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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43841	Fasciculus literarium, or, Letters on several occasions I. Betwixt Mr. Baxter, and the author of the Perswasive to conformity, wherein many things are discussed, which are repeated in Mr. Baxters late plea for the nonconformists, II. A letter to an Oxford friend, concerning the indulgence Anno 1671/2, III. A letter from a minister in a country to a minister in London, IV. An epistle written in Latin to the Triers before the Kings most happy restauration / by John Hinckley ...	Hinckley, John, 1617?-1695.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1680 (1680)	Wing H2046; ESTC R20043	157,608	354

that you printed about the Savoy Business that which you understood not and cannot justifie why do you not rather retract it than wish things had been managed worse Do you not know how much yea very much more we yielded to than ever Hildersham whom you praise or the other old Non-conformist would have done See but the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs and read Dr. John Reignolds Papers to Sir Francis Knowles against Episcopacy and judge whether he himself would have gone any further Indeed I know not that I differ in any Point of Worship Ceremonies or Discipline from that learned Doctor whom you praise § 23. You make me wonder to read what you urge us with about Popery when we so long together spake aloud when we were allowed and told them Our union is our strength and all the faithful Ministers of England are too few to cast and keep out Ignorance Popery and Sensuality and if we were all never so conformable our selves we do know the Land so well that we are sure if such and such things be made necessary to Ministration and Communion many hundred worthy Ministers will be silenced and many thousand religious People will become Separatists and more be offended and our Divisions will involve us in discontents and murmurings on one side and severities on the other and Popery and Prophaness will prosper under our Divisions And you will be necessitated to fill up our Places with many such Ministers as will increase all this misery and all this may now be prevented by that which will do you no harm at all And when after all our endeavours the Flood-gates are pluck'd up which we would have kept down it is now pretended that if we cannot nimbly and deeply swear and subscribe and do all that is imposed on us Popery forsooth will come in and it 's long of us that would fain have prevented it and stop'd the gap § 24. When I had beyond all sober contradiction proved to you that it was Episcopal Men in England that raised the War against the King that I might move you to impartiality and to call them to Repentance you do the poorliest put off that which you cannot confute and yet will not acknowledge as if nothing were criminal in them that are of the Church of England Who knoweth not that many Episcopal Parliaments before had begun the same Quarrels against the King which the Long Parliament prosecuted and cryed out still of Monopolies loss of Liberties and Propriety Arminianism and Innovations in Religion toleration and increase of Popery Read but Rushworths Collections and Heylins Life of Arch-bishop Laud and deny it if you can You cannot deny but that the Long Parliament began in the same temper as the former ended having the irritation of that which they accounted Lauds Innovations to go higher You cannot I think name two in all the House of Commons that were Presbyterians when the War began I provoke you to read over the List of the Lord-Lieutenants of the Parliaments first Militia throughout all England and prove but one of them to be then a Presbyterian or any of them that survive yet to this day I provoke you to name me one General Officer yea or three Collonels in all the Earl of Essex his first Army that were Presbyterians I might have gone further and wish'd you to peruse the Names of all the Parliaments old Major-Generals or Chief Commanders in the several Counties the Earl of Stamford Sir William Waller M. G. Massey the Earl of Denbeigh Sir John Gell Ferdinando Lord Fairfaix Dointz Mitton Sir Tho. Middleton Morgan the Earl of Manchester c. and tell me how many you can find that were Presbyterians I can witness that many greatlyest famed of late for Presbyterians have earnestly pleaded with me for the present Episcopacy I asked you whether it was not only the taking down that which they took to be the Innovations and Exorbitances and civil Power of the Bishops which the Parliament asked when the War began You can give me no answer to any of this that savoureth of sense and modesty but what must grant that it is notoriously certain that it was not a Presbyterian but an Episcopal and Erastian Parliament in England which began the Wars And yet you will rather hide their fact and fault while you aggravate the same in others than you will call the Episcopal Party to repentance What credit shall we ever give to History when a thing so publick and notorious as a Parliament an Army the Lord-Lieuteants the Major-Generals yea and the Synod shall all be represented to be Men of another Party and that had another Cause than indeed they were and had If in the same Age the same Land even where and when a great part of them are yet living and the rest lately were our Neighbours and Familiars there shall yet be found such Men yea Preachers as have the face to tell the World that these at the raising of the War were Presbyterians we may next expect that History may make Posterity believe that they were not English-men I my self knew many of the Parliament many Lord-Lieutenants many of Essex his Army many of the Major-Generals and I scarce remember one Presbyterian among them all at the beginning of the War except two or three Scottish Soldiers that were in Essex's Army and I do not know that they were such but only that they were Scots And for the Westminster Assembly except only the six or seven Independents that were there I provoke you still to name me three English Divines that were Presbyterians or that were not Conformists Now what do you say to all this Do you deny Do you confute any of it Do you name a Man as an instance of my mistake or can you do it § 25. First you tell me I am at much pains to clear the Non-conformists of the guilt of the late War Answ No such matter I only tell you that it was not a Presbyterian Parliament or Army that began the English War 1. The beginning of the War is one thing and the progress is another the Presbyterians or saith Dr. Heylin the Scots Lords for their Church-Lands and Tyths sake began it in Scotland the Papists began it in Ireland one part of the Episcopal against another began it in England 2. All Non-conformists were not Presbyterians 3. Cannot I say that the Episcopal began it without clearing those that did second them or the Sectaries that carried it on to the end You feign me to say that A very few Non-conformists of a multitude were engaged in it whereas my words were It is not one of a multitude of the Nonconformable Ministers that ever took up Arms against the King I speak there of Ministers only and those that are now Non-conformists of whom the far greatest number were then Children and many unborn and many of the elder yea most never medled with Arms But as for the beginning of the

there was such a fatality in it that after I had beseech'd her Ladiship that I might convey him to some House of his Fathers and this not being yielded unto but I was intreated to keep him longer I could not preserve the Walls of my House from being broken in the night time this is this must be for a lamentation I presume you had not pour'd this Vinegar into my Wound had I not been your Remembrancer about your taking the Horses of Will. Lees. And though you deny the Fact both he and his Wife offer to swear it They say they followed you to Coventry and obtain'd an Order from the Committees there to have the Horses restor'd but you refused to obey it Nay they followed you to London and and at Mr. Foley's House came to your Bed-Chamber If their Relation be false or your Memory fail I cannot help it Many and many a time they desir'd me to write unto you for some satisfaction towards maintaining them in their poor decrepit Age. You confess you came into the Kings Quarters in those Parts to take Horses ergo Retract again For in your late Book you say you medled not with the War until after Naseby Fight yet you pray'd and preach'd to the Coventry Garrison Could you forbear to besprinkle your Prayers and Sermons with some of those Principles which after carried you into the Field Although I moved you to retract your Political Aphorisms yet 't was only such as were erroneous and dangerous to our Peace That which you mention about an unlimited Power in Princes or universal Obedience in Subjects even to turn Mahumitans if they command I do as much abhor in the Leviathan as I did dislike those Rotations and fond Principles of Government in the Oceana ergo you might have sav'd the labour of your Dilemma Austin did not retract all that ever he wrote How does it follow I account it my chiefest preferment to preach the Gospel ergo you ask me whether this Gospel which I preach be the unlimited Power of Princes Sure you think I live not in England but in Turkey or else that I am an errand Stranger to the Nature and Latitude of that Embassage which is committed to my trust Well! Injoy your own pleasing Conceit You will be a Gnostick do what I can This is not very stranger For you conclude that since Arch-bishop Abbot refus'd to License Dr. Sybthorpes Book I must suppose him to be a Presbyterian And because I say the King is the Center of our Happiness ergo I must say None must demur to swear to Diocesans or Lay-Chancellors and that those that petition for an alteration of their Government if the King command must not preach The Consequent is not here question'd but the Consequence and your Metaphysical Head will hardly find Enthymems enough to make it good Since you so often tell me in your Letter of the Presbyterians as if you were their great Patron and would set them against me though under that Name I never disturb'd them to gratifie your importunity take my naked Thoughts Many of them I think are good sober religious Men especially such as are deluded and seduc'd into that Sect Errours but if they be Gerrones Men devoted to a Party and addicted to a distinct Government from that under which we live accounting themselves oblig'd to the endeavouring the pulling down Episcopacy establish'd by Law and to set up Presbyterian Government in the Church against the consent of the Supreme Magistrate I think such a Presbyterian quatenus such in the Kingdom of England as things now stand is neither a good Man nor a good Subject but is rather factious seditious schismatical As for your large Narrative concerning the Savoy Transactions wherein you inform my nescience or negative Ignorance for I was not bound to know every Secret of that Assembly I thank you for it I only took notice of what was reveal'd to the World in Print And I heartily wish the Result thereof had been the same with that of Hampton-Court But I perceive the older the World grows the more stiff and inflexible Men are in their own Notions and Opinions Your non-compliance then seems to me as pernicious as Bez●'s heat at the Colloquy at Poissy I had almost said as the abrupt breaking up of the Treaty at Vxbridge I wish some such Men as Dr. John Reynolds had been the Commissioners who might have suppl'd and oyl'd your Wheels and so have allayed the starkeness of your Joynts I will pray for you still in the words of Optatus Vtinam qui jam malam viam intraverant agnito peccato super se reverterentur revocarent quam fugarent Pacem Is not the Roman Eagle ready to prey and quarry upon us all And shall we scatter our selves into Parties and crumble and divide our selves into small Gobbets as if we would facilitate our own Captivity and fit our selves for her Talons You are at much expence of pains to clear the Non-conformists of the guilt of the late War A very few of a Multitude were ingaged in it You lay this Brat at the doors of Bilson Abbot Hooker Of an Episcopal Parliament not above one Presbyterian among four hundred Parliament Men An Episcopal Army Episcopal Lords and Episcopal Lieutenants of Counties I had thought currente Rota whilst your hand was in you would have said that the Regicides had been Episcopal too Sir I do now perceive that Cataline was a Fool If he had laid the Conspiracy against Rome upon Tully might not he have gone free But I foresee also that in process of time it is like to fall out with the late unnatural War as it did with the Gunpowder-Treason Cecil and the Puritanes were accused for this by the Papists And the other though acted but yesterday and by whom is too fresh in our Memories is like to be father'd on Episcopal Men Or else like Filius Populi it will be hard to find the true Father or like Nilus the true Original Give me leave to use the words of a good Author Primo accusant Rei ut crimina in siletium mitterent sua vitam infamare conati sunt alienam ut cum possint ab innocentibus argui innocentes arguere studuerunt Ahab told Elijah Thou art he that troubleth Israel 1 Kings 18. 17. If Episcopal Men began and carried on that War and Presbyterians were free I had almost said Sit anima mea cum Presbyterianis For I hate nothing more than Rebellion But sure you were too credulous and easie to be deceiv'd by your Informer were they Episcopal Men that cry'd To your Tents O Israel That preach'd Curse ye Meroz first voted and then fought against the King If they were they were degenerous from the English Episcopacy They did not keep close to our Church which were my words to our Articles our Canons our Liturgy and our Homilies If they were Episcopal Men they had found out some new model'd Episcopacy I will

for what I said than meer hear-say 53. Here you repeat concerning the Oath of non-endavouring the Alteration of Government But as you say nothing but what hath been said before so I have nothing to say but what I have said already until something be produc'd de novo 54. Who it is that does most to drive people from the Parish Churches I am satisfied by experience and whether all Nonconformist Dissenters be such children of hell as you describe them Methinks you are like a waspish or cholerick Disputant who being impatient of contradiction and having spent his stock of reason falls to chiding and supplies the want of argument with the overflowing of the gall and 't is no wonder you begun to faulter and rage at the latter end of the day after so tedious a Journey I mean so long a discourse But when you are refreshed revolve with your self in your retirement and solitude 1. Whether we that now bear the heat of the day I might ask you according to your procedure whether you mean me do drive men from the Parish Churches 2. Whether I describe dissenters all of them to be the children of hell Reverende Pater in hisce duabus Quaestionibus expecto animi tui sententiam Take heed of that pernicious Luciferian Counsel Calumniari fortiter haerebit aliquid Let St. Paul rather instruct you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak the truth in love Away with these Heats let 's tear one the other in pieces no longer Can you blame me for saying such dissentions make Musick at Rome Let us shew our selves to each other like Joseph and his Brethren at their interview in Aegypt Though my Judgment leads me to be Pius Inimicus to the Non-conformity of the Non-conformists yet nothing shall make me uncharitable to their Persons 55. To write a just Defence of the Non-conformity which I own would take up more time than I have to spare unless I saw a probability of better effect than by putting it into your Hand as now you motion I will not say this is a Tergiversation for if there be any that comes near St. Johns Hyperbole of writing more Books than the World can contain you are the Man If you do but open the Flood-gates of your Lips out there gushes such a Torrent I allude still to St. John but 't is to the Dragon in the Revelation that is enough to overwhelm such a Pigmy as I am Your Foam is the more grievous because it is brackish I expect nothing from you but scorn and that you should pronounce your wonted Raca against me in a higher Key and a more Emphatical Accent You will have the Lions Motto Nemo me impune lacessit Yet I could wish that if your Writing be no sweeter it might be shorter and that you would contract your swelling thoughts and like the Oracle speak much in a little for I am weary in following you I hope you will no more tell me that I call upon you to blow against a flaming Oven and to do Impossibilities when I call'd for your Reasons of Non-conformity You tell me I know no such Book could be licens'd yet when I made the motion in assisting you in the Birth you utterly waved my Overture If you are under affliction I hope it will make you to judge as one that must be judged Sir I told you the very truth I was entering into the Furnace in my last and since that God has been pleas'd to drench and plunge me deeper both as to my Person and Family else you had receiv'd this Return much sooner Though I might have thought such an Intimation might have procur'd your forbearance and that you would not have come upon me when I was sore I thank you that you have any hope that I may improve my afflictions by sucking some Honey out of such a hard Rock and I can bless God that of very faithfulness he hath caused me be troubled I can kiss the Rod without any murmuring Sobs and adore him that has made me to smart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is God that beareth Rule in the Kingdom of Heaven and Earth therefore I praise honour and extoll him all whose Works are Truth and his Ways Judgment What Talents the same God hath bestowed on me I shall lay them out not to drive Men from the Congregation but to invite and wooe them more and more into the Church that they may come under the Net of the Gospel and the droppings of Heaven Herein I should rejoyce to have your Co-operation and the assisting Labours all little enough of all our dissenting Brethren Whilst I am an unworthy Labourer in the Lords Vineyard and Your Devoted Friend Jo. Hinckley Northfeild Octob. 13. Mr. BAXTER'S Fourth Letter SIR WHen I had written an Answer to your last the Transcriber moved slow in his Work and it being somewhat long fourteen Sheets before he had finished it I heard from a double report of your own acquaintance that you purposed to print what you got from me At the first hearing I was not sorry for it But upon second thoughts these four Reasons put a stop to the mission of the Papers to you 1. I have written more plainly and smartly than I would have done if it had been for any ones use besides your own A secret conviction and reproof may be sharper than an open one 2. I am confident that you cannot get the whole licensed and I cannot easily think that you are willing Upon your encouragement a few sheets against Bagshaw since dead were printed without License and were surprized in the Press and if you should print mine by scraps and not entirely I should take it for a great injury and dishonesty 3. And I doubt it would be offensive to some and so might tend to my own disquiet for to make it so plain as that nothing but a high degree of Ignorance or Impudence can contradict it that the Parliament that raised Arms against the King were by profession Episcopal such as Heylin describes Abbot to be as against those whom they accused of Innovation and rais'd suspitions that they were reconciling us to Popery at the price of our loss of Propriety and Liberty I have been fain to name so many Men of whom some are yet living that I know not how they will take it to have their Military Acts recited after the Act of Oblivion and I believe those Clergy-men that have used this false Visor to put on the Non-conformists to make them odious that it was they only and not the Episcopal that began the English War will be very angry to have their fraud detected 4. But all these are small matters in comparison of the last Though God hath given us a King who is so firm to the Protestant Religion as to make a severe Law against all that shall cast out suspitions of his being inclin'd to Popery yet all Men are mortal and God knoweth into

these several years when that great Body the Parliament reap nothing but the Whirlwind and have brought forth nothing but untimely fruit for several Centuries One brush of this Besom sweeps away the Webs of all their Church-Laws It was not so in the time of H. 3. for when there was a Motion tending to the Retrenching of one Law the Barons and Earls gave this short Answer Nolumus leges Angliae mutari and good reason for a City may be as safe without Walls as a Kingdom without Laws Nay as if the Plague of Athens had been amongst us we began to stand off and stare one upon another as if we had forgotten That ever we went to the House of God as Friends I am sure you are such an exact Master in Story that you well know what is said of Those that recover'd from that Pestilence That they were so stupify'd that they had forgotten their nearest Friends But though they are willing on a sudden to forget and cast us off and to reject our Doctrines of Piety Peace and Obedience yet will they not return to their former Vomit Have they forgotten to Judge Censure and to shed the blood of their Brethrens names Have they forgotten to Sequester and Banish Had they but another Declaration to Authorise them thereunto The Lion they say may be so tam'd that you may stroke him and he may lick you yet if his tongue which is rough draw the least blood with his slaver he is so ravish'd with the Savouriness of it that he is put into a rage So the fiercest Schismaticks may be so gentle that they will fawn upon you for a time yet if they do but taste the sweetness of Power and Liberty you are in danger of begging a Toleration of them who were so free to let them loose and to take off from them the Awe of Legal Restraint If Beasts break out of their own Pastures and feed on the other side of the Hedge it will not be easie to reduce them from their wandring Purlieus into their ancient bounds many Children have been utterly undone by too Indulgent Parents I wish this Religious liberty do not make them wanton in matters Civil And that this Toleration in the Church do not make way for another in the State Some Birds when they are let out of the Cage will not stoop presently to the Lure And Head-strong Horses having once shak'd off the Bridle will never cease running until they have thrown off the Saddle too I have always thought that Regularity in the Church and faithful Preaching there has been the best School to educate and train up the best and most conscionable Subjects Therefore it was the Saying of a wise man That Schism is worse than Corruption of Manners For that tends to the dissolution of the Compositum and this is but an ill humour in the Body that ends in Death This in a Distemper We see this in a mirrour before our faces How are we crumbled as it were into Atoms by the late Thunderbolt who stood together a little before as an Army with Banners terrible to our Enemies lovely and beautiful to our Friends How hath the Lord cover'd the Daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger and cast down from Heaven the beauty of Israel and remembred not his foot-stool in the day of his anger Sir I am in so Tragical a vein that I could even transcribe the whole Book of the Lamentations for we are not only broken into shivers our strength and spirits wasted in vain and our pleasant fruit blasted But the Peoples ears are precluded and stopt like the Companions of Vlysses that they will not hearken to our Charms If we Preach up Peace and Unity this is to cast Pearls before Swine who are ready to turn again and rent us in pieces for our labours This is not their Element They must have more of the Whirlwind What Preach up Obedience to the Law This is little better than Rebellion against the Law-maker And Treason against the King The wind is turn'd and beats back our Arrows into our own faces we told them formerly of an ungodly War against the King How justly let Heaven and Earth bear witness Now they tell us we are the King's Enemies if we speak a tittle against private Meetings And this venomous shaft pierces deepest of all What Shall those that have pray'd paid fought against the King Reproach those for Traitors who have lost Blood and Estates and jeoparded their very Lives for him who Preach up Obedience and Loyalty to his Sacred person and Government I dare say that never any King had a more Loyal Clergy The poor Levites of old did never put forth their strength more chearfully to carry the Ark than we do to support the Throne As if it were not only our Duty but our Ambition to Honour the King I say not this as if we did supererogate or merit but that we are most willing to do what we can towards the Discharge of our Consciences to God and the King And should the King think it fit in his Ratio de Stato to devest us of all our Imployments and to put us under the very Harrows of our Adversaries to tyrannize over us as in the days of Yore yet we would be as Zealous for the Honour and Safety of his Sacred Majesty as when we wept by the Waters of Babylon fasted and pray'd for his Return to his just Inheritance Nay when we trudged many a Mile to Persons of Quality and Estates who were propitious to us in those days of Persecution to pay some Tribute to their exil'd Prince You well know who carried their Lives in their hands that they might convey it like David's Worthies they rush'd thorow the very Army of the Philistims that they might refresh their drooping King with the waters of Bethlem and who they were that were deeply engaged in all Designs to dethrone Olofernes that our Rightful Sovereign might be restor'd to his Crown when some of these very Men who are now shielded and shelter'd under this Indulgence said where is now your King Nay where is young Tarquine Ch. St. Just as David's Enemies insulted over him in his distress saying Where is now thy God yet neither Reproaches nor Threatnings though we saw the blood of our Fathers and Brethren shed before our faces could abate our Resolution and Courage in so good a Cause Were it not for this I should be like a man that passes over a narrow Bridge and then looks back and wonders how he came over so should I be amaz'd how we that were bred up in Calls and wrapt up in soft Gowns should pass thorow so many hazards were it not for the Integrity of Conscience within and the Providence of a good God without And what are we transformed now Are Men turn'd into Hogs and Hogs into Men If this Indulgence has made them loyal to all intents and purposes without Reserves and Equivocations