offered while the Indulgence of the King's Declaration continuâ—d to have been the Reading Vicar's Curate and to have preached for nothing and could not prevail I was by the Bishop forbidden to preach in his Diocess and when I offered him to preach only Catechistical Principles to some poor Congregation that else must have none he told me It was better they had none than me My presence at Kidderminster was thought so dangerous that Force was assigned to have apâ—â—â—hend me and had I stayed it must have been in the Jail and many another for my sake When I was forced away at Venner's Rising I wrote but a Letter to my Mother in-â—aw and it was way-laid intercepted opened and sent up to the Court though there was nothing concerning them in it but some sharp Invectives against the Rebellion which my Lord Chancellour acknowledging caused my Lord Windsor personally to bring me back my Letter so that I durst not write to them of many years My Neighbours I had perswaded to do as you advise to joyn in the Publick Church and help each other as private Men and for so doing repeating Sermons and praying and singing a Psalm many of them lay long among Rogues in the Common Jail and others of them impoverished by Fines II. When I came to live at Acton I drew all the People constantly to Church that were averse sometime I repeated the Parsons Sermon and sometimes taught such as came to my House between the Sermons When the Reverend Parson saw them come into Church he would fall upon them c. And not being able to bear my little Endeavours for their Instruction he caused me to be sent to the Common Jail not one Witness or Person being suffered to come into the Room while I was examined and committed III. I am now in a Parish where some Neighbours say that there are Fourscore thousand Souls suppose they be fewer Not above Two thousand of all these can hear in the Parish Church so that it 's like above Sixty thousand have no Church to go to no not so much as to hear the Scripture or the Common-Prayer Here I need not tell you what Prohibitions I have had and what my Endeavours to teach a few Publickly have lost me and others And lately because one that preached for me did without my knowledge at the importunity of a Parent Baptize a poor man's Child when they told him it was in danger of death the Curate of the Parish came to my House to expostulate the matter when yet many are baptized by Papist Priests for want of others to do it as they say I never my self Baptized a Child or administred the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper these fifteen years but ordinarily received it in the Parish Church at Totterridge and elsewhere one of the first times that I received it in private a Bullet was shot into the Room among us and came near to the Heads of divers of us I never gathered any Church from among them and yet have been usually the first sought after to be imprisoned or ruined in each assault and was put to sell my Goods and Books to save them from Distress Near me in the same Parish liveth Mr. Gabriel Sanger the late Incumbent Pastor of the Parish a Man of Age and Gravity great Moderation and Peaceableness and far from