to lie against our late experience to the contrary when Tyranny and Tyranny in the highest degree and under many several sorts of Tyrants was brought in without Popery and the Protestà nt Religion of the Church of England was not only suppressed and persecuted but endeavoured to be quite extirpated and for ever to be abolished by the greatest pretenders of enmity to Popery though indeed the greatest of its Friends and the most likely to be a most effectual means to bring it in by their then endeavouring to overthrow and by their now endeavouring to undermine the strongest Bulwark the Protestant Religion truly so called hath in the World against Popery I mean the Protestant Religion of the Church of England And as this Church of ours according to the present legal constitution of it both as to Doctrine and Government is the best fenced of any Church in the World not only against Popery but all other Heresies and Schisms some of them as bad if not worse both in their speculative and practical opinions than Popery it self is So the legal constitution of our civil Government also is I verily believe the best Government now extant in the World or perhaps ever was or can be for the keeping out of Tyranny or arbitrary Government of what disposition or religion soever the Prince or Governour in chief for the time shall happen to be of so the legal established constitution of the Government be not altered CHAP. VIII The Scotch Test an Assurance that there can no change be in Government either of Church or State The case of Protestants in Queen Maries time much different from what it is now FOR preventing whereof the best and as I verily believe the only effectual means that can be devised and put in practice is as I said before the making of such an Act of Parliament here in England as is lately made in Scotland viz. That for the future no Man shall be capable of any place power trust or profit Military Civil or Ecclesiastical or to choose or be chosen a Parliament man but he that will take such a Test as is there specified viz. That he will never give his consent for the alteration either of the Religion or the Government by Law established in the Church and State Which being once enacted I for my part cannot foresee how either Popery or Arbitrary I might add or any other Government or Religion prejudicial to the rights either of King or Subject can be brought in amongst us but by an absolute conquest of the whole Nation For as for Popery and Arbitrary Government the pretended Objects of our present fears that they will be brought in by a Popish Successor supposing there be any such if he be not excluded the aforesaid Act after it is enacted will make it impossible for him to effect it though he have never so strong an Inclination or desire to do it For if he endeavour to do it it must be either by force or fair means if by force it must be either by an Army of his own Subjects or of Foreigners if by an Army of his own Subjects it must be an Army of Papists only which being not one to 500. in proportion to the rest of the Nation and all of them excluded by the aforesaid Act from all places of Power or Trust will make but a very inconsiderable handful of Men to attempt and much less to effect any thing by force against the Body of the Nation whom we are to suppose to be obliged by the aforesaid Act not to consent to and much less to assist the bringing in either of Popery or Arbitrary Government So that if it be by force it must be by an Army of Foreigners and such an Army as shall be able to subdue the whole Nation and then he that brings them in cannot choose but fear they will subdue us for themselves and not for him and therefore will take heed of running such a hazard for any consideration whatsoever We are not therefore to fear it will be attempted to be done by force Nor that it can be effected if it should be attempted to be done by fair means neither that is by Law or by making any Act of Parliament for the introducing of Popery when there shall be an Act before in force to prevent any Man's choosing or being chosen a Member of the House of Commons that is not obliged by Oath never to give his consent to the passing of such an Act and all Popish Lords are already excluded from voting in the House of Lords But why may not a Popish Successor cause both these Acts to be repealed as Queen MARY did for the Reducing of Popery those that were made by Her Brother Edward the Sixth for the Excluding of Popery I answer because of the vast difference between those times and these Then the Protestant Religion was but begun to be planted in this Kingdom and had not taken root enough for the setling and growth and continuance of it much the major part of the People being still Popishly affected in their Hearts though they were by the Laws then in force restrain'd from the open profession of it as appear'd by their so readily and so gladly returning as most of them did to it and by their not only accepting but desiring and purchasing the Pape's Absolution for revolting from it So that it was very easie for Queen Mary to make that Alteration which she did by repealing such Acts and Laws as she found in favour of the Protestant Religion and to re-enact or restore such as were for the establishment of Popery which she found to have been repealed by Her Predecessor And to make this work of hers the more easie she did and could without any legal impediment to the contrary bestow all places of Trust Power and Profit Civil Military and Ecclesiastical upon such as were as zealous as she her self was for the suppressing of the Protestant and setting up of the Roman Religion instead of it Whereas now the Protestant Religion has been setled here in England for above fourscore years before the Rebellion and above twenty years since and the Popish suppress'd for twenty years longer even during all the time of the Rebellion it self whilst the Sectaries usurped the Supreme Power and whilst the Protestant Religion of the Church of England was suppress'd and persecuted also But all that while Popery was kept down and Presbytery was set up and spread it self so much in and over all parts of the whole Kingdom that we have much more reason to fear the alteration of Government both in Church and State by setting up of Presbytery instead of Episcopacy in the one and of a Commonwealth instead of Monarchy in the other than Popery or Arbitrary Government under a King in either as long as the Laws we have already against both are in force whereby all Papists are made uncapable
should ask those poor Souls whom those sly and subtile Serpents have beguiled and seduced How came ye to know that ye shall sin against God if ye obey the Orders of the Church in general or particularly how came ye to know 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 Did ye or can ye your selves reade those General Councils Did ye or can ye examine so many hundred years practice of the Church as Mr. Baxter speaks of What answer can they make to these demands but that which Eve made unto God The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat Mr. Baxter or some such Godly and Learned men as Mr. Baxter is did tell us so and we believed them But what if Mr. Baxter do not believe that himself which he would have you believe For first he would have you believe that there is great reverence and respect to be given as indeed there is to the Canons of General Councils and to the Catholick practice of the Primitive Church but doth he himself believe this if he do why did he so furiously oppose that which all General Councils approve of and confirm I mean the Government of the Church by Bishops in the sense wherein it is asserted and practised in our Church Or why did he perswade Subjects to take Arms against their Sovereign which he knows to be contrary to the Doctrine and practice of the Primitive Christians for many hundred years more than he speaks of Secondly Mr. Baxter would have you believe that Kneeling at the receiving of the Sacrament is forbidden by General Councils and contrary to the custom and practice of the Ancient Church which I am affraid he doth not believe himself I am sure there is no convincing reason to make him believe it for it is not the Ancient Churches injunction to stand when they prayed betwixt Easter and Whitsontide that will prove they were forbidden to Kneel when they received especially if the Presbyterian opinion be true that we are not to be in the Act of Praying when we are in the Act of receiving But if we may pray as no doubt we may and ought to pray in the Act of Receiving then supposing the Ancient Injunction of the Church to stand at Prayer upon Sundays betwixt Easter and Whitsuntide to be still in force yet all the rest of the year we are to kneel when we Pray and consequently when we Receive though there were no particular command of our own Church for it Besides Mr. Baxter knows that the aforesaid Injunction of the Church was but Temporary till the people were sufficiently confirmed in the Doctrine and Belief of the Resurrection for if it had been of perpetual obligation and were still in force Mr. Baxter must needs condemn the whole present Church of God for kneeling when they pray betwixt Easter and Whitsontide and particularly he must most of all condemn himself and the Presbyterians of England for not standing when they receive if at least that Injunction be to be understood of Receiving as well as Praying which if it be not then is it urged by Mr. Baxter against us to no purpose as indeed it is And therefore no doubt Mr. Baxter doth not believe himself what he would have others believe when he presseth that occasional temporary injunction of the Church for standing against kneeling which if it be of force must needs condemn his own practice of sitting as well as ours of kneeling The like may be said of Christ's example alledged by him also for would he or would he not have his Disciples believe that they are obliged to doe as Christ did if he would not have them believe so why doth he press them with Christ's example if he would have them believe so I demand again whether he doth believe it himself or no if he do not it is plain he is a Seducer of the People but if he do believe it he must needs condemn the French Presbyterians for standing as well as the English Protestants for kneeling nay he must needs condemn himself and all other Christians in the world for not doing as Christ did in point of time I mean for not giving and receiving the Sacrament in the Evening as Christ did as well as he condemns us for not doing as Christ did in point of gesture unless he can prove which I think he cannot that we are of necessity to follow Christ's example in one circumstance of the same action and not in another and in that circumstance which is less but not in that which is more material for certainly that circumstance which denominates the action as the circumstance of time doth the Lord's Supper is most material and yet that circumstance by the consent of all Christendom is altered from the Evening to the Morning and so was the gesture or posture of receiving also and that upon most just and weighty reasons till those that delight in change would needs have it otherwise and that perhaps for no other reason but because they found it settled in the Church This is not to follow Christ's example who in things indifferent in their own nature conform'd his practice to that of the Church in which he lived though varying in some circumstances from the Primitive Institution and particularly in this very action from which they press us with Christ's example For it is certain that Christ and his Disciples sate at the Passeover though it be uncertain whether he or they sate at the giving and receiving the Sacrament or no for it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after he had supped saith the Text Luke 22. 20. Howsoever it is certain I say that Christ and his Disciples sate when they ate the Passeover and this no doubt was according to the custom of the Jewish Church at that time but it is as certain that this was not the manner according to the first Institution of it which was to eat it standing as you may reade Exod. 12. 11. So that to urge Christ's example against us is to urge Christ's example against himself for as we conform our selves to the Churches order and custom of our times in receiving the Communion otherwise in point of gesture than perhaps it was received at the first Institution so Christ and his Apostles conforming themselves to the order and practice of the Church of their times did celebrate the Passeover otherwise than according to the first Institution it was to be celebrated in point of gesture also thereby perhaps intending to teach us that as long as the Essentials of Doctrine and Worship which are unalterable are preserved we are not to separate from the Church or quarrel with our Superiours if those things that are in their own nature alterable be not always and in all places just the same that they were at first because there may be very just cause for the alteration of them and whether
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As they were moved or inspired by the holy Ghost and for all ages and times as well as for those wherein they were written is worse than with David's fool to say in his heart that there is no God For to Blaspheme God is worse than to deny him and how can a Man or the Devil himself blaspheme God more than to make men believe that he who is Truth it self is a Lyar or at least a deceiver one that hath sent his Ambassadours the Apostles nay his Son himself into the World with Credentials under his broad Seal I mean the doing of Miracles in his name to assure the World and the Princes of the World that those that were Christians were because they were Christians to be the best of Subjects such as how ill soever they were used or how much soever they were oppressed nay how cruelly soever they were persecuted by their Princes yet were indispensably obliged by their Religion never to rebell or so much as to attempt to defend themselves by force against even such Princes and consequently that the Princes and Potentates of the world whatsoever Religion themselves were of needed not to fear nor consequently ought not in reason to persecute any of their Christian Subjects who were obliged by their Christianity it self because they were Christians to be the best of Subjects and to continue to be so how numerous or how powerfull soever they might grow to be or how heavy or hard the yoke might be which they groaned under which being published and made known to the world to be the will of God as it was by St. Peter his Apostle or Ambassadour to the Jews and by St. Paul his Apostle or Ambassadour to the Gentiles for any that comes after them whether it be a Bellarmine a Buchanan or a Baxter to endeavour to make it to be believed that God and his Ambassadours St. Paul's and St. Peter's meaning was to oblige Christians to be such Subjects to such Sovereigns so long and no longer than they were too weak to resist them but assoon as they were able that they were then left at liberty with God's good leave not onely to revolt from them but to revenge the wrongs they had suffered under them for any men now I say to make it or endeavour to make it to be believed that this was Christ's or his Apostles meaning what is it but to make it to be believed that Christ was indeed such a one as the High Priest falsely told Pilate he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A deceiver and that his Apostles were Legati ad mentiendum missi Ambassadours sent on purpose by him to deceive those they were sent to as perhaps some Ambassadours may be sent from one earthly Prince to another But to say that Christ hath done so or that he had or could have any need to doe so is in a very high degree to Blaspheme Christ himself as well as his Apostles and to make whatsoever they taught besides to be suspected of insincerity and consequently the whole Christian Religion to be but a design or contrivance for worldly ends onely as it is indeed by the Papists made to be and by all such Protestants also as make Religion a Cloak for any kind of licentiousness in general and especially for the lawfulness of the Rebellion of Subjects against their Sovereigns as all they do that would have those Apostolical Precepts against resisting of Princes by their Subjects to be but Temporary and to be obliging not in point of Conscience but in point of Prudence and for fear of punishment onely which is in terminis directly to contradict the Apostle or rather the Holy Ghost speaking in or by the Apostle who tells us in express terms that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a necessity for Subjects to be Subjects and consequently by no means nor upon any provocation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist or rebell against their Sovereigns and that not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Text for wrath onely not for fear of punishment onely but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Conscience sake and especially for Conscience or for fear of offending God more than for fear of offending man and therefore if at all for fear of punishment it must be more for fear of that punishment which the Text calls damnation and which God will inflict hereafter upon those that rebell against his Viceroys and consequently against himself than for fear of any punishment that can be inflicted upon them by Men here I will conclude this Topick with that saying of Grotius in the fourth Chapter of his first book de jure Belli Pacis and in the seventh Section of that Chapter viz Certè Christianis Veteribus qui recentes ab Apostolorum Apostolicorum Virorum disciplina eorum Proecepta intelligebant meliùs perfectiùs implebant summam ab iis injuriam fieri puto qui quo minùs ipsi se defenderent in certissimo mortis periculo vires putant illis non animum defuisse Certainly there cannot I think be a greater injury done to the first Christians who coming newly from the Discipline of the Apostles and Apostolick men did better understand and more perfectly practise their Precepts than there is done by them that think the reason why they did not defend themselves when they were sure to die if they did not was not because they would not have done so if they could but because they wanted strength to doe so Which saying of Grotius I desire the Reader to take special notice of the rather because Grotius himself in the very same Section seems to make it lawfull for Christian Subjects to resist the Supreme Magistate in several cases and some of them such wherein the Primitive Christians did not think it lawfull for them to doe so as Grotius himself in his aforesaid saying tells us and because it is upon the authority of Grotius and what Grotius saith to justifie the resisting of Sovereigns by their Subjects that Mr. Baxter doth especially ground his justification of the Rebellion against our late Sovereign Therefore whether those sayings of Grotius be true or no in themselves or whether if they be true they be pertinently and rationally applyed by Mr. Baxter for his and his Parties doing what they did in the late War against the King or no we shall examine hereafter In the mean time to the Doctrine of the Scriptures and the practice of the Primitive Christians we will subjoyn the Judgment of our own Church the Church of England as of that which of all Churches now extant in the World is both for her Doctrine Government and publick form of Worship the most Apostolical whatsoever the Papists or any other Hereticks or the Presbyterians or any other Schismaticks and Sectaries do or can say to the contrary But what the Judgment of the Church of England is as to this or any other
besides because the Government of our Church was more agreeable with Monarchy and with such a Monarchy as ours is than either Popery or Presbytery or Independency is or any other that can be devised by the wit of Man is or can be And therefore I did hope they would not think of making any change or alteration in the legal and fundamental Constitution either of Church or State but only to rectifie what they should find to be otherwise than according to the legal Constitution it ought to be in either of them by causing the Laws of the one and the Canons of the other to be put in execution This I say I presumed to preach to the then House of Commons as fearing there were many amongst them that were given to change though not such and so horrible a change as they made afterwards both in the Church and State For truly could I have foreseen and had told any of their Grandees then though it had been Cromwel himself as the Prophet Elisha told Hazael that he and those that joyn'd with him should do such things as afterwards he did he would I believe have answered me as Hazael did the Prophet What do you think I am a Dog that I should do such horrible and barbarous things as you speak of And yet both of them I mean Hazael and Cromwel did such things afterwards so dangerous a thing it is to leave the Road and to wander in by-paths For as Grotius well observes Verissimum illud omnia incerta esse simul ac à jure recessum est No man knows whither he is going when he is once out of the right way nor whither the Devil may drive him when he will not be led by Gods direction And therefore I concluded that in my humble opinion the best and wisest prayer that any could make unto God in the behalf of this Church and State was that if either of them had swerved from what it was or ought to be according to its legal constitution it might be reduced to its right frame and temper according to the standard and that never Alteration or Innovation might be made in the fundamental constitution of either of them And this Declaration I thought my self obliged in conscience to make though I knew well enough that many of my Auditors would be displeased with it as indeed they were as I found by their usage of me afterwards though then it was too early to make any shew of it and therefore I was presented with a Piece of Plate with this Inscription Donum Populi Anglicani as the other first three Preachers were but not desired as they were to print my Sermon I repeat this matter of fact to let the World know that though I was then by some thought and said to be a Puritan as I am now by others thought and said to be a Papist I was then and ever had been as I am now and am now as I was then and by the grace of God ever will be a true Son of the CHVRCH of ENGLAND as it was then and is now by Law established and consequently a loyal Subject to the King whatsoever either Papists or Presbyterians may think or rather make others believe they think of me I am sure mine own conscience bears me witness that I was always what I pretended my self to be and all that knew me heretofore and do know me now whether Protestants Papists or Presbyterians will I am confident bear me witness that I was always as I am now both in judgment and practice in relation both to the Secular Government of the State and the Ecclesiastical Government of the Church and to the Monarchical Government over them both Over them both I say for there being two main parts or members of every Body Politick and consequently of Monarchy especially amongst Christians namely the State Civil and the State Ecclesiastical if both these Parts or States of the Body Politick be not governed in chief by one and the same Person they cannot be said to be parts or members of the same Monarchy CHAP. III. A like danger to Monarchy from Popery and Presbytery Our Church-government justly commended Division-mongers or Separatists as justly censured BOth these States are not nor cannot be governed by one and the same Person where the State Ecclesiastical or Government of the Church is either Popish or Presbyterian because the State Ecclesiastical if it be Popish will be governed in chief by none but the Pope and if it be Presbyterian Presbyterian I mean in the heighth as it was in Scotland and would have been in England it will be governed in chief by none but it self the one to wit Popery introducing another Soveraign and the other to wit Presbytery introducing another Soveraignty into the same body Politick and consequently they are both of them destructive unto Monarchy Neither can a Prince be Soveraign so much as in civilibus in civil affairs as long as another besides himself either abroad or at home doth claim and exercise a Soveraignty over the same Subjects though it be but in Ecclesiasticis in Church-affairs only Because those that pretend to a Soveraign Power in Ecclesiasticals as indeed both the Conclave and the National Synod do pretend must needs pretend likewise to a Soveraign Power of judging what is Ecclesiastical and consequently by affirming what they please to be Ecclesiastical they may govern how they please even in those things that are meerly Civil also So that supposing two distinct Supreme Judicatories one Civil and the other Ecclesiastical in the same Body Politick or in the same Kingdom as there must needs be if the Government of the Church be either Popish or Presbyterian there cannot choose but be perpetual clashing betwixt those two Jurisdictions and the abettors of them the one continually either affronting and undermining or being affronted and undermined by the other And then let it be considered how the People in the mean time who in several respects must be supposed to be equally subject to them both must needs in case of contrary commands there being no Appeal from the one unto the other be distracted and confounded betwixt them both it being impossible as Christ himself tells us for a man to serve two Masters of the which one is not subordinate unto the other and as impossible likewise it is as the same Christ tells us for a Kingdom divided within it self and consequently against it self as every Kingdom having two Soveraign Powers in it at the same time must needs be to stand that is to continue firm and stable without falling at one time or other into such terrible Convulsions of Schisms Factions and Seditions as will finally bring it to Dissolution Many sad Instances of this truth we read of in our Chronicles whilst the usurped and exercised Ecclesiastical Supremacy in this Kingdom was in the Papacy but none so sad as those we our selves have seen and
that Mr. Baxter means for one and as I verily believe the onely one though he speaks in the plural number that was driven away from a Person of power by any of the Prelates is more than probable because it is true as I said before that Mr. Jones was once in the Duke's service and because it is true likewise that he was put out of the place he had there and thereupon growing angry and discontented it is very likely that he applied himself to the discontented Party and to Mr. Baxter as one of the most eminent of that Party and told him that it was the Bishop of Winchester that had caused him to be turn'd out of the Duke's service for that there was a good correspondence betwixt Mr. Baxter and him after he was turn'd out of the Duke's service appears by the great Encomium Mr. Baxter gives to a Book of his which he calls An Excellent Historical Treatise and saith he is sorry that Book is not more commonly bought and read and so I believe is the Printer of it also Again as for the aforesaid reasons Mr. Baxter must needs mean Mr. Jones for one at least if not the onely one that was driven away from a Person in power so secondly by the Prelate that drove him away he must needs mean me because speaking of the Persons of power from whom he was driven he calls them the Pupils and Disciples of that Prelate or Person whosoever he was that drove him away from them Now though I never had the honour to be Tutour to the Duke yet it is true that I had undertaken the instruction of the Dutchess even almost from her Childhood and therefore she might properly enough be called my Pupil and my Disciple as long as she continued in the way which I had instructed her to walk in which I am sure she did with an extraordinary zeal to make others to walk in it also as long as I continued with her But of this I have given the world a large and I hope a satisfactory account already That for which I speak of it now is onely to prove that as Mr. Baxter means Mr. Jones by him that was driven away from the Duke and Dutchess so he means me by him that drove him away from them For farther proof whereof I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself and desire him to name one man more if he can that he thinks to have been of their Party that was driven away by me or any other Prelate from any Person of power since the King's return which if he cannot as I am confident he cannot as he must needs mean Mr. Jones and Mr. Jones onely by the party driven away so he must needs mean me by the Prelate that did drive him away as likewise by the Persons of power he must needs mean the Duke and Dutchess of York from whom he was driven or removed But neither by me nor for that cause which Mr. Baxter would have it thought to be was Mr. Jones discharg'd from officiating in the Duke's Family for as I said before he was not then thought to be one of that Party but professed himself to be a great zealot for the Church of England as it is by Law established and therefore his help to keep out Popery could not be refused upon the account of his being a Dissenter if it had been so necessary and efficacious as Mr. Baxter would have it thought to have been And much less was that the cause of his removal which Mr. Jones in that most false and scandalous Pamphlet of his call'd ELTMAS the Sorcerer pretends it was namely That he the said Jones was removed and removed by the Bishop of Winchester to the end that he might not hinder the said Bishop's design which was the more easily to work upon the Duke and Dutchess in order to their quitting of the Protestant Religion which it seems the Bishop thought he could not effect as long as so able and zealous a Champion for the True Protestant Religion as Mr. Jones was was suffered to continue either in their Highnesses grace and favour or in their Family and therefore did artificially contrive the putting him out of both And to make this to be believed was the scope and end of the writing and publishing of the aforesaid libellous Pamphlet of which I doubt not but Mr. Baxter had the perusal before it was published and perhaps was the Godfather that gave it the name of Elymas the Sorcerer thereby implying that as Elymas the Sorcerer withstood Saint Paul and sought to turn away Sergius Paulus the deputy Governour from the Faith which Saint Paul preached so the Bishop of Winchester removed Mr. Jones that he might not hinder him from perverting the Duke and the Dutchess which though Mr. Baxter doth not say in plain terms yet he insinuates and intimates as much when he concludes the Reflexion I am now speaking of with these words Men that are awake must have leave to judge of causes by their effects thereby implying that if the Pupils and Disciples were perverted He whose Pupils and Disciples they were must needs be the Perverter of them And then taking it for granted that the Duke and Dutchess were my Pupils and Disciples or at least one if not both of them he leaves it to be concluded from their change which he takes for granted also what is to be thought of me who am supposed to have been their Tutour and Instructour So that I think I may without breach of Charity take Mr. Jones his Libel called Elymas the Sorcerer to be a Comment upon or an Explanation of Mr. Baxter's Text in this otherwise somewhat obscure and oblique Reflexion and therefore what I have published in answer to that may serve to clear me from the imputation of this also And yet there is one thing in this Reflexion of Mr. Baxter's which I will not deny to be true so far at least as I am concern'd in it viz. That some I think he might have said all of the Prelates nay and all of the Prelatical Party also do believe that the Protestant Religion may be preserved better without them than with them For if by the Protestant Religion he means the Protestant Religion as it is by Law established here in England which is the Protestant Religion we would have to be preserved nothing can be truer than that we were better undertake the preservation of it even against the Papists themselves without than with the Dissenters from us who the more and stronger they are the more are we weakned rather than strengthned by them being forced to defend our selves against them with one hand as well as against the Papists with the other and sometimes to defend our selves against them both at once For though I doubt not but the Papists and schismatical Protestants here amongst us do mortally hate and mean to doe what they can to destroy one another at
last yet that which both of them agree in to be done first is the pulling down of us in order to the setting up of themselves afterwards And hence it is that the Papists who are much the cunninger Gamesters do make the Sectaries to play their Game for them by making as many divisions as they can amongst us to the end that dum singuli pugnant universi vincantur while we fight in single parties we may all the whole body of us be beaten and worsted And I pray God it prove not to be so at last In the mean time the aid and assistance which Mr. Baxter thinks we of the Church of England have from the Nonconformists for the inabling us to defend our selves against the common Enemy the Papists puts me in mind of what the ingenious Boccalini saith of Spain that when it was weighed by it self the weight that is the power wealth and strength thereof was very considerable but when they put the Kingdom of Naples first and then the Dutchy of Millain into the Scale thinking thereby to add much to the weightiness of the Spanish Monarchy they found it to be much lighter and the less considerable both in strength power and wealth than it was before And so no doubt the Church of England of it self alone would be more healthfull more strong more vigorous and every way more able than it is to preserve the Protestant Religion and to defend it self against Popery and all other heretical opposition or invasion from without if there were neither Presbyterians nor Independents nor Baxterians or any other Dissenters from it lurking in it who whilst they seem to be zealous to keep out Popery do effectually though not intentionally make way for the bringing of it in And therefore as a great Statesman in Queen Elizabeth's time was wont to say That England would be the best Island in the World if Scotland and Ireland were drown'd in the bottom of the Sea speaking I suppose of Scotland and Ireland as they then were the one at enmity with us and the other in rebellion against us and therefore that it would be better for us that they were not at all than to be so near in place to us and so far off in affection from us so may I say of the Church of England That as it is the best so it would be the happiest of all Churches in the Christian world if there were not so many tam propè tam procúlque nobis That are so near to us and so far off from us I mean so many among us that are not of us who have been and are and will be always thorns in our Eyes and goads in our Sides unless they be either wholly as the Irish Rebels were suppressed by us or of Enemies become our Friends as the Scotch are by being united to us and that not onely as the Scots are by becoming Subjects to the same King but Subject to the same Laws also The End of the Sixth Section THE CONCLUSION Wherein two possible Objections against the whole Design of this Writing are Answered Mr. Baxter 's Recantation examined his professions of Loyalty censured and his Way of Concord disapproved AND now having sufficiently and as I hope satisfactorily to all indifferent and impartial Readers justified what I have truly said of Mr. BAXTER in that Letter of mine with the Appendices thereunto so long ago Printed and vindicated my self from all those false and injurious reflections which in diverse passages of several of his Books he hath either plainly and directly or obscurely and obliquely made on me which was all I intended to do I should here make an end of giving my self or the World any more trouble did I not foresee that there might one or two Objections more de novo anew be made against me which I think I ought to prevent The former of which is That supposing I have sufficiently proved that Mr. Baxter did at the Conference at the Savoy assert and maintain what I in my long ago Printed and now reprinted Letter do affirm he did assert and maintain concerning things sinful by Accident yet seeing that since then he hath in a Treatise purposely written upon that subject declared himself to be otherwise minded than I say he was at that Conference I ought in Charity to have forborn upbraiding him with what he said then Whereunto I answer that the difference betwixt me and Mr. Baxter as to that particular being whether I had falsly charged him or no with what he had said at the aforesaid Conference as he in an Address to his Parishioners at Kidderminster pretends I had I was necessitated in mine own defence to prove I had not charged him falsly but that howsoever his mind be changed since he did then assert and maintain what I in my Sermon at Kidderminster did affirm he had asserted and maintained at that Conference as it was presently after that Conference attested in Print by the subscriptions of the now Bishops of Ely and Chester who were two of the three Disputants on our part and are yet God be thanked alive to confirm and justifie the truth of their Attestation if need be which hath never yet though it was Printed above 20 years ago been excepted against either by Mr. Baxter himself or by any of his Party and consequently is as good as acknowledged and confessed to be true And if that Attestation of theirs be true all that I affirm to have been asserted by Mr. Baxter of things sinful by Accident at that Conference must needs be true also whatsoever he hath said and published in any of his Books since to the contrary Which I take for a sufficient answer to the former of the aforesaid objections if any such shall be made by Mr. Baxter or by any other in his behalf hereafter Now as to the latter of the aforesaid Objections which I foresee may be made against me also and which is of much more moment than the former namely that it was uncharitably done of me to publish such a Collection of Mr. Baxter's Aphorisms against all Monarchies in general and this Monarchy of ours in particular as I did at first with that Letter of mine above 20 years since and much more uncharitably done of me now not only to reprint and publish those Aphorisms again with some others of the same kind out of the same forge but to aggravate the hainousness and dangerousness of them in relation to Kingly Government as I have done in this Book of mine to make him more and more odious to those that are in Power at present as one that is not only not to be suffered to Preach or Write but to Live in a Monarchy and all this after he hath disclaimed and recanted what he writ before and what I except against in those Aphorisms of his My answer therefore hereunto is 1. That Mr. Baxter having been silenced by me when I was
inconsistent History and Experience have taught us the inconvenience of the one and the other No fear of either's Return A just commendation of our Church-Government What duty we owe to such a Constitution * Rom. c. 16. v. 17. A mark to be set upon Dividers The Character of Separatists Ep. Jude v. 16. V. 19. They are sensual * 1 Cor. 3. 4. What Spirit it is guides them The ill Consequence if that Spirit be not restrained The late example of the Scots recommended Their Test. Vid. the Acts and Laws made in Scotland when the Duke of York was the Kings Commissioner there An. 1681. The Heir of the Crown being a Presbyterian c. all one case as his being a Papist Just Reflections upon the Presbyterian Covenant General Monks conduct prais'd The Sectaries will not indure Vs nor one another They and the Papists much alike as to cruelty Their Principles much what the same And practices too upon occasion The Tryers a kind of Inquisition An Instance from the Anabaptists The like may be judg'd of the other Sects The danger if the Heir of the Crown be of any other Religion alike as if he be a Papist What Means to be used to prevent this danger The Exclusion of the right Heir against the practice of all Nations And consequently against the Law of Nature Jacob 's three eldest Sons forfeited their Birth-right Gen c. 49. v. 3 4. Two Cases of disherison The Right of Inheritance according to Gods positive Law The like in succession of Kingdoms 1 Kings c. 2. v. 22. A donijah his Case and why Solomon preferr'd to the Throne 1 Kings c. 1. v. 6. Ibid. Granting that the Judicial Law obligeth none but Jews The Exclusion of the right Heir is contrary to the Law of the Land No such Law now in being Nor can be made without the Kings consent Nor were it made would be just in the present Case The dangerous consequence of such a Law Such a Law if made and executed would not be effectual against future Heirs Arbitrary Government may be brought in by other ways as well as by Popery A brief commendation of the Church of England and the Civil Government The Scotch Test proposed to keep out Popery and Arbitrary Government Which upon the supposition of such a Law cannot be brought in Neither by force Nor by fair means An Objection from what Queen Mary did The Case much different then from what it is now Prebytery more likely to alter the Government than Popery Such a Test will be an assurance of no change to be An Objection that a Popish Successor will be absolv'd from his Oath The thing the same if a Presbyterian The full ground of that Assurance of no Change to be in the Government Mr. B. 's own commendation of our Government Vid. H. Com. p. 207. What he means by the Government of this Common-wealth Vid. H Com. from 89. to the 104 page His wish for better order in Election of Parliament-men H. Com. W. Page 27. 208. Wherein the Bishop agrees with him Whom Mr B. perhaps thinks worhty to choose or be chosen Whom the Bishop thinks such The main qualification of a Parliament-man An Objection against the Test. A threefold Answer A reinforcement of the Test * Which if consented to by the Successor no reason to believe but it will be kept A Recital of some of Mr. B 's Principles by which he justifies the late Rebellion and by which upon the like occasion Rebellion is incouraged for the time to come The Parliament how the Peoples Representatives and Trustees in Mr. B. 's sense The Peoples Rights and Priviledges H. Com. W. p 471. The Priviledge of Parliament An Instance of an unhappy difference betwixt the two Houses concerning Priviledge In what sense the King sole Law-giver The blessed frame of English government A caution against seditious Preachers and Scriblers Several ways to prove it lawful to take up Arms against the King Calvin 's way Herl 's way Mr. Baxter 's way Vpon such Principles the King in continual danger of Rebellion Some of Mr. B. 's Principles peculiarly such What the late King meant by saying The Laws are jointly made by King Lords and Commons How Christ alone will judge the World and yet the Saints shall judge it too How the Laws made by the King alone and yet jointly by the King Lords and Commons Some Instances ad hominem to convince Mr. B of this meaning Vid. M B 's second Def. of meer Nonconf p. 127. A brief Rebearsal of our Law-making How Laws made in the Roman Common-wealth How in our Monarchy The ancient stile of our Laws Our King not an absolute but a legal Monarch The three Estates Whence Mr. B. 's errour of dividing the Soveraignty The Soveraignty how in its streams divided and in its acts limited The King 's Negative voice necessary to preserve Monarchy Who Enemies to Monarchy A Caveat to Soveraigns The Conclusion of this and the three foregoing Sections Mr. B 's insincerity of dealing The true account of the Bishop's advising him to read thâ—se 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 s. Mr. B 's fallacious intent in giving the account as he does Mr. Hooker 's judgment of Kingly power whether he be King by choice Vid Hooker 's Eccl. Pol. lib. 8. p. 456. Or by Conquest Vid. Hooker 's Eccl. Pol. lib. 8. p 454. This of Conquest our case at first Vid. Hooker p. 454. Our Kings since have restrained themselves What it is that Mr. B. doth not approve Mr Hooker 's judgment of the descent of the Crown More than Mr. B. approves pag. 184. Of the King's Supremacy Over all persons This again more than Mr. B. approves Of the King's Supremacy as to things Eccles. Pol. p. 457. lib. 8. Lib. 8. p. 469. Of his Negative voice p. 471. Of his making of Laws p. 472. This against Mr. B. And therefore not approved by him Bishop Bilson in an errour about resistance The ground of his errour The censure of it A Remark upon our late Rebellion Religion true or false inspirits men alike Not safe nor lawfull for one Prince to assist another's Rebel-Subjects How we are to help those who are persecuted for Religion Mr. B 's design in this reflexion defeated Whom he means by Vs He disowns himself to be a Presbyterian And takes it for an affront to be thought so Why called their Antesignanus Mr. B. an Apologist for all the Nonconformists What his Nonconformist Ministers are What he means by bringing them under Independents and Presbyterians like Caesar and Pompey Vnder whom they are brought viz. the King How Mr. B. and his party brought in the King An account of Ministers silenced by the Bishop Intruders as well as Non-conforming Ministers put out The silencing of the Nonconformists a just and equitable punishment Mr. B 's own case the same as he makes Abiathar 's to be The silencing of them prudent and necessary also by way of caution No thanks to
not to take notice of any thing Mr. Baxter had said of me because as they said his tongue is no slander nor his pen neither especially when he whets either the one or the other against Bishops and because I had already long ago both answered and prevented all the Objections he had then or hath since made against the truth of what I had said of him in relation to the Conference at the Savoy and of the justice of what I had done to him when I was Bishop of Worcester which is now above 20 years ago These perswasions and reasons together with the consideration of the little time I had left for better employment prevaild with me to lay aside some few Observations and Animadversions I had begun to make upon some particulars relating to me in some of Mr. Baxter's late Writings untill some other of my Learned and Reverend Brethren did very lately let me know that in their opinion I was obliged for the Churches sake as well as for mine own not to suffer it to be said hereafter that a Bishop of the Church of England having been told and told in Print that he was a Preacher of untruths and consequently a liar in the pulpit a slanderer of all the Non-conformists nay a blasphemer or a defier not of Humanity onely but of the Deity it self had nothing to say because he did say nothing to the contrary though I could have replied that I thought and some others of my Reverend Brethren thought also that the Letter I had written and printed so long ago with the Testimony annexed to it was enough and more than enough to vindicate me from the two first of those Reproaches and to prevent the last of them also yet because they have been again repeated and because there hath been since a Book written and written on purpose as Mr. Baxter the Authour of it saith to prove Bishop Morley to have been grosly mistaken in the relation he hath made in the aforesaid Letter of what was asserted by Mr. Baxter in the aforesaid Conference at the Savoy and because it was since the writing of that Letter also that he makes me a defier of Deity and Humanity because I am not of his opinion that all unlimited Governours are Tyrants and have no right to their Governments for these reasons I say and for the satisfaction of some of my friends rather than out of any inclination of mine own who love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be quiet and to doe mine own business as well as Mr. Baxter doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have an Oar in every man's Boat and thereby quieta movere to disquiet both himself and others I have adventured to launch forth once more though I have reason to fear I may not live to finish what I have begun not because I foresee any difficulty at all in the work I have to doe I mean the justifying of my self against any thing Mr. Baxter hath laid unto my charge but because humanely speaking there is so little of the sand in the Hour-glass of my life left which yet if it last but a month or two longer before it be run out with the continuance of that mediocrity of health of body and soundness of mind which by God's great goodness and mercy I do yet enjoy I hope it will by God's gracious assistance be long enough to make the impartial part of the world see that Mr. Baxter is not a man of that sincerity ingenuity or integrity as he would be thought and perhaps he is by those who have his person in admiration but one that will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to serve his turn for the present and to keep up his reputation with his party say or unsay affirm or deny any thing either in matter of right or of fact and juggle one proposition into the room of another as if it were identically the same or at least equipollent or equivalent to the other when there is nothing of likeness either in sound or of sense betwixt them Which that it may the more clearly appear and that the impartial Reader may the better judge both of what I have said of him and what he hath said of me and whether I or he have dealt more difingenuously or injuriously with one another I have caused all that I printed before to be reprinted viz. Mr. Baxter's own report of the Conference at the Savoy and my Letter in reply to that report of his together with the Collection of Aphorisms out of that Book which he calls his Holy Commonwealth and all these verbatim in the same words without any the least addition diminution or alteration onely I have added thereunto another Paper of Mr. Baxter's which I met with since and which he calls a Revocation or Recantation of his Book of the Holy Commonwealth or Political Aphorisms which whether it be indeed a Recantation or such a Recantation as it ought to have been or no we shall examine in due place But I have added I say that because it was printed by him since the printing of what I have now reprinted and because it is in that paper that Mr. Baxter hath been pleased to expose me as a Defier of Deity and Humanity This Advertisement I thought fit to premise and withall to desire the impartial Reader first to peruse what I have reprinted I mean Mr. Baxter's Narrative to his Kidderminster friends and my Letter in answer thereunto together with Mr. Baxter's Political Aphorisms annexed to that Letter and then to take notice of the time when that Narrative of his and Letter of mine were first printed which was 10 years before the publishing of his pretended Recantation of all or any of his aforesaid Aphorisms and lastly when he hath done this to proceed to the perusing of what upon another provocation of Mr. Baxter's I now write to justifie what I writ before and after mature deliberation to pronounce sentence for me or against me as he shall see cause Reader You are desired to take notice that this work was prepared designed and expected to have come forth before Easter-Term last THE Bishop of Worcester's LETTER To a Friend For VINDICATION of himself FROM Mr. BAXTER'S Calumny Together with The ATTESTATION of Dr. GVNNING and Dr. PEARSON AND A Collection of Mr. Baxter's Theses and Doctrine concerning Government Reprinted Tenet insanabile multos Scribendi Cacoethes LONDON Printed for Joanna Brome 1683. Mr. Baxter hath lately printed a Book called The Mischiefs of Self-Ignorance and the Benefits of Self-Acquaintance in the Address of which Book to his dearly beloved the Inhabitants of Kidderminster he hath this ensuing passage relating to the Bishop of Worcester IN a disputation by writing those of the other part formed an Argument whose Major Proposition was to this sense for I have no Copy Whatsoever Book enjoyneth nothing but what is of it self lawfull and by lawfull Authority enjoyneth nothing that is sinfull We denied this
and all of them upon the same penalty of not receiving it otherwise And is it not as lawfull for our Church as for all other Protestant and all other Christian Churches to require of her Children the like conformity to her Laws under the like penalty for the same end and to prevent the same danger Yes replyed Mr. Baxter when this question was ask'd him just as lawfull that is not lawfull at all such an injunction upon such a penalty being sinfull wheresoever and by whomsoever it is enjoyned O happy England that hath such an Aristarchus as is worthy to censure all the Churches of the world whose Catholick practice if it cross Mr. Baxter's opinion must presently without more adoe be Condemn'd as sinfull and all the world must be Lyars rather than Mr. Baxter must not be justified in his sayings You have before seen the ingenuity and veracity you now see the humility and the modesty of the Man and indeed in proportion of the whole Party for crimine ab uno Disce omnes But doth Mr. Baxter and the rest of his perswasion think indeed that it is so great and grievous a punishment to be kept from the Sacrament when men will not receive it in that way and upon those terms that the Church offers if they do why then do they deny it to so many that hunger and thirst after it whensoever either by reason of Age or Lameness or Sickness or some other bodily infirmity they cannot come to Church for it especially when the Catholick Church in the Twelfth Canon of the first General Council commands it be given even to those that are Excommunicate if they desire it when they are in Extremis or going out of the world Secondly why have they suffered so many whole Parishes in England under their charge to have been without a Communion so many years together as I am credibly informed they have Thirdly why do they reject those from the Sacrament that will not come before hand to them to be examined by them there being neither precept nor practice in the Gospel nor Canon in the Church either to warrant them to require it or to oblige the People to submit to it upon any such penalty I am sure St. Paul when he chides those of the Church of Corinth for coming ignorantly to the Sacrament and for behaving themselves profanely at the Sacrament that which he prescribes for avoiding the same or the like faults for the future is not that every man should come and be examined by the Minister but that every man should examine himself before he eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup And yet I will not deny but that every man before he Communicates ought to be well Catechis'd and instructed by the Minister and thereby enabled to examine himself the better nor will I deny neither but that every man may and ought in case of scruple of Mind or trouble of Conscience to advise with and to be advised by him that hath the cure of his Soul but that every man as often as he intends to receive the Sacrament should be obliged under the penalty of being rejected from it to come and to be examined by the Minister this is that which I utterly deny and which I take to be the same thing in other words with that of Auricular Confession so that they who exact the one have no reason to condemn the other unless it be because they would ingross it wholly unto themselves Howsoever if refusing the Sacrament to those that will not kneel when the Church enjoyns it be a penalty so far transcending the offence how much more must the same penalty transcend the offence when there is indeed no offence at all for where there is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there can be no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where there is no Law there can be no Transgression and consequently there being no Law of God nor Man that requires all Communicants to be pre-examined by the Minister those that are refused the Sacrament because they will not be pre-examined are punished with the same punishment which they complain of for no offence at all And therefore Si maximè digna essem may our Church say ista contumelia indigni vos qui faceretis tamen for Who art thou O Man that judgest another nay that judgest thy Mother when thou doest the same or worse things than those are for which thou condemnest her And how can any man of reason be so scrupulous as to quit his Calling rather than deny the Sacrament to those that will not receive it kneeling when the Church commands it should neither be taken nor given otherwise and yet make no scruple at all of denying it to whole Parishes of denying it to those that cannot come to Church for it though desirous of it and qualified for it and such as have most need of it to strengthen their Faith in their last Agony and lastly of denying it to such as refuse to be pre-examined by them and all this without any command or warrant from God's Word and contrary to the Command and Custom of God's Church whereby it plainly appears that either they do not think the receiving of the Sacrament of so great importance as indeed it is nor the denying of it so great an injury or punishment as they pretend it to be or else that they would have every Minister to be a Monarch or Sovereign Law-giver in his own Parish and this indeed is that they would fain be at now they have lost their hopes of governing the whole Kingdom for you see by what Mr. Baxter adds that if they may not be suffered to give or deny the Sacrament to whom they please and in effect to doe what they list in their own Parishes they threaten to quit their Stations which he calls being Ejected because they dare not put away all that will not kneel at the Sacrament And this menace they often repeat upon all occasions as if they were the onely men that could carry on the work of the Lord or as if the Church must needs sink and perish if it wanted such Pillars as they are to uphold it But thanks be to God for it the Church of England is not yet notwithstanding all their endeavours to that purpose reduced to so very ill a condition that she cannot subsist without them whereas the truth is she cannot subsist with them as long as they continue to be what they have been the sowers and somenters of Schism in the Church and Sedition in the State and as long as they continue to doe as they have done in humouring and hardning and confirming the people in their obstinate standing out against the lawfull commands of their Superiours which they would never have done at all if these men had not at first infused into them these scruples And therefore as God asked Adam and Eve How came ye to know that ye are naked so if I
were some other reasons besides what are alledged by him that made him forbear the Printing of it for whereas he saith It was for peace or for peace sake that he laid it aside or forbore printing it because having already that is before my publishing of the aforesaid Letter greatly incurr'd the Bishop of Ely 's displeasure and mine by what he had said and done against our Way he believed the opening of so many mistakes in matter of fact as were in that Letter would not easily be born and for that reason he laid aside that Answer of his to that Letter of mine I cannot believe that this was the onely or indeed any reason at all of his so doing I mean it was neither his love of peace in general nor his fear of giving me any farther provocation in particular that made him suppress that pretended Answer For first if he were of so peaceable a disposition or so great a lover of Peace as he would seem to be he would not have spent so much of his time in writing so many Volumes to keep up and increase Schism and Separation in the Church together with Faction and Sedition in the State as he hath done Which might be made to appear yet farther from the manner as well as the matter of his writing which is so Magisterial and with that contempt undervaluing and vilifying of those he writes against or that write against him and sometimes with such exasperating and provoking language as very ill becomes him that pretends to be a Peace maker And perhaps in such a style was that Answer of his written if he writ any answer at all to the aforesaid Letter of mine and then perhaps too some wiser Friend of his might advise him to forbear printing of it at least at that time namely at the King 's first coming in against one that came in a little before him and was sent by him and had been all the while the King was abroad in Exile with him and for him and had newly received some more than ordinary marks of his Majestie 's favour from him These or the like considerations to these being suggested to him might peradventure at that time prevail with him rather wholly to suppress or at least to defer the printing of that Answer of his if there were any such answer than thereby so unseasonably to provoke me more whose displeasure he saith he had greatly incurr'd by what he had said and done against the Bishop of Ely 's way and mine as if the Bishop of Ely and I had a Way of our own wherein no body walked but our selves I would therefore fain know what he calls the Bishop of Ely's way and mine and for his speaking and acting against which he had so greatly incurr'd that Bishop's and my displeasure Is it a new or a newly found out Way or a way of our own devising as Mr. Baxter's way is of his a way that never any walked in before nor none but himself doth walk in yet nor will I believe ever walk in hereafter For it is neither Episcopal nor Presbyterian nor wholly Independent nor any of any other denomination either ancient or modern that I ever heard of but partly of all and partly of none of them But Ours I mean the Way which the Bishop of Ely and I do walk in is no By-path not a Way of Sufferance or Toleration onely such as Mr. Baxter and all the Nonconformists plead for but the Good old way the King 's the Church of England's way nay the Catholick Churches High-way the Way wherein all the Primitive Fathers Saints and Martyrs and all the Orthodox Christians in all Ages untill the last before this of ours have gone before us I mean the Government of the Church by Bishops teaching all and nothing else but what was taught by Christ and his Apostles in point of Doctrine and commanding nothing which God has forbidden nor forbidding any thing which God has commanded in the outward Administration of God's publick Worship and Service but making use of that liberty and power that God hath left to his Church in order to Decency and Uniformity and Edification and consequently in order to that Unity and Concord which Mr. Baxter doth so much pretend to desire and plead for This and no other but this is the Way of the Church of England and this and no other but this is the Way which the Bishop of Ely and I do walk in and would have all men else that are born within the pale of our Church to walk in also And therefore as we cannot chuse but be sorry for those that are led or kept out of this way both for their own and the Churches sake so we cannot chuse but be displeased too with those that not onely refuse to walk in it themselves but endeavour and doe what they can to draw others from it and to keep those that are gone out of it from returning again into it by making and preaching and printing Pleas and Apologies for Nonconformists which can have no other end consequentially at least if not intentionally but to confirm them in their Non-conformity And surely he that would not forbear to doe this and to doe it over and over again being so prejudicial and destructive to the peace of the Church and State as We have experimentally found it to be He I say that would not forbear to doe this for the publick peace sake nor for fear of offending the King and the Parliament the makers of those Laws against those things and persons he so loudly and so boldly pleads for did not in all probability for peace sake and much less for fear of displeasing Bishop Morley forbear to publish what he had written in answer to that Letter of the Bishop's which would have been much less provoking by specifying though not proving some of those many mistakes he now chargeth him with without naming any of them and consequently as much as in him lies imposing upon his Readers especially such as are ill-affected to Bishops an implicit belief that there are indeed many very many mistakes in the Bishop's Letter and perhaps gross ones too and such as Mr. Baxter could have named and proved also but being a man of so peaceable so patient and so meek a disposition as he is he did for peace sake and because he would not provoke the Bishop to be more displeased with him than he was already forbear to doe so Credat Judoeus non Ego Believe it who list for me as he faith And therefore he must give me leave to think upon better considerations that he never writ any Answer at all to my Letter So that all the Reply I need to make to this general unattested and unproved Charge of Mr. Baxter is to oppose my bare Negative to his bare Affirmative for Affirmantis est probare He who affirms a thing ought to prove it which
all of them made him their Proxy to speak for them which if they have done why doth he not shew us his Commission for it which as he hath not done yet so I am confident he will never be able to doe no not from all or from the most of any one party of the Nonconformists Which I am the bolder to affirm because having sometimes occasionally made use of his Authority in point of opinion and of his Example in point of practice for the convincing of some both Presbyterians and Independents who by their practice seemed to be of another judgment in diverse things than he was I found that what he said or did signified little or nothing unto them Nay they told me in plain terms that I was very much mistaken if I thought that Mr. Baxter's either judgment or practice was of so great weight with them as for that reason onely to make them alter their own either judgment or practice in any thing whatsoever So that it doth not follow that because Bishop Morley in that printed Letter of his saith that this or that was Mr. Baxter's Assertion therefore he said or must be understood as if he had said it was the assertion of all or indeed of any other of the Nonconformists but of Mr. Baxter himself onely Of any other I say for I did not so much as charge both or either of those two Nonconformists that were Mr. Baxter's Assistants at that Conference with asserting what he asserted Nay I do in that Letter of mine discharge them both from concurring with him in that Assertion which I lay unto his charge though he saith he concurr'd with them in it I charge him with it because as I tell him in my printed Letter he did often affirm and declare it to be his and I discharge them from it because neither of them did affirm or declare it to be theirs but rather seem'd to dislike it and to dissent from him in it But why then will he say do I say Crimine ab uno disce omnes From ones ill carriage you may know the rest which seems to imply that what I charge upon him I charge upon his whole party as I do indeed but not in that same place nor speaking of the same mater but for their censuring and condemning all other Protestant Churches in the World as well as ours as Mr. Baxter did expresly at the Conference aforesaid because They as well as We refuse to give the Communion to those that will not receive it so as by publick order it is to be received And it was upon account of this proud peevish and censorious humour of which I take all the Nonconformists and amongst them the Presbyterians especially to be more or less guilty that I then taking Mr. Baxter to be a Presbyterian said Crimine ab uno disce omnes that is By one man's ill temper you may know the whole party But then as by Omnes All of them I did not mean all the Nonconformists so I did not mean all the Presbyterians neither but those of England and Scotland onely all foreign Presbyterians that allow of and practice Calvin's Scheme of Discipline and Government of the Church agreeing with us against our Presbyterians in the main difference betwixt us and them namely that as it is in the power of a National Church to appoint and prescribe to those of her own Communion the usage of such indifferent things as she shall think to be most for order decency and edification in the publick service and worship of God so it is in her power also to oblige all of her Communion to the use and observation of all such indifferent things after they are prescribed and enjoyned as long as they continue to be so under the penalty of Excommunication or of being excluded out of the Society or Communion of that Church if they do not comply and much more if they preach or write against any such orders or ordinances as are made by publick Authority or by the Representatives of the whole Society and most of all if they deny theChurches power to ordain and enjoyn any such orders or ordinances of all which Crimes or degrees of the same crime no other Presbyterians are guilty for ought I know but those of England and Scotland onely or if perhaps some be they are excluded from Communion with the National Church wherein they live as well as Nonconformists are with us here in England so that in Holland it self where it is said any man may chuse his own Religion or be of what Religion he will no man that will not subscribe to the Synod of Dort in Rituals as well as Doctrinals is or can be admitted to be a member and much less a Preacher in that Church no nor to the exercise of any Office Civil or Ecclesiastical in their Church or State It is true they suffer men of all Religions to live amongst them Lutherans as well as Calvinists Arminians as well as Antiarminians nay Papists as well as Protestants and Jews as well as Christians but not as members of their Church who are Calvinists and Calvinists onely The rest indeed beforenamed are some of them conniv'd at and some of them permitted to have their Meetings and preaching after their own way but it is at their own charge and severely punishable if they preach or print any thing to the reproach or scandal of the Religion allowed of and established by the State We wish no more will our Sectaries perhaps say Let us have but so much liberty as this upon the same terms and We will thank God and you for it But what security will you or any of you give us that when you have that liberty you will not all of you joyn together to destroy our Religion though you know not what to set up instead of it We see you have done so once already and attempted it often both before and since and why may not you do so again For the Laws were against you then as much as they are now and so was the King too And therefore granting such a Toleration of several Sects of Religion or ways of Belief and Worship as there are in Holland it is not possible humanely speaking to secure the publick peace either of Church or State but by keeping up a standing Army of thirty or forty thousand men always in pay even in times of peace with a powerfull Fleet at Sea as the Hollanders do to secure themselves from Insurrections at home as well as Invasions from abroad Now whether the People of England will be content to be at such a Charge and to live under such a Government those that would have such a Liberty of Conscience or Toleration of Religion as there is in Holland let them enquire of the peoples Representatives and Petition them to that purpose at their next meeting In the mean time all their Pleas for Peace
magne Sacerdos But do not bluster so mighty Presbyter Is this the humble the meek the mortified and daily dying Mr. Baxter Tantoene animis Coelestibus irae Have heavenly minds such boisterous passions And why not may some Friend of his say can a man be too zealous for God or too angry with any that defies God or that denies his Sovereignty over all his Creatures and consequently over all humane Powers or Governours Was not Moses the meekest man alive and yet was not he angry very angry so angry that he brake the Tables of stone wherein the Law was written by God's own hand because the People had by their Idolatry broken the Law written by God's own hand in the Tables of their hearts The like may be said of Phineas of David and of St. Paul who was so angry that he wished that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The disturbers and overturners of the Church in those times were cut off which by the way is as bad if not worse than silencing Why then should Master Baxter be blamed if he thinks no words bad enough for those that are the defiers of Deity and Humanity and the Enemies to God to Kings and to all Mankind True but who or where are they that are so they are those saith Mr. Baxter in one place that deny all humane Powers to be limited by God But who are they that deny all humane Powers to be limited by God they are saith Mr. Baxter in another place Such as deny all Governours whether limited or unlimited to be Subjects themselves and under the Sovereignty and laws of God But who are they or who is he that denies either this or the former of those two Propositions Bishop Morley for one saith Mr. Baxter in the aforesaid late Book of his and therefore he is a defier of Deity and Humanity and so are others too for the same reasons as he tells us in his Paper of Recantation but they it seems must be nameless Well but how doth he know that Bishop Morley doth or ever did deny either That all humane Powers are limited by God or that all Governours are subject to God Did he ever hear me say so himself or can he produce any Witness that is fide dignus That may be believed who told him so I am sure I never thought so and therefore I am sure I never said so But because he grounds my being a defier of Deity and Humanity upon this supposition and upon this supposition onely That I deny all Humane Powers to be limited by God or That all Humane Governours are Subject unto God And because there be many that will believe whatsoever he saith because he saith it Be it known to Mr. Baxter and all Baxterians in the World that I Bishop Morley do in my own name and I am confident may doe it in the name of all the Episcopal Party that is of the whole Church of England truly so called not onely confess and acknowledge but declare and aver and avow first That all Humane Powers and not Humane onely but Terrestrial Celestial and Infernal Powers also are subject to God and limited by God that is by the Power the Will and Wisedom of God so that none of them can doe more or less or otherwise than he wills or permits them to doe and that he restrains overrules and orders whatsoever they doe as he pleaseth in order to his own most wise and just ends Secondly I do acknowledge and declare also that all humane Powers or Governours the Supreme as well as the Subordinate and the Vnlimited I mean the unlimited by humane Pacts and constitutions as well as the Limited are all of them limited by God and that not by his Power onely but by his Laws also either as they are written by him in Mens hearts or revealed by him in his Word and that as all the Heathen World Kings as well as Subjects were limited by the former so all the Christian World Kings and States as well as Subiects are limited by the latter and by the former also so as to be thereby obliged though not necessitated to observe the Dictates and to doe nothing contrary to either of those Laws and if they doe not accordingly that they are answerable to God and punishable by God for it as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 King of Kings and Lord of Lords as much or more than any of the meanest of their Subjects This is and always was my Creed as to this parcular and therefore instead of defying Deity and Humanity I defy Mr. Baxter and all the Baxterians in the World to prove that I ever did dicto vel scripto By saying or writing directly or indirectly in terminis vel in sensu oequipollenti In downright terms or equivalent meaning formally or consequentially deny all or any humane Powers or Governours either de jure As to matter of right or de facto As to matter of fact to be limited by God or that I did ever accuse Mr. Baxter or any body else for affirming it And therefore I do now accuse him for having falsely accused me of such a Crime as is no less as he himself saith than the defying of Deity and Humanity which is a very high degree not of Profaneness onely but of Atheism and Blasphemy also and therefore highly criminal and highly punishable even here in this world in them that are guilty of it and per legem talionis By that law which requires like for like in those also that accuse any man of it and cannot prove it especially in one Church man accusing another and more especially according to the ancient Canons of the Church in a Presbyter accusing a Bishop of so high a Crime as this is But Mr. Baxter it seems will joyn Issue with me upon this point and will prove that though I did not in terminis defy Deity and Humanity by denying in terminis all humane Power to be limited by God Yet I am nevertheless a defier of Deity and Humanity because I do consequentially deny all humane Powers to be limited by God And that I do consequentially deny all humane Powers to be limited by God he proves or thinks he proves or rather indeed would have others think he proves it for I am confident he himself believes it no more than I do because I deny this Aphorism of his That all unlimited Governours are Tyrants and have no right to their unlimited Governments so that the proof of my being a defier of God because I deny all humane Powers to be limited by God depends upon the truth of this Syllogism He that denies all unlimited Governours to be Tyrants and such as have no right to their unlimited Governments doth consequentially or by necessary consequence deny all humane Powers to be limited by God But Bishop Morley doth deny the former Ergo he doth deny the latter also Well
and positive command from God for the doing of it and as he had God's command to doe it so he had God's approbation of it and reward for it after it was done for the Lord said unto Jehu saith the Text 2 Kings 11. 30. Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes and hast done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart thy children of the fourth generation shall sit upon the throne of Israel But Jeroboam had neither God's command to doe what he did before he did it nor God's approbation for doing what he did after he had done it neither were Solomon or Rehoboam usurpers as Athaliah and Ahab and Jehoram were To conclude as the Examples even of the best mens actions recorded in Scripture do not make what they did to be lawfull any farther than as they were agreeable to the general rule of all mens actions the Moral Law of God or as they had a special a certain and a positive Dispensation from God the Lawgiver himself to doe something upon some occasions otherwise than by the general Rule they were obliged to doe and Exceptio in non except is firmat regulam An exception to a Rule strengthens the Rule in things not excepted So the doing of that which was justifiably done then by virtue or warrant of such a Dispensation is not justifiably to be imitated by any man or number of men now when no such Warrant no such Dispensation from the Lawgiver himself in so certain so immediate and so miraculous a manner as it was then is to be expected whatsoever our mad Enthusiasticks may pretend to the contrary CHAP. X. A Recapitulation of the two former Arguments from the word of God and Primitive practice against both Papists and Presbyterians BY what hath been said already partly from plain Precepts of Scripture commanding all Christians to obey and forbidding them to resist their lawfull Sovereigns though never so unlimited in the Constitution or never so Tyrannical in the exercise of their Government for who ever was or could be more so in both respects than NERO was in whose reign those Precepts were given and partly from the Practice and profession of all Christians agreeable to those Precepts in the Primitive and purest times together with the Answer to such Objections as have been or may be made from some few misinterpreted and misapplied examples out of Scripture to the contrary though by what hath been said upon these heads it hath I say been sufficiently proved that Kings or Soveraign Princes and Governours do not lose their Right to govern their Subjects though they be Vnlimited or Tyrants and govern otherwise than by God's or their own Laws they ought or are obliged to govern and consequently that their Subjects do not upon that account cease to be Subjects so as to be disobliged from obeying even such Sovereigns from obeying them I say either actively or passively that is by obeying them in all their lawfull Commands willingly and chearfully and by suffering for not obeying them in their unlawfull Commands meekly and patiently and never in any case or upon any provocation to resist rebell or take up either offensive or defensive Arms against them there being nothing to warrant the one more than the other in the word of God or in the practice and judgment of the first and best of Christians which one would think should be enough to convince all that are Christians now of the unlawfulness of it And yet of all Christians those that seem to be most opposite to one another in all things else I mean the Papists and the Presbyterians with other of our Sectaries agree in this one thing I mean in the lawfulness of Subjects taking up Arms against their Sovereigns though the former to wit the Papists like the old Pharisees hold nothing to be lawfull for which they have not a Tradition from their forefathers and the latter to wit the Presbyterians and their Complices like the old Scribes hold nothing to be lawfull for which they have not express Scripture And yet as both Scribes and Pharisees agreed in thinking it lawfull to oppose and fight against the Lord Christ so both Papists and Presbyterians and other Sectaries agree in holding it to be lawfull to oppose and fight against the Christs of the Lord I mean Kings though as neither of those had then so neither of these have now any Warrant either from Scripture or Tradition that is either from the written Word of God or from the practice of their primitive Predecessours to plead for it CHAP. XI An Objection from the Law of Nature and that those Precepts were temporary and the Primitive Christians were too weak to resist answered The Church of England 's judgment upon the case BUt perhaps it may be said though it cannot be said rationally by any that hold either of the aforesaid Principles that though there be nothing to be alledged either from Scripture or Tradition that is either from the written word of God or from the practice of the Primitive Christians to justifie the taking up either of offensive or defensive Arms by Subjects against their Sovereigns yet it may be lawfull by the Law of Nature which is the unwritten word of God or rather word of God written in mens hearts And this Law of Nature say they is as truly the Law of God as that which is written in Scripture and therefore whatsoever is justifiable by the Law of Nature may be and is lawfull though there be no express Warrant for it either from Scripture or from the practice of the Best of men in former times because it being known by all men to be lawfull by the Law of Nature it needed not to be declared to be so by Scripture nor attested to be so by any Mens Practice or Example Neither will it follòw say they that what was lawfully done at one time must necessarily be done at all times or that it should not be lawfull for Christians to doe that now which it was not expedient for the Primitive Christians to doe then because being so comparatively few and fable as they were then their taking up of Arms against their persecuting and oppressing Princes would rather have increased than lessened their sufferings And what if it were upon that account and upon that account onely for so some of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Despisers of Government and Blasphemers of Sovereign Princes have dared to argue that Christ and his Apostles did give those Precepts in Scripture of not resisting even the worst of Princes and consequently that they were to oblige those to whom they were given no longer than untill they were strong enough to resist without fear or danger of being the worse for it To this I answer first that to have such a thought of Christ or his Apostles who wrote what they writ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Bishop in another man's Diocese as Mr. Baxter and all Baxterians would be or because they were the old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first Puritans or pretenders to extraordinary purity and strictness of life as Mr. Baxter and his followers now do whether I say it be upon any or all of these accounts I know not but this I know that Mr. Baxter as often as he mentions them speaks very favourably of them although they were as much as the Orthodox Christians themselves were for the Government of the Church by Bishops and by such Bishops as the Orthodox Bishops then were and as ours now are I mean Bishops of a different and Superiour Order to Presbyters and exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and authority over them And therefore there must be some particular and special reason why Mr. Baxter is so kind to them In the mean time it is observable that as They were then so are They now the greatest pretenders to strictness and severity that then took and now take unto themselves a liberty which God never gave them nay which God by his Prophets and Christ by his Apostles hath forbidden them to take I mean the taking up of Arms by Subjects against their Sovereigns though but defensive onely CHAP. XIII Sovereigns highly accountable to God The doctrine of Non-resistance to the advantage of Subjects as well as of Kings Hobbists Papists and Sectaries censured Mr. B 's Aphorism justly excepted against and the Bishop vindicated from being a Defier and an Enemy to God and Man THe contrary doctrine whereunto which we maintain might have been suspected of flattery to Kings as Mr. Baxter calls it if it had not been St. Paul's as well as ours or if because we teach that Kings are not to be resisted by their Subjects it would follow therefore that we taught likewise that such Kings as govern otherwise than by God's Laws and their own they ought to do were not accountable to any or not punishable at all for so doing Whereas Mr. Baxter knows that we of the Church of England believe and teach that Kings the greatest of Kings are as much nay more accountable to God and punishable by God either here or hereafter for whatsoever they doe amiss than the meanest of their Subjects are to them or by them and so much the rather because they are not punishable but by God onely And therefore as it would not onely be absurd but ridiculous that because a man saith the Deputy Lieutenant or Viceroy of Ireland is not to be questioned or punished by any in Ireland for what he doth amiss there therefore he is not to be questioned or punished at all or that he whose Viceroy he is namely the King of England may not or will not punish him either there or when he comes home so it is equally absurd and ridiculous to conclude as Mr. Baxter does that Bishop Morley because he holds that Kings are not accountable to or punishable by their Subjects therefore he must needs encourage them to be Tyrants as if they were not or as if Bishop Morley thought and taught they were not answerable to God and punishable by God for their Tyranny either here or hereafter and that not onely for their oppression and ill usage of their Subjects but for the dishonour they have done unto God whose Viceroys and Representatives they are and therefore should be as he is not onely just and righteous but mercifull and benign and gracious to all their Subjects Thus we Believe and thus we Teach And withall we believe and teach also That Subjects who suffer wrongfully and yet patiently under oppressing Tyrannical and persecuting Princes as the Primitive Christians did and rejoyced when they did so shall be sure to be either the sooner delivered from sufferings here or to be finally so recompensed and rewarded hereafter that they shall find to their unspeakable and endless comfort and joy that it was good for them that they were so oppressed and afflicted Thus I say do we believe and thus do we teach both Kings and Subjects and if both Kings and Subjects did believe and doe as we teach them neither would Subjects have cause to complain of their Kings nor Kings to be jealous or afraid of their Subjects More to blame therefore are they whosoever they are that teach the contrary either in relation to Kings or Subjects Such in relation to Kings are the Habbists and other the like Atheistical flatterers of Kings who would make them believe they may doe what they list without doing any injury to their Subjects and without being answerable to God for it and that either because there is no God at all or that there is no other life after this And such in relation to Subjects are the Papists the Presbyterians Independents and the rest of the Sectaries who teach it to be lawfull for Subjects when they are grieved and oppressed by their Sovereigns to such a degree or which is all one when they think themselves to be so to take up Arms against them whereby they shew themselves to be much more such as Mr. Baxter would have Bishop Morley believed to be I mean Enemies to God to Kings and to Subjects and consequently to all Mankind than Bishop Morley is 1. For first are not they Enemies to God who teach men to rebell against God and is it not rebellion against God to rebell against the Viceroy of God who because he is God's Viceroy is accountable for what he doth well or ill to none but God And therefore in this case if any God may most Emphatically say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vengeance is mine I will repay it belongs to me and to none but me to call mine own Viceroys to an account and to punish them when and how I think fit and therefore for Subjects to take the sword in this case is to take it or rather to wrest it out of God's hand as well as the King 's and to use it against the King is to use it against God and therefore they that take it and use it if they do not perish by the King's sword I mean the sword of War or of Justice here by bodily death they shall undoubtedly except they repent before they go hence perish by the sword of God Bodies and Souls too in the life to come 2. Are they not Enemies to Kings who teach that Kings may be resisted and deposed by their Subjects for male-administration of their Governments whether real or but imaginary and pretended onely of which the Subjects themselves are to be the Judges and consequently the best of Princes as well as the worst are to reign but precariò Upon precarious terms or durante bene placito During the good pleasure of the people 3. Are not the Teachers of this doctrine Enemies to all Subjects as well as to all Kings first by making their Kings jealous and afraid of them
their Preachers to joyn with a factious ambitious and discontented Party of the Nobility Gentry and Commons in a Rebellion against our late Sovereign Lord of ever blessed memory upon as false and groundless a pretence as that was against the King of France For as there the People were made to believe by their Popish Preachers that their Religion was in danger and that their King was an Hugonott or Presbyterian though as I said before he indeed was as he prosessed himself to be a very zealous and rigid Papist and had given more than proof enough that he was so Even so our People here were by their Presbyterian and other their Schismatical Preachers made to believe that the Protestant Religion here was in very great danger and that Popery was very likely to be brought in because the King was a Papist or Popishly affected at least whereas it was evident to all the world both by his Profession and his Practice that he was as truly a zealous and devout Protestant as any the best of his Protestant Subjects and moreover as resolute a defender of the Protestant Faith as it is setled and established by Law in the Church of England against both Papists and Schismaticks as any King could or ought to be I might add as knowingly so too as ever any King was but his Father onely And yet thousands of his Subjects were made to believe that he was a Papist in his heart and upon that account were perswaded and engaged to fight against him nay many of them were made to believe that the Protestant Religion it self as it was established by Law was but disguised Popery and that the Common Prayer Book was but the Popish Missal or Mass Book translated into English and that the Bishops with all the Episcopal Clergy were an Antichristian Hierarchy and were or would be all of them Vassals to the Pope as soon as they had an opportunity safely to profess themselves to be so Now if the People could be made to believe as we see they were that such a King as He was and such a Church as Ours is were Popish or Popishly affected against all Evidence both of reason and of sense to the contrary what is there that they cannot be made to believe and consequently what security can there be for Kings from their Subjects either for their Power or their Persons or for Subjects from their fellow Subjects or for preserving of the publick Peace for a moment onely If there be any one I say any one case of any kind in any degree wherein Subjects may be allowed without scruple of Conscience to take up Arms against their Sovereign that one as I said before shall always be pretended and believed to be the Case as often as the contrivers and trumpeters of Sedition and Rebellion will have it to be so though there be no ground or reason at all for it as it is evident there was not in either of the aforesaid Instances or Examples I know there were other pretences besides that of Religion to justifie the Rebellion against the late King as his breach of Trust his violation of Laws his bringing or endeavouring to bring in Arbitrary Government and as Mr. Baxter would have it to be believed though Grotius thinks it incredible that any King in his wits should do so his professing himself an Enemy to the whole body of the People by making War against them all as if he meant to be a King without Subjects and finally whatsoever was thought to be most likely to make either his Person or his Government or both to be feared and hated by the whole Nation though really and truly there was no more ground for any of them than there was for his purpose of bringing in Popery which though the Grandees of the Faction knew well enough yet they knew too that it would serve their turn as well as if it were true if the People could be made to believe it was so and withall that they might lawfully nay that they were bound in conscience with their Lives and Fortunes to defend themselves their Wives and Children from being made slaves for that 's the style it must run in by the King or his Evil Counsellours who ought to be brought to condign punishment by force if it cannot be done by Law against which the People were made to believe the King did protect those Evil Counsellours of his And by this means was that Good that Godly that Gracious that Just and every way Vertuous King of ours brought first to be rebell'd against and at last to be murthered by his own Subjects in his capital City and before his own Palace gates And thus may the best Prince that ever was will be or can be in the World be exposed traduced and ruined and the best Government in the World be brought to confusion and dissolution and all the Subjects for fear of an imaginary slavery be made Slaves indeed to those whom they helped to make them so there being no way to secure any Prince State or People from being always obnoxious to these fatal mischiefs but the maintaining of this Axiom or Maxim of true Policy as Sacred and inviolable viz. That Sovereigns are not forcibly to be resisted by their Subjects in any case or upon any provocation whatsoever And that this Maxim may be kept Sacred and inviolable as being the Palladium the Preservative of the publick peace and of the very being as well as of the well-being of Humane Society it ought to be the special care of him or them that have the Supreme Power to forbid under very severe penalty the printing preaching or any way infusing or insinuating into the ears or hearts of the People any Doctrine to the contrary as being not onely false and erroneous but dangerous and Seditious also so seditious and so dangerous that if the Sovereign have not power to secure himself from the Pulpit and the Press or if he do not make use of that power I am afraid that it is not his Scepter nor his Sword that will be able to secure him from his People or his People from themselves I mean from cutting the throats of one another The End of the Second Section SECTION III. The late War in England against the King proved to have been a Rebellion whatever Mr. Baxter plead or argue in defence or justification of it CHAP. I. The late War proved to have been made against the King and consequently to be Rebellion The Parliaments Declaration discuss'd together with the danger of Arbitrary Votes The Judges opinion in the Earl of Essex his Case in Queen Elizabeths time The Presbyterian Clergy charged with the Rebellion AND thus having as I conceive sufficiently proved it to be unlawful for Subjects to rise up in Arms against their Sovereign in any case or upon any provocation whatsoever as being not only contrary to the Precepts of the Gospel and the Practice of
therefore I am sure he cannot forget it or at least will remember it assoon as he is put in mind of it And to him I appeal for the verifying of what I have said as to this particular But if any man shall notwithstanding Sir Philip Warwick's attestation think it to be incredible that the two Houses of Parliament being then in their Zenith should indure any such thing to be said so much to their reproach and condemnation of their cause and of all their proceedings without any animadversion upon him that said it I answer it was partly because they were then in their Zenith so high advanced and so highly elevated with the success God had for our sins and for their obduration permitted them to have that they despised what any man did or could say against them and partly because they could not have taken notice of it without inflicting some punishment or other upon him for it which they could not have done he being a man of such eminency not only in regard of his quality but much more in regard of his learning and sanctity and in regard of the very great reputation he had thereby acquired both at home and abroad without exposing themselves to the envy and hatred of the whole World and without doing themselves any good by it and therefore all things considered they thought it best to take no notice at all of it as for ought I ever heard they did not Howsoever what I affirm that pious and learned Arch-Bishop said whether he said it or no is true namely that the Power of the Sword or the Power of making War though for their own defence only or for never so good an end was not in the two Houses but in the King and in the King only as they did themselves acknowledg because at that very time and at that very Treaty one of the prime Articles which they mainly insisted on was to have the Sword for so many years to be put into their hands by the Kings passing of an Act of Parliament to that purpose and for their raising of mony during that time for the support and exercise of that Power in what proportion they thought or should think fit upon their Fellow-Subjects all which they had done before by virtue of their Ordinances only which either they did or did not think to be a legal and sufficient Authority for their taking of the Sword and using it as they did If they did think so why might not the same authority have been sufficient for the continuance of it and if so what need was there of an Act for the trusting them with it but for a time only But if they did not think their own Ordinances to be a legal and sufficient Authority for their taking of the Sword and taxing of the People and the exercising all those other Acts of Arbitrary Power which they did for so many years together by vertue of their own Ordinances only why then habemus confitentes reos We have their own confession not only that they took the Sword which neither the Law nor the King had put into their hands and therefore were Vsurpers of the Regal Authority but had made use of it against the King or which is all one against those that were commissioned by the King and therefore were Traytors and Rebels as likewise that their own Ordinances were not legally sufficient to justifie their so doing and consequently that they have not such a Legislative Power as Mr. Baxter saith they have and which he is so confident of as that he offers his head to the Block if the reasons he gives for the proof of it be disproved which I am now in the last place to try whether I can do or not The end of the third Section SECT IV. England a Monarchy and the Soveraignty solely in the KING prov'd against Mr. Baxter as also that neither the Parliaments concurrence as the Peoples Representatives to the making Laws nor their being Trustees for the Peoples Rights gives them any share in the Soveraignty CHAP. I. The mischief of Schismatical Books Mr. Baxter 's Anti-episcopal and Anti-monarchical Aphorisms The Soveraignty not divided as Mr. B. saith betwixt KING and Parliament Prov'd by the Parliaments acknowledgments and by the Oath of Supremacy AND first thanks be to God and the King that Mr. Baxter is not Lugdunensem causam dicturus ad aram that he is not to plead his cause at the Kings-Bench Barr. For God knows that all the hurt I wish him is that no more hurt may be done by Him and for this end and for this end only it was that I silenced him from preaching and for this end and for this end only it is that I would have him prohibited from writing or at least from publishing what he writes until he is licensed by Authority to do so For when he hath published such pernicious Principles against the legal constitution of the Church and State as he hath done in divers of his Books especially in that of the Holy Commonwealth it is too late and to very little purpose to say as he doth say of some of them that he would have them taken pro non scriptis as if they had not been written For Serò medicina paratur Cùm mala per long as invaluêre moras that is Physick comes too late when ill humors through long delays have got too great a head An Arch-Heretick may by Gods mercy be himself reconcil'd to the Truth and become Orthodox and an Arch-Schismatick may by the same mercy be reconciled to the Church and become Conformable and yet that Heresie that was broached by the one and that Schism that was introduced by the other may be propagated and perpetuated by their Books and by their Disciples from Generation to Generation to the Worlds end and if Master Baxter will needs have a secondary Original sin I think this is that which may most properly be so called Our Countryman Brown who would needs have our Church of England to be no Church was himself convinced of this error so that he not only became a Member but a Minister of the Church of England and as I have been informed died Parson of a Parish called A-Church in Northamptonshire But did Brownism dye with him No there are Brownists still and will be God knows how long perhaps till Doom's day put an end to the World and all the Divisions that have been are or shall be in it So that as nothing can be more criminal than to be the Author of a Schism Sect or Heresie so nothing can be more dangerous than to suffer the spreading and growth of them especially of such of them as are destructive in their natural tendency whatsoever the intention of the Authors and Abettors may be to the peace and welfare of the established Government either in Church or State And such say I are Mr. Baxter's Anti-episcopal Aphorisms in
felt of late whilst the Presbytery exercised in Scotland and in England laid claim to the same power For indeed Popery and Presbytery though they look divers ways with their Heads yet they are tied together like Samson's Foxes by their Tayles carrying the same Firebrands of combustion wheresoever they come I mean the same Principles of Sedition and Rebellion against Soveraign Princes and Estates if they will not be ruled by them And therefore as our Kings Predecessors to redeem themselves and their People from the slavery of the Papacy did wisely and couragiously drive out Popery so it is not to be doubted but his Majesty that now is to prevent the same or a worse bondage to the Consistory will with the same wisdom and courage keep out the Presbytery as being indeed where it governs in chief as it would do wheresoever it is a bondage by so much worse and more ignominious than Popery by how much worse it is to be subject to many Tyrants than to one and by how much less it is ignominious for a King to be a Vassal to a foreign Prince than to all or any of his own Subjects But thanks be to God we have no reason to fear that either our King or Parliament will ever think of introducing either Popery or Presbytery to be predominant here amongst us having had so sensible an experience formerly of the one and lately of the other especially being already possessed as we are of such an Ecclesiastical Government as was instituted by Christ and his Apostles universally received and approved by the Primitive Christians and by Law established amongst our selves a Government pretending to no power at all above the King nor to no power under the King neither but from him and by him and for him a Government enjoyning active obedience to all lawful commands of lawful Authority and passive obedience when we cannot obey actively forbidding and condemning all taking up of Arms offensive or defensive by Subjects of any quality or in any capacity against their Soveraign whatsoever he be either in regard of his Intellectuals or his Morals or his Religion in any case upon any pretence or upon any provocation whatsoever Finally such a Government as hath no relation to any foreign Prince or State to protect or assist it from abroad nor any foundation in the Body of the Common People to rise up for it or with it at home but having all its dependence under God upon the Crown and all its security in and by the Law and consequently if at any time it happens to transgress against either as some times by the faults or frailties of particular men I will not deny but it may yet even then or in that case it will easily be corrected and reduced into order and that by the ordinary course of Justice without charging the Subject or endangering the Peace of the Kingdom by levying a War to suppress it and without fear of an Invasion from abroad or an Insurrection at home in defence of it which cannot in the same case be probably affirmed of either of the former Having therefore such an excellent constitution of Government both Civil and Ecclesiastical as we have and both of them by Law established that which we have to do in the first place is to be thankful to God for it who hath not dealth so with any other Nation and then not only to live quietly and peaceably and contentedly under it for the present but to do what we can in our several places and stations for the upholding and perpetuating of it that our Posterity may have cause to bless God for it and for us also And to that end in the first place to mark those as the Apostle advises us that make divisions amongst us by libelling the Government either of the Church or State either in their Pamphlets or in their Pulpits and to mark them so as to set a Mark upon them as men not to be followed but avoided by us though they pretend never so much care of us or kindness to us For such as these they were who as the Apostle tells us in the aforesaid place did then as these do now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple And the way not to be deceived by them is not to hearken to them by resorting to their illegal Conventicles and forsaking our own Legal Assemblies and Congregations as the manner of some is Hebr. 10. 25. And what manner of Men those are that do so another Apostle tells us They are murmurers complainers walking after their own Lusts and their mouth speaketh great swelling words having mens Persons in admiration because of advantage Whereunto to compleat the Character of them he adds These he they that separate themselves sensual not having the Spirit which is as much as if he had said though there be none that do more or do so much pretend to purity or having the Spirit as the Separatists do the only cause of their separation being as some of them say the sensuality and want of the Spirit in those from whom they separate yet indeed the cause of their separation is because themselves are sensual and have not the Spirit or because they know not what spirit they are of for as there be many kinds of Spirits so there be many kinds of sensuality also for Pride and Envy and Malice and Slander and especially speaking evil of Dignities and covetousness and every other inordinate or immoderate Affection are sensualities as well as carnal Lust and Drunkenness and so is Separation it self also For when one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos are you not carnal saith the Apostle And are not say I all that are carnal sensual So that it is not Mens saying or thinking they have the Spirit will prove they have the Spirit nor their calling themselves the Godly Party will make them to be the Godly party but their very being of a Party proveth them to be Schismaticks and their being Schismaticks proveth them to be ungodly I am sure every one of the Parties appropriating the Spirit unto it self and being so divided as they are both in Doctrine and Worship amongst themselves is a demonstration that they are not inspired or guided by one and the same Spirit or that they have not the Spirit of Vnity nor consequently the Spirit of Sanctity nor of Holiness neither how boldly or boastingly soever they may pretend to it But Mundus vult decipi the World hath a mind to be deceived for as long as there are Broachers of lies there will be Believers of lies for as the Father of lies tempts some to be the Teachers so he tempts others to be the Believers of them And therefore unless the Spirit of falshood and division and sedition be by the Spirit of truth of unity and of concord cast
rest of the Sectaries that joyned with them in the War against the King think so too when they kill'd as many as they could of the Royal Party and when their Preachers incourag'd them to do so which he that doubts of let him read Evangelium armatum for his conviction But that they will say was but in the heat of blood whilst the War lasted afterwards they suffered us to live amongst them And so say I do the Papists too and to enjoy not only their lives but their liberties and their legal possessions and goods also in many nay in most places where there is no Inquisition which was more than we of the Church of England especially we of the Clergie were suffered to enjoy here under the Raign of either the Presbyterians or Independents And whether they would not have proceeded to blood as well as the Papists upon the account of Religion only I have reason to doubt or rather I have no reason to doubt but they would for as it is a Popish opinion that all Hereticks are to be put to death and that all that are not Papists are Hereticks so it is a Presbyterian opinion that no Idolater is to be suffered to live and that all Papists are Idolaters as likewise that all the Bishops and Episcopal Party of the Church of England are Papists and consequently Idolaters that is such as by the Law of God are to be put to death And if they did not put this doctrine in practice here as they have done in Scotland witness the murder of the late Primate there upon the account of Religion only whatsoever the first printed Narrative of that horrid Fact said to the contrary it was because their reign was so short and because they were not so well setled in their Dominion as to think it safe for them to proceed so far The Church of Rome her self did not at first proceed with that extremity of Rigor against those she calls Hereticks as she did afterwards It is but of late that the bloody Inquisition was set up by the Church of Rome and that but in some places And was not that of the Tryers here in England in order to the depriving Men of their livelihoods though not of their lives some such thing And who can tell whether it might not have proceeded to deprivation of life also as well as the Roman Inquisition doth if it had gotten power and authority enough to support it We know that the Anabaptists who made a great part of that rebellious Army against the late King of blessed Memory were a Sect that did profess at first that it was not lawful for them to defend either their Goods or their Lives though never so injuriously threatned or attempted to be taken away from them by any though not their Superiors but even by Thieves and Pirates insomuch as they would not carry Guns in their Ships when they went to Sea for fear of being tempted to make resistence in defence of their Goods or of themselves by having wherewithal to do it And yet I have been credibly informed that there were none in that rebellious Army whose feet were more swift and their hands more ready to shed blood than theirs of that Sect were as fearing to offend God by doing his work negligently or that their own lives should go for theirs if they spared or suffered any to escape whom it was in their power to kill So that now as one of their Officers said lately The Sword is become a good Ordinance of God in its season And of the same mind with the Anabaptists if they be not yet may the Quakers and all the rest of the Sectaries come in time to be also together with those merely moral Philosophical Christians I mean the Socinians themselves how much soever they seem for the present to dislike the propagating of Religion by force which there is no Sect but doth profess also whilst they want power to practise it themselves It being as natural for all sorts of Hereticks and Sectaries to endeavour the propagating of their opinions by making as many Proselytes as they can as it is for single Persons to desire and endeavour the propagating of their kind by natural Generation CHAP. V. The Exclusion of the right Heir contrary to the Law of God both Natural and Positive SUpposing therefore but not granting the present Heir of the Crown to be a Papist as I will not deny but that he may as long as he continues to be so wish and desire that all were of the same Religion so they that would have him excluded upon that Account must needs grant likewise that if any Heir of the Crown after him or at any time hereafter shall chance to be of any other Religion than that established by Law and consequently as desirous as a Papist can be to change or abolish that and bring in his own in the stead of it which may be as bad or perhaps worse than Popery as I take not only Paganism whatsoever Julian the Apostate saith to the contrary but Socinianism to be also They must grant I say that upon the same account whosoever shall be of any other than the established Religion must be excluded from succession to the Crown for fear of the alteration he may possibly make of the established Religion in the Church and probably of the established Government in the State also Which I confess to be a thing of such dangerous consequence that it ought to be prevented and provided against by any lawful effectual Means that can be made use of to that purpose especially where the present constitution of the Church and State is such as ours is that is such a one as I think all things considered there cannot be a better and therefore I say it will become the wisdom of the State to prevent as much as by humane prudence it may be prevented any alteration either of the Religion or of the Government I mean as to the essentials of either of them but then it must be by the use of such Means as are lawful and effectual And first the Means that must be made use of to prevent such an alteration must be lawful evidently and undoubtedly lawful and that both in relation to the Law of God and in relation to the Law of the Land also But the excluding of the right Heir from his Inheritance seems to be contrary to both and by the right Heir I mean the first-born or him that is nearest in bloud to him that is or was for merly in possession And that such a one hath a right of succession from which God would not have him to be excluded appears by the almost universal practice of all Nations in all Ages and in all Places which Practice being every where and almost the same among those that in all things else differ so much from one another must needs proceed from some
better order were taken for the Exclusion of unworthy persons from Electing or being Elected members of Parliament that so says he being out of danger of impious Parliaments chosen by an impious Majority of the People we should then build all the Fabrick of our Government on a Rock which else will have a foundation of Sand And then a multitude of errors would thus be corrected at once and more done for our happiness than a thousand of the new Fantastical devices will accomplish Euge well said again Mr. Baxter No man can more heartily say Amen than I can to this wish of yours that none were to choose or to be chosen Parliament-men but those that were worthy to choose and to be chosen nor no man can more fully concur with you in this Opinion than I do That such a Parliament so chosen would be more effectual for the Establishment of our Government upon a Rocky or impregnable foundation as likewise for the correcting of such errors and miscarriages as by reason of the ill management of the best Government are or possibly may be in it and consequently for the making of us more happy than any new Fantastically devised model of Government can do In all this I say I agree with Mr. Baxter But in the Notion of who are worthy or unworthy to choose or to be chosen I am afraid we shall differ very much for perhaps Mr. Baxter and those of his Party may think those that are Dissenters from the Government of the Church are the only worthy men to choose and to be chosen Members of the Parliament I am sure by that stir and stickling they have made in the late Elections for Knights and Burgesses in all Counties and Corporations it appears they think so Whereas I am of opinion that none but such as are conformable in point of Judgment and well inclin'd in point of Affection to the present Government both in Church and State as to the species or kind of either that is as the one is Monarchical and the other Episcopal is fit to choose or to be chosen a Parliament-man and consequently that none of those that are not well affected to the present Government are fit to choose or to be chosen though they pretend never so much to be the Godly party nay though they were indeed as good and Godly men as they say they are and would have others believe them to be For though as Moses wish'd that all the Lords people were Prophets and yet did not think them to be so so I wish that all good and Godly men were wise and prudent men also but I cannot believe they are so nor consequently that they are sufficiently qualified either to be Statesmen themselves or to discern who are fit to be Statesmen And unskilful though well meaning Workmen may be marring whilst they think they are mending and pluck down more in a day than wiser men can build up again in a year And therefore the Fabrick of our present Government being so good a one as that Mr. Baxter himself by prefering it before any new Fantastical mode or model that can be devised or obtruded upon us doth as good as confess there cannot be a better certainly the main care that is to be taken by the wisdom of the State is to prevent the alteration or change of it And consequently the main Qualification to be required in those that choose and are to be chosen to be States-men is their being obliged to maintain and uphold the present Government as it is by Law established I still mean as to the species or kind of it and then as wise and good men may find work enough without medling with removing or moving of Foundations to mend the faults that are and to prevent those that may be in the superstructure So those that are not so wise as they should be nor so good as they would seem to be and those are the men most likely to be medling will not be able to do any great harm so long as the foundations themselves are secured from being undermined or overthrown by them CHAP. X. The excluding some Persons from choosing or being chosen into Parliament no injury The Test reinforced upon this account that if the Successor consent to it it cannot but hold good IF it be objected that the making of such a Law would be the excluding of many of the Freemen and Free-holders of the People from one of the greatest of the priviledges of their Birthright namely the choosing and being chosen Members of Parliament I Answer that if the security of the Government and the Peace and Welfare of the Kingdom require it and the Majority of the Peoples representatives without which it cannot be done consent to it it is no more than in many other cases is done already Secondly I answer that in this very case All the Papists who if they be not a great number I wonder why we should be so much afraid of them all the Papists I say who are all of them Free-men and as Freemen have a right to choose and be chosen into the House of Commons and some of them by Birth to be Peers of the Realm yet are all of them excluded from both Houses and so are all Out-law'd and Excommunicated persons and such are or should be all the Sectaries that will not come unto our Churches Thirdly Did not both Houses of Parliament make it one of the conditions of Peace with the late King that none that had serv'd him against them should be capable of sitting in either of the Houses for Twenty one years to come And why might not the King with much more reason have demanded the exclusion of all those that had fought for the Parliament against Him from the same priviledge Or why may not those that will not oblige themselves by Oath to maintain the Government legally established by King Lords and Commons be much more reasonably and much more justly and equitably excluded from having any thing to do in the Government or in the making of our Laws than those that would not take the Oath of Abjuration and of being faithful to the Government as it was illegally set up without King and Lords were excluded not only from choosing or being chosen into Parliaments but from having any protection or benefit of the Laws by the upstart Free-state as they call'd themselves but were indeed no better than Rebels and Robbers It is not therefore to be doubted but that such a Law as is made in Scotland may by the same Authority respectively be made in England and in Ireland also Neither is it to be doubted but that such a Law if it were made would be the best security that can be given against the bringing in of Popery or Arbitrary Government especially if the rightful Successor will not oppose but promote the making of such a Law here as I do verily
supposing I was mistaken in thinking him to be a Presbyterian I know not why he should take it as an affront to be thought to be so for being evidently and confessedly a Dissenter from the Government and publick way of Worship as it is established by Law in the Church of England I thought it was more for his Honour to be thought and treated with as a Presbyterian than as one of any other of the more novel and more ignoble Sects which though they all of them have Presbytery for their Mother yet they had not all of them Calvin for their Father but are the bastard issue of unknown Sires Besides I had reason to think that Mr. Baxter was of the same persuasion that his Commilitones his Fellow-Souldiers in the Dispute at the Savoy were who were always taken for Presbyterians and did not take it for a Reproach but rather for an Honour to be thought to be so And if it be honourable to be of such or such a party it is much more honourable to be the Antesignanus or leader of such a party And therefore thinking as I did for the reasons aforesaid Mr. Baxter to be a Presbyterian and hearing he had been a Souldier in the late War and having observed how he had behaved himself as a Leader in the aforesaid Dispute at the Savoy I thought I could not call him a more proper name in relation to both his Professions I mean that of a Warriour and that of a Disputer than that of Antesignanus a Standard-bearer But perhaps I may be mistaken all this while in thinking Mr. Baxter takes it ill to be called either Antesignanus or Antesignanus Presbyterianorum Whereas it is his being called Antesignanus of the Presbyterians onely and not of the other Sects as well as of that which offends it being a diminution of his just Title to be the Antesignanus but of one Sect onely whereas he undertakes the defence of all the Nonconformists so far forth at least as they refuse to conform to the Church of England how much soever they may differ among themselves as appears by the Title page of one of his last Books published last Year but written as he saith many Years before and called An Apology for the Nonconformists Ministry containing their Reasons for their Preaching and an Answer to the Accusations urged as Reasons for the silencing about 2000 by Bishop Morley Dr. Saywell Mr. Durell c. From which Title of that Book of his it is manifest that he owns himself an Apologist for all the Nonconformists at least for all their Preachers and especially for all those that were silenced which were all that had been Preachers before of what Sect or denomination soever which would not subscribe and submit to the Act of Vniformity after the King's Restauration And those were Anabaptists Antinomians Quakers Fifth monarchy men as well as Presbyterians and Independents for all these were Nonconformists and every of these Sects had their Preachers who were all of them equally silenced by the Act of Vniformity and therefore must be reckoned amongst those for whom Mr. Baxter professeth himself to be an Apologist and indeed if they be not I think he will hardly make up one of his 2000 silenced Preachers If he say that in the aforesaid Title to that Book of his it is the Nonconformists Ministry or the Ministers of the Nonconformists that he pleads for I demand whether by the Ministry he means onely such as have an outward Call by publick Authority to the Work of the Ministry or to the teaching of others whether that calling be by the Episcopal or Presbyterian way of Ordination If so then not onely all those gifted men that pretend to no other but an inward calling are excluded from being any of his 2000 whom he pleads for but the Congregational or Independent Preachers also who have no outward calling but from their own Congregations onely and so perhaps have the Gifted men whether Anabaptists or Quakers or any other of the Fanatical holders-forth from those that are their own Auditours also so that Mr. Baxter must either leave out those I mean the Independents or take in these I mean all the rest of the Sectaries into the number of those he calls the Nonconformist Ministry and for whom he professeth he maketh the aforesaid Apology and whom he would have restored to the same liberty or licence of preaching which they had formerly in the time of the Rebellion and Usurpation A very sober and seasonable Proposal to be made to Bishops and those Bishops whom he makes it to are very much beholding to him for the good opinion he hath of them as the onely men of their Order that are likely to hearken to such a proposal In the mean time we may learn from hence whom he means by the word Vs when he tells the Bishop of Ely and Me that We two of all he knows have most effectually helped to bring Vs that is all the Nonconformists of all kinds under CHAP. V. How Mr. B. and his party have been brought under and how they brought in the King WE are therefore now in the second place to guess as well as we can at what he means by bringing him and the rest of the Nonconformists Vnder There is none of them I believe but would be uppermost if they could for Pride is inseparable from Schism and it is the downfall of Pride to be brought under The Two chief Sects of the Nonconformists the Presbyterians and Independents have had their turns in being uppermost the Presbyterians whilst the Parliament and the Independents whilst the Army and Cromwell had the power of which two Sects it may be said as it was of Caesar and Pompey the one to wit the Independents like Caesar could not ferre priorem could endure none to be above them and the other to wit the Presbyterians like Pompey could not ferre parem must needs have all to be under them and therefore each of them having been uppermost before they must needs be very angry with all those who have helped to bring them both under after they had domineered so long as they had done And of those that have helped to bring them under Mr. Baxter tells the Bishop of Ely and Me that We two of all men he knows have been the chief But under whom or under what is it that We have helped to bring them Sure it must be under some Person or some Thing that they would not willingly have been brought under otherwise they would not have been angry with us or complained of us for so doing Vnder whom is it therefore that We have helped to bring them Is it not He under whom they ought always to have been under namely the KING their natural Liege-Lord and Sovereign But they had brought his Father under them and therefore were the more unwilling to be brought under his Son for fear he might remember
own being an Intruder into the Headship of a College I remember too when the Churches in divers great Towns which had a great number of Souls and but little maintenance belonging to them were wholly neglected and the neighbouring little Villages where the Cures were small but the Tithes were great were seized on by the Grandees of the Faction which was an evident proof that they valued the Fleece more than the Flock and that they would not then as Mr. Baxter saith they will now serve God for nought But would not the Papists doe so also Yes perhaps they would will Mr. Baxter say but it would be in order to the destroying and not the edifying of the Church and have we not reason to fear that their offering to preach gratis is with such a meaning and Intention also We are sure they have done so and we are not nor cannot be sure they will not doe so again as long as they continue at that distance as they do from us In the mean time the Popish Priests being so persuaded as they are namely that all Protestants are in a State of damnation have a more rational pretence for the necessity of their preaching to us than our silenced Ministers have or can have even upon this account that unless they doe what they can to make us Roman Catholicks they are guilty of our perishing everlastingly But I hope our silenced Ministers do not think us in such a state of Damnation as we cannot be delivered out of but by their preaching as the Popish Priests may and do think us to be But whatsoever either of them may think of the need we have of their preaching and consequently of their own obligation to preach though they be forbidden we that do believe they would doe more hurt than good by their preaching do believe likewise that we are obliged in Conscience to restrain them from preaching though there were a greater want of Preachers and preaching than there is among us For sure there was never more need of preaching and scarcity of Preachers than when the Gospel began first to be planted when the Harvest was so great and the Labourers so few that Christ bad them pray the Lord of the Harvest to send more labourers into his Harvest and yet even then Christ would not have all to be hearkned unto that took upon them to preach but bad his Disciples beware of them and of their Doctrine though they came in Sheep's cloathing that is though they made a shew of nothing but harmlesness and meekness and simplicity because they might be ravening Wolves for all that And not long after that when there was still need of a great many more labourers than there were to carry on the great work of the conversion of the Gentiles yet even then St. Paul commands Titus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to silence some of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those that were Preachers and why because they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unruly such as would not be governed or be brought under any rule or order but did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subvert whole houses And if such Preachers as did but subvert whole houses were to be silenced or not suffered to preach then when there was so much more need of Preachers and of preaching than there is now how much more reasonable and necessary is it for us to silence those whose Principles tend to the subverting of whole Kingdoms especially when we have more Preachers of our own than we can tell how to provide for Again as in the first plantation of the Church when there was incomparably most need of Preachers the Apostles would not suffer such as were ungovernable or unruly themselves especially if they taught others to be so also so in the beginning of the Reformation of our Church from Popish Idolatry Superstition and Corruption both in Doctrine and Practice though there was a very great want of able and orthodox Preachers not onely in Edward the sixth's time but in Queen Elizabeth's time also for divers years together yet none of the Popish Priests were suffered to continue in their stations but very many Cures were supplied with men of very mean abilities till they could be better provided for rather than hazard a relapse into Popery by employing any that were Popishly affected in the work of the Ministry And Mr. Baxter may remember when we of the Church of England as it was established by Law were deprived and silenced for no other reason but because we could not in Conscience conform to the illegal Government that was by an usurped power set up in the Church and State I know there were other pretences against some as disability immorality and scandal but the main reason why we were generally turn'd out of our Free-holds and forbidden to exercise our Ministerial function was our Non-conformity to the then present Government in the State and to the then present way of serving God in the Church though both of them were illegal and though there was then as much or more need of their being assisted by us than there is now of our being assisted by them CHAP. X. According to Mr. Baxter 's own opinion the Ministers he pleads for ought to be silenced The Act against Conventicles why made and what is meant by Seditious Conventicles and Preachers Mr. Baxter by his own confession an incourager of the late Rebellion BUt supposing the want of Preachers and of Preaching to be much greater than it is may there not be a just cause to keep some from preaching and that without Sacrilege or robbing of God though they have been consecrated to God by Ordination if afterwards they prove such as are much more likely to doe harm than good by their preaching And such are not onely those that are utterly unable to teach or are notoriously scandalous in their lives and conversations but such as are heretical or schismatical in their opinions such as are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unruly and ungovernable and apt to stir up strife and Sedition either in Church or State Certainly such men as these ought to be silenced and punished too if they will not forbear preaching what need soever they may pretend there is for it otherwise St. Paul would not have given so strict a charge for the silencing of such as he did to Titus And truly that there are some such as ought to be silenced notwithstanding their consecration to God Mr. Baxter himself cannot deny For whom else doth he mean by those he calls intolerabiles that is such as are not to be tolerated or suffered to Preach Doth he mean none but those who were never ordained or none but those that are heretical in their opinions or debaucht in their manners or insufficient for the discharge of their duties No he confesseth that in the general all or any whose preaching is likely to doe more hurt than good
and particularly such as are against Princes safety and honour or whose Principles tend to overthrow the honour and safety of Governours and to kindle the fire of contention and enmity or such as draw their hearers Souls into any damnable errour or sin or that perswade men against any precept of the Decalogue and consequently against any of the precepts of the second Table as well as of the first all such as these saith Mr. Baxter are to be restrained from preaching For far be it saith Mr. Baxter from any sober man to think that the Magistrate must let all men doe the evil that they will but pretend to God and Conscience for Which one saying of his makes all that he said before to justifie the preaching of his Nonconformists to signifie nothing if they be silenced or forbidden to preach for any of the aforesaid causes by him specified and acknowledged to be such as Preachers ought to be silenced for notwithstanding any pretence of conscience to the contrary So this being agreed on betwixt us the next thing in question betwixt us is whether those that are silenced are such as Mr. Baxter confesseth ought to be silenced or no for if they be he confesseth likewise that no pretence of conscience can warrant their preaching and much less oblige them to preach For the deciding of this question therefore whether those that are silenced are justly silenced or no there remains one and but one question more and that is who shall judge and finally determine whether they that are silenced be or be not such as ought to be silenced or restrained from preaching Surely they themselves must not be their own judges but who must then why who but the Magistrate saith Mr. Baxter who in Church cases and religion hath the onely publick judgment whom he shall countenance maintain or tolerate or whom he shall punish or not tolerate nor maintain but with this caution so he be not the executioner of the Clergy's sentence without or against his own conscience and judgment Where by the Magistrate I hope he means the supreme Magistrate and by his judgment he means his judgment according to Law For the Law and nothing but the Law is the declaration of the supreme Magistrate's publick judgment in giving whereof he neither is nor can be the executioner of any other man's sentence but all subordinate Magistrates whether Civil or Ecclesiastical are the executioners of the supreme Magistrate's judgment or sentence and are no farther binding or to be obeyed than they are so Now that the supreme Magistrate with the advice and consent of his great Council hath given his judgment not onely who are and who are not to be tolerated to preach in publick or in Churches appears by the Act of Vniformity as likewise that he hath given his judgment also that those who are not to be tolerated to preach in publick or in Churches are not to be tolerated to preach in private nor in Conventicles neither appears by those other Acts of Parliament whereby such preaching is forbidden and such penalties as are therein specified are to be inflicted upon the transgressours of them Lastly as those Acts of Parliament are undeniable evidences who are and who are not to be tolerated to preach either publickly or privately according to the publick judgment of the State so the reasons why such preaching and such Preachers are prohibited are declared in the Titles and Prefaces of the aforesaid Acts for example the Title to one of those Acts namely that of decimo tertio of our present King is this An Act for the safety and preservation of his Majesty's person and Government against treasonable and seditious practices and attempts and in the Preface to the said Act it is said that the Lords and Commons assembled in that Parliament deeply weighing and considering the miseries and calamities of well nigh 20 years before his Majesty's happy return and withall reflecting upon the causes and occasions of so great and deplorable confusions the growth and increase of which they say did in a very great measure proceed from a multitude of seditious Sermons Pamphlets and Speeches published with a transcendent boldness from which kind of distemper say they as the present age is not wholly free so posterity may be apt to relapse into them if a timely remedy be not provided Therefore say they We the Lords and Commons having duly considered the Premisses do most humbly beseech your Majesty that it may be enacted c. By which Title and preface it plainly appears that the Lords and Commons did believe that neither the safety of the King's person nor of the Government could be secured if such kind of Preaching and Preachers as had in the late times been the stirrers up of the People to rebellion were not restrained from preaching for the future unless they would give some such security as the Parliament should think fit to require which was their renouncing the Covenant and their subscription to the Act of Vniformity which was enacted by the King by the advice and with the consent of the Lords and Commons the year following And it was for their not conforming to this Act of Vniformity that is for their not giving that security which the Law required that they would not preach schismatically and factiously and seditiously as they had done formerly for which they were some of them deprived and all of them disabled to preach publickly in Churches and consecrated places But this Act not proving effectual enough to prevent the danger for preventing whereof it was enacted because those that were forbid to preach publickly and in Churches did preach the same doctrines in Conventicles and in corners confirming their old and making more and more new Proselytes and being more and more followed because they were forbidden to preach in publick Therefore two years after this there was another Act made by the same Authority the Title whereof is An Act to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles and the Preface or Preamble thereof is That for the providing of farther and more speedy remedies against the growing and dangerous practices of seditious Sectaries and other disloyal Persons who under pretence of tender Consciences do at their meetings contrive Insurrections as late experience hath shewed Be it enacted c. And then tells us first what shall be taken for a seditious Conventicle namely any meeting or Assembly in any place under colour or pretence of any exercise of Religion in other manner than is allowed by the Liturgy or practice of the Church of England where there shall be five Persons or more over and above those of the same house Secondly What are to be the Penalties for the first second and third Offence and lastly who are to be the Executioners and Inflicters of these Penalties Where you see that it is the Highest secular Magistrate whom Mr. Baxter will have
Microscope We are not to be judged by consequences No such consequence in the case An unlimited lawfull Monarchy in what sense Mr. B 's Governours some limited some unlimited If he means limited by men the consequence is avoided If he means limited by God The consequence falls upon himself All Governours limited by God de facto as well as de jure An expedient to help Mr. B. out of his own pit His Governours de facto unlimited what His self contradiction set home if he means limited by God If he mean limited by men his charge against the Bishop falls Mr. B 's Ingenuity in shuffling in one Proposition instead of another His design to make the Bishop odious His strange Logick His calumny cleared An address to the main Question The Aphorism in question This Aphorism the foundation of his Holy Common-wealth This Aphorism of his charged with falshood Three things premised Of Paternal Government * Vide His Apology for the Nonconformists Ministry p. 138. Adam the first Governour unlimited Cain the first Rebel Noah the first Monarch after the floud An account of Government after the confusion of languages Vnlimited Monarchy most ancient Political Monarchy as ours is better than Despotical Mr. B 's opinion of unlimited Governours false and dangerous Vnlimited Governours not Tyrants because unlimited Two sorts of Tyrants Cromwell in both senses a Tyrant Several unlimited Monarchs no Tyrants in either sense Mr. B 's meaning perhaps that all Governours ought de jure to be limited No obligation that all Government should be so limited by any law 1. Not by the positive law of God 2 Not by the law of nature 3. Not by the law of Nations The King never dies how to be understood The consequence driven home Conquerours in a just war unlimited Instances out of Scripture The like Case supposed betwixt our King and the Algerines Whether aconquered people may after submission free themselves by force Mr. B. saith I. The prophet Jeremy of another judgment 2 Chron. 3. 13. Jerem. 5. 2. Zedekiah 's casting off the yoke of the king of Babylon called Rebellion and punished as such Witnessed by the prophet Ezekiel Their deliverance at last from the Babylonish captivity was not by force of Arms. As neither was that from the Egyptian bondage The reason of this to give no countenance to rebellion What a Tyrant is in Mr. B 's notion A Governour 's being unlimited no hindrance to his Right A lawfull Governour 's being a Tyrant doth not forfeit his Right The Proposition to be proved Several arguments to prove it The 1. Argument The 2. Argument from Scripture Affirmatively Obedience to Nero himself strictly commanded And that when Christians under his actual persecution Why S. Peter and S. Paul made choice of to preach up obedience The 3. Argument from the practice of the Primitive Christians Whilst under Heathen and Tyrant Princes Their non-resistance not for want of power c. But cut of conscience to God The ten Tribes revolt from Rehoboam examined * 1 Kings 12. 24 Suppose what they did might be by special Commission The like cases of Abraham Of the Israelites Of Phineas Those cases applied No warrant hence for us to do the like The Revolt sinfull against the fifth Commandment The case betwixt a King and his Subjects the same as betwixt a father and his children Or betwixt a Master and his servants 1 Pet. a. 18. No such special commission for the Revolt as won supposed Jeroboam 's case stated 1 Kings 11. 31. His distrust and impatience How he made Israel to sin David 's case alike and his different behaviour * 1 Sam. 26. 8 9 c. The ground of Jeroboam 's pretence His artifice to discontent the people Absalom 's rebellion raised by the same artifice Psalm 78. 73. Jeroboam 's pretence inquired into No mention of a yoke in Solomon ' s. reign The great Tribute was a Levy of men And that not of the children of Israel People apt to grow weary of their happiness In what sense some men and works are called good The Revolt is called Rebellion 1 Kings 12. 19. 2 Chron. 10 19. Two arguments to justifie the revolt 1 Kings 12. 24. 2 Chro. 11. 4. The Answer in general God's foretelling a thing to be done is not the cause of doing it The like case of Hazael c. The evil of sin from God onely by permission The evil of punishment is from God The case of Jehu and Jeroboam unlike 2 Kings 9. 6 7. The general rule to be followed unless there be a special dispensation To obey actively and passively what Papists and Presbyterians agree in the doctrine of resisting Kings The objection From the law of Nature From their inability to resist And that the precepts of not resisting were temporary The Answer That to think so is no less than blasphemy Christians because Christians to be the best of Subjects The Blasphemy made out Subjects obliged in Conscience A not able saying of Grotius The judgment of the Church of England in the case Where the Churches judgment to be found Her judgment subscribed to by all that are ordained Mr. Calamy 's frank subscription Why the judgment of our Church quoted What Mr. B 's meaning that Tyrants have no right to their governments It is not that they have no right to govern tyrannically Vid. his Tract of obedience to rulers and howfar resistance is unlawfull à pag 346. ad pag. 375. of his holy common-wealth Vid. ibidem à p. 375. ad p. 456. But that they have no right to govern at all Mr. Hobb 's opinion and Mr. Baxter 's alike exploded by the Bishop Lawfull Sovereigns not to be resisted According to the first institution of Kings by Samuel Samuel and St. Paul c. blasphemed as defiers of God and man Mr. B 's Jugling Some Instances of it Nero 's cruelties Pone Tigellinum tadi lucebis in illâ Quâ stantes ardent qui fixo gutture fumant Juven Satyr St. Paul under the same charge of Mr. B. with the Bishop The primitive Christians fools in Mr. B 's opinion Mr. B 's kindness to the Novatians â—â—â—ence and yet they for Bishops The Doctrine of non-resistance no flattery to Kings as Mr. B. calls it Kings accountable to God and punished by him Mr. B 's absurd conclusion set forth by a like instance Subjects advantage from wrongfull sufferings The Hobbists censured on the one hand The Papists and Sectaries on the other As Enemies to God Enemies to Kings And enemies to all subjects The Bishop's justification of his exception against Mr. B 's Aphorism And his Vindication of himself from being a defier c. and an enemy to God c. Rom. 13. for the unlawfulness of resisting rescued The Senate of Rome had part of the Sovereignty with Nero. H. C. p. 353. Mr. B 's exception against our Translation H. C. p. 352. Our Translation vindicated Mr. B. no great Critick in the Greek *
them for the King 's coming home The security the government required of them Their own measure meted to them The King's Promise at Breda discharged As being conditional Their carriage an affront to the Parliament Mr. B 's boldness with Parliaments The reason of the Act of Vniformity The penalty of not conforming Some have conformed Why the rest did not whether for Conscience as Mr. B. saith Bp. Brownrig's account of Mr Calamy 's not conforming A probable reason why some refused offers of preferment To wit to indear themselves to their party Many stood out in hopes of a Toleration Supposing it is out of Conscience they do not conform yet they are justly silenced The Popish Priests have the same Plea as Mr. B 's Nonconforming Ministers And that upon Mr. B 's own Reasons Vid. Apology for the Nonconformist Ministry p. 14. ibid. p. 15. As from the Obligation of holy Orders From their being consecrated to God's service ibid. p. 20. From scriptural Authority From the guilt of murthering souls if they do not preach Pag. 45. Plea for Non-con's Ministry No such necessity of preaching now as in the primitive times The Homilies of the Church recommended for excellent Sermons The efficacy of those Homilies maintained An Argument drawn from their own repetitions of Sermons Mr. B 's murther of Souls a phantasm The assistance of Nonconformists offered gratis Apol. p. 16. Why not to be accepted The Popish Priests under a greater obligation of preaching Neither of them to be permitted According to Christ's own Caveat and S. Paul 's order to Titus The like practised at the beginning of the Reformation Themselves serv'd the Church of England-men so What Preachers to be silenced by Mr. B 's own sentence * Vid. True and onely way to concord part 3. Third part of True and onely way of conc p. 121. 122. The Ministers Mr. B. pleads for are such as he confesseth ought to be silenced The Magistrate the Judge in this case saith Mr. B. Vid. Third part of Book of Concord pag. 140. The Law is a declaration of his Judgment What kind of Preachers tolerated what not is there set down With the reasons of such restraint A descant upon those reasons The security which the Law requires from Preachers The ground of the Act against Conventicles What are seditious Conventicles Who seditious Preachers Mr. B 's Apology for them falls to ground The very Conventicles whatever people doe there are seditious One main reason of forbidding them to prevent the murthering of Souls * Holy Com. Wealth p. 486. This Mr. B. charged particularly with upon his own confession Ibidem The words of the Reflexion The Bishop not peculiarly concern'd in the former part of those words The latter part of them particularly aimed at the Bishop Mr. Jones a Chaplain to the Duke's Family not to his Person Mr. Jones the man intended by Mr. B. The Bishop no way concerned in his being put out of the Duke's service Some reasons that Mr. Jones is meant by Mr. B. for one that was driven away Vid. The Premonition to the true and onely way of Concord And that the Bishop of Winton is meant by the Prelate who drove him away The false account which Elymas the Sorcerer gives of Mr. Jones 's removal Mr. B. perhaps the Godfather of that Pamphlet Elymas a Comment upon Mr. B 's Text. The Protestant Religion to be preserved better without the Dissenters than with them The condition of the Church of England as to Dissenters Object 1. The Answer Object 2. The Answer Mr. B ' s. Recantation as to the Time very tardy His Sermon before the King The manner of his Recantation Not clearly worded Clog'd with Proviso's His vain-glorious professions of Loyalty Some of his disloyal Principles He justifies the late War Most likely that he is of the same judgment still Two Plots carrying on Mr. B 's true and only way of Concord
particular whether it be matter of Faith or Manners Doctrine or Practice it is not to be collected or concluded from the sayings or writings of any one or more particular Doctours of the Church though of never so great eminency for Learning or for Piety or both but from the Church her self speaking to us as she doth first in her Articles 2dly in her Catechism 3dly in her Homilies 4thly in her Liturgy which is a Conservatory of Doctrines as well as a form of publick Worship and 5thly in her Canons In all these I say the Church speaks to us her self by her representative Body in Convocation declaring what her own Judgment is and what she will have the Judgment of all those to be whom she will admit to be of her Communion as to matter of doctrine in the three former and as to matter of practice in the two latter Now as to this particular of which we are now speaking viz. Whether it be lawfull for Subjects in any case or upon any provocation forcibly or by taking up of Arms to resist their Sovereign our Church hath clearly and fully declared her judgment negatively in her Homily against Insurrection which Homily being recited and approved in the Thirty fifth Article of the Book of Articles is subscribed unto by all that subscribe unto those Articles as all those do that are legally Ordained in our Church and consequently as Mr. Baxter himself did if he were Ordained by a Bishop as he saith he was But perhaps Mr. Baxter will say for himself what I remember Mr. Jacomb said for Mr. Calamy of whom when I had said at the Conference in the Savoy that he had at his Ordination not onely subscribed to what the Church required him to subscribe unto but added Non invitus nec coactus sed lubens libensque subscribo which was more than was required of him to shew that he did it freely willingly and heartily True indeed said Mr. Jacomb Mr. Calamy did so then but he hath since been heartily sorry for it and repented of it And so it seems Mr. Baxter hath done also And therefore I do not subjoyn the Doctrine and Practice of Ours to the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church as thinking Mr. Baxter or any of the Dissenters from our Church will be moved at all by it but to shew that the Doctrine and Judgment of our Church is in this particular as it is in all other matters of any moment both doctrinal and practical the same with that of the Apostles and Primitive Christians and consequently that they who condemn or despise this doctrine and practice of Ours do thereby or by so doing condemn and despise the doctrine and practice not of the Primitive Christians onely but of the Apostles and of Christ himself also CHAP. XII Mr. B 's meaning in his Aphorism that Tyrants have no right to govern at all Tyranny not justified by forbidding resistance The reproach Mr. B. casts upon the Bishop lights upon Samuel and St. Paul Mr. B. a favourer of the Novatians BUt perhaps Mr. Baxter may say that in this Aphorism of his we are now speaking of he doth not say that either Vnlimited Governours or Tyrants have no right at all to their respective Governments simply and absolutely but onely that they have no right to their Vnlimited or Tyrannical Governments and consequently that his meaning is that although notwithstanding their being Vnlimited and Tyrannical they may have a right to govern yet they have no right to govern unlimitedly or Tyrannically But as to the first of these namely That unlimited Governours have no right to their unlimited Governments it is absolutely false as I have more than sufficiently proved already And although the second namely That no Governour hath a right to be a Tyrant or to govern tyrannically be true yet that this truth is not the truth at least not the whole truth of Mr. Baxter's meaning appears by many of his following Aphorisms and Comments upon them especially by those wherein as if he were totius mundi arbiter The Ruler of the whole world or Rex regum and dominus dominantium King of kings and Lord of lords that is a Protestant Pope or the Catholick moderatour and decider of all controversies he boldly and Magisterially defines and states the Cases wherein Subjects may or may not resist their Sovereigns For as of his special grace and favour he gives Kings even limited Kings leave to transgress their bounds to such or such a degree without forfeiting their right to their Crowns and without being lawfully resisted by their Subjects for so doing so if they pass the limits he assigns them as if he should say to Kings as the King of Kings saith to the waves of the Sea Hitherto O ye Kings ye may go and no farther then saith he they depose themselves and then their Subjects ceasing to be Subjects their rising up or making war against them can be no Rebellion Whereby it plainly appears that when he saith Tyrants have no right to their unlimited Governments his meaning is not that they have no right to govern tyrannically but that they have no right to govern at all For that Kings have a right to govern tyrannically or that they doe no injury to their Subjects how much soever they do oppress them I never heard of any Christian or Heathen that was of that opinion but Mr. Hobbs onely But I am as far from Mr. Hobbs his opinion namely That Kings do not injure their Subjects when they govern them otherwise than by God's Laws and their own they ought to govern them as I am from Mr. Baxter's namely That Kings do forfeit their rights to their Crowns That Subjects may resist them or defend themselves by force against them when they doe so to any degree whatsoever In all therefore that I have said hitherto for the justifying of my exception against this Aphorism of Mr. Baxter's there is nothing I am sure to justifie either the Tyrannical Government of unlimited and despotical Sovereigns or the illegal and arbitrary Government of limited and political Sovereigns but onely to prove that lawfull Sovereign Princes whether limited or unlimited are not to be resisted by their Subjects which is no more than St. Paul asserts speaking of the worst of Princes nor no more than what may rationally nay necessarily be collected from what Samuel said to the People of Israel when they would needs have a King as other Nations had and when God bids him tell them the manner of their King or what manner of Kings they must expect to have sometimes even such as all other Nations had sometimes bad as well as good and that they were to endure the one as well as the other as all other Nations did also For when he had told them not what all or any Kings ought to doe or lawfully might doe but what