not mentioned any Instance that might colour it But thus you dealt with Dr. Pierce who having truly quoted and applied a Passage of Bishop Bancroft's in his Appendix to you p. 254. you told him That he could not have uttered more falshood if the Devil had dictated to him That my Book is an Invective against silenced Ministers is already answered That I am guilty of depraving Ecclesiastical or Sacred History needs no answer because there is no Charge How notoriously you are guilty of this Crime I shall shew in an instance or two besides that wherein you abuse the Primitive Bishops of which hereafter Shew me saith Mr. Baxter in Scripture or History that either there was ever de facto or ought to be de jure such a thing in the World as the Papists call the Church and I profess I will immediately turn Papist Answ This was some ground for them that then said you were one to think so of you For what is more plain in Church History than that there was de facto such a Church as the Papists call the Church of Rome one thousand years together and which hath been acknowledged by Learned Men of your Perswasion and if we may not believe this how shall we believe there was any Church at all at Rome in St. Paul's days But Mr. Baxter cannot be perswaded that there is any such thing as the Church of England p. 35. of his Sacr. Desertion I would give him all the Money in my Purse to make me understand what the Church of England is and yet our Ecclesiastical Histories will shew that we have had the face and form of a Church among us before the days of the Conquerour The Presbyterians did acknowledge the Church of Rome to be a true Church Divine Right p. 265. Will not you allow so much to the Church of England The old Non-conformists generally granted it And Ruthband says all the Reformed Churches acknowledge the Church of England to be their Sister And you say p. 263 264. That almost all the Christian World is worse than it And if we deny Communion with such a Church there hath been no Church to Communicate with these Thousand years We are more beholding to Mr. John Goodwin who says p. 26. of his Sion Colledge visited That there was more of the Truth and Power of Godliness in the Church of England under the Prelatical Government than in all the Reformed Churches beside And if Mr. Hickman say true you have had Communion with the Church of England in all its Ordinances It is then a Church and a true Church The second Instance is concerning Kneeling for though you cannot be ignorant that our Saviour did kneel at his Prayers and do confess that kneeling at Prayers was in use in the Apostles time p. 110. of Grand Debate and that it hath been practised in the Universal Church ever since that Kings were its Nursing Fathers yet from an occasional and temporary Constitution of the Church restrained to the Lord's days throughout the Year and to Week days only between Easter and Whitsontide and applied only to the duty of Prayer not receiving of the Lord's Supper which you make different Actions and say we are not to be in the Act of Praying when we are in the Act of Receiving from this temporary limited Order which they thought fit to continue only till the People were confirmed in the belief of the Resurrection you tell your Kidderminsters That it is against the Canons of the General Councils and many hundred years Practice of the Church to kneel in the Act of Receiving on the Lord's day Whereas you might with more probability have applied it against kneeling at Prayers if there be now any obligation in that Constitution and it holds much more against sitting which was never practised in the Primitive Church though you plead mostly for it And you add All knew that my judgment ever was for the lawfulness of kneeling at the Sacrament Defence of Brinc p. 34. And so you told the Episcopal Party That you would rather kneel than disturb the Peace of the Church or be deprived of its Communion Whereby as the Bishop of Worcester inferred you confess that kneeling at the Sacrament is not sinful and that not to kneel when required is to disturb the Peace of the Church and that the imposing it upon penalty of being deprived of the Communion is an effectual means to make those that otherwise would not kneel to conform to it and consequently the imposing it is not unlawful But Mr. Baxter says in his Christian Directory Part 2. p. 111. Q. 3. Sect. 40. says For kneeling I never heard any thing yet to prove it unlawful if there be any thing it must be either some word of God or the nature of the Ordinance which is supposed to be contradicted But 1. there is no word of God for any gesture nor against any Christ's Example can never be proved to oblige us more in this than in many other Circumstances that are confest not obligatory as that he delivered but to Ministers and but to a Family to Twelve and after Supper on a Thursday night and in an upper Room c. And his gesture was not such a sitting as ours And 2ly for the nature of the Ordinance it is mixt And if it be lawful to take a Pardon from the King upon our knees I know not what can make it unlawful to take a sealed Pardon from Christ by his Ambassador upon our knees Now if you knew not what might make it unlawful to receive the Sacrament kneeling when you wrote your Christian Directory which was long after your Disputation with the Bishops at the Savoy you did not very advisedly urge with so much heat That the requiring Communicants to receive it kneeling under such Penalties was a sinful imposition What to receive a pardon from Christ upon our knees this could not be sinful in the Receiver nor could it be sinful in the Imposer For there being nothing said by our Saviour concerning the Gesture he hath left that to the determination of the Church And if the Church may determine of the place and time of Publick Worship because they are not determined by Christ why may it not determine of particular Gestures not determined by him And I am glad that on second thoughts you cannot find what may make it unlawful For as you say it would be intolerable in a Child or Servant who when his Parent or Master bids him do a thing lawful or indifferent or else he would beat him should reply Sir I could have done the thing if you had not commanded it but your Command renders it unlawful to me I have said so much of this which you account one of the most tremendous sins in our Conformity as by your singling it out for the Subject of your Dispute which you managed at the Savoy with so much heat and importunity it doth appear This concerning Kneeling c.
in a way that should make their hearts to ake I think saith Mr. Baxter their hearts have aked by this time and as they judged him to the Gallows for his Prediction so hath Christ executed them by Thousands for their Rebellion against him Now it is evident what Discipline Vdal meant by his Confederacy with Coppinger Penry c. of which Cambden p. 420. of his Eliz. Angl. says Some of those Men who were great Admirers of the Geneva Discipline thought there was no better way for establishing it in England than by railing against the English Hierarchy and stirring up the People to a dislike of Bishops They therefore set forth scandalous Books against the Government of the Church and Prelates as Martin Mar-Prelate Minerals Diotrephes A Demonstration of Discipline c. In which Libels they set forth virulent Calumnies and opprobrious Taunts and Reproaches in such manner as the Authours seemed rather Scullions out of the Kitchin than pious and godly Men yet the Authours were Penry and Vdal Ministers of the Word Bishop Bancroft quoteth a Pamphlet of Mr. Vdal's called A Dialogue where he says That the Bishops Callings are meer Antichristian p. 59. of Dangerous Positions and p. 45. he says They were very devilish and infamous Dialogues and that there was a Conspiracy between Coppinger Wigginton c. by some extraordinary means such as Vdal had prophesied should make their hearts to ake for releasing of some that stood in danger of their lives meaning as I suppose says the Bishop Vdal Newman c. The dangers threatned by such extraordinary means to disturb the Goverment hastned the Trial of Vdal who with three others took occasion from the intended Invasion in 88 to alarm the Nation at home as also they did on the Powder Plot and to this day do by scattering seditious Pamphlets Vdal was charged with a Book called A Demonstration of Discipline which Christ hath prescribed in his Word for the government of his Church in all times and places to the Worlds end The Preface was directed To the supposed Governours of the Church of England to whom he says Who can deny you without blushing to be the cause of all ungodliness seeing your Government is that which giveth leave to a Man to be any thing save a sound Christian for certainly it's more free in these days to be a Papist Anabaptist of the Family of Love yea as any most wicked rather than what we should be And I could live these Twenty years as well as any such in England yea in a Bishop's House it may be and never be molested for it So true is that you are charged with in a Dialogue lately come forth and by you burnt that you care for nothing but the Maintenance of your Dignities be it to the damnation of your own Souls and infinite millions more The whole Book being like this Preface he was indicted at the Assizes held at Croyden and found guilty He pleaded That he was indicted on the Statute of 23 of Eliz. c. 2. for publishing seditious words against the Queen but that the Book charged on him contained no seditious words against the Queen but the Bishops only But it was answered by the Judges N.B. That they who spake against her Majesty's Government in Cases Ecclesiastical her Laws Proceedings or Ecclesiastical Officers which ruled under her did defame the Queen And on clear proof that he was the Authour of that Libel he was found guilty and received Sentence of Death but by intercession of Archbishop Whitgift was Reprieved Mr. Baxter's actings have been so like Mr. Vdal's that it is no wonder to find him labouring to justifie him in a Cause wherein himself is so nearly concerned In 1659. came forth Mr. Baxter's Key for Catholicks dedicated To his Highness Richard Lord Protector p. 323. where he asserts That if the Body of a Commonwealth or those that have part in the Legislative Power and so in the Supremacy should be unwillingly engaged in a War with the Prince suppose the Long Parliament or the Commonwealth under Oliver against King Charles the First and after many years Blood and Desolations judiciously take away his Life as guilty of all this Blood and not to be trusted any more with Government as the Parliaments Vote for Non-address to the King And all this they do not as Private Men but as the remaining Soveraign Power and say they do it according to Law undoubtedly this case doth very much differ from the Powder Plot or Papists murdering of Kings With much more to the same evil purpose And doubtless the difference is great it is more horrid for Subjects to pretend Justice than for the Pope to attempt by secret Plots to destroy a Protestant Prince In the year 58. he prints his Five Disputations of Church Government which were designed against restoring the extruded Episcopacy and Liturgy and to justifie the Presbyterian Ordination where as also in his Method for Peace p. 389. he saith We have taken down the superfluous honour of Bishops viz. their power over Presbyters as Antichristian This disputatious Book he says was written against Dr. Hammond who was then his Neighbour and he dealt very friendly with him for he scarce touched one of his Arguments but the design of the Book was to destroy the whole Order as Optatus said of a Donatist Dei Episcopos linguae gladio jugulasti fundens sanguinem non corporis sed honoris Opt. Milevit l. 2. And because after No Bishop follows No King in 1659. he sets forth his Holy Common-wealth which was no other than a Plot to keep out the King as the other was to keep out the Bishops for there being great hopes that upon so many Revolutions of Government we should settle again on our ancient Foundations he says He suited that Book to the demands and doubts of those times And his endeavour is to prove That the King being secluded and his Subjects discharged of their Obedience ought not to be readmitted Thus in the Preface That a Succession of wise and godly Men may be secured to the Nation in the highest Power is that I have directed you the way to in this Book And thus he explains himself First as to the higher Powers Prove saith he that the King was the highest Power in the times of Division and that he had power to make that War that he made and I will offer my Head to Justice as a Rebel These confident Assertions of his were such as brought a far better Head to the Block But what would Mr. Baxter have My wish is saith he that our Parliaments may be holy and this ascertained from Generation to Generation by such a necessary Regulation of Elections that all those who by wickedness have forfeited their Liberties i.e. the King and Loyal Party may neither choose nor be chosen And the reducing Elections to faithful honest upright men such as he says were then in Richard Cromwel 's Parliament is the only
Priests p. 44. He talks of Per and Pers p. 49. but lays his Scene in Vtopia and says I know this is not our case in England but if we must follow you into Utopia Lest the Reader should not understand this he speaks plainer p. 74. I have been long of the opinion which you viz. that are of a contrary opinion will one day pardon that perjury perfidiousness and persecution proud contending who shall be greatest and covenanting never in certain points to obey Christ against the world and the flesh is not the way of God p. 56 57. Such confidence upon such insignificant reasons is a great dishonour to the wit and humility of the Authour p. 59. Our excellent Successours that do nothing but see the Peoples faces in the Church You forbid Baptism and the Lord's Supper to all that have not as large a Swallow as your selves p. 60. His want of common sense and modesty p. 65. O with what face p. 66. He tells us p. 96. of some of the Nonconformists Principles and Purposes They suppose that the Ministry doth not save Men as Wizards think that Charms do heal Men by their presence titles names or habits by standing in the Reading-place or Pulpit or being called the Parson of the Parish or saying his set words over them when dead As if the Conformists did believe all this P. 10. They suppose that a greater number of the conformable Priests than they are willing to mention do preach so ignorantly and dully in the Pulpits and do so little of their private work besides that there is great need of a far greater number of Assistants than all the present Non-conformists be They are not able to confute the People who tell them that their publick Priests are so defective in their necessary qualifications for their Office as that they hold it unlawful to own such for true Ministers and encourage them by their presence or commit the care of their Souls to such P. 11. They think that the ejecting the Non-conformists from the Temples and Tythes did not degrade nor make them no true Pastors to their Flocks and that the Magistrates putting another Parish Minister in possession of the Temple and Tythes did not dissolve the foresaid relation They think that the ejected Minister foro Conscientiae Ecclesiae vere sic dictae retaineth still his ancient relation to his Flock and part of them schismatically separate from him and joyn with another Intruder that never had a lawful Call P. 14. They think that Conformity would be in them such a composition of heinous crimes as they forbear to name for fear of seeming Accusers of others and unpeaceable P. 31. Look up man without blushing alas for these poor People that cannot try Sence from Nonsence P. 61. His next hath no bounds it grieveth me to read it O Posterity how will you know what to believe P. 62. Here is much that would as handsomely serve Celsus Julian Porphyry or Eunapius p. 72. P. 25. I will not offend the Readers ears by giving them the names I think they deserve but wish them to read 1 Thess 2.15 which in words at length he puts in his Title page They both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and persecuted us And tell them by what Names or Titles soever they be distinguished that I that am a dying man would be loth to stand in their case before God And if we were well agreed that there is indeed a God and a Christ a Heaven and a Hell we should easily be agreed in all the rest i.e. Seeing you are not of Mr. Baxter's mind you are very Atheists and in a state of Damnation P. 132. I must tell you that we cannot but think that you need Repentance great Repentance that your Souls yet if possible may be saved p. 74. for sinning more and that by publick deliberate chosen covenanted ministerial sin protesting against Repentance I conclude this Collection of many such great Calumnies which that little Book doth abound with with his impudent Challenge Come and impartially debate the Case with us who have been the greatest Causes of Protestant Divisions Conformists or Nonconformists These putrid Pestilential Stinks and Corruptions are so unlike the Breathings of a mortified Christian that the like never proceeded from any dying Man except such a one as hath been dying Twenty years together of which this is a shrewd Symptome and another is as bad that as they say of dying Beasts he bites deadly Animamque in vulnere ponit I challenge any Man to shew in so little a Book so great Pride Malice and Obloquy on so slender occasion as the Indulgence prepared by the means and in favour of the Papists as well as the Presbyter Mr. Baxter knew the Person against whom he wrote to be a Person of Great Learning and Moderation as he had acknowledged under his own hand in his Book of Conformation where he often quotes him he calls him The Learned Mr. Fulwood in the Postscript but now he is a meer trifler But there is yet ultimus conatus naturae And his restless Spirit grows more brisk and sparkling as it is pouring forth from the crazy Vessel By the great mercy of God that most execrable Plot of the Papists to Assassinate the King whom God hath hitherto by a series of Miracles preserved and the Church of England against which the Gates of Hell have not and we hope never shall prevail was discovered to the great joy of all true Protestants And now while they are undermining the Foundations Mr. Baxter though a dying Man lifts up himself and gets on the top of the Fabrick to throw it down with all his might This Polity he learnt of his Predecessors who on the intended Invasion 88. and the Gunpowder-Treason when the Papists thought to have swallowed us up quick took their advantage to thrust us into their Jaws or at least to devour us themselves if we should escape our other Adversaries That he might act with less suspition and more success he calls his Engines A Plea for Peace which as Bishop Stillingfleet observes might be better called A Plea for Discord and Division And another called The true and only way of Concord so full fraught with impracticable Notions and dividing Principles as if his whole design had been to prove that there is no true way of Concord among the Churches Bishop Stillingfleet But of this Book hereafter Another Book claims precedency whereof after great labour Mr. Baxter is delivered but it proved a Monster full of Teeth and Claws which he calls Church-History of the Government of Bishops but is indeed though very partial a History of those Confusions which were raised in the Church by such as opposed the Orthodox Bishops That the sight of this Monstrous Birth may not offend let the Reader fortifie his Eye-sight with what Mr. Baxter himself hath prepared For telling us what History is credible p. 2. n. 4. of that