in words 46. Thence I went quietly to a costly Prison where I continued in pain and languor near two years Enjoying more quietness in that Confinement than I had done of many years before Because they had no further to hunt me And God there healed my Bloody Urine that had continued two years 47. Being Fined 500 Marks and to give Bond for the Behaviour when they saw that I did neither pay the Fine nor Petition the King and Papists who all this while did their work by Men called Protestants resolved to have the thanks for my Release and offered me deliverance by the Marquess of Powis his endeavour But they would not abate my Bonds to the Behaviour 48. When I was released the Protestant Justices at the Sessions that declared they had nothing against me would not take up my former Bonds but made me long wait with Counsel at Hicks Hall and I know not that they have given up my Bonds to this day But Patience is my remedy 49. Before while I lived in St. Giles's Parish I went Morning and Evening to the Parish Church to Common Prayer and Sermon And I Communicated kneeling at the Rails But I first told Dr Sharp now Dean of Canterbury that I am ipso facto Excommunicate by Canon 7 8 9. and left it to his consideration But after Consultation he admitted me because the Canon bound him not before prosecution or declaration 50. In Prison and since my Release I have written divers Books for Communion with the publick Churches And one of Government and one against Schism and others pacificatory that are not printed And I have continued to preach only as a helper to another not related to any gathered Church as their Teacher though Licensed by Law to have gathered such a Church as well as others 51. The reason why I have not these four years gone to any Parish Church is because Prisons and utter disability of Body hindered me being scarce able to creep once a day to our Assembly but the fourth Door from my House 52. To conclude Whoever after reading my many great and small Writings for Concord and Peace and for the Church especially my Cure of Church Divisions my Treatise of the way of Unity my Catholick Theology my Christian Directory my Methodus Theologiae and the numerous Volumes of Controversie written all to end Controversies and shall know that it hath been my chief study and labour these forty four years to promote Unity Peace and Concord and what I have suffered for it and yet will accuse my Heart and Life as quite contrary to all this must bring to any sober impartial Man very clear evidence to prove me so mad and deadly an Enemy to so long and painful Labours § 14. I am next therefore further to enquire what this Evidence is But his words do seem to forbid an answer for they are capable of none but what will sound harshly even to name them as they are Most Impudent Lies meer forgeries or the most unquestionable Duties made most odious sins and most of the pretence fetcht from some words of my Writings and Confessions depraved and impudently falsified The General Accusation is page 14. I dare challenge any Historian that hath observed or read the Tragedies of the late times to shew a parallel in any one person I say not only among the Apostate Clergy but the Laity and the worst of them that may equal Mr. B. Accus I. Particularly Who is there among the Living that entertained more early Prejudices against the Bishops Ans Mendac I. I thought them to be of Divine Institution till after I was Ordained And since then I have proved it of the Primitive Episcopacy And opposed none but that sort of Diocesans who put down all the Bishops and Churches that should be under them and will be the sole Bishops of many hundred or score Parishes making true Episcopal Discipline impossible and substituting a delusion § 15. Accus II. That left his Calling as a Minister of Peace and entred with the first into a War against the King Mendac II. I never left my Calling nor ever took Command or Office or so much as a Chaplains relation to any Souldiers nor pay for it Save that when Naseby Fight almost ended the War I went a Chaplain to have tryed to save the Land from Rebellion I always was for King and Parliament and never against the Kings Person Power or Prerogative but only for his return to his Parliament and against his Will and Instruments When Hen. VI. was carried about by his Enemies his Friends fought for him that fought against the Army where his Person was I was so far from going into a War with the first that I only fled to Coventry for a private Refuge when I was forced from Home of which enough before § 16. Accus III. And for four years space which was the heat of the Wars was an Agent as well as an Eye-witness of most of the terrible Battles that were fought in England Mendac IV. I never so much as saw one of those terrible Battles The first that ever I saw was that at Langport when the Field War ended And there I saw not the killing of one Man Because I said that I saw some Fields and Dead he forgeth me to have seen the Fights I never saw the Fight at Edgehill but being at Alcester I went to see the Ground and some unburied Bodies the following day I never saw either of the two Newberry Fights nor the Countrey I never saw the Fight at Horncastle at Allford or any in the East South West or North. I never saw the greatest Fight at York nor ever was in or near the County I saw not that at Mongomery nor that at Nampwich nor any Fight in England save that aforesaid at Langport and the flight of our Coventry Men from Banbury And I went to see the Ground at Naseby when the Armies were gone a day or two before And I once saw at a distance about thirty Men of a side Fight between Linsell and Longford where one was kill'd Some Sieges I was not far off while I was with the Armies on the Accounts at large before recited § 17. Accus IV. Who ever boasted of drawing thousands to that War Ans He falsly calleth a Confession a Boasting To convince Cromwell's Soulders that pull'd down the Government I that had drawn thousands into the Parliaments defensive War could not have denied the heinousness of my Crime if I had done as they did or been against King and Parliament united or for the changing of the Government I said by aggravation that I had drawn in thousands because at Coventry and Wem I had publickly preach'd against the accusations of the Cause that I then thought just § 18. Accus V. Who hath said more to justifie not the War only but the Death of the Royal Martyr Ans Mendac V. What can a Reader say of such Men that shall find 1. That
more Good or Evil to the Professors of the Christian Religion for this is generally said by many of your Friends concerning your Writings Ubi benè nemo melius ubi malè nemo pejus And for your Enemies they are generally so prejudiced with your Malè that they are not able to read or think or speak well of your Benè but discourage many good Souls from reading or minding your most profitable Discourses Now my humble suit to you is to consider whether as St. Augustine that great Light and voluminous Writer Crowned all his Works with his Retractations of what was amiss Mr. Baxter might not do the same to Gods Glory the establishing of good Christians in the Truth bringing the misled out of their Errors stopping the Mouths of your Enemies and causing your Person and good Works to be had in Everlasting Remembrance and the preventing the ill consequences of what has been acted and writ by you which may attend the Church of God for many Ages after your death Sir I doubt not but you have heard and read the dreadful things that you are charged withal I have been amazed at them and heartily sorry for them I beseech you consult some Religious Wise Faithful Person whom you know to be a true Son of the Church of England as no doubt there are some among so many learned Bishops and Pastors and desire them freely to deal with you in helping you to see the great Errata's of your Sarcastical Writings against the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England or take but that one Book call'd The Unreasonableness of Separation the Second Part c. with special Remarks on the Life and Actions of Mr. R. Baxter 1681. and let God and Men see that you cannot only write well of Humility Repentance and Self-denial but you can act them also Where a Cross in time of Plagues is upon the Door every Man that passes by is ready to pray Lord have mercy on that Family Sir if you with your own Hand would please to acknowledge which of your Works is Infectious and may hurt Souls all Men that read it would bless God for you and heartily send up their Prayers to Heaven if they be but Persons that ever frequent the Throne of Grace with a Domine Miserere R. B. wherefore I beseech you think of the advice of a mean Brother of yours in the Work of the Ministry who in real gratitude for the benefit he has received by your Works and for your own Comfort Honour and Happiness and Gods Glory above all presumes before he goes to his Grave to express his Love and Duty to you before you go to yours for he finds that you and we both entred into the Church of Christ March 12. 1614 and therefore cannot be long from appearing before Almighty God to receive a Sentence to an Eternal state Liberavi animam meam Deus Omnipotens dirigat Te in omnibus viis tuis Many years past I met with an Expression in a Preface to another Mans Writing with your Name to it which much troubled me that it should fall from that Pen which had writ such Excellent Helps to follow Christ Jesus his Rules and Example It was this You was speaking of Hell and the Government and Order among Devils and clapt in that common Pulpit-prayer Expression concerning the Ministry of the Church of England viz. By what Names or Titles soever Dignified or Distinguished which I thought one of the bitterest unchristian Reflections I ever read and I was heartily troubled to read it because I thought it impossible for Hell to have crouded it in where there was so much of Heaven Sir You have the best Prayers I can put up to God for you and humbly beg your Prayers that I may follow Paul's advice to Timothy in taking heed to my Self and Doctrine and continue therein that thorough Gods Mercy and Christs Merits my own Soul may be saved and theirs that hear me So I hope we shall meet in Heaven for we have an Advocate with the Father Feb. 169◠Cantianus D Minimis THE PREFACE TO Mr. Cantianus D Minimis Salutem SIR § 1. I unfeignedly thank you for your Invitation to Repentance O pray for me that neither Ignorance nor Prepossession and Prejudice keep me in Impenitency so near my Death I daily wait for my last day on Earth and it is dreadful to die in the guilt of Impenitence But who knoweth all his secret faults I hope God will accept my willingness to know them and openly to confess them what Party or Person soever be displeased with it Upon your Letter I began to practise it and finding the Book which you refer me to begin with my Childhood and Youth in his Accusations I thought my Answer must follow him and begin there also But shewing it to a Friend more prudent than my self he disliked it that I should tell the World of my Childish sins when it is Schism and Rebellion that are my Charge by the Accuser And I have oft heard bis pueri senes as if such passages were the effects of aged weakness which better remembereth the passages of Youth than of later years I suspect that this is true And yet a dying Man is afraid of such prudence as would stifle penitent Confession when I am so loudly called to it by you and the Accuser I will therefore satisfie Him and You and such other and my Conscience though I bear the derision of prudent dislikers It wrongeth no Man and to be accounted weak and simple I can easily bear § 2. But I doubt it is confessing too little and not too much that you will blame me for And I cannot remedy that neither Your Liturgy denieth Christian Burial to all that kill themselves and it is no Virtue to belie our selves I am sure it is sin to belie a Neighbour whom I must love but as my self Yea or not seasonably to vindicate his Reputation against malignant Slanderers I have many years left the Book unanswered to which you refer me for the Confession of my sins though many told me it was my Duty to answer it It is you now that have call'd me to it Would you have me confess all that he falsly accuseth me of Then you would make your self guilty of all his Lies by presuming that they are true and judging before you ever heard the defence of the accused You write too honestly to allow me to judge so hardly of you But truely I durst not put by your Call to my necessary defence The chief reason is that as you doubt whether my Books will do more good or hurt and your Author thinks it would be good that They were all burnt and the Papists are of the same mind so I am fully perswaded is the Devil And till he can get the Conquering Papists or Tories to do it he will Endeavour to make them as useless as if they were burnt by rendering them odious for their own
to this day § 32. Accus XIX He was acquainted Forty years ago with many Aged Nonconforming Ministers and probably Confederate with them c. Ans Yes in the Baptismal Covenant renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil I repent not of that Nor take it for a sin to have known them § 33. Accus XX. Prejudices against Conformity possest him from his Youth Ans Not unless Cainism be Conformity or twenty four years old be my Youth such as your Writings and Doings are an ill cure of prejudice § 34. Accus XXI Is that I broke my Oaths to the King and Ecclesiastical Superiors whom I was bound to obey Ans I thought verily that I broke neither I Swore not to obey the Convocation much less against the Parliament in unlawful Canons and imposed Oaths never yet Authorized I took the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and thought that defending the Land against Armed Delinquents and Irish and Papists Insurrections had been no breach of it If I was mistaken the Lord convince me and forgive me But your way is unapt to it Let the Reader peruse but Sir Edward Deering's Speeches in Parliament proving that this Et caetera Oath was sinfully imposed without Authority by them that were neither a Convocation a Synod or Commissioners the same Man that spake so much for Liturgy and Episcopacy against Presbytery and Independency And I doubt not but it was flat Perjury that by it we were required to Swear viz. That the described Et caetera Government of the Church ought so to stand And was I perjured for refusing Perjury As a summary Confutation of a multitude of his Lies I at once tell the Reader that I neither was nor am for the way called Presbytery Independency or the English Diocesane way But for the mixture described excellently by Grotius de Imper. Sum. Pot. and Bishop Usher and Sir Edward Deering whose Counsel I wish'd that the Parliament had followed And that I was and am far from defending the irregular Actions of the Parliament or any Members of it Tho' they thought that the Delinquents had put a necessity on them to overgo their own Judgments to please the Scots and the Indiscreet and Schismatical part of the Nonconformists I doubt not but they did ill herein and should have trusted God in the use of none but lawful means I believe that a few Men by Craft and unwearied Industry over-reach'd many that knew not what they did Sir Edward Deering nameth some of them especially Sir H. V. Sir A. H. and O. C. that over-reach'd his own upholders and all the rest I believe they did ill to excite and encourage disorder and tumults on pretence of Petitioning and of scurrilous defamations of such Men as the Lord Falkland the Lord Digby Sir Edward Dering and some other worthy Men and so many good Bishops as they abused And yet that I durst not for these miscarriages consent to give up the Kingdoms Parliamentary Security for its present and future Safety and Liberties I still think is consonant to the most common Principles of Lawyers Politick Writers Historians Divines Protestants Papists and Heathens Even the late great Lord Chancellor Hide sat Chairman of the Committee of Parliament that received the Petitions against Episcopacy Root and Branch and made such Speeches against the Delinquents as I dare not justifie But he forsook them when they quite over-went him If the King of England had a War with the French and I knew that his Cause were bad I would not defend his bad Cause but I would in his Army defend the Kingdom against those that would Captivate it by Conquest For the Kingdom doth not forfeit its safety by the Kings misdoing And if any say Then the King shall be defended in all his injuries how bad soever I would answer That is by accident it is the Kingdom that I defend and Him as a means to defend the Kingdom and not to justifie his sin I leave that to God What a case is a Kingdom in if it must Fight against it self and its representing security as oft as its Representatives miscarry by any sinister means And that all that are to be judged by the chief Judicature shall Fight to Conquer them if the King do but bid them If the safety of this Kingdom be once put into the Trust of the King alone the Constitution is changed and all Enslaved § 35. Accus XXII He saith that in 1640. I entred into a War against the King Ans Whereas the War in England began not till 1642. And I never medled in War but as aforementioned long after § 36. Accus XXIII He saith by the Treatise of Diocesane Episcopacy meditated 1640. I broached Faction in the Church my Pen disdaining to be less active than my Sword Ans 1. I never struck with a Sword in War or Peace 2. Did Meditating broach a Book that was not published nor written till thirty years after 3. Is it Faction to give reasons why I Swore not to Faction even that Antiepiscopal sort of Diocesanes that put down many hundred Churches and Bishops to set up the Name and Image of one 4. Why is not that Book answered to this day when so many Nonconformists have Challenged Called and Beg'd for an Answer to it Will a Lying Scorn satisfie any Conscionable Nonconformist 5. That Book owneth so much of Bishops and Diocesanes and Archbishops which Sir Edward Dering condemned that these Men now shew that it is not such as I only but such as Grotius Spalatensis Usher Hall yea most of the great Writers for Episcopacy of whose Judgment I have there given a particular account whom he condemneth for Faction and Enmity to the Church I have written against the Pope too And is not that as bad I am sure many Papists write more against Episcopacy than I. § 37. Accus XXIV It 's probable his Church History had its conception at the same time Ans About Forty years after 1640. Forty years breaks no square with this sort of Men I would this lort of History were not too common with them § 38. Accus XXV Page 23 He feigneth me in my Church History to commend all the Hereticks and omit what is good of the Fathers and Martyrs and write only their faults Ans It seems he thought that without reading the Book that disproveth him his Faction would take his word that he saith true § 39 Accus XXVI The like he saith of my reproaching Councils because I shew the miscarriages of many and our Bishops that plead for a Forreign Jurisdiction dare yet own but six or eight General Councils § 40. Accus XXVII Page 25. He reciteth my mention of the former courses of undoing Men for hearing a Sermon of a Godly Conformist at the next Parish when they had none at home and for Fasting and Praying c. And he taketh it for my crime to call these ungodly Persecutions crimes So that he that is not for them while they are
faults and for mine And you tell me that my Enemies will not read them Now till my Opinion of them be the same with theirs you cannot expect that I that have spent so great a part of above Seventy five years in writing above an hundred and twenty Books should be content to lose my Labour and End and that all Men lose the benefit of them rather than I shall confute a most impudent Liar If you say I over-value them why do you speak the over-valuing of many of them That is good that doth Good About Twelve of them are Translated into the German Tongue and the Lutherans say They have done good Some are Translated into French One into the Language of the New-England Americans by Mr. Eliots Multitudes say they have been the means of their Conversion and more of their Information Confirmation and Consolation And the Chief benefit that I expect by them to the World is when I am dead and gone And can you expect that after so much labour for the Church and Souls I should so far despise both it and them as not to think all worthy of a just defence § 3. But you think that the way of Confessing his Accusations will better do it and will make Men write on the Doors a Domine Miserere for my Soul But have you known me better than I have known my self Or did he know me better who I suppose never spake with me but hath lived two hundred and lately and hundred Miles from me Or is there no way to win the love of your Party but by my known confessing such a multitude of shameless Lies as an Irish Tory or a Pagan would abhor I think it enough that I have to satisfie my Conscience and such as you exposed my self to the Censure of imprudent weakness by my Confessions § 4. But as to my Account of my Opinion about the Wars I must intreat you to take it as it is given you Not as a peremptory justification of all that I did but as the reasons which yet I see not answered desiring that where I erre God will better inform me that I may neither condemn the just nor justifie any sin § 5. But besides your Authors Accusations you have added two heinous ones of your own 1. That before some Book of anothers speaking of Order among Devils I clapt in that Expression By what Names or Titles soever Dignified or Distinguished And you did not think Hell could have done the like because it is a common Pulpit Expression I fear that you are over-tender of your Parties honour to some degree of melancholy suspiciousness that could find so much of Hell in those words I think I have not heard those words in the Pulpit thrice to my remembrance in forty years Our Preachers that I have heard mention only Archbishops Bishops and the Inferiour Clergy I hope you pray for more than England But what Obligation you have to pray for the Three Patriarchs of Antioch the Two Patriarchs of Alexandria or him of Constantinople or the Catholick of Armenia or the Abuna of Abassia or him of Moscovy or the Pope or the Cardinals Priests and Deacons or the Archbishop of Rhemes quâ tales as so Dignified and Distinguished I know not Is not a General Prayer for them enough Did Paul speak the Language of Hell in calling Devils Principalities and Powers and Spiritual Wickedness in High Places no nor in calling Satan The God of this World And is any Name more tenderly to be used than Gods Is it a wrong to Princes that Beelzebub is called The Prince of the Devils and the Prince that Ruleth in the Air Doth Scripture use Hellish Language in calling wicked Rulers GODS But I gave you not the least cause to think that I meant that Devils were Bishops or Bishops Devils I I spake not of Bishops And do you not know that Devils are dignified and distinguished in superiority by Names and Titles Why did you not name the Book which I prefaced that I might examine it Do you think that I can remember all that I have written before mens Books Seneca saith truly that he that hath a Sore or Ulcer thinks that you hurt him when you touch him not if he do but think you touch him However Dignities Dominions and Titles being words of Political common use if when we talk of spiritual heavenly or hellish Policy we must not use the same terms as of Humane Policy we must devise new Languages and Lexicons and correct the Bible Your second Accusation of me being my writings against the Bishops and Church of England I must suppose you mean truly not Bishops as Bishops nor the true Church of England as such or as heretofore But those Changers that since Laud have called themselves the Church If you speak truth this is your meaning § 6. And I cannot but think that as your honest and kind admonition obligeth me to be truly thankful to you and to renew the tryal of my ways so I am obliged by the same principle of Love and Fidelity humbly to intreat you to consider if possible without partiality 1. How you can answer the owning of such a Volume of a Lying Slanderers Accusations before you hear the defence of the Accused 2. But much more how you can so far countenance the heinous sins of those that you call the Church as not at all to blame them and to take it for so great a crime to name them and call men to repentance for them Can you find so much of Hell in the mention of the Dignities and Distinctions of Devils and yet see nothing but blamelesness in the silencings of about Two thousand such Ministers seizing on the goods and books and beds of so many as were so used laying many so long in common `fails with Rogues even divers to their death ruining so many hundred godly Families shutting the Church doors against so many Scholars that were educated and devoted to the Ministry causing and continuing the woful divisions of the Land to the great weakning of the Church and hinderances of Piety and Love and the great advantage of Popery and Forrein Enemies O how much more of such work have some to answer for Is Repentance for feeling and bewailing all this so great a duty as you suppose and is committing it and preaching it up a virtue not to be repented of Doth God require us to mourn and cry for the common evils if we will escape our selves Ezek. 9. 4. and to mourn for the reproach of the solemn Assembly as a burden Zeph. 3. 17. and is it now a heinous crime Hath Satan got so much right to his possession that if he use but the name of the Church for it they must repent as of hellish evil that so much as blame it and call men to Repentance O how hard is it to be impartial § 7. And when you look back on the Wars why do you not call them to Repentance
if living who drew the King from his Parliament to defend Delinquents by an Army from the due course of Legal Justice and to be ruled by such men of guilt before and against his Supream Council § 8. I received once a Letter almost like yours from Serenus Cressy if you were of his Religion I should less wonder at your partiality for the Church and its crimes than at the like in a Protestant O how little would it have cost your Church-men in 1660 and 1661 to have prevented the calamitous and dangerous Divisions of this Land and our common dangers thereby and the hurt that many hundred thousand Souls have received by it And how little would it cost them yet to prevent the Continuance of it § 9. But I that here obey your Call to Repentance am past doubt that by the true and just defence which you have forced or called me to I shall seem to the Guilty and to men of your tenderness and partiality to add yet much more to my offence For you have referred me to an Accuser of such a temper stile and guilt as can bear no true Answer adapted to the matter but what will seem uncivil and too sharp It was ill Counsel that was given to one that askt How he should have the better of any Adversary that blamed him viz. Speak and do things that are most odious as Perjury Lying Persecution c. and cover them with sacred Pretences and then all that accuse thee will be taken for uncharitable Railers If we will defend our selves against Slanderers and impudent Lyars and Churchconfounders and oppressing Persecutors we must find some other than the common names for such mens sins yea names that are not disgraceful and provoke them not to Repentance especially if they are listed in an Army of Crusado's where those by the Honour and Power of their Company take themselves as fortified that would be afraid were they assaulted in their singular state Every Delinquent thinks all his Crimes are secured and garrisoned by the Honour of the Army or Body that he is Listed in They can bear it if we call a common Lay Drunkard or Whoremonger by his Name yea if one call a Godly Man an Hypocrite or a Peace-maker a Schismatick But he is a Railer that calleth a Clergy Liar or Persecutor or Schismatick or a Betrayer of Souls by his proper Name They know not how to Preach without calling other Men to Repentance but to motion themselves to Repent of Sins that destroy Souls confound Churches and endanger the Land is to enrage them by dishonouring them and deserveth the bitterest Reproaches and Revenge § 10. I think your Author hath greatly wronged Dr. Stillingfleet now Lord Bishop of Worcester by pretending as his Second to be the Vindicater of his Cause for he hath thereby occasioned a common conceit that Dr. Stillingfleet in revenge for my Defence against his Accusations of Schism did instigate Mr. Morice and this supposed Mr. Long to do that which he was loth to own himself But I take my self bound to believe that this report is false while there is no proof of it no not in his Dialogue with the Army Chaplain and while his Irenicon his Origines Sacrae his Treatise of Satisfaction c. his Church History and other Writings deserve so well and his known parts and worth are an honour to the Church Charity believeth not unproved evil Far be it from me to think that he approveth of this Mans Lies no nor of Mr. Morice's mistakes yet undefended since my Reply though it was by one said that Book deserved a Bishoprick He hath truly said in a late Sermon May 1. Page 9. The Government of Passions is Tyrannical and Boisterous uncertain and troublesom never free from doing mischief to it self or others The greatest pleasure of Passion is Revenge and yet that is so unnatural so full of anxiety and fear of the Consequents of it that he that can subdue this unruly Passion hath more real pleasure and satisfaction in his mind than he who seeks to gratifie it most And Page 5. If it be intended for an affront though never so little the brisker Mens Spirits are and the higher Opinion they have of themselves so much deeper impression is presently made on the mind and that inflameth the Heart and puts the Blood and Spirits in motion in order to the returning the affront to him that gave it § 11. To conclude I desire those that have censured me for leaving such a Book as the Accusers so many years unanswered to accept of such reasons as these of the Drs. for my excuse And those that are glad that I have answered it at last to thank Mr. Cantianus and not me and those that are offended that I answer it now and in words suitable to it to fear lest they make his sin their own and to consider that Truth of Words lyeth in their agreement to the Matter and the Speakers Mind and that wilful disagreement to the Matter is a degree of Falshood or Deceit And them that blame me for confessing my youthful and private sins I desire to allow me the excuse that they allow to a greater Man St. Augustine who gave me his Example of the like and more And to imitate whom you here invite me And I hereby according to your desire earnestly intreat the Reverend Clergy Men who judge of my faults as you do that in Charity they will help to convince me of them but not as Bishop Morley and the Author of the Mischiefs have done by multiplied untruths in matter of fact But it must be speedily or death will make it come too late § 12. And as to Retractations I have here and oft already search'd after and Retracted all that I can find amiss in my Writings as to the MATTER or Doctrine But as for the MANNER I dare not wholly justifie any one leaf that ever I wrote nor undertake to correct all that is amiss I never did any thing that might not have been better done Sometime there is disorder And sometime Omissions and oft uncomely Repetitions and always too much dulness and frigidity about high and holy things And about lesser and personal matters I am conscious that I am oft too sharp and provoking But about the heinous sins of Church Corrupters Confounders Dividers Silencers Persecutors and Betrayers to a Forreign Jurisdiction I fear lest I have said too little though the guilty hate me for saying so much Of my Sins known and unknown I daily and earnestly beg pardon of God by the Sacrifice Merits and Intercession of my Saviour God be merciful to me a Sinner RICH. BAXTERS Confession and Vindication Chap. I. The Reasons of the Necessity of REPENTANCE § 1. REPENTANCE is a subject so ordinarily preached or written of that I will presuppose the Reader acquainted with the meaning of the word Only here telling you 1. That it is not meer sorrow for having sinned when the
up but one sole Bishop and Church instead of a Thousand or many Hundred or many Score do fiercely accuse me as if it were not they but I that am an Enemy to Episcopacy and the Church for desiring that Thousands may not be ejected or kept out and one only undertake in each Diocess an impossible task XIX The factious Sectarian part of the Conformists most fiercely and implacably accuse me for telling them after many years patient silence what are the Reasons that I conform not to their imposed Oaths Covenants Subscriptions Declanations and Practices taking this for an Accusation of those that do what I dare not do And because I give not over Preaching And some of their Writers expect that I falsly accuse my self of a multitude of heinous Crimes of which they by palpable lying accuse me As if Lying against my self were an act of Repentance and a means of Pardon and were not a Sin as well as to bely another XX. The Magistrates and Judges who have oft Imprisoned me and seized on all my Goods and Books and driven me out of the County with the Bishop that forbad my Preaching accuse me for not ceasing to Preach when I have unanswerably proved that so to do would be persidious Sacriledge against my ordination Vow and Calling And when I blamed the Herodians Priests and Pharisees for seeking to destroy Christ and forbidding his Apostles to Preach they said I meant the Bishops that Silenced such as I and for this sent me to Prison with a Fine of Five hundred Marks But from the Justices of the Sessions I had the fairest dealing For when they kept me under many Hundred Pounds Bonds to the good Behaviour that I might be at their will to take me up as soon as they could find any pretence for an Accusation they openly professed that they did it not as a Penalty and had nothing against me but took me to be Innocent but the Times being dangerous they were to do it for Prevention that is By the order of Judge Jeffreys and the King Now if you can tell me what Confession and Repentance that must be which must satisfie all these Accusers or else which of all these Parties it is that I must satisfie and how I shall know that I shall not be guilty of a multitude of gross Lyes by the Confessions which they require and expect you will perform a work which to me seemeth impossible Therefore all that I can do is to search my Heart and Life with a sincere willingness to know the Truth and to confess to God and Man so much as I can find to be truly sinful as far as Men are concerned to know it XXI The Italian and Spanish sort of Papists yet deeplier accuse me than most aforesaid for denying their pretended Vice-Christ and confuting their Heretical and Schismatical Errors and proving that by their Conciliar Religion they profess open Hostility to Christian Kings and Magistrates One of them 1661. wrote me a Challenge to make this good having said somewhat of it in my Sermon to the Parliament which I fully performed But it hath ever since lain unprinted for want of License from our Clergy and Security from the Court. XXII The English Diocesan sort who are for an Universal or Foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction under the Name of General Councils and a Collegium Pastorum in the intervals governing per Literas format as the Pope being Principium Unitatis and Patriarch of the West are deep Accusers of me for denying all such Universal and Foreign Jurisdiction as that which is worse than the Italian sort Popery and would perjure this Land which is oft Sworn against it And for taking the Principles urged by Grotius after his Revolt to be the French sort of Popery and for being against that Coalition with such on these terms which said Foreign Jurisdiction is Pleaded for by Archbishop Laud Archbishop Bromhall Bishop Peter Guning Bishop Sparrow Bishop Sam. Parker Dr. Heylin Mr. Thorndike Dr. Saywell Dr. Beveridge and worse by some others All which by their own express words with a full Confutation of their opinion I have written ready for the Press and disputed it at large three days with Bishop Guning in the presence of his chosen Witnesses Dr. Saywell and Dr. Beveridge But Dr. Isaac Barrow against Thorndike hath irrefragably confuted all their Pretensions notwithstanding Bishop Parker's vain Contradiction XXIII But the great load of the most Bloody Accusations is heapt up against me by the exasperated Clergy and Laity for my calling them to Repentance for the Sins which I shall after mention and they fetch most of their Charges from my Actions in the Wars of which the multitude of Untruths in Matter of Fact which they virulently write and report I had rather think come from the rash belief of one another in their exasperated Faction than from the rupture of tumifying knownLying Malice and Rage But though this vented by Dr. Stillingfleett's nameless Second in the Book called The second Part of the Mischief of Separation be that which Cantianus maketh my Charge I think it not seasonable here to deal with it till I have first confest my real Faults SECTION 2. THough I have more than once Published the Confession of many of my youthful and later Sins the renewed loud call of Accusers and of Approaching Death provoketh me to do it again before I call others to Repentance And I will mention the Sins of my Childhood for a warning to Children to avoid the like And because the Seeds of following Sins are usually then sown I. Though from the first of my remembrance I liked Religious Goodness and feared sinning since my Father had talkt to me of God and Sin and the World to come yet it was many Years before I was humbled for my Original Sin or felt much of the need of a Saviour or understood the Doctrine of the Scripture but only delighted in the Historical part And though my Conscience troubled me for a Lie to scape Danger it did not always keep me from it II. If the most pleasing Sin be the greatest the Delight in feigned Histories called Romances was my great because my most delightful Sin III. Though my Appetite inclined only to the coursest and poorest Diet yet therein I pleased it foolishly and sinfully to the utter ruine of my Health which I the rather mention to bid Parents look to their Childrens Health in the quality and quantity of their Food as they love their Life and Comforts My delightful Diet was so much in Apples and Pears and Plumbs and Cheese that possest my Stomach early with an uncurable excessive Flatulency and my Veins with remediless Obstructions and bred so long and violent a Cough as that brought me into present danger of a Phthysis To Cure which after three Years taking excessively Garlick and flos Sulphuris inclined me to such a great long continued Bleeding as exhausted my Natural Heat and Strength IV. Though
we had great plenty of such Fruit at Home sometime with a grudging Conscience I ventured over the Hedge to a Neighbours Fruit. A Sin that Austin himself confesseth V. I was in a School where one or two Lads corrupted many by obscene talk and immodest actions In which I did not sufficiently disown them or rebuke them but oft too much countenanced them in it As also in fighting and abusing the weaker though I was unable thereto my self VI. Though I was bred under many meer Readers and Tipling or Drunken Schoolmasters and Curates and scarcely heard a Sermon in a long time till I was about Fourteen years of Age or then and after none that I felt any profit by I was not troubled at the loss nor at my ignorance and unprofitableness VII When it pleased God by reading some good Books and by my danger of Sickness about Fifteen years of Age to waken my Conscience I was not so obedient to that awakening Call as I should have been But was oft tempted to my old sin of pleasing my Appetite and had almost been drawn away to a covetous love of Gaming at Cards But God quickly check'd it by an unusual Providence VIII I was strongly possest I think by Pride joyned with a Love of Learning to have setled at the University till I had attained some Eminency of Learning and Titles but God in great Mercy by Sickness and other hinderances saved me from that danger and loss of time and bred me up in a more humbling way and gave me some little help of safe and pious Countrey Tutors IX Weakness keeping me in expectation of Death and God then having given me a greater sence of Mans Everlasting state and of the differences between Faith and Hypocrisie Holiness and a worldly state I thirsted to win others to the same sense and state and to that End offered my self to Ordination when I was too low for so high a Work both in Learning and in a methodical knowledge of Theology And though I was naturally inclined to Logical and Metaphysical Accurateness and method I was too ignorant in Languages and Mathematicks and divers parts of Knowledge had I not been a continual Learner by Books while I was a Teacher I had been a dishonour to the Sacred Office and Work and do repent that I made such haste X. I too rashly in this Ignorance took the Judgment of the Countrey Ministers that had been my Helpers and told me of the Lawfulness of Conformity and believed the Books for Conformity which they perswaded me to read for the English frame of Government and Subscriptions before I had read impartially what was against it or heard any speak on the other side or had well studied the case And so I subscribed sinfully because temerariously And though I was so rash that I cannot say that I am sure that I took the Oath of Canonical Obedience it is so long since yet I think I did because else I had not been Ordained Of this I repent and beg forgiveness for the Merits of Christ Though I had never been like to have been a Minister without it but had turned to some other Calling XI Though I know not that ever I broke the Oath of Canonical Obedience or ever disobeyed my Ordinary yet I changed my Judgment of the Canons of which I cannot repent While I lived a year as a Schoolmaster my Ordinary commanded me nothing which I disobeyed When I removed to a Priviledged place Bridgnorth I was only a Lecturer and my Ordinary commanded me nothing which I did not I did read most of the Liturgy and kneel at the Sacrament And my Ordinary himself Baptized without Crossing and never commanded me to use it or the Surplice VVhen I came to Kidderminster Bishop Thornbury died and Bishop Prideaux never gave me any Command or Prohibition I being a meer Lecturer that never had Presentation and the Vicar using the Liturgy and Ceremonies But yet I repent â—â—at I did think worse of that sort of Diocesane Government which puts not down the Parochial Pastors and Churches than I now do and these Forty years have done For I think that a General Episcopacy over many Churches and Bishops is Jure Divino an Order succeeding Apostles and Evangelists in that part of their Office which as Ordinary must continue But I repent not that I renounced that sort of Diocesanes who put or keep down all the Parochial Pastors or Bishops and Churches making them but as Chappels Parts of a Diocess as the lowest Church and taking on them the sole Episcopacy of many score or hundred Churches Nor do I repent of my unanswered Treatise of Episcopacy written against this sort XII Though I ever disliked the Censorious and Separating Spirit that run into Extreams against Conformity yet I Repent that I did no more sharply reprove it But because almost all the people where I came to preach that were not meer VVorldlings but seemed to be seriously Religious were either against Conformity or wish'd it removed for the Divisions which it caused I overmuch valued their Esteem and Love because I loved their serious piety and having sometimes but very seldom spoken against the Corruptions of the Church Government specially the Silencing of Ministers I can scarce tell to this day whether I did well or ill more good by telling Men what to lament and pray against or more hurt by heartening those that were apt overmuch to Censure Government and the Orders of the Church But I beg God to forgive what was amiss XIII Though I desired such a frame of Episcopal Government as Sir Edward Deering offered or as since Archbishop Usher hath described as Primitive yet out of the sense of the evil that Silencers and Persecutors had done I too much rejoiced when the Tidings came that the Prelacy was Voted down not knowing then what would be set up nor well what to desire For neither Presbytery nor Independency had been then debated or were well understood XIV VVhen I heard of the Scots Covenanting and Arming and entering England though I had not so much knowledge of their Cause as should be a just satisfaction in so great a matter yet I was in Heart glad of it for the appearance that it shewed of enabling the Lords and Commons of England to appear more boldly to plead for their Liberties and Laws But I now think that a Suspension of my thoughts as wanting Evidence had been better XV. VVhen I heard of the tumultuous manner of the Apprentices in London petitioning against Bishops I disliked it and the means that encouraged them and the publick reproach that was cast by the Rabble on those called Straffordians such learned men as the Lord Faulkland Lord Digby c. yea and the urging the King so much for his Execution But I too much silenced my dislike XVI VVhen I saw Mr. Burton's Protestation Protested and the forwardness of many Religious unlearned Persons to run toward Extreams
provoking words on trifling occasions XLIII But all forementioned set together lye not half so heavy on my Soul as my inward Deficience and Omission That having had so many Convictions of the truth of Scripture and the certainty of the Life to come and can scarce think of any thing but death and the future state it is so sure and near and have read and heard and written so much of the Love of God and of Heaven as I have done it shameth it grieveth me it maketh me even abhor and loath my self that I usually reach little higher than pacifick quieting dull Affections and that Faith and Hope and Love do not keep me in more delightful thoughts of God and my Redeemer and in a more joyful longing to be with Christ and all the Blessed and that ever I should have a cold and common thought of God and things so high and holy and that the prospect of my change and the coming of Christ is not a continual Feast to my Soul and setteth me not more above the concerns of this vile and corruptible Flesh and above all impatience of pain and above the fears of Death and Corruption O what a contradiction is there between that Head and Tongue that professeth to believe what I profess of God of Christ of Endless Glory and that Heart that no more rejoiceth in that Belief and Hope but by languor and decay of Nature and doubtless great imperfection of Faith is kept from that joy that such believing in reason should produce and goeth towards Heaven with so many pawses of fear or dulness and so little of that Heavenly delight which I have long been seeking of God and which my low and weak condition needeth Lord all my sins are known to thee let me never be unwilling to know them nor let them be so unknown to me as to invalidate my Repentance or frustrate my hope of pardon through Christ Chap. III. The Reasons why I cannot without known gross Lying profess such Repentance as Dr. Stillingfleet's Anonymus Second and many such others call for or expect § 1. AS it is no less sin to Murder ones self than to Murder another so it is no less to belie ones self than to belie another Yea it is the greater in that it is like to be more against knowledge we being better acquainted with our own thoughts and deeds than with other Mens And it would be the greater sin in me because that the Father of Lies purposely designeth his calumnies to cause hatred in many and to frustrate all my Writings both to the Church and to particular Souls § 2. Why I cannot Repent of my Writings against the Sadduers or Brutists the Antitrinitarians the Somatists the Quakers the Anabaptists the Antinominians the Papists the Separating Dividers and the rest before-mentioned the Books that I have written against them express my Reasons But no Men call me to it by such an agreeing number of voices as the late Protestant Conformists of that fiercer sort who appropriate to themselves the Name of the Episcopal Church of England especially those that are for a Forreign or Universal Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And no Man hath done it with such virulent malice as the Anonymus Author of the Book called The Second part of the Unreasonableness of Separation as seconding Dr. Stillingfleet Whose Libel I shall now peruse and return the Reasons why I cannot Repent of all that he reciteth by way of Accusation § 3. I. In his Preface That my Opinions and Practices have been condemned by the generality of Christians from the most Primitive and Purest Times of the Church Ans To which I appeal and can get no answer § 4. II. I must first tell the Reader that should I stay to confute all the falsification of my words which he pretendeth to recite it would make an unsavoury tedious unprofitable Volume A word put in or left out or altered will serve our grand Accuser to do much of his Works with the Sons of Ignorance and Malice He seemeth to expect that I should Repent of saying that our Civil War between King and Parliament was begun in England between two Parties of Episcopal Protestants And must I repent that I lived in England And that I know what it was naturally impossible for me not to know Why doth he not also make me a Liar for saying that I then dwelt in England and both sides were English Men and spake English Had I been a Mushroom sprung up as lately as our fiery Tories 〈◊〉 had Malice enough to make me mad I might have needed none of his imposed Repentance I have in another writing named the Commanders of the Army and the Parliaments Lords Lieutenants and all the Major Generals besides the Chaplains and Challenged them to find among all these one Presbyterian or two Independants for ten if not twenty Episcopal Protestants A Wise and Credible Parliament Man yet living hath oft told me that when the War begun he knew but One Presbyterian in all the House of Commons which was worthy Mr. Tate of Northampton it being not then known among them The Earl of Warwick who commanded at Sea I knew to be for Communion with the Patish and Episcopal Churches In the Army let them enquire of the Communion and Religion of the General and all his Commanders and I believe they will find among all the Colonels but two Independants the Lord Say and the Lord Brooke and one moderate Puritane yet living the Lord Wharton and that all the rest were moderate Episcopal Conformists what the old Scots Souldiers Browne and Urrey that turn'd to the King were I know not supposing their pay was their Religion We knew this to be true of the Earl of Essex General the Earl of Bedford General of the Horse is yet living and well known Sir John Merrike Major General Colonel Dolbiere the Earl of Peterborough General of the Ordnance Lionell Copley Scout-Master the Earl of Stampford the Lord Roberts lately President of the Kings Privy Council the Lord Hollis the Lord Kimbolton after Earl of Manchester and Lord Chamberlain that chose the Kings Preachers and constantly heard them the Lord Hastings Earl of Huntington the Lord Rochford after Earl of Dover the Lord Fielding after Earl of Denbigh the Lord St. John Son to the Earl of Bullingbrook kill'd at Edghill Col. Goodwin Col. Lssex Col. Grantham Col. Sir Henry Cholmley Col. Bampfield Sir William Constable after turn'd Independant yea Col. Hampden was no Separatist from the Parish Churches but a sober Protestant I have named the rest elsewhere I heard enough of Col. Sandyes before he was mortally wounded to tell me that he was no Puritane And as for the Major Generals of the several Counties the Lord Ferdinando Fairfax the Lord Willoughby of Parham the Earl of Stampford Sir John Gell Sir Tho. Middleton Col. Mitton Col. Morgan Col. Massey Sir William Waller the Earl of Denbigh Col. Langhorne and Col. Poyer were all
Patron Judge Jeffreys on the Bench said He was sorry that the Act of Indempnity disabled him from Hanging me And your Mouth Roger Le Strange foretold the Reason Never was so wicked a Book written as my Paraphrase on the New Testament Were I at his Ear I would whisper to him Do you not take the New Testament it self to be far worse But what is the deadly evil Why I say with Paul That if an Angel from Heaven preach another Gospel let him be accursed But did I make those words Or find them made The Judge by the help of our Great Clergy-men and their Curates found out eight Paraphrases that deserved this Death The sum of which was that I accuse the Pharisees and Herodians and Priests for malicious hating and murdering Christ for doing good and working Miracles and for urging Men to be Informers against him and for forbidding the Apostles to Preach And they said that by an Innuendo I meant all this of the Church of England And when a Famous but exasperated Dr. gathered some passages as Seditious against Government to have hanged me even our Judges and prosecutors searching the Books and particularly on Rom. 13. cast by those accusations and never mentioned them And when they burnt my Political Aphorisms and I wrote my Judgment thereof to the Vice-Chancellor I had not a word of contradiction But there are deeper Reasons that cause both Papists and Cainites to wish that all that I have written were burnt to Ashes And they tell me what to expect from them if God restrain them not for then I believe that it is more than my writings and than the Nonconformists that they will burn They that cannot now endure that any but they should be heard will not endure that they be read § 12. Page 13. He adds That neither Men nor Books are properly good that are not so ex causis integris Ans So none is Good but God only and the perfect I confess that I am not so good If I say that I have no sin or that I ever did any thing that is sinless and omnimodo bonum and might not have been done better I am a Liar And is this the Exposition of the Declaration for want of which we are if we preach used like Rogues in Goals viz. That we assent and consent to all things contained in and prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer Ordination and Articles and that there is nothing in it contrary to the Word of God Is it Integrally perfect Or must I wish it burnt else I am not for so hard usage of it though I cannot justifie the prescribing two Easter days in it and far worse matters But what is the fault that deserveth burning § 13. Ibid. His own Practice demonstrates that his Writings for Peace and Unity are but so many Pleas for Schism and Division They need an Ignis Expurgatorius Ans An easie Purgatory Your Excommunication ipso facto of all that affirm any thing in your Ceremonies Ordinations Liturgies or Church Government to be contrary to the Word of God threateneth Hell which is worse than Purgatory But Reader seeing all my Books must be burnt as a Sacrifice to the Accusers of my Conversation as for Schism and Division I owe the World a particular account of such an accused practice 1. When I first forbore practical Conformity it was but in a scrupled part I read most of the Common Prayer and I received the Sacrament Kneeling 2. I never disobeyed my Ordinary's command but got me to a place where the Ordinary thought as I did 3. I ever disswaded people from Separation and reprehended those Nonconformists that inclined towards it 4. It was I confess a Dividing practice that I took the Scots Covenant before I foresaw it would be used to Division But I quickly repented and kept my Flock and Thousands from taking it 5. I had not the last or least hand in suppressing the promoters of Schism where I lived 6. I purposely hazarded my Life and spent Time and Labour a year and half in Fairfax's Army in hope too late to have healed and prevented the foreseen Ecclesiastical and Civil Divisions 7. I got the Ministers of Worcestershire and the Neighbour Counties Episcopal Presbyterians and moderate Independants to subscribe an Agreement in practice so far as they agreed in Principles Which Dr. Warmstree and Dr. Good consented to till Dr. Guning drew them off again And Westmoreland Cumberland Dorsetshire Wiltshire Hampshire Essex and Dublin all imitated us so that we were ready to have had a common Concord 8. By Letters I treated for Union with Dr. Hammond Bishop Brownrig Archbishop Usher and such others before King Charles the Second's Return 9. I preach'd for peace to the Parliament and City in publick Sermons 10. I got divers Meetings before the King came in with many peaceable Drs. Dr. Gauden Dr. Bernard Dr. Allen Dr. Gulston c. with whom Dr. Morley would be one that he might frustrate all who seemed to be all for Unity 11. I was the first with Mr. Calamy Dr. Reynolds and Mr. Ash that sought to the King to help us to this desired Unity by his Commission who seemed forward to it and promised that he would draw them to meet us half way 12. We never offered any form of Church Government but Archbishop Usher's Primitive Episcopacy and gave publick thanks for a seeming Grant of much less never once speaking against the Bishops Parliament Powers Baronies Revenues or Pomp. 13. When Chancellor Hide as from the King offered me a Bishoprick I refused it on terms in a Letter that pleased him viz. That if the King continued what he had granted in his Declaration I should take it for my great Duty to do all that I could by writing and preaching to perswade all to Conformity and Unity and therefore would not be a Bishop lest I should frustrate that labour by making Men think that I did it for my self But if no such liberty was intended to be continued which I easily foresaw why should I be a Bishop to be quickly cast out 14. Had my Life lain on it I could have done no more to have prevented our Divisions and foreseen Confusions that I did in the Treaties at Worcester-House and at the Savoy by reason and by earnest and humble petition and true prediction But all did but enrage and instead of Abatements according to the Kings Commission far more was after imposed than before 15. I went voluntarily to Bishop Sheldon for his License when I could have had it by the Kings Declaration without any Subscription and I Subscribed what might shew that I was for peace that I would not preach against the Liturgy or Ceremonies but live peaceably 16. When Bishop Morley forbad me preaching in his Diocess I asked him leave but to preach to some small Village among the ignorant where there was no Maintenance for a Minister And he old me They were better have none than
than I do that I have been put oft to confute them Yet how is Hooker extolled by them while I that have confuted his popular Principles am a Rebel King Charles II. verbally by a Declaration diso ned his Fathers Wars he honoured many Generals and Colonels of the Parliaments Army with the highest Offices One of them General Monk by a Parliament Presbyterian Army restored him yet I that never was a Commander or Soldier nor ever stroke or hurt Man or drew a drop of Blood in War am the great instance of the Rebellion Who did what I did to avoid the guilt of Rebellion and to save England from being made like Ireland where I thought it was Rebellion that Murdered two hundred thousand And we were then so ignorant of War that we commonly thought that one Battel would have ended all and setled peace As for the Charge of Schism I verily think that the Irish may as modestly transfer on the Protestants the charge of Rebellion as King Charles II. his Prelates can lay on such as I the charge of Schism which they have so powerfully caused and continued He that will read my Search for the Schismatick needeth no further proof And he that will not may keep his beloved Errour § 23. Accus X. Answered I said that I was bred up under eight Reading School masters of whom divers were beggar'd by drinking Must I repent of that Or of disliking such Churchmen O I should have said nothing ill of the dead No nor of their living Successors for hence is the rage O how intolerable to these Men is reproof and repentance in comparison of Sin I must repent for telling that one of my Reading Masters that only officiated in the Church never preach'd but once and that with the notorious signs of being Drunk in Eyes and Tongue on that terrible Text Mat. 25. Go ye cursed c. What enmity to the Church is it to complain of such Men But we were so often whipt when he came in Drunk that made us as weary of him as the Fined and Imprisoned Ministers are of the Persecuting Bishops § 24 Page 17. Accus XI At Nineteen years of Age he had a distaste against Bishops as Persecutors Ans But not as Bishops I cannot repent of distasting Persecutors It was Born in me and New born May not one be a Christian that loveth not Persecution § 25. Accus XII Whether Mr. B. made his Father a Rebel or his Father him he tells us his Father was twice a Prisoner Ans By this proof all the Imprisoned Nonconformists are Rebels How easily can such Prelates and their Agents make thousands of Rebels My Father lived in the Kings Quarters and never was Nonconformist nor medled with Wars But being plundered was made Collector of the Kings Taxes and brought in all that was paid but would not distrain and for that was Imprisoned And at last fled for safety to Worcester a Garrison of the Kings Who can escape the charge of Rebellion from such Accusers § 26. Accus XIII His first adventure was to Seize the Person of a Neighbour in exchange for his Father but Quo Warranto I find not Ans By the Law of God in Nature and the Fifth Commandment and â—ege Talionis the Party being obnoxious and suffering no hurt nor loss by it Yet from these false Conjectures about my Father he saith You see how early Mr. B's Spirit was fermented with Principles of Faction and Sedition Ans Readers you see what Faction and Sedition signifie in this Mans Mouth § 27. Accus XIV Here accusing me for telling how Bishop Morton Confirmed me and many more saying a short Collect without a word of Examination or Instruction he heapeth up divers falshoods 1. That my Master was a Minister I think is false 2. He querieth Did not your Master Examine you Ans He was the best of all my Masters and heard us say the Catechism but never told us any thing of the sence nor ever examined whether we understood any of it 3. He asketh How know you but your Master certified of you Ans If he certified that I understood what Baptismal Covenantings or Confirmation was or much of the rest or what Consent I gave to that Covenant I doubt he certified too much And I being the Head Scholar all the rest were liker to be ignorant than I Except Richard Allestree who though two or three years younger had been diligently Catechized by a Nonconforming Minister He saith This was Mr. B's fault not the Bishops Ans I confess I was faulty in not understanding as much at Fourteen years as I understood many years after I cannot say that a Child of Seven years old is sinless in not understanding all the Articles of Faith But though it be the fault of the Ordained if they seek it unqualified in gross Ignorance or Wickedness the Ordainers will not long believe such Deceivers that it is not their fault to Ordain such He that believeth Dr. Hammond and Mr. Eldersfield two the Learnedst Conformists of this Age of the grand importance of the solemn understanding and serious owning of the Baptismal Covenant in Confirmation when young Men pass into the rank of Communicants should shed streams of Tears to think how contrary common practice is hereto and how this Ordinance is not only frustrate but turned to a deluding Ceremony § 28. Accus XV. He was a Controuler of Bishops at Fourteen Ans A meer Forgery I liked the sport It was too long after that I disliked it § 29. Accus XVI Page 19. I am reproached that the Grave Neighbour Conforming Ministers that kept me from Nonconformity were such as had rather have had the Church rid of such dividing Things whence he slanderously concludeth that they waited an opportunity to be active in Ruining the Church Because when Conformity was forbidden by the Parliament they forsook not their Flock What can escape Satanical reproach when a great part of the County had scarce any able and pious Ministers but four or five such as these and they shall be falsly branded by such as never knew them § 30. Accus XVII His charge of my ignorant Subscribing at my Ordination I confess and lament and beg of God to forgive But the report of raining Manna at Bridgnorth at my coming thither is the Forgery of his Trade A Grain like dryed Rie rained there almost a year before my coming thither which I kept some of long and the like at Shrewsbury about two years ago And he forgeth that there were six Parishes at Bridgnorth because I said there were six under the Ordinaries Power § 31. Accus XVIII He accuseth me for being against the Et caetera Oath and Canons and yet saith not a word to prove it lawful but through me condemneth not only the Parliament that condemned it before the Division but even the long Parliament that made all their cruel Laws that never would own that Oath or authorize those Canons nor any Parliament
and Episcopal Nonconformists that now are commonly used it But he hath found out one Independent Dr. John Owen who when he was Vice-Chancellor at Oxford was against the common use of it as necessary § 52. Accus XXXIX He feigneth also that the Creed and Ten Commandments were also cast out and scarce a Chapter read in many Churches Ans 1. Was he that hated them more oft in their Churches than I I knew not one such Presbyterian Congregation in England 2. Read the Directory whether it were for them or against them and judge of this Mans words § 53. Accus XL. His Exclamation against the Scots Covenant and Cromwell's doings I before shewed to be just And I think I opposed both more than he did § 54. Accus XLI Page 39. Whereas I before said how I went into the Army after Naseby Fight by the Consent of an Assembly of Loyal Ministers in Coventry to try whether there was any hope to save the Church and State from the Corrupted Army He feigneth that this was the Westminster Assembly or some Rebellious Branch of them All falsly as the rest § 55. Accus XLII That I went to Col. Whalley Ans Who then profest himself a Lamenter of the Armies Corruption and a Desirer of their Reformation and so continued while I was with him But was after overcome by his Kinsman Cromwell and worldly Interest to hold on with them for his preferment § 56. Accus XLIII His Page 41. is made of meer forged Lies As 1. That I promised my self great things much what as I did from King Charles the Second when instead of a Bishoprick I craved leave in vain to have been for nothing the Curate of an ignorant Reading Vicar 2. That I was disappointed of my hopes By whom And how And for what 3. That I thought my self capable of advancement but They did not As if I sought that which I refused 4. That I was well promised for my pains Who never ask'd them any thing nor was promised any thing 5. That I was content with the pleasing work of drawing Blood gratis Because I that never drew a drop of any Mans Blood did labour to prevent the Papists and malignant other Leeches from bursting with the Blood of King Parliament and Kingdom 6. That I hoped they would have advanced me to some Military Preferment Who never was so much as a Souldier and could have had Military Preferment long before Thus the Mans Brain from what cause let others judge breeds Lies as a Carkass breedeth Maggots They swarm by heaps Is this the Credit of our Church History § 57. Accus XLIV Page 42. Against his Will he is forced to leave the Army Ans Yes just the day that they consulted at Nottingham to Rebel and I had else at Triploe-Heath ventured my Life against them But it had been in vain as it was to those that drew off about 5000 from them whose places they fill'd up with King Charles the First 's Souldiers that had come to them and with Fanaticks that would be true to their Interest § 58. Accus XLV That ever since it hath been my business to destroy the best Established Church in the World Ans By desiring them not to set up a Forreign Jurisdiction which the Kingdom is Sworn against And by humble Petitioning them not to silence all the Ministers of England conditionally and two thousand of the most Faithful actually in one day By striving for Concord as for Life upon terms once granted by the King in his Gracious Declaration and after on lower terms consented to by Bishop Wilkins Dr. Burton Judge Hale and I think by Dr. Tillotson and Dr. Stillingfleet I never motioned the alienation of one Farthing of the Revenues of the Bishops or Deans nor spake against their Baronies Parliament Place and Power 〈◊〉 nor against their vast Diocesses so they would not put down the Inferiour Pastoral Office and Churches and make Lay Civilians Usurpers of the Keys Thus I sought to destroy the best Church in the World Locusts are famished if they may not destroy our Trees and Fruit and Pikes if they may not devour all the lesser Fish All Human's Wealth and Honour is nothing to him if Mordecai be not hanged This Envy consumeth them if we lye not still with Rogues in Goals § 59. Accus XLVI He will not affirm that I was given to plunder But it is a suspicious sign when I would take up a Man to exchange for my Father Ans This hath a little modesty though even natural Affection be a Crime with Tories even when exercised without hurting any Here also he repeateth his Forgery of raining Manna § 60. Accus XLVII Page 43 That I sate down on the Sequestred Living of Mr. Dance at Kiderminster Ans This is cautelously said Not that I had a hand in Sequestring him not that I took his living But that I sate down on it And Bishop Morley saith That he was a Man of an unblameable life But I. He shall not hereby draw me to recite the Articles Sworn against him by as credible Men as any of his Neighbours 2. I think that it is not a blameless life to undertake the Pastoral Care of Souls and neither preach to them nor be able to Expound the Creed and to keep one as ignorant but much more vicious Turner at Mitton under him 3. I yet believe that such a Mans Possession doth not oblige the people to venture their Souls upon his Pastoral Care and own him for their Teacher and seek no other Nor make it a sin for any other to Teach them No more than the King's Ships or Armies must wilfully cast away Ships and Lives for want of Conduct because a Man that hath no tolerable skill is in Possession How cheap are Souls or how contemptible is Ministerial Knowledge and Preaching with these Men. You see here what is the best Church in the World in their account and what it is to destroy it 4. Almost two years before the Wars the Vicar conscious of his obnoxiousness entred into Bond with the chief Magistrates and others of the Town and Parish to pay 60 l. per Annum to a Lecturer of their choice he keeping his Vicaridge and officiating as Reader And so he put out Mr. Jo. Dide his Preaching Curate in whose place I came being before in another County Which Mr. Dide though more offensive before than the Vicar to the Religious people being after on my Testimony for him received into a Benefice of his own was so reconciled to the people of Kiderminster that he Bequeathed much of his Estate to them 5. In my absence some years Mr. Dance by Bond owed me about 120 l. of which I never desired or ask'd for a Penny And if Mr. Dance when forced out had right to his Benefice I that was forced away had right to my Salary Which yet I think was no good Title in him or me But he was sequestred when I was in another Countrey
all the Land into the Sole power of the King who was himself in the power of Papists and Delinquents did clearly tell us where the present danger of the Kingdom lay But future Changes we could not foresee 〈…〉 part I was a young Novice and knew not what War was 〈…〉 considerable interest in any to have prevented it But 〈…〉 that I more repent of than that I feared it so little and that I did not speak more earnestly for the preventing of it by mutual pacificatory means and that I said any thing towards unpeaceable irritations Who could have forethought that all those doleful Events would follow which make up Whitlock's impartial Memorials § 67. Yet I must truely say though it displease the guilty that the effects were quite different on the Land from what the Malignants commonly report They would falsly perswade the World that all ancient Piety was despised the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and all sober Ministers cast out and Tub preachers set up to vent their Nonsence The truth is among 10000 of the Clergy about 300 or more were turn'd out as Ignorant and Scandalous and with them unjustly some for being for the King against the Parliament The number I know not but conjecture that there might be an hundred such at least In the places of these the most seriously Religious young Men that the Universities would afford with some few old Nonconformists and but few such as the Parishioners chose were set up Most of these young Men were such as had no hand in the Wars but were Lads or young Students while the War continued It pleased God that very many of them became such fervent able Preachers that a great change followed among their Hearers and multitudes of the Ignorant Debauch'd and Worldlings became Serious Godly Christians And the younger sort grew up accordingly For instance in the County of Worcester where I lived where before there was one Family that minded Piety or the Life to come or Prayed or Read the Scripture there were many after that did it In the Town where I lived where there was before one or two Houses in a Street that worshipped God by Prayer in their Families and avoided Profaneness and minded the Concerns of their Souls at last there was scarce more than two Houses on a Street-side that did not learn the Catechism read the Scripture pray and live soberly and this in great love and peace and humility towards others commonly disowning the Cromwellians and Sectarians Disloyalties Rebellions and Schisins But indeed when the Sectaries got dominion many Anabaptists and Self conceited Novices set up themselves for Preachers where they could get Hearers but the sober godly people kept so much Concord and Integrity that these others were but here and there and that as a disgraced broken Sect as the Quakers be among us now But Harrison took the advantage of the ignorance and badness of the Parish Ministers in Wales to set up Itinerant Anabaptists and Separatists in many places This is the truth of the Consequents about Religion And it fell out that the Cromwellians and Anabaptists professing more Zeal for Godliness than ordinary did much of their work by suppressing sin and profaneness and countenancing Godliness Which hath taught us to wish that of two Evils rather Hypocrisie than Malignity may be in power It 's better Godliness be promoted for evil Ends than hated and persecuted 68. Whereas therefore the Diocesane Church of England exclusive of all Nonconformists and such as these Men accuse is so oft called The best Church in the World It must mean that it is best in Constitution and Laws or in the Men that are Ministers and Members If the first be their meaning 1. The best Laws without the best Men never make the best Church 2. Is one sole Bishop over a Thousand or many Hundred Parishes without any Bishop or Pastoral Church under him a better Form of Government than the contrary that was continued for many hundred years and described by Archbishop Usher and others 2. Is a Church Governed by Lay Civilians decretive use of the Keys so much better than that which is Governed by the Keys in the hands of the Clergy only 3. Is a Church Governed by Canons that ipso facto Excommunicate all that affirm any of their Offices Ceremonies or Forms to have any thing sinful better than those that unite in things necessary and bear with such as these 4. Are Bishops and Deans chosen by Kings perhaps Papists and Incumbents chosen by any that can buy a Presentation better than those that are chosen by the Clergy and People and Invested by the Prince and Patron 5. Is a Church where the ignorant sinful and unwilling are forced to Communicate unless they will lye Beggar'd in Goals better than those that receive none to Communion but the Desirers 2. But if it be the best Church in the World for Men they should let others praise them rather than their own Mouths Are they so much better Men than the Nonconformists Do their Lives shew it Doth credible fame speak it Though Mr. White was blamed for publishing the Names of such as by credible Oaths were ejected for Drunkenness or other Scandal this was no proof that they were the best Men in the World Nor yet that of 10000 that Conformed 8000 of them had Conformed before to the Directory and Declared their Assent and Consent to the altered Common Prayer Book before ever they saw it as I have proved Whereas I remember not that ever I heard of one Nonconformist these twenty eight years that was accused and punished for any such crime unless preaching Christs Gospel be a crime even when Power and Malice watcht for advantages against them and crouded them into Goals for preaching and praying Nor do I remember more than two single instances of Im norality by credible accusations of fame which was of Fornication lamented in all these years But alas how different is the common fame of too many of the publick Clergy And are these the best Men in all the World § 69. You may partly judge by their Works their Writings and their Lives Compare the Writings and Ministerial Labours of the Conformists and Nonconformists these thirty years or since the New Impositions Some pious Conformists have done extraordinarily well Especially Dr. Barrow Dr. Tillotson Dr. Patrick Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tennison c. And is there not the same Spirit of Wisdom Piety and Peace in the Writings of Anthony Burgesse Mr. Charnock Dr. Manton Dr. Bates Mr Hâ—w Richard Alleine Joseph Alleine Tho. Gouge Mr. Swinnock Dr Gâ—lpin many Volumes of the Morning Lectures Mr. Flavel's Mr. Steel's Mr. Ambrose's and many more such This Man singleth out me for one of the worst Men living and Bishop Morley bid Men judge of all the rest by me ab uno disce omnes And he was accounted one of the most Eminent of the Clergy for Parts and Orthodoxness One Book
if he eat saith Paul England yet feeleth such Mens Mercy There is I think but one of their Commissioners now surviving nor on our side but few even Dr. Tho. Pierce Dean of Salisbury And he moved for leave by Disputation there to prove that it is a work of mercy to all that think it unlawful to receive the Sacrament kneeling to deny it them and the Communion of the Church though the prohibition of all kneeling in Adoration on any Lords Day was one of the Ancient Ceremonies of the Church setled also at the great Council of Nice and continued near a Thousand years saith Dr. Heylin But Morley had the wit to take him off that dispute § 90. Accus LXXIII Page 96. After other Harangues he alledgeth false Causes of my refusing a Bishoprick I satisfied the Lord Chancellor Hide by a Letter with truer Reasons too long here to repeat § 91. Accus LXXIV He next accuseth my Moral Prognostication Ans Let it answer for it self to the Impartial Reader § 92. Accus LXXV He threateneth me for blaming the Laws Ans And do not many Bishops now blame the Laws If Laws be made engines of Schism and Persecution let them justifie them that can and that love them David saith Shall the Throne of Iniquity have Fellowship with thee that frameth mischief by a Law How many German Divines blamed the Interim imposed by the Emperor as for Peace § 93. Accus LXXVI He next reciteth Bishop Morley's Accusations in his printed Letter Ans Which I have proved to abound with falshood in a full Answer which for want of printing hath lain by me these six and twenty years Mr. Baldwin is yet living who was present when he forbad me to preach And Dr. William Bates is yet living who joyned with me in the Savoy Disputation which he misreported § 94. Accus LXXVII He accuseth my Book called The Cure of Church Divisions and yet saith It is the only Book that Mr. B. hath written that hath any thing of moderation Ans Must the World have a confutation of so gross a Liar after the visibility of above Sixscore Books that are an evidence against him and after the testimony that the Lord Chancellor Hide and Morley gave of me producing one of these Books before the King Lords and Drs. at Worcester-House If I understand them above a hundred Books have been written by me with a special design for Moderation Unity and Concord § 95. Accus LXXVIII Page 101. He is not ashamed to be a procurer of the Indulgence for Popery 1. Because I said I would have Papists used like Men. 2. I would have no Man put to death for being a Priest 3. I would have no writ de Excommunicato capiendo or any Law to compel them to our Communion and Sacraments Ans This Man is for Moderation Do you think he or I is more for Popery or hath written more against it Would he not have them used like Men nor suffered to live And must they be cast out of a Church that they were never in It seems he would receive them all to his Sacramental Communion if they will but chuse his Church before the Goal § 96. Accus LXXIX Page 102. Because I hold that If a Bishop or their Church Party would lay us in Goal for our Duty to God it is lawful to accept deliverance from a Papist that is in Authority He feigneth that If they will not come to us I would go to them And if a Protestant did Hang this Man himself would he take it for Popery or Sin to consent that a Papist cut the Rope You see what kind of crimes we Nonconformists are guilty of A willingness to live out of Goals against the Churchmens will Nay it is yet more our Crime is that we will not damn our selves by Subscribing or Swearing falsly and breaking our Ordination Vow by giving over our Ministry The proof that these Men are against Popery is that they would have the Nonconformists die in Goals and have no Papist seek to deliver them § 97. Accus LXXX Accusing my Book against Sacrilegious Desertion of the Ministry he asketh me Why I Baptize not nor Administer the Lords Supper and so seem to desert Christianity Ans Because I was called to preach and not to Baptize and Administer the Lords Supper by the Necessities of the people where I lived There were in Martins Parish about 60000 more than could come into the Church to hear But they had Curates enough to Baptize and they were compelled to the Lords Supper or might have come and neither Minister nor People desired my help And if these Men believe it not I do That we may and must preach to many that yet are not capable of Sacraments And to many whose Pastors and Judges herein we are not Shall every Minister that preacheth occasionally for him presume to Congregate his Flock and give them the Sacrament Or is he displeased that I gathered not a separated Church § 98. Accus LXXXI As to his Accusation of the Book I leave it to the Readers Judgment that will impartially peruse it But I am not yet convinced by him that it is a Crime to name the heinous sins that have torn this poor Nation and no Crime to commit them Most of his Accusations are that I tell them of their sin and perswade them to repent § 99. Accus LXXXII He accuseth my Plea for Peace and my Book called The true and only way of the Churches Concord as being utterly against Peace Ans Read them and Judge § 100. Accus LXXXIII He accuseth my History of turbulent Bishops and Councils and their Anathematizing as if it were false and almost all was done by Presbyters Ans Let him that hath read it and the proof I cite freely judge who is the falsifier As to his talk about Nestorius had he read David Derodon and what I have said in my Reply to the Defender of Dr. Stillingfleet Mr. Morrice it might have acquainted him with more than he seemeth to know about the Nestorians Eutychians and Monothelites As to his talk against the Arrians I am as much against them as he but not so much against Peace Dr. Henry More a Learned Conformist saith that those after the Council of Nice were to be numbered with the Catholicks and not with the Antichristians Though a Presbyter began their Sect it was Bishops and Persecuting Emperors that upheld it As to my words of many Writers mistakes therein before the Council of Nice he may find them with abundance more in Petavius de Trinitate As to his words of the Controversies and Councils de tribus Capitulis he that excuses the said Councils and Bishops as faultless as to all the doleful Divisions that followed hath not a due love to peace and prudence The same I say of the Monothelites § 101. Accus LXXXIV His great Accusation Page 126. is that If I had any fear of God or reverence of Man I would not reproach the
within the Church 2. Did he know my Heart that I did it for Reputation And may he not say the like by any Man that doth good 3. Did I gain by Nonconformity that from the Day that I was silenced had never taken a Groat for Preaching nor ever had a Church to maintain me and had commonly refused even Friends Gratuities save 10l from one Man that I could not refuse for many Years after this and save from few to this day Who by refusing a Bishoprick and other Emoluments have lost I think above Twenty Thousand Pounds by Nonconformity What Answer do these Men deserve And I preached but one Sermon in that Chapel When I had built it to have preached freely And when they persecuted me away I resigned it to the Parish-Minister for their publick Worship which is used there to this Day near Sixteen Years But must I tell this Man how I got the Money that did it How much others gave towards it and how much I borrowed or else be so guilty as this Spirit maketh me If it were a Crime to be rich Fame reporteth him extraordinarily guilty But if it be Building Chapels that is the Crime I never heard of his Guilt § 108. Accus XC He saith I am guilty of Pride Malice and Uncharitableness for telling Men that the Wheel is turning and bidding them remember which side will be down at last whether I mean of a Change by Providence or of the Day of Judgment Ans Alas poor Men How soon will you know that such Counsel once signified better than Pride Malice and Uncharitableness unless all Preaching be such § 109. Accus XCI He accuseth me for saying in Mr. Corbet's Funeral-Sermon How sad a Prognostick the Death of such Men was Ans Had this Man known the great Wisdom sincere Piety eminent Charity and Peaceableness of that excellent Man as well as I did or as Glocester Chichester and London did and his Writings testifie he would not have turned my Lamentation into a Reproach nor seemed to intimate his contrary Disposition § 110. Accus XCII Because some other Men say that the Time of the Episcopal Persecution will be but short he gathers that we are engaged in some Plot against the Government Ans Who he meaneth I know not but if the time of Life and this World be short certainly Persecution will be short Every one that saith Your Life is short is not in a Plot to murder you All save one Man that were commissioned as against us in 1661. have found already by Death that their time of Revenge and Wrath was short His talk of Dr. Owen and his surmizing that some would have had a Toleration for Popery is like the rest when our main fears have been lest this sort of Men were studying from the time of Laud a Coalition with the French Papists and so many of them have written for a Foreign Jurisdiction But if we would not be ruined silenced and dye in Goals by them they will say we are for Popery § 111. Accus XCIII He accuseth me as most unchristian in my Answer to Mr. Cheyny for what I say of his Books and accounting him melancholy Mr. Cheyny is a Man better known to me than to him and I think much better loved by me He calls himself a Nonconforming Conformist and a Conforming Nonconformist I have motioned him to Friends for publick Employment for his serious Piety But these Men that seem now to be for him have depressed him and driven him up and down and disown his Books I think more than I do But any one that will allow them to use his Name for them shall be so far praised while they cannot well endure him But he glorieth of Mr. Cheyny's Success in pleading the Direction in some dubious Cases to go to the Bishop for Resolution in the Preface to the Liturgy And I wonder not at their valuing of that Clause for it is worth to many some Hundreds a Year and 't is hard to imagine what else could quiet many Men's Consciences But if I should say This is a frivolous â—alliate though I prove it he will say I am criminal or confuted by so denominating it But 1. The Words limit the Decision of the Bishop only to that which is not contrary to any thing in the Book and I am very tractable in such a Case But it is none of the Cases that I am concerned in 2. If it were in the Bishop's power to put what Sense he please on all the Words he were the Law maker for the Sense is the Law 3. I have gone to divers Bishops and asked their Sense and found it as unsatisfactory as the Book it self For instance I asked the Bishops at the Savoy-Debate If I have two in my Parish that declare they believe not in Christ but are Deists and yet will send their Child to be baptized with Godfathers and Godmothers of their own Fraternity who declare that whatever they say they never mean to own or educate the Child what Right that Child hath both to Baptism and certain Salvation And Dr. Sanderson in the Chair answered That as long as he brought such Godfathers as the Church of England requireth I must not doubt of his Right I long after asked Bishop Cunning What proof he had from God's Word of the certain undoubted Salvation of all such baptized Infants if the Parents were Heathens or Jews or Atheists and resolved to educate their own Children And he answered that As any one had Right to take up an exposed Child in the Street and take him in Charity into his House so any one had power as an Act of Charity to take up any Heathen's or Infidel's Child and being him to Baptism and then it was certain by the Word of God that he was in a present State of Salvation These Bishops Judgments are not that undoubted Word of God which they boast of but will not shew us And other Bishops think otherwise And so under several Bishops we must be of several Religions § 112. Accus XCIV He accuseth me for speaking of the Tediousness of Mr. R. Hooker's Argumentation when their Bishop Sam. Parler speaketh much more and the Case is undeniable And that I say If Hooker Bilson and Usher were alive they would be Nonconformises Ans Have I not fully proved it They were honest Men and would not subscribe and practise contrary to their own Writings but their Writings are downright against much of Conformity How large is Hooker for the Popular Legislative Power and that the King useth not Power but Usurpation when he useth more than the Law giveth him How large is bishop Bilson for Resisting the King in divers Cases Doth not Conformity renounce and forswear this Mark the renowned Bilson in this Honest Men would not go against their Judgments § 113. Accus XCV Pag. 134 135. He maketh it my shameful heinous Sin to beg of the Bishops not to be guilty of one of the most
would have Parents disabled to chuse Schools and Tutors for their own Children But whether such Men as this were not far more against Dr. Stillingfleet's Concessions than I was let my old Friend Mr. Samuel Thomas now of Chard his Invective against Dr. Whitby and Dr. Stillingfleet be Judge and Dr. Stillingfleet himself who seemed once to yield to Terms of Concord which many of us offered to him and others And judge of the peaceableness of that Tribe of Clergy-men by the University of Oxford's burning Dr. Whitby a Conformist's excellent Book called The Reconciler and his being forced to seem to retract it § 118. Accus C. His Intimations pag. 156. of my desiring to be a Parish Bishop and also motioned with Dr. Owen to be an Archbishop are meerly impudent When I never was either Parish-Bishop or sought it at least since cast out of the Ministry 1662. nor so much as the Pastor of any Church and have refused a Diocesan Bishoprick many Years before any one now in England was a Bishop How can a Man be n nocent before such impudent Accusers and Judges § 119. Accus CI. As to his Accusation of my Self-Contradictions and L'Estrange ' s Proof I think no distinguishing Reader will need a Confutation of so false a Charge which confused Heads do feign that understand not things that differ And for his Charge against my Third Plea for Peace about the Principles of Government I only refer the Reader to the Book § 120. I have not thought his mere general Clamours worthy of a particular Answer lest I tire the Reader as I have tired my self with so unsavoury an Employment But I will here tell the Reader how I that these eight Years have never thought this Accuser worthy of an Answer have been brought to change my Judgment and to be at this unpleasing Labour when other Thoughts are more suitable to my Condition I. A Letter from some ancient Conformist that calls himself Cantianus De Minimis of my Age Seventy five so earnestly calleth me to Repentance and Retractation before I dye referring me to this Book for the notice of my Sins that I thought not meet to resist his Importunity II. I read so much of the horrid Reports of many Papists of the Crimes and Deaths of Luther Zuinglius Oecolampadius Calvin Bucer Phagius Beza and many such and how confidently they are commonly believed in the Roman Church and how greatly it hardeneth many against the Reformation that I was loth to contribute to their Deceit And I find that the same Sect accuseth the Generality of Dissenters that do but affirm that there is AND THING in their Books of Liturgy or Articles or in their Ceremonies or Ordination or in their Government by Archbishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons AND THE REST that bear Office therein unlawful or repugnant to the Word of God who are my Accusers and cry as Morley Ex uno disce omnes and when they have render'd me as one of the worst on Earth they make the rest as bad when I take them to be for the most the best Ministry that I ever knew And no wonder that their Writers and Preachers thus report them when their Canons ipso facto excommunicate them unheard not excepting Lords Knights Ministers or any And Lying is now grown so common a Sin in England confessed by all that few know what Reports to believe or to reject So that to betray my own Cause to these Accusers and Canoneers is to betray the Innocency of many Thousands III. I have long thought it my duty to call this sinful divided selftearing bleeding Nation to Repentance in a Treatise called REPENT O ENGLAND Bradford's dying Words though Experience telleth me that such Men as this will take the Motion for a greater Crime than all the Sins that I call them to repent of so odious a thing is Repentance and Confession to the Proud and Impenitent And before I call others to Repentance several sorts I take it for my first Duty to exercise my own To which end I unfeignedly resolved to confess what I could by any means find to be my Sin and being referred to this Accuser for my Conviction I found the Falshoods and Calumnies so many and so gross that I took it for my Duty not to seem by Silence to give Credit to them but having confessed what Sins I found to do my part to save others from the Temptations to Hatred and Lying and Persecution which such Men lay before them IV. And having laboured most of Forty two Years by Writing to profit Posterity as well as the present Age and written above a hundred and twenty Books to that End and God having prospered them far beyond my expectation in Germany and other Foreign Lands as well as in Britain I thought it Treachery to suffer the Devil and his Agents to blast them all with those that know me not without any Contradiction and Confutation of the Slanderers Sure if they were worth so many Years Labour 't is worth a little to take them out of the Fire or Water where Diabolism casteth them Which I am the more moved to because while I have the Thanks of Thousands that have read them common Fame and Mr. Cantianus that called me to this Work and others do tell me that the Generality now known by the Name of Tories or malignant Haters of serious Piety in England especially among the Universities and Clergy do so much hate my Name that they will read no Book which they see my Name prefixed to unless as the Adversary against whom it is written And as I have small hope of curing that malignant Prejudice which is more the hurt of the Envious than of me so I must not by Sloth or Silence contribute to its Increse and Men's Guilt § 121. I will conclude with these three farther Notices to all Readers for the true understanding of all these Controversies with the Men who so implacably hate and accuse me I. That they grosly cheat their sequacious Believers with this great Lye that I am against Bishops whereas I am for a Divine Right of three sorts of Bishops two by direct Institution and the other by Consequence viz. I. General Bishops call them Archbishops or Diocesans or Apostolicks or Evangelists that in every Nation are over many Churches II. Episcopi Gregis or Ruling Pastors of single Churches which are all true Presbyters III. Episcopi Praesides or Pro-estotes which are the Presidents of the Presbyters in particular Churches And that I am of the Judgment of Grotius De Imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra and highly value Bishop Overall's Convocation-Book in the main but abhor all Foreign Jurisdiction yet desiring the most extensive Foreign Communion § 122. II. That they grosly cheat their Believers in telling them that I am against Forms and Liturgies when they know that we offered to use theirs upon the Amendment of some Faults and severe cruel Impositions and by their Demand