the pattern of the primitive Church that is the original Standard according to which the local Standard was made If he refuse both these let him not say that he will be tryed by the Scripture but he will be tryed by himself that is to say he himself will and can judge better what is the true sense of the Scripture than either his national Church or the primitive and universal Church This is just as if a man who brings his commodities to a market to be sold should refuse to have them weighed or measured by any Standard local or original and desire to be tried by the Law of the Land according to the judgement of the by-standers Not that the Law of the Land is any thing more favourable to him than the Standard but only to decline a present sentence and out of hope to advantage himself by the simplicity of his Judges Yet Mr. Baxter acquits me that I am no Papist in his judgement though he dare not follow me pag. 22. What soever I am this is sure enough he hath no authority to be my Judge or to publish his ill grounded jealousies and suspicions to the world in Print to my prejudice Although he did condemn me yet I praise God my conscience doth acquit me and I am able to vindicate my self But if he take me to be no Papist why doth he make me to be one of the Popes Factors or stalking horses and to have an express design to introduce him into England He himself and an hundred more of his confraternity are more likely to turn the Popes Factors than I am I have given good proof that I am no reed shaken with the wind My conscience would not give me leave to serve the times as many others did They have had their reward He bringeth four reasons in favour of me why he taketh me to be no Papist I could add fourscore reasons more if it were needful First because I disown the fellowship of that party more than Grotius did pag. 23. It is well that he will give me leave to know mine own heart better than himself Secondly because I give them no more than some reconcileable members of the Greek Church would give them And why some members I know no members of the Greek Church that give them either more or less than I do But my ground is not the authority of the Greek Church but the Authority of the Primitive Fathers and general Councils which are the representative Body of the Universal Church Thirdly because I disown their Council of Trent and their last 400. years determinations Is not this enough in his judgement to acquit me from all suspicion of Popery Erroneous opinions whilst they are not publickly determined nor a necessity of compliance imposed upon other men are no necessary causes of Schisme To wane their last 400. years determinations is implicitely to renounce all the necessary causes of this great Schisme And to rest satisfied with their old Patriarchal power and dignity and Primacy of order which is another part of my proposition is to quit the Modern Papacy both name and thing And when that is done I do not make these the terms of Peace and Unity as he doth tax me injuriously enough It is not for private Persons to prescribe terms of publick accommodations but only an introduction and way to an accommodation My words are expresly these in the conclusion of my answer to Monsieur Militiere If you could be contented to wave your last 4â—0 years determinations or if you liked them for your selves yet not to obtrude them upon other Churches If you could rest satisfied with your old Patriarchal power and your Principium unitatis a primacy of order much good might be expected from free Councils and conferences of moderate Persons What is here more than is confessed by himself that if the Papists will reform what the Bishop requires them to reform it will undoubtely make way for nearer Concord p. 28. I would know where my Papistry lieth in these words more than his They may be guilty of other errours which I disown as well as their last 400. years determinations and yet those errours before they were obtruded upon other Churches be no sufficient cause of a separation But what I own or disown he must learn from my self not suppose it or suspect it upon his own head His last reason why he forbeareth to censure me as a Papist is my two knocking arguments as he stileth them against the Papal Church But if he had weighed those two arguments as he ought he should have forborn to censure me as he doth for one that had a design to reconcile the Church of England to the Pope But I will help Mr. Baxter to understand my meaning better I meddle not with the reconciliation of opinions in any place by him cited but only with the reconciliation of Persons that Christians might joyn together in the same publick devotions and service of Christ. And the terms which I proposed were not these nor positively defined or determined but only represented by way of query to all moderate Christians in the conclusion of my just Vindication in these words I determine nothing but only crave leave to propose a question to all moderate Christians who love the peace of the Church and long for the reunion thereof In the first place if the Bishop of Rome were reduced from his universality of Soveraign Iurisdiction jure Divino to his principium unitatis and his Court regulated by the Canons of the Fathers which was the sense of the Councils of Constance and Basile and is desired by many Roman Catholicks as well as we Secondly if the Creed or necessary points of faith were reduced to what they were in the time of the four first Oecumenical Councils according to the decree of the third general Council Who dare say that the faith of the primitive Fathers was insufficient Admitting no additional Articles but only necessary explications And those to be made by the Authority of a general Council or one so general as can be convocated And lastly supposing that some things from whence offences have either been given or taken which whether right or wrong do not weigh half so much as the unity of Christians were put out of the Divine offices which would not be refused if animosities were taken away and charity restored I say in case these three things were accorded which seem very reasonable demands whether Christians might not live in an holy Communion and come in the same publick worship of God free from all Schismatical separation of themselves one from another notwithstanding diversities of opinions which prevail even among the members of the same particular Churches both with them and us Yet now though I cannot grant it yet I am willing to suppose that I intended not only a reconciliation of mens minds but of their opinions also and that those conditions which he mentioned had been my
to so great a proportion as the Britannick Churches alone And if one secluded out of them all those who want an ordinary succession without their own faults out of invincible ignorance or necessity and all those who desire to have an ordinary succession either explicitely or implicitely they will be reduced to a little slock indeed But let him set his heart at rest I will remove this scruple out of his mind that he may sleep securely upon both ears Episcopal Divines do not denie those Churches to be true Churches wherein salvation may be had We advise them as it is our duty to be circumspect for themselves and not to put it to more question whether they have Ordination or not or deserve the general practice of the universal Church for nothing when they may clear it if they please Their case is not the same with those who labour under invincible necessity What mine own sense is of it I have declared many years since to the World in print and in the same way received thanks and a publick acknowledgment of my moderation from a French Divine And yet more particularly in my Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon Pref. p. 4. and cap. 1. p. 71. Episcopal Divines will readily subscribe to the determination of the learned Bishop of Winchester in his Answer to the second Epistle of Molineus Nevertheless if our form of Episcopacie be of Divine Right it doth not follow from thence that there is no salvation without it or that a Church cannot consist without it He is blind who does not see Churches consisting without it he is hard hearted who denieth them salvation We are none of those hard-hearted persons we put agreat difference between these things There may be something absent in the exteriour Regiment which is of Divine Right and yet salvation be to be had This mistake proceedeth from not distinguishing between the true nature and essence of a Church which we do readily grant them and the integrity or perfection of a Church which we cannot grant them without swerving from the judgment of the Catholick Church The other part of his assumption is no truer than the former We do acknowledge the Church of Rome to be Metaphysically a true Church as a Thief is a true Man consisting of soul and body so did Bishop Morton Bishop Hall Bishop Davenant old Episcopal Divines so did Mr. Primrose and other Presbyterian Divines so doth he himself in this very Treatise What a weakness is it to accuse Episcopal Divines of that which he himself maintaineth But we all denie that the Church of Rome is morally a true Church because it is corrupted and erroneous we make it to be a living Body but sick and full of ulcers So we neither destroy the body out of hatred to the ulcers nor yet cherish the ulcers out of a doting affection to the body And therefore he had no reason in the world to suspect Episcopal Divines of a plot or design to introduce Popery into England which they look upon as the very Gangrene of the Church He pleadeth a reason why he doth not name those Episcopal Divines who had this design for fear of doing them hurt Sect. 70. As if it were not less hurtful to discover the nocent if he knew any such than to subject the innocent both to suspition and censure by his general descriptions I cannot excuse his first intimation of such a design because he had no ground at all for it but I can easily excuse his silence now upon another reason because I am confident there neither are nor ever were any such designers among the Episcopal Party Whereas he ought to prove his intention that there was such a design in the place thereof he gives us some symptomes or signs whereby to know the designers This is one great fault in his Discourse But the worst is they are all accidental notes which may either hit or miss there is not one essential mark among them His first mark is They are those that actually were the Agents in the English illegal Innovations which kindled all our troubles in this Land and were conformable to the Grotian design Those last words and were conformable to the Grotian design were well added though they be a shameful begging of the question and signifie the same thing by it self A strange kind of proof for without these words all the World will take him and his Party to be the illegal Innovators and no body but them The Episcopal Divines hold their old Canons their old Articles their old Liturgy their old Ordinal still without any change They took the Protestation against Innovations without any difficulty and are ready to take it over and over again Their fault was that they could not swallow down New Covenants to innovate His Party have changed Canons Articles Liturgy all things and yet have the confidence cry Innovators first His second mark is They bend the course of their Writings to make the Roman Church honourable and to vindicate them from Antichristianism and to make the reformed Churches odious This is a poor note indeed as if men were obliged out of hatred to the Church of Rome to deny it that honour which is justly due unto it or out of affection to the Protestant Churches to justifie their defects What reward did ever any English Protestant get from Rome for doing them this honour I know no man who honours the Church of Rome more than himself He calls Cassander Thaulerus Ferus Blessed souls with Christ He esteems the French Nation to be not only an erroneous but an honourable part of the Church of Christ p. 10. Episcopal Divines have learned to distinguish between that great Antichrist and lesser Antichrists between the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome which he confounds I dare not swear that the Pope is that great Antichrist but I dare swear that I never had any design to bring Popery into England I hope I never shall have and that all genuine Episcopal Divines may take the same Oath His third note of distinction whereby to know an English Grotian is this They labour to prove the Church of Rome a true Church because of their succession and the Reformed Churches to be none for want of that succession Sect. 71. This note is already answered Elsewhere he presseth this point further thus that he would gladly know what Church hath power to make a new Canon the observation whereof shall be essential to a Church or Pastor I answer that he doth doubly mistake the question which is not whether the Catholick Church can make new Essentials but whether it can declare old Essentials Not whether the Canons of the Universal Church of this Age have divine Authority but whether they do oblige Christians in conscience and whether it be not timerarious presumption for a particular person or Church to slight the Belief or Practice of the Universal Church of all succeeding Ages His fourth note
spake with honour of the Bishops of England I derived the Episcopal dignity from the very cradle of the Church I condemned Aerius I affirmed that St. James was Bishop of Hierusalem from whom the succession of the Bishops of that City was derived by a long row of Bishops Mr. Blondel in his needless Apology for St. Hierome made a very necessary Apology for himself and sent it to Mr. Rivet to be added as an Appendix to his Book in the Impression of it by whose neglect it was omitted And now having mentioned Doctor Rivet I shall make bold to add that he himself did intreat a Noble Earl yet living to procure him a dignity or Prebend in England as his Brother Mouline and Vossius had The Earl answered that he could not hold any such place in England without subscribing to Episcopacy and the Doctrine and Discipline of the English Church And he replied that he was most ready to subscribe to them both with his hand and heart I conclude that all Divines throughout the Christian World who maintain a necessity of Holy Orders ever were and still are Episcopal Divines except some weaker and wilful Brethren who for their Antiquity are but of Yesterday and for their Universality come much short of the very Donatists in Africk condemned by all moderate and rational persons of their own Communion And therefore Mr. Baxter might have done better to have given his pretended Designers a lower and more distinctive name than that of Episcopal Divines It will not help him at all which he saith pag. 21. It is not all Episcopal Divines which I suspected of a compliance with Grotius and Cassander no not all of the later strein c. I extended it to none of the new Episcopal Party but such as I there described His distinction of Episcopal Divines into Old and New is but a Chimera of his own brain without any ground neither doth he bring one grain of reason to make it good And by his plain Confession here it appeareth that this great design is but his own suspicion To accuse men of a design to introduce the Pope into England meerly upon suspicion is a liberty or rather license to be abhorred of all conscionable Christians Yet of the old Episcopal Divines he nameth many Bishop Jewel Pilkinson Hall Carlton Davenant Morton Abbot Usher Potter Downham Grindal Parker Hooper Farrar Cranmer Latimer Ridley and forty more Bishops here p. 103. as if so many names blended together confusedly in an heap as an hotchpotch were able like a Medusas head to transform reasonable men into stocks and stones If he had made his forty up an hundred he might have found instances enough to have made it good and sundry of them no way inferiour to any whom he nameth and superiour to many In commemorating some and pretermitting others he sheweth sometimes want of judgement always respect of persons What his description was of New Episcopal Divines I do not know having never seen any Treatise of his but this of the Grotian Religion neither should I have meddled with that if he had not brought me publickly upon the Stage neither do I much regard But howsoever he describeth them he instanceth in no man but my self either because he is not able to name any or because he thinks it easiest to leap over the hedge where it is lowest Have I not great reason to thank him for being so mindful of me in my absence As for my part I profess ingeniously before God and Man I never knew of any such design I am confident there never was any such design and I am certain that I neither had nor could have an hand in any such design either for Italian Popery or French Popery or any Popery unless he call the Doctrine and Discipline of the Primitive Church Popery unless our Holy Orders and Liturgy and Articles be Popery Other Popery he shall never be able to prove against me nor I hope against any true Episcopal Divines His design like the Phoenix is much talked of by himself but never was seen I know as little of any such distinction between Old and New Episcopal Divines All the World seeth evidently that all the material differences which we have with them are about those Holy Orders and that Liturgy and those Articles and those Rites which we received from those Old Episcopal Divines Non tellus cimbam tellurem cimâ—a reliquit We have not left our Predecessors but They have left both us and our Predecessors and the Church of England And it fareth with Mr. Baxter as it doth with new Sailers who by the deception of their sight suppose that the Land leaveth them terraeque urbesque recedunt when in truth it is they themselves that leave the Land In a word his supposed design and his pretended distinction are meer fansies which never had any being in the nature of things Where did these designers ever meet together to contrive their Plot They are never likely to do any great actions who want sinews to knit them together When or where had ever any of them any intercourse or correspondence with Rome or any that belonged to Rome by word or writing It was a sensless silly Plot to design the Introduction of the Pope into England without his own knowledge or consent upon terms never accorded never so much as treated upon Thus have we seen melancholick persons out of a strong fantasie imagine that they see Ships and Minotaures in the Clouds The proofs of such accusations as this is ought to have been clearer than the Noon-day light not ungrounded or ill grounded jealousies and suspicions of credulous and partial persons CHAP. V. This Plot was as weakly fathered upon the Bishop of Derry ANd as he erred in fathering his imaginary Plot upon Episcopal Divines in general so he made an ill choice of me the meanest of those Episcopal Divines for his only instance who have only read so much of Grotius as to enable me to judge that Mr. Baxter doth him wrong I hope unwittingly If ever I should attempt the reconciling of Controversies among Christians it must be in another way then Grotius taketh I mean more Scholastical I will confess that freely which Mr. Baxter neither doth know nor ever could know but by me that about thirty years since when my body was stronger and my wits fresher when I had some Books and Notes of mine own and could have had what supply soever I desired and opportunity to confer with whomsoever I pleased I had then a design indeed to do my weak endeavour to disabuse the Christian World by the right stating and distinguishing of Controversies between the Church of Rome and us And to shew First How many of them are meer Logomachies or contentions about words without any just ground Secondly How many of them are Scholastical subtleties whereof ordinary Christians are not capable and consequently no points of Faith Thirdly How many of them are not the
body as this It is no wonder if Grotius suffer wrong by him when my words are at the best so grosly mistaken who live to interpret my self First I give no leave to the Pope and Church of Rome to hold to themselves their last 400. years determinations But if they will hold them I have no power to help it or hinder it My words are these If you could be contented to wave your last 400. years determinations or if you liked them for your selves yet not to obtrude them upon other Churches As if one should say If Ieroboam will forbear to commit Idolatry himself or if he will not yet if he will forbear to compell others to commit Idolatry I may come to live in Israel no moderate man will say that he giveth leave to Ieroboam to commit Idolatry Secondly he pretends most untruly that I make these to be the terms or conditions of a peace which I mention only as preparatives My words are not then we may unite and cement our selves together but then much good might be expected from free Councils and conferences of moderate persons He himself saith as much as I say Thirdly if they do not obtrude their last 400. years determinations upon other Churches then they wave their ligislative power and take away from their Canons the nature of Laws then they make them no longer points of Faith but probable opinions It was not the erroneous opinions of the Church of Rome but the obtruding them by Laws upon other Churches which warranted a separation He who will have no communion with a Church which hath different or erroneous opinions in it so long as they are not obtruded must provide a ladder to climb up to Heaven by himself And this is that which I said expresly in that very place cited by him We might yet live in hope to see an union if not in all opinions yet in Charity and all necessary points of saving truth Let the Church of Rome do that which I require that is the Apostolical Discipline and Apostolical Creed without addition and it shall become an Apostolical and Catholick Church and have true Faith His fourth Exception is this That the Pope should hold his Patriarchal power is a meer innovation and humane institution as is his Primacy of order and such priviledges The Council of Chalcedon avers it And therefore it is no necessary thing to be conceded for the Churches peace That the Patriarchal dignity is an humane institution all men who understand themselves do acknowledge That it is a meer innovation all men who understand themselves do deny How should that be a meer innovation which was not first constituted but confirmed as an ancient Ecclesiastical custom in the first general Council of Nice and approved by all the general succeeding Councils of the Church and particularly by the Council of Chalcedon which he mentioneth which equalled the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Patriarch of Rome This form of Government is allowed by the Canons of the Apostles as I have shewed elsewhere This Patriarchal Government Calvin himself did not only allow but assert it to be such a Form as God hath prescribed in his Word Cal. Iust. l. 4. c. 4. S. 4. What wonder is it if they lose ground daily to the Romanists who have the confidence to affirm that Patriarchal power is an innovation and cite the great Council of Chalcedon for it He proceedeth to his fifth exception Multitudes that live in the western Nations of the World will still dissent both from the Popes Patriarchal power and more from his way of exercising it And so will be forced to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks by these tâ—rms and that for obeying the Laws of Christ. If the Pope as Patriarch of the West should impose on us only and not on the East the Doctrines and worship and Ceremonies which he now imposeth on the Papists except the excepted before doth any man of reason think that the Reformed Churches would ever yield to them or ought to do it We will unite on Christs terms and that will be a more sure and general Union and not on such humane devises as these Let those that made the Pope our Patriarch maintain his power for Christ did not Still weaker and weaker Multitudes that live in the Western parts of the World will not only dislike the Popes Patriarchal power but his Presbyterian Discipline and his holy orders the Creed the Lords Prayer the Sacraments c. must a man therefore quit his just right because some dislike it Their dislike is but scandal taken but the quitting of that which is right for their satisfaction should be scandal given Whether is the worse By the way I desire him to consider two things First how they are forced to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks If they be forced any way it is by their own wilful humours or erroneous conscience Other force here is none If there be any force it is they which force themselves Secondly I would have him to consider whether is the worse and more dangerous condition for Christians to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks which hath no sin in it but is a means many times to reduce men into the fold of the Catholick Church or for Christians to fall into Schisme it self Whosoever shall oppose the just power of a Lawful Patriarch lawfully proceeding is a material Schismatick at least and if his errour be vincible such as he might conquer and come unto the knowledge of the truth if he did his endeavour he is a formal Schismatick His reasons of their falling under the reproach of Schismaticks for obeying the Laws of Christ I confess I do not understand Doth he think that Patriachal power is contrary to the Laws of Christ and that all the Primitive Churches and Councils and Christians did transgress the Laws of Christ in this particular Surely he cannot think it Or is it his Zeal to admit nothing in the Church grounded upon prudence and experience and the Law of nature but only that which in commanded by Christ in Holy Scripture If that be it I refer him to Doctor Sanderson in his Preface before his 20. Sermons to whom he professeth very great reverence I had rather suspect that I understand him not than Imagine him to be guilty of such an absurd conclusion To his question if the Pope as Patriarch of the West should impose upon us which he imposeth upon the Papists should the reformed Churches yield to them I answer God forbid but his whole discourse is grounded upon a Cluster of mistakes First the Pope hath no right to the Patriarchate of all the West Particularly he is not our Patriarch Other Churches in the West might find out Primates or Patriarchs of their own as well as we if they sought diligently for them Secondly a single Patriarch hath not legislative power to impose Laws in his own Partriarchate nor power to innovate any thing
with some Papists in the point of perseverance also Sect. 64. The second conclusion was borrowed by Mr. Chillingworth from my Lord Primate That our agreement in the high and necessary Points of Faith and obedience ought to be more effectual to unite us than one difference in opinions to divide us Concerning which there is no need of my suffrage for it is just mine own way My second demand in my proposition of Peace was this That the Creed or necessary points of Faith might be reduced to what they were in the time of the four first Oecumenical Concils according to the decree of the third General Council Who dare say that the faith of the Primitive Fathers was insufficient c. I do profess to all the World that the transforming of indifferent opinions into necessary Articles of Faith hath been that insana laurus or cursed Bay-tree the cause of all our brawling and contention Judge Reader indifferently what reason Mr. Baxter had to disallow my terms of Peace as he is pleased to call them and allow Mr. Chillingworths when my terms are the very same which Mr. Chillingworth proposeth and my Lord Primate before him and King Iames before them both CHAP. VIII The true reasons of the Bishops abatement of the last 400. years Determinations IN his one and fortieth Section he hath these words He will not with Bishop Bramhall abate us the determinations of the last 400. years though if he did it would prove but a pitiful patch for the torn condition of the Church When I made that proposition that the Papists would wave their last 400. years determinations I did it with more serious deliberation than he bestowed upon his whole Grotian Religion Begun April 9. 1658. And finished April 14. 1658. My reason was to controul a common errour received by many that those errours and usurpations of the Church of Rome which made the breach between them and us were much more ancient than in truth they were What those errours and usurpations were cannot be judged better than by our Laws and Statutes which were made and provided as remedies for them I know they had begun some of their gross errours and usurpations long before that time and some others not long before but the most of them and especially those which necessitated a separation after that time Those errours and usurpations which were begun before that time if they be rightly considered were but the sinful and unjust actions of particular Popes and Persons and could not warrant a publick separation from the Church of Rome I deny not but that erroneous opinions in inferiour points rather concerning faith than of faith and some sinful and unwarrantable practices both in point of Discipline and devotion had crept into the Church of Rome before that time But erroneous opinions may be and must be tolerated among Christians so they be not opposite to the ancient Creed of the Church nor obtruded upon others as necessary points of saving faith Neither is any man bound or necessitated to join with other men in sinful and unwarrantable opinions or practices until they be established and imposed necessarily upon all others by Law Whilst it was free for any man to give a fair interpretation of an harsh expression or action without incurring any danger there was no necessity of separation But when these tyrannical usurpations were justified by the decrees of Councils and imposed upon Christians under pain of Excommunication when these erroneous opinions were made necessary Articles of saving faith extra quam non est salus without which there is no salvation when these sinful and unwarrantable practices were injoined to all Christians and when all these unjust usurpations erroneous opinions and sinful and unwarrantable practices were made necessary conditions of Communion with the Church of Rome so that no man could Communicate with the Roman Church but he that would submit to all these usurpations believe all these erroneous opinions and obey all their sinful injunctions then there was an absolute necessity of separation Then if any man inquire when and how this necessity was imposed upon Christians I answer all this was ratified and done altogether or in a manner altogether by these last 400. years Determinations beginning with the Council of Lateran in the days of Innocent the third after the twelve hundreth year of Christ when Transubstantiation was first defined and ending with the Council of Trent So though these were not my terms of peace but preparatory demands yet if these demands be granted our concord would not only be nearer which he acknowledgeth but the peace allmost as good as made and Christians were freed from their unjust Canons and left to their former liberty When they had granted so much it were a shame for them to stick at a small remainder CHAP. IX An Answer to sundry aspersions east by Mr. Baxter upon the Church of England I Have done with all that concerneth my self in Mr. Baxters Grotian Religion But I find a bitter and groundless invective in him towards the conclusion of his treatise wherein he laboureth to cast dirt upon his spiritual Mother the Church of England which out of my just and common duty I cannot pass over in silence He saith p. 75. That this Grotian design in England was destructive to Godliness and the prosperity of the Churches What Churches doth he mean By the Laws of England Civil and Ecclesiastical we ought to have but one Church It was never well with England since we had so many Churches and so many Faiths I am afraid those which he calls Churches were Conventicles He proceedeth that it animated the impious haters of piety and common civility First he ought to have proved that there was such a design in England which he neither hath done nor ever will be able to do That which never had any being but in his Imagination never had any efficacy but in his Imagination He addeth that men were hated for Godliness sake That is to exprest his sense truly were restrained in their seditious and Schismatical courses which he stileth Godliness Fallit enim vitium specie virtutis umbra And troubled and suspended and driven out of the Land though most of them twenty for one were conformists How Conformist and yet persecuted If this be not a contradiction yet it is incredible that so many men should be silenced and suspended every where without Law Certainly there was a Law pretended Certainly there was a Law indeed and that Law made before they were either punished or ordained I will put the right case fairly to Mr. Baxter if he have any mind to determine it Let him tell us who is to be blamed he that undertaketh an office of his own accord which he cannot or will not discharge as the Law injoineth or he that executeth the Law upon such as had voluntarily confirmed it by their own oaths or subscriptions or both He proceedeth that it was safer in
him all the rest of the Kingdom and only exhibite the martyrologies of London and the two Universities or a list of those who in these late intestine Wars have been haled away to prisons or chased away into banishment by his own party in these three places alone or left to the merciless world to beg their bread for no other crime then loyalty and because they stood affected to the ancient rites and ceremonies of the Church of England and they shall double them for number and for learning piety industry and the love of peace exceed them incomparably So as his party which he glorieth so much in will scarcely deserve to be named the same day And if he compare their persecutions the sufferings of his supposed Confessors will appear to be but flea bitings in comparison of theirs But after all this the greatest disparity remaineth yet untouched that is in the cause of their sufferings The one suffered for saith and the other for faction If he had contented himself to have rested in positive expressions of learned and pious and peaceable c. he had had no answer to this particular from me but silence It is the duty of a Controvertist to examine the merits of the cause not of the persons But his superlative expressions did draw me unwillingly to do this right to the Orthodox and Genuine Sons of the Church of England I will add but one word more that we have seen but little fruits of their peaceable dispositions hitherto but the contrary that they have made all places to become shambles of Christians God grant that we may find them more peaceable for the future FINIS Some Books Printed for and sold by Iames Collins at the Kings-Arms in Ludgate-street 1672. OBservations upon Military and Political Affairs by the most Honourable George Duke of Albemarle Folio Price 6. s. A Sermon preached by Seth Lord Bishop of Sarum at the Funeral of the Most Honourable George Duke of Albemarle Quarto Price 6. d. Philosophia Pia or A Discourse of the Religious tendences of the Experimental Philosophy to which is added a Recommendation and Defence of Reason in the affairs of Religion by Joseph Glanvil Rector of Bath Octavo Price 2. s. The Way to Happiness represented in its Difficulties and Encouragements and cleared from many popular and dangerous mistakes by J. Glanvil A Praefatory Answer to Mr. Henry Stubbe the Doctor of Warwick by Jos. Glanvil Octavo Price 1. s. 6. d. The Life and Death of Mr. George Herbert the excellent Author of the Divine Poems Written by Iz. Walton Octavo Price 1. s. A Discourse of the forbearance or penalties which a due Reformation requires by Herbert Thorndike one of the Prebendaries of Westminister Octavo A Private Conference between a rich Alderman and a poor Country Vicar made Publick wherein is discoursed the Obligation of Oaths which have been imposed on the Subjects of England Octavo 2. s. The Episcopacy of the Church of England justified to be Apostolical from the Authority of the Primitive Church and from the confessions of the most famous Divines beyond the Seas by the Right Reverend the late Lord Bishop of Duresm with a Preface written by Sir Henry Yelverton Baronet Octavo A Collection of Sermons preached before the King at White-hall by the Right Reverend Father in God Seth L. Bishop of Sarum now in the Press FINIS Discourse concerning Evangelical Love c. pag. 18. Defence of Eccles Pol. from p. 232. to p. 264.