in a way that should make their hearts to ake I think saith Mr. Baxter their hearts have aked by this time and as they judged him to the Gallows for his Prediction so hath Christ executed them by Thousands for their Rebellion against him Now it is evident what Discipline Vdal meant by his Confederacy with Coppinger Penry c. of which Cambden p. 420. of his Eliz. Angl. says Some of those Men who were great Admirers of the Geneva Discipline thought there was no better way for establishing it in England than by railing against the English Hierarchy and stirring up the People to a dislike of Bishops They therefore set forth scandalous Books against the Government of the Church and Prelates as Martin Mar-Prelate Minerals Diotrephes A Demonstration of Discipline c. In which Libels they set forth virulent Calumnies and opprobrious Taunts and Reproaches in such manner as the Authours seemed rather Scullions out of the Kitchin than pious and godly Men yet the Authours were Penry and Vdal Ministers of the Word Bishop Bancroft quoteth a Pamphlet of Mr. Vdal's called A Dialogue where he says That the Bishops Callings are meer Antichristian p. 59. of Dangerous Positions and p. 45. he says They were very devilish and infamous Dialogues and that there was a Conspiracy between Coppinger Wigginton c. by some extraordinary means such as Vdal had prophesied should make their hearts to ake for releasing of some that stood in danger of their lives meaning as I suppose says the Bishop Vdal Newman c. The dangers threatned by such extraordinary means to disturb the Goverment hastned the Trial of Vdal who with three others took occasion from the intended Invasion in 88 to alarm the Nation at home as also they did on the Powder Plot and to this day do by scattering seditious Pamphlets Vdal was charged with a Book called A Demonstration of Discipline which Christ hath prescribed in his Word for the government of his Church in all times and places to the Worlds end The Preface was directed To the supposed Governours of the Church of England to whom he says Who can deny you without blushing to be the cause of all ungodliness seeing your Government is that which giveth leave to a Man to be any thing save a sound Christian for certainly it's more free in these days to be a Papist Anabaptist of the Family of Love yea as any most wicked rather than what we should be And I could live these Twenty years as well as any such in England yea in a Bishop's House it may be and never be molested for it So true is that you are charged with in a Dialogue lately come forth and by you burnt that you care for nothing but the Maintenance of your Dignities be it to the damnation of your own Souls and infinite millions more The whole Book being like this Preface he was indicted at the Assizes held at Croyden and found guilty He pleaded That he was indicted on the Statute of 23 of Eliz. c. 2. for publishing seditious words against the Queen but that the Book charged on him contained no seditious words against the Queen but the Bishops only But it was answered by the Judges N.B. That they who spake against her Majesty's Government in Cases Ecclesiastical her Laws Proceedings or Ecclesiastical Officers which ruled under her did defame the Queen And on clear proof that he was the Authour of that Libel he was found guilty and received Sentence of Death but by intercession of Archbishop Whitgift was Reprieved Mr. Baxter's actings have been so like Mr. Vdal's that it is no wonder to find him labouring to justifie him in a Cause wherein himself is so nearly concerned In 1659. came forth Mr. Baxter's Key for Catholicks dedicated To his Highness Richard Lord Protector p. 323. where he asserts That if the Body of a Commonwealth or those that have part in the Legislative Power and so in the Supremacy should be unwillingly engaged in a War with the Prince suppose the Long Parliament or the Commonwealth under Oliver against King Charles the First and after many years Blood and Desolations judiciously take away his Life as guilty of all this Blood and not to be trusted any more with Government as the Parliaments Vote for Non-address to the King And all this they do not as Private Men but as the remaining Soveraign Power and say they do it according to Law undoubtedly this case doth very much differ from the Powder Plot or Papists murdering of Kings With much more to the same evil purpose And doubtless the difference is great it is more horrid for Subjects to pretend Justice than for the Pope to attempt by secret Plots to destroy a Protestant Prince In the year 58. he prints his Five Disputations of Church Government which were designed against restoring the extruded Episcopacy and Liturgy and to justifie the Presbyterian Ordination where as also in his Method for Peace p. 389. he saith We have taken down the superfluous honour of Bishops viz. their power over Presbyters as Antichristian This disputatious Book he says was written against Dr. Hammond who was then his Neighbour and he dealt very friendly with him for he scarce touched one of his Arguments but the design of the Book was to destroy the whole Order as Optatus said of a Donatist Dei Episcopos linguae gladio jugulasti fundens sanguinem non corporis sed honoris Opt. Milevit l. 2. And because after No Bishop follows No King in 1659. he sets forth his Holy Common-wealth which was no other than a Plot to keep out the King as the other was to keep out the Bishops for there being great hopes that upon so many Revolutions of Government we should settle again on our ancient Foundations he says He suited that Book to the demands and doubts of those times And his endeavour is to prove That the King being secluded and his Subjects discharged of their Obedience ought not to be readmitted Thus in the Preface That a Succession of wise and godly Men may be secured to the Nation in the highest Power is that I have directed you the way to in this Book And thus he explains himself First as to the higher Powers Prove saith he that the King was the highest Power in the times of Division and that he had power to make that War that he made and I will offer my Head to Justice as a Rebel These confident Assertions of his were such as brought a far better Head to the Block But what would Mr. Baxter have My wish is saith he that our Parliaments may be holy and this ascertained from Generation to Generation by such a necessary Regulation of Elections that all those who by wickedness have forfeited their Liberties i.e. the King and Loyal Party may neither choose nor be chosen And the reducing Elections to faithful honest upright men such as he says were then in Richard Cromwel 's Parliament is the only
Theological Differences but Law Differences Letter to Mr. Hinckley p. 25. The first open beginning was about the Militia says Mr. B. And how then did the Bishops begin it The Commons wrested it from the King and by one Order after another seized his Forts and Magazines the Tower of London and his Navy Had any of the Bishops a hand in this They all did and now do own That the sole command and disposition of it is and by the Laws of England ever was the undoubted Right of his Majesty and that both or either of the Houses of Parliament cannot nor ought to pretend to the same They were such Conformists who begun the War as Mr. B. who taught That the Law that saith the King shall have the Militia supposeth it to be against Enemies and not against the Commonwealth nor them that have a part in the Soveraignty and to resist him here is not to resist Power but Vsurpation and private Will And where the Soveraignty is divided into several hands as into King and Parliament and the King invades the other part they may lawfully defend their own by War and the Subject lawfully assist them yea though the power of the Militia be expresly given to the King unless it be also expressed that it shall not be in the other H.C.W. Thes 363. Another beginning of the War was a Confederacy with the Scots then in the Bowels of the Nation with whom the King was informed that some of the Parliament held Correspondence with The Earls of Essex of Warwick Bedford Clare Bullingbrook Mulgrave Holland the Lords Say and Brook and many more were said to be of this Confederacy p. 17. of B's Life with the five Members and Kimbolton whom the Parliament and City protected from the hands of Justice and procured and countenanced armed Tumults Mr. B. makes an Objection p. 474. of H.C.W. That Tumult at Westminster drove him i.e. the King away Answ Only by displeasing not by endangering or medling with him though the King tells us otherwise in his Chapter of Tumults to which I refer and observe Mr. B's Account p. 19. of his Life That too great numbers of Apprentices and others emboldned by proceedings of Parliament not fore-knowing what fire the sparks of their Temerity would kindle did too triumphingly and disorderly urge the Parliament as they had done the King crying Justice Justice the King called these Tumults the Parliament called them City Petitioners which in the end did more than displease the King So that his Report of an Episcopal War was but a Dream of his own though he affirms he was as sure of it as of any thing that he saw yet elsewhere he says no Man can tell where and when and by whom the War was begun Confessions p. 61. Mr. B. knows another sort of five Members that begun the War who were no Episcopal Men I mean the Smectymnuans who wrote so insolently and pedantickly against that meek pious and learned Bishop Hall And how Isaac Pennington brought a Petition of 15000 Londonners against Archbishops Bishops c. which was seconded by the like from several Counties And on March 10. 1640. a Bill is read in the House against Episcopacy and their Vote in Parliament taken away and many of them sent to the Tower for entring a Protest for their Priviledge Did any of the Bishops call in the Scots or promote the Covenant or sit in the Assembly who were chosen to that very end that they might stir up the People to assist the Parliament against the King Though all these things be left on Record yet Mr. B. thinks by his bare Authority to perswade the present and succeeding Generations that the War was begun by Bishops and carried on by a Parliament an Army and Assembly of Conformists yet to excuse the Presbyterians he says p. 26. that the Separatists and Anabaptists began the War Mr. B. will not say that Bishop Hall whom he so frequently commends had any hand in the beginning of our Wars nor will he ever be able to perswade others that what he hath written and publickly delivered as Matter of Fact in the beginning of our Troubles is false I therefore refer the Reader to that Treatise written with his own hand May 29. 1647. having first given you part of a Speech delivered by this excellent Prelate in the House of Lords p. 425. of his Remains My Lords It is a foul and dangerous Insolence which is now complained of to you in the Petitions against Bishops but it is but one of an hundred of those which have of late been done to the Church and Government The Church of England as your Lordships cannot but know hath been and is miserably infested on both sides with Papists on one side and Schismaticks on the other The Psalmist hath of old distinguished the Enemies of the Church into wild Boars out of the Wood and little Foxes out of Burroughs the one whereof goes about to root up the very Foundation of Religion the other to crop the Branches and Blossoms and Clusters thereof both of them conspire the utter ruine and devastation of it As for the former of them I do perceive a great deal of good zeal for the remedy and suppression of them and I do heartily congratulate it and bless God for it and beseech him to prosper it But for the other give me leave to say I do not find many that are sensible of the danger of it which yet in my apprehension is very great and apparent Alas my Lords I beseech you to consider what it is that there should be in London and the Suburbs and Liberties no fewer than fourscore Congregations of several Sectaries as I have been credibly informed instructed by Guides fit for them Coblers Taylors Felt-makers and such like Trash which all are taught to spit in the face of their Mother the Church of England and defile and revile her Government From hence have issued those dangerous assaults of our Church Governours from hence that inundation of base and scurrilous Libels and Pamphlets wherewith we have been of late over-born in which Papists and Prelates like Oxen in a Yoke are still matched together O my Lords I beseech you to be sensible of this great indignity do but look on these Reverend Persons Do not your Lordships see here sitting on these Benches those that have spent their time their strength their bodies and lives in preaching down and writing down Popery and which would be ready if occasion were offered to sacrifice all their old blood that remains to the maintenance of that Truth of God which they have taught and written And shall we be thus despightfully ranged with them whom we do thus professedly oppose But alas this is but one of those many scandalous Aspersions and intolerable Affronts that are daily cast upon us My Lords if these Men may with freedom and impunity thus beat down Ecclesiastical Authority it is to be feared they will not
did conclude his own Prayer with it a great part of his Auditory would presently depart out of the Church as if it were impossible for them to be edified by such a Preacher as had no better Gift of Prayer And thus to make a thorough Reformation they first agreed on no more Addresses unto God before they Voted no more Addresses to the King The Creed and Commandments suffer the same Indignities being generally omitted in their Publick Worship and in many places especially at their Lectures scarce a Chapter of the Holy Scripture read to the People the whole Exercise being made up of Extemporary Prayer and Preaching the best of their Sermons if I may account them so that are printed and were preached in the greatest Congregations on most Solemn Occasions abounding with such Invectives against the King such Arguments and Motives to Rebellion and Shedding of Blood as will be an indelible Reproach to the Presbyterian Party who so taught others the Doctrine of Resisting their Superiours that they soon felt it to be practised against themselves who had broken down all the Fences of Government and opened those wide Breaches by which so many Heresies and so great Confusion overflowed the Nation so that the Pulpit-Drums exceeded those of the Field in doing Mischief drawing on more Souls to Destruction than the other did Bodies Mr. Baxter p. 43. of his Life tells us what Chaplains were in Essex's Army Abundance of famous excellent Divines were Chaplains to his Army Stephen Marshal and Dr. Burgess to Essex 's Regiments Obadiah Sedgwick to Col. Hollis Calibut Downing to the Lord Roberts John Sedgwick to the Earl of Stamford Dr. Spurstow to Hamden 's Mr. Perkins to Col. Goodwin 's Mr. Moore to the Lord Wharton 's Adoniram Bifield to Sir Henry Cholmley 's Mr. Nalton to Col. Grantham 's Mr. Simeon Ash to the Lord Brooks Mr. Morton of Newcastle to Sir Arthur Haslerigge with many more These were the first Incendiaries Boutefew's that first kindled and continued the Wars and such of the King's Friends as escaped the mouth of the Armies Swords were sentenc'd to a worse Death by the Sword of these Mens mouths In the Year 43. when the Parliaments Army were worsted and weakned by the King and they thought themselves in danger of being overcome they intreated help from the Scots who taking advantage of their straits brought in the Covenant as the Condition of their help Thus Mr. Baxter p. 127. of his first Plea who confesseth it was contrived as a Stratagem of War to bind the Faction in both Nations in a Confederacy against the King and strengthen the War against him for the doing whereof they pawned their Souls to each other as his Majesty observes in the Chapter of the Covenant And if it be considered by how many Solemn Oaths and Protestations the Subjects of both Nations as well as by the Laws of God and Nature were obliged to defend his Majesty's Person and the Laws and Government established it will appear to be true as Mr. Philip Nye observed concerning the Covenant That for Matter Persons and other Circumstances the like hath not been in any Age or Oath we read of in Sacred or Humane Story But it did the work for which it was designed it brought in the Scots Armies by by the promised hopes of dividing the Church Lands upon the Extirpation of Episcopacy and was as fatal to the King as to the Bishops For the King's Forces being broken he withdraws from Oxford where he was besieged and commits himself to the Scots Army who sollicite him to take the Covenant and sign their Propositions for the Presbyterial Government Henderson is sent to dispute the point with the King and he being baffled Mr. Cant Blaire and Douglas endeavoured the same but more by railing than reasoning with him One of them besides many rude expressions in his Sermon before the King called for the 52 Psalm which begins thus Why dost thou Tyrant boast abroad Thy wicked works to praise Whereupon the King presently stood up and called for the 56 Psalm which begins thus Have mercy Lord on me I pray For men would me devour Which the People readily sung leaving the other And the Commissioners of the General Assembly resolved That if the King be excluded from Government in England for not granting the Propositions concerning Religion and the Covenant it was not lawful for that Kingdom to assist him for the Recovery of the Government Nay they threaten to deliver him up to the Parliament of England as shortly after they did for 400000 l. for the raising of which Sum an Ordinance is past for Sale of the Bishops Lands at Ten years value Nov. 16. And by another Ordinance Febr. 8. none were to bear any Office Civil or Military that refused to take the Covenant The Parliament having gotten the King in their power thought themselves very secure and therefore resolves to disband the whole Army Horse and Foot and to send a good part of them for Ireland which so startled the Army that they began to take new measures And first they demand their Arrears for 56 Weeks Next that a Declaration against the Army March 13. might be recalled and they secured for what had been done in the late Wars which things at a general Rendezvouz they petition the Parliament for who being under great fears Vote all that was desired But the Army had a farther design and by 1000 Horse under Cornet Joyce seize the King's Person and detain him in the power of the Army which was Cromwel's design who though he sate with the Members at Westminster and protested there with Execrations against himself and his Family that he was ignorant of the Fact yet he told his Considents that having got the King into his hands he had the Parliament in his Pocket And presently he falls to purging of the House impeaching Eleven of the chief Presbyterians of High Treason and secluded them the House and afterward got the Militia of London into their hands for the Army being drawn up on Hounslow-heath marched up to the Parliament House and gave it a second purge of many more Members and marching triumphantly through London did demolish their Works and never left till he had setled the Parliament to his own liking But to return to Mr. Baxter Four years he says he was a Member of the Army part of which time by what follows will appear to be after that the Independent Party was predominant and the Army new modelled yet he tarried with this Army under Cromwel until the King was murthered and till Richard the Protector was cast out of the Government by those that had placed him in it Hear what Mr. Baxter says p. 14. of his Answer to Bagshaw Is it possible for any sober Christian in the World to take them to be blameless or these to be little sins What the violating of the King's Person and the Life of so good a King and the Change
War and was supported fourteen years in a languishing estate wherein he had scarce a waking hour free from pain And thus though against his will he is forced to leave the Army And might not Mr. Baxter justly say and the Reader believe him in this as he writes in a Letter to Dr. Hill I have been in the heat of my Zeal so forward to changes and ways of blood that I fear God will not let me have a hand in the peaceable building of his Church And the Judgment of God is eminently upon him who hath been so far from building that it hath ever since been his great business to destroy the best established Church in the World which will appear by taking a view of this mortified Man in his retirement from the War And we find him sitting down on the sequestred Living of Mr. Dance at Kedderminster he had inticed many of that place and neighbourhood to the War and some few returned with him again How far he was given to Plunder in the time of War whereof he hath been accused I affirm not but it will draw a shrewd suspicion on him that he was not afraid to take a Horse or two in time of War who seized on the Person of a Neighbour to serve as an Exchange for his Father and possessed himself of the Livelyhood of Mr. Dance of whom he confessed as the then Bp. of Worcester's Letter p. 3. informs That he was a Man of an unblameable Life and Conversation though not of such Parts as might qualifie him for the Cure of so great a Congregation And though Mr. Baxter was not welcomed here by a Miracle as he was at * See Mr. Baxter's Relation of this in a Postscript to his True Catholick p. 294. Bridgenorth where the Report is that it rained Manna on the Church wherein he was to officiate yet he was convinced by Providence as he says in that Epistle That it is the Will of God it should be so a strange Argument from God's permission of an unrighteous Act that it is his Will it should be so For this saith he I clearly discerned in my first coming to you in my former abode with you and in the time of my forced absence from you But the truth is Mr. Baxter had too much adhered to the Presbyterian Interest to be advanced by that Army though he desires them to remember how far he had gone with them in the War and pleadeth their acknowledgment that a special Presence of God was with the Parliament and presseth on them the Sin of forcing out 140 Members first and then 120 and their proclaiming it Treason to say that the Parliament was in being And then he urgeth those Scriptures to them which himself had shewn them an example to contemn Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2.13 and that they might know his meaning he tells them That the secluded Members were the best Governours in all the World that they had the Supremacy and yet had been resisted and deposed in England It was a Sin with Mr. Baxter to oppose the Usurpers and a Duty to resist the King and fight against him which Mr. Baxter did for four years together And it is to be believed saith Mr. Baxter that a man would kill him against whom he fights p. 423. Holy Commonwealth But Mr. Baxter was not very constant to his own Profession concerning his long beloved Parliament For in the same place and breath almost he says Secondly I mean the Powers that were last layed by viz. Richard and his Parliament of whom he says as to Richard That he piously prudently and faithfully to his immortal honour did exercise the Government how ill soever you have used him But wherein did all this Piety and Prudence appear was it that he did inherit from his Father Oliver a tender care of the Cause of Christ of which you seem to give an instance in the Protestants of Piedmont when it was notorious that a great part of the Charity of the Nation for their Relief was employed in maintaining the War against the King Was it that at the instance of a few of his Officers he dissolved that Parliament of his Was it in swearing that he would to the utmost of his power maintain and preserve the just Rights and Priviledges of the People and govern according to Law which he could not do Was it in making a tame Submission to some of his Army calling them The present Government from whom he expected Protection and held himself obliged to live peaceably under them and to procure to the utmost of his power that others should do so too These things argue no great stock of Piety Prudence or Faithfulness And as to Richard's Parliament which had an Upper House consisting mostly of Military Mechanical and Fanatick Members a Lower House of Men of none or very ill note Of this Parliament Mr. Baxter says He never had known a Parliament more inclined to Piety and Peace the Long Parliament not excepted whereof he gives this instance Because it was their desire to have setled Elections according to Mr. Baxter's advice i.e. to keep out all whom he calls ungodly from chusing or being chosen See the Preface to the Holy Commonwealth These and such like were they of whom Mr. Baxter says They were the best Governours in all the World such as they had sworn and sworn to obey again and again such as might not be imposed on pain of Damnation and that he would with great rejoycing give a thousand thanks to that Man that would acquaint him of one Nation in the World that had better Governours in Soveraign Power as to Holiness and Wisdom conjunct than these who yet had been resisted and deposed It seems Mr. Baxter could have been easily reconciled to any Governours but those to whom of right the Government did belong And any Reader conversant in Mr. Baxter's Writings may observe that Mr. Baxter never complained so much of Arbitrary Government and Persecution under any of the Revolutions of Usurped Powers as he hath done since the King and Church were restored nay he wrote as industriously for Obedience to some of them as he hath since to incourage Disobedience to these And let me desire the Reader to consider what ground Mr. Baxter had for his great veneration of the Secluded Members more than for those who were called the Rump Did not they agree in that accursed Vote of Non-Addresses to the King before their Seclusion Did not they upon their re-admission re-enforce the Engagement to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth without a King or House of Lords Did not some of them provide an Oath of Abjuration of the King to be taken by such as were to sit in the Council of State Did not some of them send to General Monk to advise him that he must take that Oath before his admittance into that Council Did they not offer to settle Hampton-Court on General Monk and desire him to take
that time was abused and employed to very ill uses yet with Mr. Baxter Oliver is as David and his Son Richard as Solomon Mr. Baxter's Key for Catholicks was dedicated to Richard Cromwel where he gives this Character of himself One that rejoyceth in the present happiness of England and wisheth earnestly that it were but as well with the rest of the World and that honoureth all the Providences of God by which we have been brought to what we are One that concurs in the common hopes to these Nations under your Government And in another Epistle before his Five Disputations of Church-Government when all Religions were tolerated except that of the Church of England to prevent the toleration of that he says If you give Liberty to all that is called Religion you will soon be judged of no Religion and loved accordingly How Mr. Baxter and his Party behaved themselves during the Imprisonment of the King and while he was in the hands of his Murderers they are not willing to discover Mr. Baxter for his part says That he proved in the times of Usurpation that the Presbyterians detested it that the London Ministers printed their Abhorrence of it to the World Preface to Second Plea As for the London-Ministers I read that about 59 of them in number pleaded for the King in these words That the woful Miscarriages of the King himself which we cannot but acknowledge to be very many and great in his Government have cost the three Kingdoms so dear and cast him down from his Excellency into a horrid Pit of Misery beyond example This Plea for the King is like their late Pleas for Peace i.e. Justifications of Schism and Sedition for in it they say enough to excuse the Regicides We cannot but acknowledge i.e. we affirm and bear witness that the woful Miscarriages of the King himself not of his evil Counsellors only but his personal Crimes and fundamental Errours in Government too many and great to be here mentioned have cost the three Kingdoms so dear as that all the Bloodshed and Rapine and Devastations that have been made in England Scotland and Ireland might be charged on him and for these he is justly cast down from his Excellency into so horrid a pit of Misery beyond example i.e. Though the like were never done in the World he is justly fallen under a Sentence of Condemnation As to Mr. Baxter's particular abhorrence of that barbarous Fact and his proving that the Presbyterians detested it I suppose the place he refers to is his Key for Catholicks p. 321 c. he says in p. 323. That the Case of Murdering our King differs very much from the Powder Plot or Papists murdering of Kings and teaching that it is lawful for a private hand to do it A War and a treacherous Murder are not all one nor is a part of the Soveraign Power all one with a private hand p. 324. I have read what John Goodwin and Milton have written in Vindication of that horrid Murder and do believe that Mr. Baxter hath out-done them both Let the Reader seriously peruse that part of his Writings which he quotes to prove the contrary from p. 323. to p. 326. and I believe he will be of the same opinion for the design of it is to prove that p. 323. If the Body of a Commonwealth or those that have part in the Legislative Power and so in the Supremacy should unwillingly be engaged in a War with the Prince and after many years Blood and Desolations judiciously take away his Life as guilty of all this Blood and not to be trusted any more with Government and all this they do not as private Men but as the remaining Soveraign Power and say they do according to Laws undoubtedly the Case differs very much from Papists murdering of Kings I speak not this by way of Justification saith Mr. Baxter p. 325. whether they were in the right or wrong I am not the Judge but surely it was the Judgment of the Parliament upon the Division between the King and them the Power was in them to defend themselves and the Commonwealth and suppress all Subjects that were in Arms against them and that those that did resist them did resist the Higher Powers set over them by God and therefore were guilty of the Damnation of Resisters And this they assured the People was a Truth And so hath Mr. Baxter done too in his Political Aphorisms more at large but expresly enough in this place where under the name of Grotius p. 324. he asserts That the Legislative Power being divided between the Prince and Senate the Prince invading the Senates Right may justly be resisted and lose his Right And this was well understood by all that engaged in the War against the King from the beginning that in case they Conquered the King he was no more to be trusted with the Government For if it were known before-hand saith Mr. Baxter that if they should purchase a Victory by their Blood when they have done all they must be all governed by him whom they have conquered and lye at his mercy they would hardly ever have an Army to defend them So that the King was never more to be trusted i.e. either with Government or Life As for Mr. Love Mr. Baxter in the cited Preface intimates that he was Beheaded for his Loyalty which I think he sufficiently demonstrated in these two passages Not to take notice here of his barbarous insulting over that truly great Prelate when he was brought to the Block waving his Handkerchief and crying out Art thou come little Will c. the one in his Sermon at Vxbridge It was the Lord that troubled Achan and cut him off because he troubled Israel O that in this our State Physicians would resemble God to cut off those from the Land that have distempered it and he tells us plainly whom he means Melius pereat unus quam unitas Men that lye under the guilt of much Innocent Blood are not fit persons to be at peace with till all the guilt of Blood be expiated and avenged either by the Sword of the Law or by the Law of the Sword else the Peace can never be safe or just The other passage was in his Speech Sect. 14. of his Trial where speaking of his opposing the Tyranny of a King he says I did it is true in my place and calling oppose the Forces of the late King and where he alive again and should I live longer the Cause being as then it was I should oppose him longer That is he had lived and would die a Rebel An hundred Instances of such fatal Reflections on that excellent Prince have been noted in the Sermons and other Writings of Men of Mr. Baxter's Perswasion and yet to shew that he dares do any thing to justifie his Party he makes a bold Challenge to those whom he calls their Accusers to shew if they can what Body or Party of Men on Earth
rest there but will be ready to affront Civil Power too Your Lordships knows that the Jack Straws and Cades and Wat Tylers of former times did not more cry down Learning than Nobility and those of your Lordships that haâ—… read the History of Munster will need no other Item c. Bishop Hall's hard measure p. 45. Nothing could be more plain than that upon the Call of this Parliament and before there was a general Plot and Resolution of the Faction to alter the Government of the Church especially The Parliament was no sooner sate than many vehement Speeches were made against the established Church Government and enforcement of extirpation Root and Branch It was contrived to draw Petitions accusatory from many parts of the Kingdom against Episcopal Government the Promoters of the Petitions were entertained with great respects The Petitions of the opposite Party subscribed with many thousand hands were slighted and disregarded The Rabble of London were stirred up to come armed by thousands to the Houses offering foul Abuses crying out No Bishops no Bishops and professed they would pull the Bishops in pieces The House of Lords sent Messages to disperse them they hold on The Marquess of Hartford told the Bishops they were in great danger advising them to continue in the House that night Messages were sent to the House of Commons but nothing done for their security At last the Earl of Manchester undertook the protection of the Archbishop of York and his Company and the rest by long stay and secret passages escaped home This Archbishop perswades the Bishops to petition his Majesty that they might be secured in the performance of their Duties and to protest against such Acts as should be made during their forced absence He drew up the Petition and Protestation in our presence avowing it to be legal just and agreeable to former proceedings and got our Subscriptions And whereas this Paper was first to have been delivered to his Majesty's Secretary then to his Majesty and after to the Parliament by the Lord Keeper these professed they never perused it and the Lord Keeper to ingratiate himself with the House of Commons and the Faction reads it in the House of Lords aggravates the matter as highly offensive and of dangerous consequence and so sends it to the House of Commons where Glyn cries it up for High Treason yea preferring it to the Powder Plot. The Bishops are called to the Bar on their knees charged with High Treason and on Jan. 30. at eight a clock in the Night in extremity of Frost voted to the Tower The Citizens entertained the News with Bells and Bonfires While we were under restraint the Faction renew the Bill which had been twice rejected to take away the Bishops Votes in Parliament and prevail Their greatest Lawyers were employed to advance our Impeachment to the highest but found nothing to fasten on us One of their Oracles professed they might as well accuse us of Adultery as Treason The House of Commons who first desired we might be brought to a speedy Trial suffered us to languish at last on our Petition we obtain it Our Impeachments being read we plead Not guilty modo formâ and desired speedy Trial. A day is appointed Wild and Glyn aggravate our pretended Treason which our Counsel being ready to answer we were put off to another day which never came The Circumstances of that days hearing were more grievous than the substance we were all thronged so miserably in that strait Room before the Bar sweating and strugling with a merciless Multitude and when dismissed exposed to a new and greater danger for in the dark we must back to the Tower and shoot the Bridge with no small peril There we lye expecting new Summons but the Parliament wave their Impeachment of Treason and accuse us of High Misdemeanours and in a Bill preferred against us desire our Spiritual Means may be taken away After some Weeks more finding the Tower to be chargeable we petition for Liberty on Bail the Lords grant it and we were freed but the Commons hearing of it expostulate with the Lords for freeing us without their consent so we are remanded to the Tower Having tarried there from New-years-eve till Whitsontide where by turns we preached every Lord's-day to a great Auditory of Citizens upon our Petition and 5000 l. Bonds with a Clause of Revocation at a short warning we were dismissed From this Relation the indifferent Reader may perceive how far the Bishops were from beginning the War who suffered most of these Indignities before the War begun and â—ow causless and shameless the Clamours of Mr. B. and his Party concerning their persecution by Bishops are when they openly affront the known Laws by keeping up publick Conventicles in the chiefest Cities of the Naâ—ion and those Reverend Bishops were so â—arbarously treated by their Predecessors against all Law and Humanity And I desire the Reader to observe whether from the year 1660. to this present time it hath not been his chief work to pour out the like Contempt Malice and Violence as was begun in 1640. and as Quintilian says Maledicus à Malefico non distat nisi occasione From these Injuries to the Bishops they proceeded to abuse and affront the King and force from him his two principal Counsellors whom they by unparallel'd proceedings cut off as their most formidable Enemies And having driven the King away by Tumults they endeavour by Remonstrances Declarations and Propositions to make his Return impossible In June 42. the Faction sends a Petition with Nineteen Propositions to his Majesty to which he made many gracious Concessions as he was ready to do even to the one half of his Prerogative to prevent that Deluge of Blood which he foresaw would follow on the War Out of these Concessions saith Mr. B. and likely he knows by whom there was framed a Catechism that would justifie the Parliament in all their proceedings against the King Yet many of those Propositions were such as his Majesty declared he could neither in Honour nor Conscience consent unto One was saith the Royal Martyr in his Chapter of the Nineteenth Proposition To bind my self to a general and implicite consent to whatever they shall desire or propound which were as if Sampson should have consented not only to bind his own hands and cut off his hair but to put out his own eyes that the Philistins might with the more safety mock and abuse him which they chose rather to do than quite to destroy him when he was become so tame an Object and fit Occasion for their Sport and Scorn This use Mr. B. and the Faction make of all his Majesty's Condescensions P. 37. B's Life The King's Answer to the Nineteen Propositions greatly confirmed many that his declaring that the Legislative Power was in King Lords and Commons and that the Government was mixt and not Arbitrary but as soon as the Parliament assumed it they exercised as
he doth by the whole Order of Church Governours that he may make ours the more odious He says as in divers places p. 252. 253. of Saints Rest That the first rage of the Prelates in silencing as learned able Ministers and incessantly persecuting as godly Christians as the World enjoyed was just before the War begun increased an hundred fold P. 251. As I am certain by sight and sense that the extirpation of Piety was the then great design which so far prevailed that very many of the most able Ministers were silenced Lectures and Evening Sermons on the Lord's-day suppressed Christians imprison'd dismembred and banished He speaks as if it were done by Heathen for no other cause but as being Christians That it was as much at least as a mans Estate was worth to hear a Sermon abroad when he had none or worse at home to meet for Prayer or any other godly Exercise and that it was a matter of Credit and a way to Preferment to Revile and be Enemies to those that were most Conscientious and every where safer to be a Drunkard or an Adulterer than a painful Christian and that multitudes of Humane Ceremonies took place when the Worship of Christ's Institution was cast out besides the slavery that invaded us in Civil respects So I am most certain that this was the Work which we took up Arms to resist and those were the Offenders whom we endeavour to offend You see Mr. Baxter is armed with Prejudice and Zeal Cap-a-peé for a War wherein to resist his Superiours under a pretence of Reformation though to that Resistance the Word of God threatens Damnation Yet Mr. Baxter p. 271. says As I cannot yet perceive but that we undertook our Defence upon warrantable grounds so I am most certain God hath wonderfully appeared through the whole Success was the great Argument of which p. 250. Having been an Eye-witness of a very great part of the eminent Providences from the first of the War I have plainly seen something above the common Course of Nature in almost every Fight that I have beheld The War saith Mr. Baxter was begun in our Streets before the King or Parliament had any Armies between the Puritans and drunken Rabble that hated the Parliaments Reformation and so I was forced to be gone before the Wars And a Man that was more pious and devout than the Multitude could not live by them in most places but were forced into Garrisons and Arms to save their Lives p. 252. of Saints Rest i.e. in plain English Mr. Baxter with the other Reformers put themselves into Arms and seized the King's Forts making them Garisons against the King I desire the Reader to reflect on this part of the Narrative Mr. Baxter often accuseth the Conforming Clergy with deliberate Lying and Perjury What was it in Mr. Baxter being prejudiced against the Bishops at Nineteen yea against Bishop Morton at Fourteen being familiar with Non-conformist Ministers and knowing their Minds yet to submit to Episcopal Ordination and Subscribe and Swear to obey the Bishop in licitis honestis and presently omit the Cross and Surplice and dispute openly against Bishops and prosecute and defend the War against the King against the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and when his taking of Holy Orders seems to be for no other end but to inable him to do the more mischief Was not this to be deliberately perjured But to go on he says in cold blood His engaging in that War was the greatest outward Service that ever he performed to God That Neutrality had been sinful and to have been against the Parliament in that Cause had been Treachery p. 481. of H.C.W. And p. 480. If I had known that the Parliament in that Cause had been the beginners and in most fault yet the ruine of our Trustees is a punishment greater than any fault of theirs though it were the cutting off his Head against a King can deserve and that their faults cannot disoblige me from defending the Commonwealth I knew the King had all his Power for the Common Good and none against it and therefore that no Cause can warrant him to make the Commonwealth the Party which he shall exercise Hostility against and that War against the Parliament especially by such an Army in such a Cause is Hostility against them and so against the Commonwealth All this seemed plain to me and especially when I knew how things went before who were the Agents how they were minded and what were their purposes against the People Would not this Man have made a better Solicitor against the Royal Martyr than Cooke who said he was another Solomon for his parts Did Cromwel or Bradshaw ever object such things against him as Mr. Baxter hath done Who could think that Mr. Baxter who pretends for so much Peace was ever a Man of such a Temper With what heart could he be an Eye-witness of the Humane Butcheries that were made in almost every Fight from the beginning of the War or with what Face could he say there appeared more of Christ's Interest on the one side than on the other as in the first occasion so in the Prosecution p. 252. of Saints Rest. And again Whatever the end may prove I am sure I have seen the Lord in the means p. 251. And That as we undertook our Defence on warrantable grounds so I am most certain God hath wonderfully appeared through the whole ibid. He says in the Epistle he was wonderfully rescued from many dangers in four years Wars and after many tedious nights and days and many doleful sights and tidings he and many of his Kederminsters whom he it seems had led on to the War were returned in peace that he was twenty several times delivered when he was near to death O the sad and heart-piercing Spectacles says he p. 115. that mine eyes have seen in four years space In this Fight a Friend fall down by me from another a precious Christian brought home wounded or dead precious Christians no doubt that died in such a horrid Rebellion scarce a Month scarce a Week without the sight or noise of Blood Surely there is none of this in Heaven our eyes shall then be filled no more nor our hearts pierced with such Fights as at Worcester Edge-hill Newbury Nantwich Montgomery Horn-Castle Naseby Langport c. it seems he was present in these Fights For he adds Mine eyes shall never more behold the Earth covered with the Carcasses of the slain And he saith He had travelled over the most part of England to pursue the War Illi robor aes triplex circum praecordia Mr. Baxter says the War began first in their Streets at Kederminster between those that would have pull'd down Painted-glass and Pictures and the People that opposed them which Parties were so violent against each oother that he was forc't to fly for his Safety And having been a while at Bridge-North 〈◊〉 Parties of the King's Soldiers
that must end this Controversie Wherefore turn your Plowsheres into Swords and your Pruninghooks to Spears to fight the Lords Battles to avenge the Blood of the Saints which hath been spilt It must be avenged by us or upon us I have prayed that too much pitty in our State Physicians do not retard the healing of the Land here are Malignant Humours in the Nobles and Gentry to be purged out before they be healed O that in this our State Physicians would resemble God to cut off those from the Land who have distempered it You may know what he means by his Latin sentence Melius pereat unus quam unitas Men that be under the guilt of much Innocent Blood are not fit to be at Peace with till all the guilt of Blood be expiated by the Sword of the Law or the Law of the Sword It is true saith he at his Execution I did in my place and calling oppose the Forces of the late King and were he alive again and I should live longer the Cause being as then it was I should oppose him longer But the present Power saw it not fit to trust him with a longer Life And it is very remarkable that Prideaux the Atturney General repeated most of those passages which Mr. Love had urged against the King and his Party to ruine them to shew that he ought not to have any Mercy shewed him See the Printed Tryal of Mr. Love Mr. Baxter pag. 67. of his Life says That the Souldiers said he was so like to Love that he would not be right till he was shorter by the head But Mr. Baxter acted more warily and as he says p. 84. of his Life that after Wars he had Fourteen Years Liberty in such sweet imployment and that in times of Usurpation when under a Rightful King and Governour he was laid by as a broken Vessel suspected and vilified scarce Tolerated to live privately and quietly in the Land But if Mr. Baxter had complied but half so much with the rightful Government in things lawful as he had done with usurped Powers in things unlawful he might have lived more than twice as long as quietly and godly as other good Men did Yet after the clamour of his Sufferings he thrived in those worst Times as he accounted them for he had a stock of Money out of which he could spare a Thousand pound to the Exchequer intended most of it for pious uses as he says p. 89. part 3. But in Seven years he endeavoured a purchase of House or Land but could not find it So that he perceived the Devils resistance of it and that there are Devils that keep up a War against Goodness in the World yet he found the Devil did not hinder his disbursing almost as great a Sum to build a Synagogue for his Conventicle He did not thrive so well in the Service of the Army for his Arrears of many hundred pounds were never paid him Nor was he dealt with as Mr. Love Ille crucem sceleris precium tulit hic diadema But to return This or some other Relick of this Assembly who themselves ran before they were sent did send Mr. Baxter to the Army under Cromwel after the King's death where he says he accompanied Commissary-General Whaley a Person who was sometime the King's Jailor and whom you may find in that black List of his Majesty's Judges a fit Conductor and great Confident of Mr. Baxter's to him Mr. Baxter dedicates his Apology by the Name of The Honourable c. With this Achitophel our Shemei hunts David from Mountain to Mountain cursing and railing at him as he goes the Sword of his Tongue being longer and sharper than his furbished Sword Curse ye Meroz and Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully and Cursed be he that holdeth back his Sword from Blood were the common Texts of the Army-Chaplains And the Maxims of his Holy Commonwealth were the Subjects of some of his Sermons He says in the Epistle to his first Plea for Peace My honest Friend a Proselyte of his whom it seems he had engaged in the War when he saw here a Leg and there an Arm was faint-hearted and said it was time for him to stop But the valiant Mr. Baxter though he had seen many sadder sights even the Carcasses of some Thousands Streams of Blood the Ruine of Cities Towns Churches and Castles goes on as undauntedly as the Horse that rusheth into the Battle Let the Reader view if he can without horrour what Mr. Baxter reports of himself in two Epistles dedicated to two of his Army-Saints In that to Whaley he saith Providence did so clear his way viz. in that War and draw him on and sweeten unusual Troubles with unusual Mercies and issue all in Testimonies of Grace that he had great mixtures of Comfort with Sorrow in the performance And that he had more eminent Deliverances and other Mercies in those years and ways of Blood and Dolour than in most of his Life besides It seems he was of the mind which our Saviour foretold of some that should kill his Disciples and think they did God Service He adds The best is we now draw no blood it seems he had done that sufficiently they were now as Conquerours to divide the Spoil And great things did this Champion promise himself though it appears that he was disappointed of his hopes For in another Epistle to Colonel Berry whom Stilo Novo he calls Honourable too as being one of the Council of State he thus expostulates Was I not capable of Secular and Military Advancement as well as others it seems he thought so but they did not Did I ever sollicite you as much as for my Arrears which is many hundred pounds it seems he had served them long and was well promised for his pains but this Man of Conscience was content with the pleasing work of drawing Blood gratis he scorn'd to open his mouth for the many Hundreds due to him hoping they would have advanced a Man of so generous a Spirit to some eminent Military Preferment whereof his Ministry notwithstanding he thought himself capable But this great Warriour partly through regret at his disappointments of which he complains p. 2. of his Epistle before his Saints Everlasting Rest against ungrateful men and partly through his bodily infirmities for however willing his Spirit was his Flesh was grown weak being exhausted by the Accidents of War For in the same Page he tells us that being in his Quarters far from home he was cast into extream languishing by the sudden loss of about a gallon of Blood which should have minded him of the many Gallons of Blood whereof he had been the cause of effusion after many years foregoing weakness by which his Body was ruined beyond hopes of recovery the sentence of present death being by the ablest Physicians past upon him from which he was delivered by a wonder in the midst of his duties i.e. in the
only only way to a certain and perpetual Peace and Happiness He commends Richard Cromwel as one that inherited his Father's Vertue one that piously prudently and faithfully to his immortal Honour exercised the Government perswades all men to live in obedience to him and stiles himself in the Epistle to his Five Disputations desiring his favourable acceptance of the tendered Service of a faithful Subject to his Highness as an Officer of the Vniversal King R.B. Doth not this Man affirm notwithstanding all the Confusion that had covered the Land all the Blood that had been shed and all the Heresies and Blasphemies that had poisoned millions of Souls that he is one that rejoyceth in the present happiness of England and honoureth all the Providences of God by which we have been brought to what we are Epistle Dedic to Richard before his Key for Catholiks and in his Holy Commonwealth p. 487. Nor can I be so unthankful as to say for all the sins and miscarriages of Men since that we have not received much mercy from the Lord. And therefore he sets up his Stone of Remembrance with this Inscription in great Letters HITHERTO HATH THE LORD HELPED VS Is it possible that a Man who hath said and done such barbarous unnatural Deeds and stirred up many Thousands to do and say the same things with him should still deceive the meanest Christians Is it possible he should still persist in the same and yet retain the opinion of a Saint and be reputed the chiefest Guide of a Godly People Yet thus it is He is consulted as the Oracle of the Non-conformists All of them as a late Encomiast says do light their Fires at his Torch And he hath the forehead with the strange Woman to wipe his mouth and say What have I done You may guess by what he says I must profess that if I had taken up Arms in that War against the Parliament he says it p. 488. of Holy Commonwealth my Conscience tells me I had been a Traytor and guilty of resisting the Higher Powers And in his Key for Catholicks where the Legislative Power and highest Judicial Power is divided by Constitution of the Government between the Prince and Senate as he determines the English Monarchy to be he says modestly there many will think but he elsewhere delivers it as his own Sentiment That the Prince invading the Senates Right may justly be resisted and lose his Right p. 324. Yet this Man says Further than I was for the King I never was one year with the stronger side As if he had been always Loyal And p. 489. of Commonw If any of them i.e. his Accusers can prove that I was guilty of hurt to the Person or destruction to the Power of the King or of changing the Fundamental Constitution of the Commonwealth not the Kingdom taking down the House of Lords without consent of all three Estates that had a part in the Soveraignty I will never gain-say them if they call me a most perfidious Rebel and tell me that I am guilty of far greater sin than Murder Whoredom or Drunkenness And Anno 1680. he is not ashamed to say in his Preface to the second part of the Nonconformists Plea In all the times of Vsurpation and since I said and wrote that the King's Person is inviolable and to be judged by none either Peer or Parliament And the Book accused i.e. the Holy Commonw goeth on these Principles So that notwithstanding his pretence of recanting what was there said he still seems to justifie those Theses and adds The Book accused hath not a word meet to tempt a Man in his wits to such accusation Yet he says Thes 352. Though a Nation wrong their King and so quoad meritum Causae they are on the worser side yet may he not lawfully war against the Common Good i.e. the rebellious Party or on that account nor any help him in that War And Thes 374. If a Prince that hath not the whole Soveraignty which he says of our King be conquered by the Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive War as he thought the late War to be the Senate cannot assume the whole Soveraignty but supposeth that Government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen This was pleasing Doctrine in the Protector 's time And Thes 137. If Providence i.e. Success in Rebellion statedly disable him that was the Soveraign from executing of Laws protecting the Just and other ends of Government it maketh him an uncapable Subject of the Power and so deposeth him And being so made uncapable of Government by Thes 146. Though he were unjustly dispossest it is not the duty of his Subjects to seek his Restitution The Reader hath heard of a famous Roman Saint called Ignatius who if compared with others of that Church we may say of him as one doth of Mr. Baxter That he exceeds them as much as a Flint doth a Freestone because out of him so many Fires have and may be kindled If such an Historian as Plutarch were now living how easily might he run a Parallel between these two Generals Both were famous tam Marte quam Mercurio but whether of them was the greater Souldier or the better Saint might occasion some dispute the reading whereof would not be altogether so sad as the restless endeavours of the Disciples of them both who however they seem to differ in other things joyn all their hands to pull down our Church Impiety being grown to such an height I should think it a thing impossible that it should proceed any farther the wickedness and shame of it being notwithstanding any pretence manifested to all Men and that upon the joyful tidings of his Majesty's most happy return in peace by a most miraculous and admirable Providence the Authours of such Opinions and Practices should seek where to hide their heads But we are told that Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft which seldom admits repentance and though they have power to do hurt yet they have none to do good Hence it is that this confident Man appears still with open face and pursues the same ungodly ends I know not how it came to pass but this same Man was admitted to preach a Fast Sermon to the House of Commons when they were consulting of inviting home the King to his Father's Throne and with great boasting he tells us often That the King was called home the next day after that Sermon of his as if it had not been done if he had not preached whereas it is very observable that in all the Sermon there was not one word that might be interpreted to promote that noble Design but many things that were intended to hinder it or clog it with very dishonourable terms He intimates the Supream Power to be still in the two Houses He tells us indeed that Rom. 13. is part of the Rule of his Religion and adds but unhappily there hath been
a difference amongst us which is the higher Power And be it remembred that he had offered his Head to Justice as a Rebel if any could prove that the King was the highest Power in the time of Division Whereas he himself confesseth that a Heathen persecuting Nero must be obeyed Yet he affirms That it was not the intent either of St. Peter or St. Paul to determine whether the Emperour or Senate was Supream though St. Peter plainly determines it when he calls the King Supream and St. Paul by appealing not to the Senate but to Caesar In that Sermon he magnifies the Loyalty of the Presbyterians adjures the Commons to an opposition of Episcopacy though the King in his Message commended it to be as ancient as the Monarchy in this Island And under the Titles of Sound Doctrine and Church Government pleads for Presbytery and would p. 46. have the Church Revenues setled on them p. 43. saying Give first to God the things that are Gods For these he pleads under the name of the godly peaceable and prudent people of the Land in opposition to the prophaneness And to insinuate new fears and jealousies cries out O what happy times did we once see When were those happy times Not in the peaceable time of King Charles the First those were days of Profaneness and Persecution He must mean either under the Long Parliament when so much Loyal Blood was shed or under the Protection of Oliver when the best of Princes was butchered or under Richard of whom and his Mock-Parliament he gives such large Encomiums But now Nox una perpetuo mansura The days of Light and Jubilee are gone And as it is with Bats and Owls when the Sun appears their Night is come He was it seems of the same mind with his Brother Jenkins who said in a Sermon preached Sept. 25. 1656. That the removal of Prelatical Innocations countervailed for the Blood and Treasure shed and spent in the late Distractions nor would he redeem all those by the return of the same if it might be done For Mr. Baxter speaking of Prelatical Men who condemn the Ministers and Churches that had not Prelatical Ordination says They would surely silence such Ministers and dissolve such Churches through all the Land if it were in their power as it may be says he when our sins have ripened us for SO GREAT A PLAGVE Postscript to True Cath. p. 335. CHAP. II. Nec dum finitus Orestes IF Great Theodosius as Mr. Baxter says Treatise of Bishops part 1. p. 147. did cast himself down on the Earth before Ambrose to beg pardon and re-admission with tears and was not received till some Months continued penance If Great Mr. Baxter being so heinous a Criminal as he hath under his own hand acknowledged should after such a miraculous return of the King humble himself before the King and his Nobles in such manner as he promised once he would do it was no more than was his duty and perhaps not enough to expiate his Crime Thus then Mr. Baxter expostulates p. 14. of his Answer to Bagshaw Is it possible for any sober Christians in the World to take them to be blameless or those to be little sins What both the violating the Person and the Life of so good a King and the change of the fundamental Government or Constitution The setting up the Protector and pulling him down again c. If all this were no Rebellion Treason or Murder is there any such Crimes to be committed If I was guilty of such sins Habemus confitentem Reum I do openly confess that if I lay in sackcloth and in tears and did lament my sins before the World and beg pardon both of God and Man and beg all Men to take warning by my fall which had done such unspeakable wrong both to Christ and Men I should do no more than the plain Light of Nature assureth me to be my great and needful duty p. 17. But he that had the confidence to meet the old King and his Armies in the Field now that the Sword is taken out of his hands wants not confidence to take up his Pen as dangerous a Weapon and most maliciously handled and to affront the then present King before he be well setled on his Throne in this Military way as he terms it in his Third Plea page the last And though his Fraternity could not be permitted to bring him under Articles before yet they vigorously attempt it after his return The first attempt was concerning a Declaration to be extorted from the King about Ecclesiastial Affairs We offered his Majesty and the Bishops at first the Archbishop Usher 's Model for Concord Treatise of Episc Part 2. p. 53. The Bishops would not once take it into consideration nor so much as vouchsafe to talk of it or bring it under any deliberation They knew whence it came not from the Archbishops but the Presbyterian Forge Mr. Baxter confesseth p. 87. second part They that would have conformed to his Majesty's Declaration which as you shall hear anon they had caused to be drawn according to their Model went on this Supposition that the Species of Prelacy was altered by it and yet on these terms they would unite with the Prelatists only so far as to go in a peaceable performance of their Office p. 116. just as now they do In that 116 p. Mr. Baxter supposeth this Objection against the Declaration for I can scarce call it his Majesty's being by the necessity of times and the importunity of troublesome Men extorted from him Obj. You did but obtrude on us your own Opinions for when you had drawn up most of those words his Majesty was forced to seem for the present to grant them to you for the quieting of you Answ p. 117. If we did offer such things for it was in vain to deny it let the World judge what we sought by them 2. There is most of that about Rural Deans put in I suppose by the Bishops consent who were to word it after it went FROM VS a good office indeed to whet a Sword to cut their own Throats and be the Presbyterians Journey-men to their own undoing For Thirdly Whoever mentioned or desired it it appears that the work of Jurisdiction Excommunication Absolution no nor Ordination was not thought to be above the Office of a Presbyter that is They would have robbed the Bishops of all their Power and Authority and taken it to themselves and then they would go on peaceably in the performance of their Office and therefore it is no wonder that the Bishops refused to consider of such a Model And that very Parliament that had so much manners as to thank his Majesty for that Declaration which others have not done for the Act of Oblivion did lay it by so that it was never done but other Laws established which we feel saith Mr. Baxter I cannot pass by that vain-glorious boasting of his so often mentioned how
he be impartial a lover of peace and not ingaged in a faction a sober calm considerate man not one that is passionately rash that shews a malignant spirit one that extenuates or denies all the good that was in his Adversaries and fastneth on them all the Odium he can without proof one that is not deeply ingaged in a party one that is of manifest honâ—… 〈◊〉 conscience c. For want of which qualifications it is truly observed by Dr. Maurice that as his Church History was designed to disgrace Diocesan Bishops so the Preface looks as if it were intended to disgrace his History Nor must we believe our Senses if we must believe that they were Episcopal men that begun the late War when the contrary appears by many other acknowledged Proofs and continued visible Effects related by Mr. Baxter himself The Parliament having had long and late experience how troublesome and implacable such as Mr. Baxter were proceeded to the establishment of the Church and publick Worship excluding none but such as would exclude themselves And as a signal of his Majesty's impartial favour he offered Bishopricks to three Deanries to two or three more and other Dignities were given to several sober Persons that had been of another Perswasion One Bishoprick was accepted one which I suppose was Mr. Baxter refused it See p. 134. of First Plea His reason I suppose was the same that he gave for not reading Common Prayer p. 105. of Sacr. Desert Should the Ministers that have suffered so long but use any part of the Liturgy and Scripture Forms though without any motive but the pleasing of God and the Churches good it seems these Motives would not prevail for this Reason what muttering and censuring would there be against them This bold Man was afraid of the People And in truth he has made it morally impossible for him to accept a Bishoprick having often declared by word and published it in print That the Office of a Bishop as exercised in the Church of England was Antichristian And saith in his Method for peace of Conscience p. 389. We had taken down the superfluous honour of Bishops as Antichristian upon which N.B. the Devil set them to cry down also as Antichristian Tythes Maintenance Priests and Ministers And moreover that the return of such Men would be a great Plague to the Land in Postser to the True Catholick p. 335. And Mr. Baxter knows there is an ancient Canon That a man that had his hand in blood might not be a Bishop See p. 213. of his History And p. 36. A Government which gratifieth the Devil and wicked Men. And now he begins to defame the Laws as he had formerly done the Liturgy and not having other means he discovers his impotent malice in writing a Prognostication dated when by the King's Commission we in vain treated for Concord 1661. He observed p. 40. That the Sectarian Spirit was like Gunpowder ready to take fire on such injuries And Mr. Baxter with his Prognostication like Guy Faux with his Dark Lanthorn is ready for the Exploit and sorry only that it is not done He intimates the Clergy to be proud worldly covetous domineering malignant lazy the plague of the world troublers of Princes dividers of Churches that will being Hypocrites as to Christianity and Godliness like Judas that loved the Bag better than Christ make themselves a Religion consisting of meer Corps and the dead Image of true Religion See p. 12 13. He cries out of New Impositions Subscriptions and Oaths words and Actions which they believe to be against God's Word Doth not this aim directly at the Laws P. 14. he says Their Sufferings will make many otherwise sober Ministers too impatient and to give their Tongues leave to take down the Honour of the Clergy And this will stir up the People and make them pray for the downfal of the Clergy which they take to be Enemies of God and Godliness and that to speak easily or charitably of such Men is but to be lukewarm and indifferent between GOD AND THE DEVIL p. 20. Some of the Non-conformist Ministers will think these Passions of the People needful to check the sierceness of the Afflictors Some of the more injudicious hot-brain'd sort who are the greatest number will put them on and make them believe that all Communion with any Conforming Ministers or Parish Churches is unlawful and that they are all Temporizers and Betrayers of Truth and Purity that communicate with them and carry about among themselves false Reports and Slanders because they will think that the upholding of their Cause which they think is God's doth need the suppression of these mens Credit and Reputations p. 25 26. The godly and peaceable Conformists will get the love of the sober by their Doctrine and Lives but will be despised by the Sectaries because they conform and will be separated by the proud and persecuting Clergy as leaning to the Dissenters and thereupon will be under continual Jealousies and Rebukes And perhaps new Points of Conformity shall be devised to be imposed on them which it is known their Consciences are against that so they also may be forced to be Non-conformists because secret Enemies are more dangerous than open Foes and so part of them will turn downright Non-conformists and the other part will live in displeasure till they see an opportunity to shew it And these are the likeliest to cross and weaken the worldly persecuting Clergy This is such a Prognostication as that for which Mr. Baxter observes Mr. Vdal was condemned in Queen Elizabeth's Reign in an Assize-Sermon on Psal 2. And it is no otherwise a Prognostication than Astrologers observe of Blazing-stars they do irritate and dispose the Humours and Spirits of Men to disorderly Actions to which the event shews that this Prognostication and Mr. Baxter's influence on the People hath had a malign Aspect not unlike the Prophesie of Nostredamus's Son That a certain great City should be burnt and to fulfil his Prophesie did procure it to be set on fire My next Remark is on Mr. Baxter's behaviour at Kedderminster where the Bishop of Worcester publickly declared That he made the People believe that it was lawful for them to take up Arms against the King and suffered or made them to scruple at those things which were lawful which he himself confesseth to be lawful and that he himself heard him to maintain such a Position as was destructive to the Legislative Power both of both of God and Man viz. That the enjoyning of things lawful by lawful Authority if they might by accident be the cause of sin was sinful This was the chiefest Argument urged against Kneeling c. by Mr. Baxter See the Bishops Letter p. 4. and 6. Now though the known integrity of the Bishop is enough to make all good Men believe this Relation yet the consideration of the Premises puts the truth of it beyond all doubt or exception Was this behaviour
Rabble are stirred up to Petition against them Mr. Baxter himself having in Anno 1640. conceived a dislike of them began to write his History of Bishops to represent them as the Lords of Misrule twelve Bishops are sent to the Tower the Archbishop beheaded the rest-sequestred the Nation drawn into a Covenant against them their Revenues imployed to maintain a War against the King and to gratifie such Presbyters as had defamed and opposed them Under those grew up the several Factions of Independents Anabaptists Quakers and a Fanatical Army that set the whole Nation into a Flame that continued to devour for 20 years together Now suppose the Supream Power i.e. the Parliament as Mr. Baxter says had advanced some of the most active Presbyters as Superintendents or Bishops and Archbishops for Mr. Baxter approves of this last Order as Overseers of Bishops would it become a true Historian to impute all the Disorders and Confusions that were acted by and under the several Factions and thus made Bishops to that Order which were deposed prescribed and driven into Corners or exposed to innumerable Affronts and Sufferings during all that time and yet this is the manner of Mr. Baxter's dealing with those more ancient Bishops which he mentioneth as a true Historian throughout his History of Bishops Mr. Baxter Did you know or not that Novatus was an ill chosen Bishop of Rome and Novatian a promoter of his Prelacy Answ I doubt not but Mr. Baxter knew that Novatus was meerly a Presbyter and that in his time Cornelius was Bishop of Rome with whom Novatus had a quarrel for admitting such to his Communion as in the days of Persecution under Decius had denied the Faith Novatus affirming That they could not repent after their Fall and hereupon he calls his Faction the Cathari This pure Presbyter being at Rome se sends for three Rustick Bishops as my Author calls them to come to him from Italy to Rome where he caresseth them with plenty of good Victuals and Wine and when they had well drank some of Novatus his Party prevail with those Bishops to lay their hands on Novatus and make him a Bishop but whether a Bishop of Rome as Mr. Baxter says I have not read but that Novatus and Novatian who espoused his Opinion and promoted his Faction to the great disturbance of Cornelius the lawful Bishop is notorious in Ecclesiastical History Mr. Baxter As for Donatus there were two of them one of them a Bishop and the Donatist Schism was meerly and basely Prelatical Answ Here I question your Fidelity and have proved at large in my History of the Donatists that the Schism was wholly Presbyterial for the Bishoprick of Carthage being void Botrus and Celesius two Presbyters sought to supplant Cecilian a Person of known Integrity who was chosen Bishop of that Church But Lucilla a Woman descended from a Noble Family of Spain abets their quarrel and by great Gifts prevail with Botrus and Celesius who had been defeated to appear for Majorinus who was Domestick Chaplain to Lucilla and had been Deacon to Cecilian these gather a great number of persons whom they had drawn from the Communion of Cecilian to meet at Cirta where they pronounce Cecilian deposed as a Traditor and set up Majorinus to be Bp. of Carthage who dying shortly after Donatus is by his Party chosen to succeed him whom Cecilian accused for re-baptizing those that came to his Party from the Catholick Church and for degrading Bishops and Priests And this was the rise of the Sect of the Donatists under whom the Arian Heresie spread it self and the Crew of Circumcellians arose as may be seen at large in the History of the Donatists This is a second Instance of the Schism begun by Presbyters and of Mr. Baxter's fidelity in relating Church History and imputing the Troubles caused and continued by Presbyters to the Bishops The third instance is Arius a Presbyter of Alexandria in Egypt who was bred up under Melitus another Presbyter from whom Arius was taught That Christ was not the Eternal Son of God but meer Man from both his Parents This Meletius held it lawful in times of Persecution to deny Christ as he had done and pleaded That he had not denied God but Man For these Tenets Peter Bp. of Alexandria Excommunicated them both but Peter dying Achillus succeeded him under whom Arius reading Lectures in Alexandria began to publish his Heresie and infected great numbers insomuch that Achillus dying he became Competitor for that Bishoprick with Alexander who being a Person of known Abilities and Integrity was chosen by a general Suffrage of that Church by this good Bishop Arius was Excommunicated for opposing the Divinity of Christ and teaching that he was not from Eternity nor did partake of the Substance of the Father being created in time and was indeed more excellent than other Creatures but not equal with the Father He challenged to dispute these his heretical Opinions with Alexander and a time and place was appointed but as Arius was come to the place an extream pain in his Bowels seiz'd on him and going aside to ease himself his very Bowels fell from him But his Name and Heresie survived in another Arius or as History stiles him Arianus homo potius quam Arius who opposed Athanasius in the Council of Nice but upon a full discussion of the Arian Doctrines by that Council his Heresie was condemned the Books written for it were burnt and an Edict set forth by Constantine threatning Death to such as should conceal any of their Books Now how long this Heresie prevailed how many Catholick Bishops were banisht and murthered for opposing it how it spread like a Gangreen through all the Members of the Church as you have set forth in your History of Bishops is mostly true but your imputing those Confusions to the Catholick Bishops who were the Sufferers in all that time being the defensive Party I am bold to say is false for under the Arian Schism and by such as took part with them as the Donatists Nestorians Eutychians Macedonians Acephalites Monothelites who often made havock of one another and all united to distress the true Bishops all those Mischiefs which you mention in this Letter and more largely in your Hist of Bishops were put in Execution for 140 years together i.e. from the days of Constantine to the days of Constantius nec dum finitus Orestes Mr. Baxter Were it not for entering on an unpleasing and unprofitable task I would ask you Who that Juncto of Presbyters was that dethroned the King Answ They were such as the Westminster Assembly that dispersed their Members into the Country to animate the People to ingage in the War against the King and with Mr. Baxter assisted in carrying on the War from the beginning to the end and drew many thousands to ingage in that War Those that incouraged the Rabble of London to go to Westminster and demand Justice of him in such