Bonum Publicum the common Safety and the Constitution 2. And between a Case controvertible and a Case clear and certain And so I answer 1. If a Parliament wrong the King we must not joyn with them in wronging him nor own their wrong nor defend the Persons from legal Justice He might have dissolved them and called another had he not past a Law to the contrary He may Impeach any Members at their own Bar But at what Judicature shall he try the highest Judicature it self 2. And if the Representative would treacherously destroy the Constitution and yield to enslave them or to give up the Kingdom to the Pope or any Foreign Power the Case being past Controversie the People have not thereby lost the natural Power of Self-defence But may as lawfully choose more trusty Representatives and fight for Self defence against such Traitors as against a Tyrant 3. But the species of the Constitution in King and Parliament must still be maintained and the Salus Populi without respect to which there is no Government And no personal Faults can forfeit that 32. Therefore I ever thought as it was a dissolution of the Constitution for the King to put down Parliaments and pretend as Bishop Morley blindly pleadeth to the sole Power of Legislation so it is Treason for a Parliament to put down Monarchy and to assume the sole Legislative Power As the Rump did when they pretended to settle a Government without a King or House of Lords If either King or Parliament personal should forfeit their Power the Kingdom doth not thereby forfeit their right in the constituted Form of Government by a King and Parliament SECTION 4. I Have interposed this account of the Principles on which I acted I will next add an account of my Actions hereupon and then return to the Confession of my own Sins as far as I know them 1. Refusing a Chaplain's Commission I continued about two Years or more in Coventry as a Lecturer to the Garison and City in quietness save that we daily heard of all the dismal Wars abroad Only twice I went out with them 1. To take in Tamworth Castle that cost no Blood 2. And to besiege Banbury Castle whose Soldiers rob'd Warwickshire and the Travellers and Carriers on London Road. But thence we were raised and driven home with some loss Also for two or three Months the care of my Native Countrey and of my Father drew me into Shropshire with some that went to settle a Garison at Wem There and at Longford House I staid till my Father was delivered from Imprisonment by Exchange for a short time 2. All that ever I converst with did all this while protess to own the King and only to separate him from an Army of Delinquents and to reunite him and his Parliament And we thought all the Armies had intended no worse But when Naseby Fight was past having heard that the King was left out of the New Commissions I went to see the Field where the Fight was and the Army And there accosted me some sober honest Captains and told me that their Army was corrupted by the fault of the Ministers that had all forsaken them being weary of the Labour and impatient of the Sectaries in the Army and so they were all left to the Preaching of their own Officers and Souldiers and a few Chaplains of their own Mind and Choice And that the bold Leaders began already to say that God hath committed the safety of the Nation to their trust And what were the Lords and Knights in William the Conqueror's time but his Colonels and Captains In a word I understood by them that they had a purpose to set up themselves and to overturn the Government of Church and 〈◊〉 This so surprized me that whereas these Captains intreated 〈◊〉 among them and got Col. Whalley who then seemed of their 〈◊〉 to invite me to his Regiment I took but one days time to answer them And I opened the sad Case that we were all like to be in to an Assembly of Ministers in Coventry whom I gathered to counsel me and told them what I found and that the Land was now like to fall into their hands and that though I thought it was too late I was inclined to venture my life among them in seeking to reclaim them The Ministers Dr. Bryan Dr. Grew Mr. King Mr. Brumskill Mr. Morton and others seeing my inclination gave their consent But the Committee after consent refusing I was forced to tell them what I saw and heard in the Army and what Danger the Kingdom was in and so to go away against their will But Col. W. Puresoy a Confident of Cromwell's threatened me for such words and I imagine sent Cromwell word that Night For the next Morning I was met with scorn and I suppose all known to Cromwell that I had said and Cromwell would never after allow me any opportunity beyond the Regiment that I joyned to And there I spent near two years in Labours and Disputings against well-meaning perverted Sectaries if it had been possible to have turned them from what they after did But my capacity was narrow though there I prevailed with most And I got Mr. Cook since of Chester that suffered much for the King and after by the King a great Enemy to Sects and Sedition to come and help me but they wearied him away And besides Mr. Bowles I know none but perverse Sectaries part Arminians but most Antinomians or worse left to be their Teachers I told the Parliament Men what the Army would do and warned them to prepare But it was too late Cromwell and his Confederates did all and made a Stale of Fairfax's Name and Vane and Haslerigge and their Friends in Parliament disbanded all the sober Souldiers in Garisons and Bragades that would have resisted them and so put the Power of King Parliament and Kingdom into their hands and some of them repented when it was too late In Feb. 1656 7. they began their Conspiracy against the Parliament in a Meeting at Nottingham and that very day God separated me from them by Bleeding 120 Ounces at the Nose at Milborne in Derbyshire when else I had in vain hazarded my life against them at Triploe Heath by drawing from them as many as I could But Sir Edward Hatley and other Officers that did it and drew off about Five thousand did but strengthen them For Cromwell fill'd up their places with Sectaries and Soldiers that had served the King before and was stronger than before as having none to distrust To tell what they did after against the Eleven Members and then against the Majority of the Parliament and then against the King and then against the Rump and then against the Ministry and how Cromwell contrived himself into the Supremacy would be to write the History of that time and to Epitomize Whitlock This much I thought necessary to premise to my own review of my actions and for them that
provoking words on trifling occasions XLIII But all forementioned set together lye not half so heavy on my Soul as my inward Deficience and Omission That having had so many Convictions of the truth of Scripture and the certainty of the Life to come and can scarce think of any thing but death and the future state it is so sure and near and have read and heard and written so much of the Love of God and of Heaven as I have done it shameth it grieveth me it maketh me even abhor and loath my self that I usually reach little higher than pacifick quieting dull Affections and that Faith and Hope and Love do not keep me in more delightful thoughts of God and my Redeemer and in a more joyful longing to be with Christ and all the Blessed and that ever I should have a cold and common thought of God and things so high and holy and that the prospect of my change and the coming of Christ is not a continual Feast to my Soul and setteth me not more above the concerns of this vile and corruptible Flesh and above all impatience of pain and above the fears of Death and Corruption O what a contradiction is there between that Head and Tongue that professeth to believe what I profess of God of Christ of Endless Glory and that Heart that no more rejoiceth in that Belief and Hope but by languor and decay of Nature and doubtless great imperfection of Faith is kept from that joy that such believing in reason should produce and goeth towards Heaven with so many pawses of fear or dulness and so little of that Heavenly delight which I have long been seeking of God and which my low and weak condition needeth Lord all my sins are known to thee let me never be unwilling to know them nor let them be so unknown to me as to invalidate my Repentance or frustrate my hope of pardon through Christ Chap. III. The Reasons why I cannot without known gross Lying profess such Repentance as Dr. Stillingfleet's Anonymus Second and many such others call for or expect § 1. AS it is no less sin to Murder ones self than to Murder another so it is no less to belie ones self than to belie another Yea it is the greater in that it is like to be more against knowledge we being better acquainted with our own thoughts and deeds than with other Mens And it would be the greater sin in me because that the Father of Lies purposely designeth his calumnies to cause hatred in many and to frustrate all my Writings both to the Church and to particular Souls § 2. Why I cannot Repent of my Writings against the Sadduers or Brutists the Antitrinitarians the Somatists the Quakers the Anabaptists the Antinominians the Papists the Separating Dividers and the rest before-mentioned the Books that I have written against them express my Reasons But no Men call me to it by such an agreeing number of voices as the late Protestant Conformists of that fiercer sort who appropriate to themselves the Name of the Episcopal Church of England especially those that are for a Forreign or Universal Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And no Man hath done it with such virulent malice as the Anonymus Author of the Book called The Second part of the Unreasonableness of Separation as seconding Dr. Stillingfleet Whose Libel I shall now peruse and return the Reasons why I cannot Repent of all that he reciteth by way of Accusation § 3. I. In his Preface That my Opinions and Practices have been condemned by the generality of Christians from the most Primitive and Purest Times of the Church Ans To which I appeal and can get no answer § 4. II. I must first tell the Reader that should I stay to confute all the falsification of my words which he pretendeth to recite it would make an unsavoury tedious unprofitable Volume A word put in or left out or altered will serve our grand Accuser to do much of his Works with the Sons of Ignorance and Malice He seemeth to expect that I should Repent of saying that our Civil War between King and Parliament was begun in England between two Parties of Episcopal Protestants And must I repent that I lived in England And that I know what it was naturally impossible for me not to know Why doth he not also make me a Liar for saying that I then dwelt in England and both sides were English Men and spake English Had I been a Mushroom sprung up as lately as our fiery Tories 〈◊〉 had Malice enough to make me mad I might have needed none of his imposed Repentance I have in another writing named the Commanders of the Army and the Parliaments Lords Lieutenants and all the Major Generals besides the Chaplains and Challenged them to find among all these one Presbyterian or two Independants for ten if not twenty Episcopal Protestants A Wise and Credible Parliament Man yet living hath oft told me that when the War begun he knew but One Presbyterian in all the House of Commons which was worthy Mr. Tate of Northampton it being not then known among them The Earl of Warwick who commanded at Sea I knew to be for Communion with the Patish and Episcopal Churches In the Army let them enquire of the Communion and Religion of the General and all his Commanders and I believe they will find among all the Colonels but two Independants the Lord Say and the Lord Brooke and one moderate Puritane yet living the Lord Wharton and that all the rest were moderate Episcopal Conformists what the old Scots Souldiers Browne and Urrey that turn'd to the King were I know not supposing their pay was their Religion We knew this to be true of the Earl of Essex General the Earl of Bedford General of the Horse is yet living and well known Sir John Merrike Major General Colonel Dolbiere the Earl of Peterborough General of the Ordnance Lionell Copley Scout-Master the Earl of Stampford the Lord Roberts lately President of the Kings Privy Council the Lord Hollis the Lord Kimbolton after Earl of Manchester and Lord Chamberlain that chose the Kings Preachers and constantly heard them the Lord Hastings Earl of Huntington the Lord Rochford after Earl of Dover the Lord Fielding after Earl of Denbigh the Lord St. John Son to the Earl of Bullingbrook kill'd at Edghill Col. Goodwin Col. Lssex Col. Grantham Col. Sir Henry Cholmley Col. Bampfield Sir William Constable after turn'd Independant yea Col. Hampden was no Separatist from the Parish Churches but a sober Protestant I have named the rest elsewhere I heard enough of Col. Sandyes before he was mortally wounded to tell me that he was no Puritane And as for the Major Generals of the several Counties the Lord Ferdinando Fairfax the Lord Willoughby of Parham the Earl of Stampford Sir John Gell Sir Tho. Middleton Col. Mitton Col. Morgan Col. Massey Sir William Waller the Earl of Denbigh Col. Langhorne and Col. Poyer were all
not be untaught offered Dr. William Loyd now Bishop of St. Asaph my Chappel for the Parish use And I thank him he accepted it and it is so used by Dr. Tennison to this day 29. In the Country I Preach'd in Rickaursworth Chaferne Amersham Chesham Langley Surraâ— in the Parish Churches to shew that I was not for Separation and went to the beginning of Common-Prayer 30. I was in Law-sence no Nonconformist I think but only in Conscience For I had the Bishop of London's License and I was in no Benefice or Lecture after May 1. 1662. And hereupon Sir Edmond Sanders Lord Chief Justice and Sir Henry Polixfen now Lord Chief Justice gave it me under their hands that my License was still valid and gave me Authority to Preach occasional Sermons in London Diocess Yet did I never use that Power in any Parish here to avoid offence 31. I sent my License with these Lawyers Judgment to the present Bishop Dr. Compton craving his consent to use it in the Country Of which he being unwilling I forbore though the Law allowed it 32. An Irish Informer Keting a Gold-worker thought to set up that Trade for Gain But was cross'd and long waited at my Door to ask me forgiveness And I being loth to trust him he wrote to me his Repentance and shortly after being Imprisoned for Debt saying that God never after prospered him I got him some Money and help'd him out 33. Three or Four more Informers setting up the Trade accused me to Sir Tho Davis Lord Mayor I could not make him believe that he was Judge of my faults but that the Informers were the Judges and that he must execute what they sware against me Nor could I prevail with him to let me see any one of them nor hear their Accusations nor examine or consute them And when I was fined unheard shortly after the chief of the Informers met me in the Street confest his Fault askt me Forgiveness and left his Trade 34. Dr. Manton and I were invited by the Lord Keeper Bridgman with Dr. Bates after to accept the Kings offer for a Comprehension for us and a Toleration for others Dr. Wilkins and Dr. Hez Burton were appointed to treat with us of the terms we came to an Agreement to a word we gave it Judge Hale to draw up in form of an Act to be offered to the Parliament And was that like to be so wicked an Agreement as to be worse than all our Divisions which such Wise and Excellent Men as Judge Hale and Bishop Wilkins and Dr. Burton approved But we refused to meddle with the Toleration leaving his own work to the King and the concerned And so the Parliament was taught to reject all 35. After this at another Session many being set on our Concord Dr. Tillotson and Dr. Stillingfleet were moved by Morley and some Lords to treat with us for Union I got many excellent peaceable Ministers together and we drew in one Sheet a form of Concord The two Drs. seemed to consent so be it the Bishops liked it But Morley purposely seemed to be for the End that he might frustrate the means and so we never heard more of it 36. All this while to this day I never gathered a Church nor was Pastor or Teacher of a Church nor took any Salary but preach'd without pay as an occasional helper to another lest I should seem to be for Separation I thank God that left me not to Necessities 37. I perswaded the people to hear the Parish Ministers and Communicate with them and not to come to us without the want of needful helps at home and I gave the Sacrament to none of them till lately to a few in my own House for a short time which the Liturgy alloweth 38. I was suddenly assaulted by violence on my Doors by two or three Informers Hilton and Bucke and Rutland a Vintner Constable and other Officers by a Warrant from Sir James Butler sent him by Sir James Smith to be Executed who had judged me to be distrained on for 90 l. or more for five Sermons as preached by me against Law and I never to this day was summon'd to answer nor heard who were my Accusers or Witnesses or what proof But they seized on all my Goods Bed Cloaths Library and praised it and sold it I got a Friend to buy it and paid him When had I been heard I had shewed them Sir Edm. Saâ—â—rs Hand that they ought not to Imprison me unsummoned and unheard and I had shewed them my valid Licence and proved that I did nothing contrary to Law And that I was twenty Miles off at the pretended time of one of the Sermons But I never sought remedy nor noised any Accusation against these Justices 39. At the same time they brought a Warrant from Justice Parry and Lame Philips to have sent me Six Months to Goal for dwelling in London But as I was going towards them some stopt me till the King suspended it and said Let him die in his Bed 40. Upon this to avoid this Imprisonment I was forced to abscond in poor strange Houses in languor and constant pain while I paid also great Rent for my own empty House Which I bore without complaining noise 41. The Independants and Separatists said that I was justly used and had drawn more to the publick Churches than all the Ministers in London And some of them said I had done more harm by it than ever I did good 42. I wrote many Books against Schism and Separation against Bagshaw Danvers Mr. Lob and many others to prove the Lay Communion Lawful 43. Roger Le Strange traduced me in his Observations most bitterly and causlesly to foretel me what was purposed against me Even my Book of Patience and my Paraphrase he virulently reviled 44. When I was designed for the Goal before King Charles died the Duke of York foretold it And to secure me till they could find matter of Accusation they bound me to the good behaviour under deep Bonds of me and my Sureties Openly declaring That they took me for innocent and had nothing against me and did it not as a penalty but for prevention intimating that the Court required it or Jefferies 45. When they were prepared Jefferies accused my Paraphrase as aforesaid and sent me to Prison Coming out by a Habeas Corpus I was fain to abscond in the Countrey in constant pain till the Term. Then my oft waitings at the Bar when I could not stand and there to be ragingly reviled by Jefferies and Withins and called Rogue and Knave and not suffered to speak one word of answer for my self and my Council reviled that offered to speak for me was far harder than my Imprisonment And when going from the Bar I only said That his Predecessor thought otherwise of me He said There was not an honest Man in England that took me not for a Knave not excepting the King that had given me another testimony
Independants § 65. Accus LII Page 47. Having told what a few Rumpers said to Monk he saith And because they did this and might justifie it by Mr. B's Theses in his Holy Commonwealth they are the Supream Power the best Governours in all the World Ans How pregnant is malice of falshood 1. It is false that the Parliament in question did what he saith which was done by their Adversaries Such as Scot Robinson and Haseldrigge that flattered Monk till he had them in his Net 2. It is false that my Thâ—ses justifie them which are written against them 3 It is false that it was for this that I call them the Supream Power or the best Governours It 's King and Parliament that I call Supream It was King Parliament the Rump and Richard that the Men whom I wrote against pull'd down And I only tell them that if the Errours of all these Rulers will justifie an Army for Deposing them there is no Power on Earth that might not be so Deposed there being none better than all these Deposed by them § 66. Once more I tell this Accuser and the World that I am so far from justifying King or Parliament from the beginning progress or ending of this War that I think both sides deeply guilty of very heinous sin And I cannot tell whether I know a Man living that hateth War more than I hate it While I medled in it it was far a more sad and hateful Life to me than my abode in Prison was when the Church Defenders laid me there with an unsolvable Fine The truth is both sides began they knew not what I knew not a Man but Sir Francis Nethersole that knew what War was or foresaw what was like to come of it Both sides thought it would be prevented by the Countreys forsaking the other side or that one Fight would end it And no Man can tell just where and when and by whom it was begun No more than just when a Chronical Disease begins in Man Only I am sure that Virtually and Dispositively it began in that division of Minds Hearts and Lives which is common in the World between them that Love a Life of Serious Godliness and cannot Love Wickedness and them that Hate a Godly Life because it 's against their Lust and Carnal Interest Not that every Adversary to the Parliament was a Cainite but that through the Land an Enmity between the Seriously Godly and the Prophane encouraged by Pharisaical Ceremonious Formalists was a War in our Bowels ready to break forth upon the first advantages And the Religious Party as in all former Ages had many young ignorant Novices that by Pride ran into Extreams being self-conceited and unruly and ready by Schism or petulant Censoriousness to vilifie all that be not of their Sects and to pretend Fanatick Inspirations for their Errours As the contrary Party was prone to be so Jealous of their beloved Dominion Wealth and Ease and Honour as to take such for intolerable Enemies that flattered them not in their Worldly Pomp. Long did heart-burnings continue between these discordant Parties one side blaming and the other side ruining those that were against them Till Laud's attempts for Innovation stirred up such opposition in Scotland and distaste in England as I cannot justifie The Parliament encouraged by the Scots went higher in provoking the King than they ought And the King too much occasioned their Jealousie that he intended to have Invaded Property and Liberty and to subdue them by force if they restrained or punished the Executioners of his Illegal Will But this brake out by such degrees that no Man can name the beginning As a small breach in a Pond of Water groweth wider till it let out the whole And as Personal Duels begin in a word or a suspicion and proceed to wrath and then to reproach and thence to revenge When Division was the Death of the Constituted Form of Government both sides should have hated and feared it more than either did But the Parliament thought the King would soon return as deserted And the Devil among us all was as if he had cast among Boys red hot pieces of Brass or Iron and they scrambled for it thinking by the Colour that it was Gold till it stuck to their Fingers and burnt them to the Bone And the dread of 200000 Murdered in Ireland put such a pannick fear in the Antipapists in England as darkened their Wits And yet if the Captain and Mariners fall out by folly the Ship may be preserved by the innocent If the Citizens could not agree about quenching the Fire in 1666. the Inhabitants may endeavour it and pull down Houses to that end without the guilt of injury to the Owners I think that King and Parliament grievously sinned but not equally in doing so much to cause and no more to prevent a Civil War I would they had hearkened to Whitlock's Speech and other Mens healing motions 1641. But who in the beginning fore-knows the end And when once the breach is made usually there is no hope left of any better end than one of the two Parties ruin True is the old saying He that draweth his Sword against his King must throw away the Scabbard When all mutual Trust is gone all hope of Reconciliation is gone The present state of England is a lively Exposition of the beginning of that miserable War We were thus in fear of Popery and Slavery here of late The Murder of 200000 in Ireland and the Papists coming in to the King in England was as loud an Alarm as King James his Liberty of Conscience here The Archbishop and Bishops and the Lay Church Lords and Patrons here had Sworn or Promised against taking Arms against the King on any pretence what soever They did not all own King William's Title to the Crown Yet they thought it lawful to save the Kingdom from a misgoverning King and the Kings own Kindred Lords Army and Clergy forsook him and joyned with him that came in against him They meant it not as owning then the Invaders Right to the Crown nor as disowning King James but to save the Kingdom and it proved contrary to their expectation that without Blood the turn of the Nation turned the Government Just so the first beginners of the resistance of King Charles the First his Army intended no change of the Government and they thought that the War would have been as soon almost ended as begun as King William's was here but when it was once begun reconciliation became impossible And one or others must be ruined Yet we that owned not the miscarriages of either side but thought King and Parliament greatly sinful thought it an absolute Duty to do our best to save the Kingdom from the most threatning danger And we thought that the Massacre of Ireland the Papists in England the malignity of most of the Kings Adherents and the prospect of such an Army of Delinquents Conquering a Parliament and putting
we had great plenty of such Fruit at Home sometime with a grudging Conscience I ventured over the Hedge to a Neighbours Fruit. A Sin that Austin himself confesseth V. I was in a School where one or two Lads corrupted many by obscene talk and immodest actions In which I did not sufficiently disown them or rebuke them but oft too much countenanced them in it As also in fighting and abusing the weaker though I was unable thereto my self VI. Though I was bred under many meer Readers and Tipling or Drunken Schoolmasters and Curates and scarcely heard a Sermon in a long time till I was about Fourteen years of Age or then and after none that I felt any profit by I was not troubled at the loss nor at my ignorance and unprofitableness VII When it pleased God by reading some good Books and by my danger of Sickness about Fifteen years of Age to waken my Conscience I was not so obedient to that awakening Call as I should have been But was oft tempted to my old sin of pleasing my Appetite and had almost been drawn away to a covetous love of Gaming at Cards But God quickly check'd it by an unusual Providence VIII I was strongly possest I think by Pride joyned with a Love of Learning to have setled at the University till I had attained some Eminency of Learning and Titles but God in great Mercy by Sickness and other hinderances saved me from that danger and loss of time and bred me up in a more humbling way and gave me some little help of safe and pious Countrey Tutors IX Weakness keeping me in expectation of Death and God then having given me a greater sence of Mans Everlasting state and of the differences between Faith and Hypocrisie Holiness and a worldly state I thirsted to win others to the same sense and state and to that End offered my self to Ordination when I was too low for so high a Work both in Learning and in a methodical knowledge of Theology And though I was naturally inclined to Logical and Metaphysical Accurateness and method I was too ignorant in Languages and Mathematicks and divers parts of Knowledge had I not been a continual Learner by Books while I was a Teacher I had been a dishonour to the Sacred Office and Work and do repent that I made such haste X. I too rashly in this Ignorance took the Judgment of the Countrey Ministers that had been my Helpers and told me of the Lawfulness of Conformity and believed the Books for Conformity which they perswaded me to read for the English frame of Government and Subscriptions before I had read impartially what was against it or heard any speak on the other side or had well studied the case And so I subscribed sinfully because temerariously And though I was so rash that I cannot say that I am sure that I took the Oath of Canonical Obedience it is so long since yet I think I did because else I had not been Ordained Of this I repent and beg forgiveness for the Merits of Christ Though I had never been like to have been a Minister without it but had turned to some other Calling XI Though I know not that ever I broke the Oath of Canonical Obedience or ever disobeyed my Ordinary yet I changed my Judgment of the Canons of which I cannot repent While I lived a year as a Schoolmaster my Ordinary commanded me nothing which I disobeyed When I removed to a Priviledged place Bridgnorth I was only a Lecturer and my Ordinary commanded me nothing which I did not I did read most of the Liturgy and kneel at the Sacrament And my Ordinary himself Baptized without Crossing and never commanded me to use it or the Surplice VVhen I came to Kidderminster Bishop Thornbury died and Bishop Prideaux never gave me any Command or Prohibition I being a meer Lecturer that never had Presentation and the Vicar using the Liturgy and Ceremonies But yet I repent â—â—at I did think worse of that sort of Diocesane Government which puts not down the Parochial Pastors and Churches than I now do and these Forty years have done For I think that a General Episcopacy over many Churches and Bishops is Jure Divino an Order succeeding Apostles and Evangelists in that part of their Office which as Ordinary must continue But I repent not that I renounced that sort of Diocesanes who put or keep down all the Parochial Pastors or Bishops and Churches making them but as Chappels Parts of a Diocess as the lowest Church and taking on them the sole Episcopacy of many score or hundred Churches Nor do I repent of my unanswered Treatise of Episcopacy written against this sort XII Though I ever disliked the Censorious and Separating Spirit that run into Extreams against Conformity yet I Repent that I did no more sharply reprove it But because almost all the people where I came to preach that were not meer VVorldlings but seemed to be seriously Religious were either against Conformity or wish'd it removed for the Divisions which it caused I overmuch valued their Esteem and Love because I loved their serious piety and having sometimes but very seldom spoken against the Corruptions of the Church Government specially the Silencing of Ministers I can scarce tell to this day whether I did well or ill more good by telling Men what to lament and pray against or more hurt by heartening those that were apt overmuch to Censure Government and the Orders of the Church But I beg God to forgive what was amiss XIII Though I desired such a frame of Episcopal Government as Sir Edward Deering offered or as since Archbishop Usher hath described as Primitive yet out of the sense of the evil that Silencers and Persecutors had done I too much rejoiced when the Tidings came that the Prelacy was Voted down not knowing then what would be set up nor well what to desire For neither Presbytery nor Independency had been then debated or were well understood XIV VVhen I heard of the Scots Covenanting and Arming and entering England though I had not so much knowledge of their Cause as should be a just satisfaction in so great a matter yet I was in Heart glad of it for the appearance that it shewed of enabling the Lords and Commons of England to appear more boldly to plead for their Liberties and Laws But I now think that a Suspension of my thoughts as wanting Evidence had been better XV. VVhen I heard of the tumultuous manner of the Apprentices in London petitioning against Bishops I disliked it and the means that encouraged them and the publick reproach that was cast by the Rabble on those called Straffordians such learned men as the Lord Faulkland Lord Digby c. yea and the urging the King so much for his Execution But I too much silenced my dislike XVI VVhen I saw Mr. Burton's Protestation Protested and the forwardness of many Religious unlearned Persons to run toward Extreams
been tryed therein by many but would not so easily resign what he had got He once admitted me to his Discourse and before the Lord Broghil Lambert and Thurloe I urged him to tell us what the People of England had done to forfeit their right to the Enjoyment of their ancient constituted Government which they professed to be for and still desired And all the answer that I could have was that God had changed it by his Providence the passages of which he talkt over near two hours till Lambert took on him to be asleep for we must not interrupt him Then Sir Francis sent me his Printed Books and some Papers to have disputed over all the Case of the War And not knowing how many such I might be put to answer I thought best in Print to tell him on what Grounds and Principles I had gone not undertaking that I had not mistaken but to desire him if I had erred to shew it by answering my Reasons there given But before I could have his Answer the distracted Armies had overturned all the present Government I repented Writing that Book 1. Because it came out unseasonably too late 2. Because in opposition to Harrington I had pleaded for Monarchy with some excess and I wisht that I had not medled with Government but left all to the Providence of God 3. Because it did occasion more hurt than good so that it became the common Theme of ambitious young Preachers especially at Court before K. Ch. II. as the way to Preferment to talk against The Holy Commonwealth falsly perswading men that by a Commonwealth I meant Democracy or Popular Government which the Book was purposely written against So that when the Oxford University burnt that Book with Dr. Whitby's excellent Reconciler and some others though I expostulated with the Vice-Chancellor concerning its Principles I told them I consented that the Book was burnt though I told them not why as now I do XXXVII Though both Nature and Grace inclined me to hate Lying and specially in Writers and Preachers and I honoured Jul. Caes Scaliger the more because his Son Joseph tells us how vehemently he hated a Lie so that he could not be reconciled to a Liar yet I confess that my impatience herein was faulty It was long before I well perceived that the Father of Lies doth Govern his Kingdom most of the World by meer Lying Call it Errour or Mistake or Falshood or what you will all signifieth the same thing It is delivering Falshood for Truth Christ had told us that the Devil is the Father of Lies and when he speaketh a Lie he speaketh his own Deceit is by Lying and by this he ruleth his World As God's Image consisteth in Life Light and Love the Devil's Image is Hatred Falshood and Hurtfulness or Murder Joh. 8 But alas to take this for some strange thing and to be over-impatient with Liars was my fault when now I find it is but the very state of corrupt unreneved Nature And Pride the Father and Ignorance the Mother make Kingdoms Cities and Persons like a rotting Carkass that swarms with Maggots You that read Histories read with Judgment and due Suspicion for the common corrupt Nature is a lying Nature And it is not about Religion only but the Fool rageth and is confident in all his Errours O what abundance of Lying Books are Shops and Libraries fill'd with even in History and Theology What abundance of false Counsels do Physicians give what abundance of false accusations doth Envy and Malice vend What abundance of false Doctrines and Censures doth ignorant Sectarian Zeal foment How many Lies for one Truth is carried for News or for Slander about the Streets And how few scruple receiving and reporting them how fewer rebuke them It 's useful for the World to know how common this Malady is but it was almost in despair that I lately wrote a Book against it of pretended Knowledge and Love I blame not my self for hating it but being too impatient with it especially in Books and Preachers as if it had been a strange thing XXXVIII When I wrote my five Disputations of Church Government I too hastily mis translated some words of Ignatius and though I then owned Apostolick Successors in the continued part of their Work I did not so fully as now understand how Christ by Institution then founded a National Church nor what a National Church was nor how that which was ultimum in executione a Christian Soveraignty was primum in intentione to which bare Preaching was preparatory XXXIX When I wrote my Treatise of Episcopacy I Calculated it to the Laudian Faction then prevalent that called it self the Church of England and though I distinguished them that put down all the Parochial Pastors and Churches and turned them all into meer Curates and Chappels or partes Ecclesiarum infimarum and so put down hundreds of Bishops and Churches under pretence of magnifying One from the old Reformed Church of England that put not down these but only sinfully fettered them yet I did not so largely open the difference as I ought which gave Mr. Lobb occasion to write confidently for Separation XL. When my Books against Conformity had irritated Dr. Stillingfleet to make me an instance of mischievous Separation who had constantly heard and communicated with my Parish Churches and for my private or occasional Preaching had the Bishops Licence approved under the hands of two the greatest Lawyers of England the Lord Chief Justice Sanders and the now Lord Chief Justice Polixâ—en I doubt that I too provokingly took the advantage of his temerity and confuted him in too provoking terms not considering enough that a Man of great Learning Labour and Merit and Name hath a great interest of Reputation which he would not be insensible of And if it were true as many without proof report that his exasperation engaged first Mr. Morrice and after the second Author of the Mischief of Separation whose writing against me is the transcript of the Character given by Christ John 8. 44. yet I honour the Reading Learning Labour and great Worth of Dr. Stillingfleet now Bishop of Worcester and what ever hand he had in it I unfeignedly forgive him XLI And in defence of the Nonconformists against the false accusation of Shism laid on them by the Imposing Schismaticks I doubt I was too keen in confuting Mr. Sherlocke I found it hard to discern whether the defence of truth and slandered suffering Servants of Christ or not exasperating false Accusers should command my style XLII What other Errors there are or have been in my Life or Writings I daily beg of God to discover to me and pardon For I never did any thing which might not and ought not to have been done better Particularly I beg pardon for too frequent hastiness and harshness of Speech to my nearest Domesticks from whom I never differed one moment in point of Interest or Love but had too often sour over-hasty