which was necessary to deal with such an Adversary he was quickly answered by fastening on the weakest parts with new reproach and triumph And the Author was doubly exposed to suffering For whereas he was so neer Conformity as that he had taken the Oxford Oath and read some Common prayer and therefore by connivance was permitted to preach in South-Work to an Hospital where he had 40 l. per Ann. and was now in expectation of Liberty at a better place in Bridewell he was now deprived of that And 〈◊〉 had little relief from the Nonconformists because he Conformed so far as he did And having a numerous family was in great want § 93. The next year came out a far more virulent book called Ecclesiastical Policy written by Sam. Parker a young Man of pregnant parts who had been brought up among the Sectaries and seeing some weaknesses among them and being of an eager Spirit was turned with the Times into the contrary extreme for which he giveth thanks to God And judging of 〈◊〉 called Puritans and Nonconformists by the people that he was bred amongst and being now made Arch-Bishop Sheldon's houshold Chaplain where such work was to be done he writeth the most scornfully and rashly and prophanely and cruelly against the Nonconformists of any man that ever yet assaulted them that I have heard of And in a fluent fervent ingenious style of Natural Rhetorick poureth out floods of Odious reproaches and with incautelous Extremities saith as much to make them hated and to stir up the Parliament to destroy them as he could well speak And all this was to play the old game at once to please the Devil the Prelates and the prophane and so to twist all three into one party than which if prelacy be of God a greater injury could not be done to it being the surest tryed way to engage all the Religious if not the Sober also of the Land against it § 93. Soon after Dr. Iohn Owen first tryed to have engaged me to answer it by telling me and others that I was the fittest Man in England for that work on what account I now enquire not But I had above all men been oft enough searched in the malignant fire and contended with them with so little thanks from the Independents tho they could say little against it that I resolved not to meddle with them any more without a clearer call than this And besides Patrick and that Party by excepting me from those whom they reproached in respect of Doctrine disposition and practice made me the unfittest person to rise up against them Which if I had done they that applauded me before would soon have made me seem as odious almost as the rest For they had some at hand that in evil speaking were such Masters of Language that they never wanted Matter nor Words but could say what they listed as voluminously as they desired § 94. Whereupon Dr. Owen answered it himself selecting the most odious Doctrinal Assertions with some others of Parker's book and laid them so naked in the Judgment of all Readers that ever I met with that they concluded Parker could never answer it Especially because the Answer was delayed about a year By which Dr. Owen's esteem was much advanced with the Nonconformists § 95. But Parker contriv'd to have his Answer ready against the Sessions of the Parliament in Octob. 1670. And shortly after it came out In which he doth with the most voluminous torrent of naturall and malicious Rhetorick speak over the same things which might have been Comprized in a few Sentences viz. The Nonconformists Calvinists Presbyterians Hugonots are the most villanous unsufferable sort of sanctified Fools Knaves and unquiet Rebels that ever were in the World With their naughty Godliness and holy Hypocrisie and Villanies making it necessary to fall upon their Teachers and not to spare them for the Conquering of the rest But yet he putteth more Exceptions here of the Soberer honest peaceable sort whom he loveth but pittyeth for the unhappiness of their Education and in particular speaketh kindly of me than he had done before For when he had before persuaded men to fall upon the Ministers and said What are an hundred men to be valued in Comparison of the safety of the whole When Dr. Owen and others commonly understood him as meaning that there was but a 100 Nonconformable Ministers when 1800 were silenced he found out this shift to abate both the Charge of malignant Cruelty and Untruth and saith that he meant that he hoped the seditious hot headed party that misled the people were but a few Whereby he vindicated fifteen hundred Nonconformable Ministers against those Charges which he and others frequently lay on the Nonconformists by that name But the second part of the Matter of his book was managed with more advantage because of all the Men in England Dr. Owen was the Chief that had Headed the Independents in the Army with the greatest height and Confidence and Applause and afterward had been the greater persuader of Fleetwood Desborough and the rest of the Officers of the Army who were his Gathered Church to Compel Rich. Cromwell to dissolve his Parliament which being done he fell with it and the King was brought in So that Parker had so many of his Parliament and Army Sermons to cite in which he urgeth them to Justice and prophesyeth of the ruine of the Western Kings and telleth them that their work was to take down Civil and Ecclesiastical Tyranny with such like that the Dr. being neither able to repent hitherto or to justify all this must be silent or only plead the Art of Oblivion And so I fear his unfitness for this Work was a general injury to the Nonconformists § 96. And here I think I ought to give Posterity notice that by the Prelatist's malice and unreasonable implacable Violence Independency and Separation got greater advantages against Presbytery and all setled accidental extrinsick order and means of Concord than ever it had in these Kingdoms since the World began For powerful and Godly Preachers though now most silenced had in twenty years liberty brought such numbers to serious Godliness that it was vain for the Devil or his Servants to hope that suffering could make the most forsake it And to the Prelatists they would never turn while they saw them for the sake of their own Wealth and Lordships and a few Forms and Ceremonies silence so many hundred worthy self-denying Ministers that had been Instruments of their Good and to become the Son of the prophane malignant Enmity to the far greatest part of the most serious Religious People in Three Kingdoms And Presbyterians were forced to forbear all Exercise of their way they durst not meet together Synodically unless in a Goal They could not ordinarily be the Pastors of Parish-Churches no not for the private part of the Work being driven five Miles from all their former Charges and Auditors and from every City
his Congregation a Church worshipped many years without singing Psalms and Sacraments forsooth because he took them not then for a Church I must suspend my Answer to them and all such tho' I know the Papists will take it for a Confutation of all my writings against them to say his own brethren Prosestants and Dissenters have proved him a Lyer This I must bear from Separating Non-conformists while the Justices that bind and trouble me openly declare me innocent And I am told that the Papists will not endure me to write against the Separatists no more than against themselves because they need their help to pull down the Godly Parish Ministers § 87. Many French Ministers sentenced to Death and Banishment fly hither for refuge And the Church men relieve them not because they are not for English Diocesans and Conformity And others have many of their own distressed Ministers and acquaintance to relieve that few are able But the Chief that now I can do is to help such and the Silences Ministers here and the poor as the Almoner of a few Liberal friends who trust me with their Charity § 88. As to the present State of England the Plots the Execution of Men High and Low the Publick Counsels and Designs the Quality and Practice of Judges and Bishops the Sessions and Justices the quality of the Clergy and the Universities and Patrons the Church-Government by the Keys by Lay-Civilians the usage of Ministers and private Meetings for Preaching or Prayer the Expectations of what is next to be done c. The Reader must expect none of this sort of History from me No doubt but there will be many Volumes of it by others transmitted to posterity who may do it more fully than I can now do § 89. Ianuary Seventeenth I was forced again to be carried to the Sessions and after divers daies good words which put me in expectation of freedom when I was gone one Justice Sir Decerham said that it 's like that these persons solicited so for my liberty that they might come to hear me in Conventicles and on that they bound me again in Four hundred pound bond for above a Quarter of a year and so it 's like it will be till I die or worse Tho' no one ever accused me for any Conventicle or Preaching since they took all my Books and Goods above two years ago and I for the most part keep my bed § 90. Mr. Ienkins dyed in Newgate this week Ianuary Nineteenth 1684 5. as Mr. Bampfield Mr. Raphson and others died lately before him The Prison where are so many suffocateth the Spirits of aged Ministers But blessed be God that gave them so long time to Preach before at cheaper rates § 61. One Richard Baxter a Sabbatarian Anabaptist was sent to Gaol for refusing the Oath of Allegiance and it went for currant that it was I. § 92. Mr. Rosewell did so fully plead his own Case and prove his innocency and prove the Confederacy incompetency and falshood of the Witnesses that tho' alas the Jury found him guilty of Treason even the Chief Justice and Judges were convinced of his innocency and at last procured his Pardon and deliverance Innocency with humility and great ability were his advantages improved and withall that he had few Enemies APPENDIX A Reply to some Exceptions against our Worcestershire Agreement and my Christian Concord Written by a nameless Author and sent by Dr. Warmstrye Honoured and Worthy Sir Salutem Officia in Christo Iesu Autore Salutis Except Sect. 1. FOR Christian Concord Mr. Baxter cannot write more willingly nor you be more strongly inclined to meet any such motion then you well know the Hearts of very many of your Brethren to be already agreed in that And I believe I have given you evidence in all my former Discourses with you uncontradicted by any action of mine that I the meanest of the servants of your Order do make it the butt and aime of all my weak Studies and Labours in order to the glory and service of God and Christ our Lord who hath so hightly injoyned it 2. But this bars us not but obliges us well to consider whether this Worcester Agreement be a true Union in Ecclesiastical Peace or the carrying on a Schismatical Combination reaching to enclose in the Episcopal Divines also â—3 That they may now at length by this approve of the Presbyters Declaration to the World of the no necessity of continuing their Canonical Obedience to their Bishops in Christ which was the first wheel that set a work this sad Revolution the ejecting out of the Church I mean out of their principal proper place in the Church the Bishops and Pastors the Successors of the Apostles in the Church whether this be so or no I say I must request you to judge by considering Reply to Sect 1. I shall not unwillingly believe and acknowledge that your love to Concord is greater than mine when I see you more zealously seeking it and hear of your Motions and moderate Rational Attempts to that end And I shall begin to hope well of you when you are but willing to accept such motions from any others or at least not to hinder the Concord of your Brethren 2. Schismarical Combinations are against the United Churches or the United Members of one particular Church We unite or combine against no such-Churches or Members nor against any thing but prophaneness and wickedness and against the disunion discord and alienation of Brethren and the utter neglect of the Ordinances of Christ. Our utmost care and endeavour is to heal a Schism and if they that do their best to heal it lamenting it daily as the great sin and calamity of the Churches and making it the chiefest part of their Studies with unsatiable longings to see it accomplished looking for no wordly advantage by the work having no Lordly Honours nor Dignities of their own to engage for which might byass them nay most prodigally casting away their Reputation with all the contenders of every Party accounting nothing in this world dear to them for the healing of our Divisions and waiting on God in earnest Prayer daily for success concerning all which the Righteous God is better acquainted with my heart and ways than this Contender I say if yet we are not only Schismaticks but Schismatical in these very attempts I know not yet how we shall escape that sin I hope God will not impute that to me which this Writer doth and that as he will not impute my Prayers and Endeavours against Drunkenness Covetousness and Contentions of Neighbours to be indeed Drunkenness Covetousness or Contention so neither will be impute my earnest Prayers and endeavours against Schism and Discord to be Schismatical But Schism is not the same thing in one Mans mouth as in anothers It is the unhappiness of each Party or Schismatical Faction to make to themselves a new Center of union which God never made and then all must
Gospel will convince you to great Satisfaction as also of what Oppositions and Deâ—iverances and Preservations he met with there And you have here some Taâ—â—s and Informations of his Thoughts and Studies and of his Books and Letters to divers Persons of different Stations and Quality and also of what Pens and Spirits wrote against him He was of such Repute and Figure in his day as that many coveted to see his Face to hear his Voice and to receive his Resolution of weighty Cases of Conscience proposed to him And in all this you will find that verified of him which the Lord Bacon hath deliver'd from his Pen viz. Much Reading makes Men full Much Writing makes them judicious and acute and much Conversation makes them ready I have been amazed to see how hastily he turned over Volumes how intimately he understood them how strangely he retained his Reading and how pertinently he could use it to every proposed Case Men stayed not long for what they wrote to him about and what he wrote was to great satisfaction and to the purpose He wrote his Books with quick dispatch and never but when he thought them needful and his duty then to write them And when as the Reader well considers his Apology for his Books hereafter mentioned let him but seriously weigh what is alledged and accordingly form his Censures His mentioned and recited Casuistical Letters and Books savour at least of Thought and Pains and perhaps the Reader 's patient and attentive minding of both his mention'd Books and Letters will not be loss of time and pains And though through too much haste and heedlesness some few Escapes perhaps Inaccuracies in the beginning may distaste his curious eye yet a very few Pages following will yield him better Entertainment § VII But the great things which are as the Spirit of this History are the Accounts he gives of the Original Springs and Sources of all these Revolutions Distractions and Disasters which happen'd from the Civil Wars betwixt King Charles the First to the Restoration of Charles the Second and whaâ— was Consequent after thereupon to Church and State And here we shall find various and great Occurrences springing from different Principles Tempers and Interests directed to different Ends and resolved into different Events and Issues The Historian endeavours to be faithful candid and severe Nothing of real serviceable Truth would he conceal Nothing but what was influential on and might or did affect the Publick Interest would he expose to Publick View Nothing that might be capable of candid Interpretation or Allay would he severely censure Nothing notoriously criminal and fatal to the Common Good would he pass by without his just Resentments of it and severe Reflections on it As to his immediate Personal acquaintance with or knowledge of the things reported by him I know no further of that than as he himself relates As to what he received from others by Report how far his Information was true or false I know not Indeed I wrote with tender and affectionate respect and reverence to the Doctors Name and Memory to Madam Owen to desire her to send me what she could well attested in favour of the Doctor that I might insert it in the Margent where he is mentioned as having an hand in that Affair at Wallingford House or that I might expunge that passage But this offer being rejected with more contemptuousness and smartness than my Civility deserved I had no more to do than to let that pass upon Record and to rely upon Mr. Baxter's report and the concurrent Testimonies of such as knew the Intreagues of those Times Yet that I might deal uprightly and upon the square I have mention'd this though obiter to testifie my Respects to him with whom I never was but once but I was treated by him then with very great Civility indeed § VIII I cannot deny but it would have been of great advantage to the acceptableness and usefulness of this Book had it's Reverend Author himself revised compleated and corrected it and published it himself I am sure it had ministred more abundantly to my satisfaction for I neither craved nor expected such a Trust and Legacy as his Manuscripts Nor knew I any thing of this his kind purpose and will till two or three days before he dyed My Heart akes exceedingly at every remembrance of my incumbent Trust and at the thoughts of my Account for all at last I am deeply sensible of my inability for such Work even to discouragement and no small Consternation of Spirit I want not apprehensions of the Pardon which I shall need from God and Candour from Men both which I humbly beg for as upon the knee I know the heart and kindness and clemency of my God through Jesus Christ But I know not yet what Men will think speak write concerning me God speak to Men for me or give me Grace and Wisdom to bear and to improve their Censures and Reflections if such things must be my Discipline and Lot Quo quisque est major magis est placabilis ira Et faciles motus mens Generosa capit Corpora Magnanimo satis est prostrasse Leont Pugna suum sinem cum jacet hostis habet At lupus turpes instant Morientibus ursi Et quaecunque minor nobilitate fera est Ovid. Trist. Eleg. iv However let the Reader bear with me if I attempt to obviate what I apprehend most likely for Men to reply and urge upon me by offering these things to serious and impartial Thoughts relating to 1. The Author 2. The Treatise 3. The Publication And 4. My self First the Author 1. He was one who lov'd to see and set things in their clearest and most genuine Light he well considered what sort and size of Evidence and Proof all things were capable of Matters of Sense are evident by their due Appulses on the Senses Matters of Doctrinal Truth by Demonstration Matters of History by credible report and he could consider well how Certainty and Probability differed Nor was he willing to he imposed upon or deceived through Prejudice Laziness Interest or a factious Spirit To say he never was mistaken for undoubtedly he had his Errours and Mistakes some of them retracted and publickly acknowledg'd by him when discern'd is to attribute more to him than any meer Man can say and more than any impartial and severe Student will arrogate to himself I shall never call the Retractation of a discovered Errour or Mistake a Fault but rather a commendable Excellence and I judge it better to argue closely than bitterly to recriminate or traduce Truth needs neither Scoff nor Satyr to defend it 2. This made him so solicitous to leave behind him such an Impartial Account of the History of his Times and of his own Endeavours in his place and day to promote Holiness Truth and Peace 3. He hence observ'd how these great Concerns were either promoted or obstructed and by whom What was
that was the fourth Sect the Quakers who were but the Ranters turned from horrid Prophaneness and Blasphemy to a Life of extream Austerity on the other side Their Doctrines were mostly the same with the Ranters They make the Light which every Man hath within him to be his sufficient Rule and consequently the Scripture and Ministry are set light by They speak much for the dwelling and working of the Spirit in us but little of Justification and the Pardon of Sin and our Reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ They pretend their dependance on the Spirit 's Conduct against Set-times of Prayer and against Sacraments and against their due esteem of Scripture and Ministry They will not have the Scripture called the Word of God Their principal Zeal lyeth in railing at the Ministers as Hirelings Deceivers False Prophets c. and in refusing to Swear before a Magistrate or to put off their Hat to any or to say You instead of Thou or Thee which are their words to all At first they did use to fall into Tremblings and sometime Vomitings in their Meetings and pretended to be violently acted by the Spirit but now that is ceased they only meet and he that pretendeth to be moved by the Spirit speaketh and sometime they say nothing but sit an hour or more in silence and then depart One while divers of them went Naked through divers chief Towns and Cities of the Land as a Prophetical act Some of them have famished and drowned themselves in Melancholy and others undertaken by the Power of the Spirit to raise them as Susan Pierson did at Claines near Worcester where they took a Man out of his Grave that had so made away himself and commanded him to arise and live but to their shame Their chief Leader Iames Nayler acted the part of Christ at Bristol according to much of the History of the Gospel and was long laid in Bridewell for it and his Tongue bored as a Blasphemer by the Parliament Many Franciscan Fryers and other Papists have been proved to be Disguised Speakers in their Assemblies and to be among them and it 's like are the very Soul of all these horrible Delusions But of late one William Penn is become their Leader and would reform the Sect and Set up a kind of Ministry among them § 124. The fifth Sect are the Bethmenists whose Opinions go much toward the way of the former for the Sufficiency of the Light of Nature the Salvation of Hearthens as well as Christians and a dependence on Revelations c. But they are fewer in Number and seem to have attained to greater Meekness and conquest of Passions than any of the rest Their Doctrine is to be seen in Iacob Behmen's Books by him that hath nothing else to do than to bestow a great deal of time to understand him that was not willing to be easily understood and to know that his bombasted words do signifie nothing more than before was easily known by common familiar terms The chiefest of these in England are Dr. Pordage and his Family who live together in Community and pretend to hold visible and sensible Communion with Angels whom they sometime see and sometime smell c. Mr. Fowler of Redding accused him before the Committee for divers things as for preaching against Imputed Righteousness and perswading married Persons from the Carnal Knowledge of each other c. but especially for Familiarity with Devils or Conjuration The Doctor wrote a Book to vindicate himself in which he professeth to have sensible Communion with Angels and to know by sights and smells c. good Spirits from bad But he saith that indeed one Month his House was molested with Evil Spirits which was occasioned by one Everard whom he taketh to be a Conjurer who stayed so long with him as desiring to be of their Communion In this time he saith that a fiery Dragon so big as to fill a very great Room conflicted visibly with him many hours that one appeared to him in his Chamber in the likeness of Everard with Boots Spurs c. that an impression was made on the Brick-wall of his Chimney of a Coach drawn with Tygers and Lions which could not be got out till it was hewed out with Pick-Axes and another on his Glass-window which yet remaineth c. Whether these things be true or false I know not but the chief Person of the Doctor 's Family-Communion being a Gentleman and Student of All Souls in Oxford was thus made known to me His Mother being a sober pious Woman being dissatisfied with his way could prevail with him to suffer her to open it to none but me of whole Conversion to them their Charity was much desirous Upon discourse with the young man I found a very good Disposition aspiring after the highest Spiritual state and thinking that visible Communion with Angels was it he much expected it and protest in some measure to have attained it for some lights and odd sights he had seen but upon strict Examination he knew not whether it were with the Eye of the Body or of the Mind nor I knew not whether it were any thing real or but fantastical He would not dispute because he thought he knew things by a higher light than Reason even by Intuition by the extraordinary Irradiation of the Mind He was much against Propriety and against Relations of Magistrates Subjects Husbands Wives Masters Servants c. But I perceived he was a young raw Scholar of some Fryar whom he understood not and when he should but have commended the Perfection of a Monastical Life which is the thing that they so highly magnifie he carried it too far and made it seem more necessary than he should They then professed to wait for such a Coming down of the holy Ghost upon them as should send them out as his Missionaries to unite and reconcile and heal the Churches and do wonders in the World But its fifteen years ago and yet they are latent and their work undone § 125. Among these fall in many other Sect-makers as Dr. Gell of London known partly by a printed Volume in Folio and one Mr. Parker who got in to the Earl of Pembroke and was one that wrote a Book against the Assemblies Confession In which as the rest he taketh up most of the Popish Doctrines and riseth up against them with Papal Pride and Contempt but owneth not the Pope himself but headeth his Body of Doctrine with the Spirit as the Papists do with the Pope And if they could bring men to receive the rest it will be easie to spurn down the Idol of their Fantasie or pretended Spirit and to set on the proper Head again To these also must be added Dr. Gibbon who goeth about with his Scheme to Proselyte men whom I have more cause to know than some of the rest All these with subtile Diligence promote most of the Papal Cause and get in with the Religious sort
and that they were allowed to make odious any thing that was amiss and because it was faulty if any Man had rebuked them for belying it and making it far more faulty than it was instead of confessing their Sin they called their Reprover a Pleader for Antichrist or Baal every Error in the Mode of the Common Worship they had no fitter Name for than Idolatry Popery Antichristianism Superstition Will-worship c. when in the mean time many of their own Prayers were full of Carnal Passion Selfishness Faction Disorder vain Repitions unfound and loathsom Expressions and their Doctrine full of Errors and Confussion and these Beams in their own Eyes were matter of no Offence to them They would not communicate with that Church where ignorant Persons or Swearers were tollerated though they themselves never did their Part to have them cast out but look'd the Ministers should do all without them but without any scruple they would communicate with them that had broke their Vow and Covenant with God and Man and rebelled against both King Parliament and all kind of Government that was set up even by themselves and did all the fore-recited Evils I know these same Accusations are laid by some in Ignorance or Malice against many that are guilty of no such things and therefore some will be offended at me and say I imitate such Reproachers But shall none be reproved because some are slandered Shall Rebells be justified because some innocent Men are called Rebels Shall Hypocrites be free from Conviction and Condemnation because wicked Men call the Godly Hypocrites Woe to the Man that hath not a faithful Reprover but a Thousand Woes will be to him that hateth reproof And woe to them that had rather Sin were credited and kept in Honour than their Party dishonoured and Woe to the Land where the Reputation of Men doth keep Sin in Reputation Scripture it self will not spare a Noah a Lot a David a Hezekiab a Iosiah a Peter but will open and shame their Sin to all Generations And yet alas the Hearts of many who I hope are truly Religious in other Points will rise against him that shall yet tell them of the Misdoings of those of their Opinion and call them to Repentance The poor Church of Christ the sober sound religious Part are like Christ that was crucified between two Malefactors the prophane and formal Persecutors on one hand and the Fanatick dividing Sectary on the other hand have in all Ages been grinding the spiritual Seed as the Corn is ground between the Milstones And though their Sins have ruined themselves and us and silenced so many hundred Ministers and scattered the Flocks and made us the Hatred and the Scorn of the ungodly World and a by Word and Desolation in the Earth yet there are few of them that lament their Sin but justify themselves and their Misdoings and the penitent Malefactor is yet unknown to us And seeing Posterity must know what they have done to the Shame of our Land and of our sacred Profession let them know this much more also to their own Shame that all the Calamities which have befallen us by our Divisions were long foreseen by seeing Men and they were told and warned of it year after year They were told that a House divided against it self could not stand and told that it would bring them to the Halter and to Shame and turn a hopeful Reformation into a Scorn and make the Land of their Nativity a Place of Calamity and Woe and all this Warning signified nothing to them but these Ductile Professors bldinly followed a few selfconceited Teachers to this Misery and no warning or means could ever stop them Five dissenting Ministers in the Synod begun all this and carried it far on Mr. Philip Nye Mr. Tho. Goodwin Mr. Sydrach Sympson and Mr. William Bridge to whom that good Man Mr. Ieremiah Burroughs joined himself in Name but as he never practised their Church-gathering way so at last he was contented to have united on the Terms which were offered them and wrote his excellent Book of Heart Divisions After this they encreased and Mr. Burroughs being dead Dr. Iohn Owen arose not of the same Spirit to fill up his place by whom and Mr. Phillip Nye's Policie the Flames were encreased our Wounds kept open and carried on all as if there had been none but they considerable in the World and having an Army and City Agents fit to second them effectually hindred all remedy till they had dash'd all into pieces as a broken Glass O! what may not Pride do and what Miscarriages will not false Principles and Faction hide One would think that if their Opinions had been certainly true and their Church-Orders good yet the Interest of Christ and the Souls of Men and of greater Truths should have been so regarded by the Dividers in England as that the Safety of all these should have been preferred and not all ruined rather than their way should want its carnal Arm and Liberty and that they should not tear the Garment of Christ all to pieces rather than it should want their Lace § 148. And it must be acknowledged also impartially that some of the Presbyterian Ministers frightned the Sectaries into this Fury by the unpeaceableness and impatiency of their Minds They ran from Libertinism into the other Extream and were so little sensible of their own Infirmity that they would not have those tollerated who were not only tollerable but worthy Instruments and Members in the Churches The Reconcilers that were ruled by prudent Charity always called out to both the Parties that the Churches must be united upon the Terms of primitive Simplicity and that we must have Unity in things necessary and Liberty in things unnecessary and Charity in all But they could never be heard but were taken for Adversaries to the Government of the Church as they are by the Prelates at this Day Nay when in Worcestershire we did but agree to practice so much as all Parties were agreed in they said we did but thereby set up another Party We told them of Archbishop Usher's Terms in his Sermon before the King on Eph. 4. 3. but they would not hear The Lord Bacon in his Third Essay and his Considerations Mr. Hales in his Treatise of Schism and all men of sound Experience and Wisdom have long told the World that we must be united in things Necessary which all Christians agree in or which the Primitive Churches did unite in or not at all But nothing shorter than the Assemblies Confession of Faith and Catechisms and and Presbytery would serve turn with some Their Principles were that no others should be tolerated which set the Independants on contriving how to grasp the Sword They were still crying out on the Magistrate that he was irreligious for suffering Sects and because he did not bring Men to Conformity And now they cannot be tollerated themselves to preach nor scarce to dwell in the Land
Prayer by all the Ministers at Worcester where they desired me to preach But Weakness and other things hindered me from that Day but to compensate that I enlarged and published the Sermon which I had prepared for them and entitled the Treatise Gildas Salvianus because I imitated Gildas and Salvianus in my Liberty of Speech to the Pastors of the Churches or The reformed Pastor I have very great Cause to be thankful to God for the Success of that Book as hoping many thousand Souls are the better for it in that it prevailed with many Ministers to set upon that Work which I there exhort them to Even from beyond the Seas I have had Letters of Request to direct them how they might bring on that Work according as that Book had convinced them that it was their Duty If God would but reform the Ministry and set them on their Duties zealously and faithfully the People would certainly be reformed All Churches either rise or fall as the Ministry doth rise or fall not in Riches and worldly Grandure but in Knowledge Zeal and Ability for their Work But since Bishops were restored this Book is useless and that Work not medled with § 178. 23. When the part of the Parliament called the Rump or Common-wealth was sitting the Anabaptists Seekers c. flew so high against Tythes and Ministry that it was much feared lest they would have prevailed at last Wherefore I drew up a Petition for the Ministry which is printed under the Name of the Worcestershire Petition which being presented by Coll. Iohn Bridges and Mr. Thomas Foley was accepted with Thanks and seemed to have a considerable tendency to some good Resolutions § 179. But the Sectaries greatly regard against that Petition and one wrote a vehement Invective against it which I answered in a Paper called The Defence of the Worcestershire Petition which by an Over-sight is mained by the want of the Answer to one of the Accusers Queries I knew not what kind of Person he was that I wrote against but it proved to be a Quaker they being just now rising and this being the first of their Books as far as I can remember that I had ever-seen § 180. 24. Presently upon this the Quakers began to make a great Stirr among us and acted the Parts of Men in Raptures and spake in the manner of Men inspired and every where railed against Tythes and Ministers They sent many Papers of Queries to divers Ministers about us And to one of the chief of them I wrote an Answer and gave them as many more Questions to answer entiâ—uling it The Quakers Catechism These Pamphlets being but one or two Days Work were no great Interruption to my better Labours and as they were of small Worth so also of small Cost The same Ministers of our Country that are now silenced are they that the Quakers most vehemently opposed medling little with the rest The marvellous concurrence of Instruments telleth us that one principal Agent doth act them all I have oft asked the Quakers lately why they chose the same Ministers to revile whom all the Drunkards and Swearers rail against And why they cryed out in our Assemblies Come down thou Deceiver thou Hireling thou Dog and now never meddle with the Pastors or Congregations And they answer 1. That these Men sin in the open Light and need none to discover them 2. That the Spirit hath his times both of Severity and of Lenity But the Truth is they knew then they might be bold without any Fear of Suffering by it And now it is time for them to save their Skins they suffer enough for their own Assemblies 181. 25. The great Advancement of the Popish Interest by their secret agency among the Sectaries Seekers Quakers Behmenists c. did make me think it necessary to do something directly against Popery and so I published three Disputations against them one to prove our Religion safe and another to prove their Religion unsafe and a third to shew that they overthrew the Faith by the ill Resolution of their Faith This Book I entituled The safe Religion § 182. 26. About the same time I fell into troublesom Acquaintance with one Clement Writer of Worcester an ancient Man that had long seemed a forward Professor of Religiousness and of a good Conversation but was now perverted to I know not what A Seeker he profest to be but I easily perceived that he was either a jugling Papist or an Infidel but I more suspected the latter He had written a scornful Book against the Ministry called Ius Divinum Presbyterii and after two more against the Scripture and against me one called Fides Divina the other 's Title I remember not His Assertion to me was that no Man is bound to believe in Christ that doth not see confirming Miracles himself with his own Eyes By the Provocations of this Apostate I wrote a Book called The unreasanableness of Infidelity consisting of four Parts The first of the extrinsick Witness of the Spirit by Miracles c. to which I annexed a Disputation against Clement Writer to prove that the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles oblige us to believe that did not see them The Second part was of the intrinsick Witness of the Spirit to Christ and Scripture The Third was of the Sin or Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost And the Fourth was to repress the Arrogancy of reasoning against Divine Revelations All this was intended but as a Supplement to the Second Part of The Saints Rest where I had pleaded for the Truth of Scripture But this Subject I have since more fully handled in my Reasons of the Christian Religion At the time Mr. Gilbert a learned Minister in Shropshire wrote a Small concise Tractate in Latin as against a Book of Dr. Owen's though his intimate Friend to prove that Christ's Death was not necessary absolutely but of Divine Free Choice and in answer to that Book I wrote a brief Premonition to my Treatise against Infidelity to decide that Controversy § 183. 27. Mr. Tho. Foley being High Sheriff desired me to preach before the Judges which I did on Gal. 6. 16. and enlarged it to a Treatise entituled The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ for Mortification and put an Epistle somewhat large before it to provoke rich Men to good Works § 184. 28. Some Men about this time persuaded me that if I would write a few single Sheets on several Subjects though the Style were not very moving yet it would do more good than larger Volumes because most people will buy and read them who will neither buy nor read the larger Whereupon I wrote first One Sheet against the Quakers containing those Reasons which should satisfie all Sober Men against their way § 185. 29. The Second Sheet I called A Winding Sheet for Popery containing a Summary of Moderate and Effectual Reasons against Popery which single sheet no Papist hitherto hath answered §
the Crowd of all my other Imployments which would allow me no great Leisure for Polishing and Exactness or any Ornament so that I scarce ever wrote one Sheet twice over nor stayed to make any Bloâ—s or Interlinings but was fain to let it go as it was first conceived And when my own Desire was rather to stay upon one thing long than run over many some sudden Occasions or other extorted almost all my Writings from me and the Apprehensions of Present Usefulness or Necessity prevailed against all other Motives So that the Divines which were at hand with me still put me on and approved of what I did because they were moved by Present Necessities as well as I But those that were far off and felt not those nearer Motives did rather wish that I had taken the other way and published a few elaborate Writings and I am ready my self to be of their Mind when I forgot the Case that then I stood in and have lost the Sense of former Motives The opposing of the Anabaptists Separatists Quakers Antinomians Seekers c. were Works which then seemed necessary and so did the Debates about Church Government and Communion which touched our present Practice but now all those Reasons are past and gone I could wish I had rather been doing some work of more durable Usefulness But even to a foreseeing Man who knoweth what will be of longest use it is hard to discern how far that which is presently needful may be omitted for the sake of a greater future Good There are some other works wherein my Heart hath more been set than any of those forementioned in which I have met with great Obstructions For I must declare that in this as in many other Matters I have found that we are not the Choosers of our own Imployments no more than of our own Successes § 213. Because it is Soul-Experiments which those that urge me to this kind of Writing do expect that I should especially communicate to others and I have said little of God's dealing with my Soul since the time of my younger Years I shall only give the Reader so much Satisfaction as to acquaint him truly what Change God hath made upon my Mind and Heart since those unriper times and wherein I now differ in Judgment and Disposition from my self And for any more particular Account of Heart-Occurrences and God's Operations on me I think it somewhat unsavory to recite them seeing God's Dealings are much what the same with all his Servants in the main and the Points wherein he varieth are usually so small that I think not such fit to be repeated Nor have I any thing extraordinary to glory in which is not common to the rest of my Brethren who have the same Spirit and are Servants of the same Lord. And the true Reason why I do adventure so far upon the Censure of the World as to tell them wherein the Case is altered with me is that I may take off young unexperienced Christians from being over confident in their first Apprehensions or overvaluing their first degrees of Grace or too much applauding and following unfurnished unexperienced Men but may somewhat be directed what Mind and Course of Life to prefer by the Judgment of one that hath tryed both before them 1. The Temper of my Mind hath somewhat altered with the Temper of my Body When I was young I was more vigorous affectionate and servent in Preaching Conference and Prayer than ordinarily I can be now my Stile was more extemporate and laxe but by the Advantage of Affection and a very familiar moving Voice and Utterance my preaching then did more affect the Auditory than many of the last Years before I gave over Preaching but yet what I delivered was much more raw and had more Passages that would not bear the Tryal of accurate Judgments and my Discourses had both less Substance and less Iudgment than of late 2. My understanding was then quicker and could easilyer manage any thing that was newly presented to it upon a sudden but it is since better furnished and acquainted with the ways of Truth and Error and with a Multitude of particular Mistakes of the World which then I was the more in Danger of because I had only the Faculty of Knowing them but did not actually know them I was then like a Man of a quick Understanding that was to travail a way which he never went before or to cast up an Account which he never laboured in before or to play on an Instrument of Musick which he never saw before And I am now like one of somewhat a slower Understanding by that praematura Senectus which weakness and excessive bleedings brought me to who is travelling a Way which he hath often gone and is casting up an Account which he hath often cast up and hath ready at hand and that is playing on an Instrument which he hath often played on So that I can very confidently say that my Judgment is much sounder and firmer now than it was then for though I am now as competent Judge of the Actings of my own Understanding then yet I can judge of the Effects And when I peruse the Writings which I wrote in my younger Years I can find the Footsteps of my unfurnished Mind and of my Emptyness and Insufficiency So that the Man that followed my Judgment then was liker to have been misled by me than he that should follow it now And yet that I may not say worse than it deserveth of my former measure of Understanding I shall truly tell you what change I find now in the perusal of my own Writings Those Points which then I throughly studied my Judgment is the same of now as it was then and therefore in the Substance of my Religion and in those Controversies which I then searcht into with some extraordinary Diligence I find not my mind disposed to a Change But in divers Points that I studied slightly and by the halves and in many things which I took upon trust from others I have found since that my Apprehensions were either erroneous or very lame And those things which I was Orthodox in I had either insufficient Reasons for or a mixture of some sound and some insufficient ones or else an insufficient Apprehension of those Reasons so that I scarcely knew what I seemed to know And though in my Writings I found little in substance which my present Judgment differeth from yet in my Aphorisms and Saints Rest which were my first Writings I find some raw unmeet Expressions and one common Infirmity I perceive that I put off Matters with some kind of Confidence as if I had done something new or more than ordinary in them when upon my more mature Reviews I find that I said not half that which the Subject did require As E. g. in the Doctrine of the Covenants and of Justification but especially about the Divine Authority of the Scripture in the second part of
or Charity in the several Officers or Churches and he will be passable in one Church who in another is intollerable and so the Churches will be heterogeneous and confused And there is in all this a little if not more than a little spiritual Pride of the Weaker sort of Professors affecting to be visibly set at a greater Distance from the colder Professors of Chistianity than God would have them that so they may be more observable and conspicuous for their Holyness in the World And there is too much uncharitableness in it when God hath given sincere Professors the Kernel of his Mercies even Grace and Glory and yet they will grudge to cold Hypocritical Professors so small a thing as the outward Shell and visible Communion and external Ordinances Yea though such are kept in the Church for the Sakes and Service of the Sincere 4. And I disliked also the lamentable tendency of this their way to Divisions and Sub-divisions and the nourishing of Heresies and Sects 5. But above all I disliked that most of them made the People by majority of Votes to be Church-Governors in Excommunications Absolutions c. which Christ hath made an Act of Office and so they governed their Governors and themselves 6. Also that they too much exploded Synods refusing them as stated and admitting them but upon some extraordinary Occasions 7. Also their over-rigidness against the Admission of Christians of other Churches to their Communion 8. And their making a Minister to be as no Minister to any but his own Flock and to act to others but as a private Man with divers others such Irregularities and dividing Opinions Many of which the moderation of the New England Synod hath of late corrected and disowned and so done very much to heal these Breaches § 15. 5 And for the Anabaptists I knew that they injuriously excluded the Infants of the Faithful from solemn entrance into the Covenant and Church of God and as sinfully made their Opinion a Ground of their Separations from the Churches and Communion of their Brethren and that among them grew up the Weeds of many Errors and Divisions Sub-divisions Reproach of Ministers Faction and Pride and scandalous Practices were fomented in their way § 16. The case standing thus with all these Parties I thought it my Duty 1. To labour to bring them all to a concordant Practice of so much as they all agreed in 2. To set all that together which was True and Good among them all and to promote that so far as I was able and to reject the rest 3. And especially in order to these to labour the reviving of Christian Charity which Faction and Disputes had lamentably extinguish'd But how to accomplish this was beyond the Prospect of my Hope § 17. Besides the Hinderances which are contained in Mens Principles I found three others which were exceeding Powerful One is in Mens Company and another in their seeming Interests and the chiefest of all in the Disposition and Quality of their Minds § 18. 1. Some that were most conversant with sober peaceable experienced Men and were under the Care of peaceable Ministers I found very much inclined to Charity and Peace But multitudes of them conversed most with ignorant proud unexperienced Passionate Uncharitable Persons who made it a part of their Zeal and Ingenuity to break a Jest in Reproach and Scorn of them that differed from them and who were ordinarily Backbiters and bold unrighteous Censurers of others before they well understood them or ever heard them give a Reason of their Judgments or Practices or speak for themselves And the hearing and conversing with such Persons as these doth powerfully dispose Men to the same Disease and to sin impenitently after their Example Especially when Men are incorporated into a Sect or uncharitable Party and have captivated themselves to a human Servitude in Religion and given up themselves to the Will of Men the Stream will bear down the plainest Evidence and carry them to the foulest Errors § 19. 2. And as it is carnal Interest that ruleth the carnal World so I found that 1. Among Selfish Men there were as many Interests and Ends as Persons and every one had an Interest of his own which governed him and set him at a very great Enmity to the most necessary means of Peace 2. And that ever Man that had once given up himself to a Party and drowned himself in a Faction did make the Interest of that Faction or Party to be his own And the Interest of Christianity Catholicism and Charity is contrary to the Interest of Sects as such And it is the Nature of a Sectary that he preferreth the Interest of his Opinion Sect or Party before the Interest of Christianity Catholicism and Charity and will sacrifice the latter to the Service of the former § 20. 3. But the Grand Impediment I found in the temper of Mens Minds and there I perceived a manifold difference Among all these Parties I found that some were naturally of mild and calm and gentle Dispositions and some of sower froward passionate peevish or furious Natures Some were young and raw and unexperienced and those were like a young Fruit four and harsh addicted to pride of their own Opinions to Self-conceitedness Turbulency Censoriousness and Temerity and to engage themselves for a Cause and Party before they understood the matter and were led about by those Teachers and Books that had once won their highest Esteem judging of Sermons and Persons by their Fervency more than by the soundness of the Matter and the Cause And some I found on the other side to be ancient and experienced Christians that had tried the Spirits and seen what was of God and what of Man and noted the Events of both in the World and these were like ripe Fruit Mellow and sweet first pure then peaceable gentle easy to be intreated full of Mercy and good Fruits without Partiality without Hypocrisy who being Makers of Peace did sow the Fruits of Righteousness in peace Iames 3. 17 18. I began by experience to understand the meaning of those words of St. Paul 1 Tim 3. 6 Not a Novice lest being lifted up with pride be fall into the condemnation of the Devil Novices that is young raw unexperienced Christians are much apter to be proud and censorious and factious than old experienced judicious Christians § 21. But the Difference between the Godly and the Ungodly the Spiritual and the Carnal worshippers of God was here the most considerable of all An humble holy upright Soul is sensible of the interest of Christ and Souls and a gracious Person is ever a charitable Person and loveth his Neighbour as himself and therefore judgeth of him as he would be judged of himself and speaketh of him as he would be spoken of himself and useth him as he would be used himself And it is as much against his charitable inclination to disagree or separate from his Brethren much more to
that it is unlike the primitive Episcopacy But if that which must convince you must be brought nearer your Eyes by God's help we 〈◊〉 to do that fully whenever we are called to it 8. The Words which you here except against with Admiration of the Corruptions Partialities Tyranny which Church-Government by a single Person is lyable to was taken by us out of the Book commonly ascribed to King Charles himself called Icon. Basil. but we purposely supprest his Name to try whether you would not be as bitter against his Words as against ours and did not esteem Fidem per personas non personas per fidem And further we reply it is one thing for a Bishop to rule alone when there are no Presbyters or to rule the Presbyters themselves alone and another thing when he hath Presbyters yet to rule all the Flock alone for by this means he quoad Exercitium at least degradeth all the rest or changeth their Office which is to guide as well as to teach As if the General of an Army or the Collonel of a Regiment should rule all the Souldiers alone doth he not then depose all his Captains Lieutenants Cornets Corporals Serjeants c. But especially it is one thing for Ignatius his Bishop of one Church that had but one Altar to rule it alone though yet he commandeth the People to obey their Presbyters and another thing for an English Diocesan to rule a Thousand such Churches alone And when all is done do they rule alone indeed Or doth not a Lay-Chancellor exercise the Keys so far as is necessary to suppress private Meetings for Fasting and Prayer c. and to force all to the Sacrament and enforce the Ceremonies and some such things and for the great Discipline it is almost altogether left undone We are sorry that you should be able to be ignorant of this or if you know it that such Camels stick not with you but go down so easily Instances of things amiss § 9. 1. That which you cannot grant that the Diocesses are to great you would quickly grant if you had ever conscionably tryed the task which Dr. Hammond describeth as the Bishops Work yea but for one Parish or had ever believed Ignatius and other ancient Descriptions of a Bishop's Church But is it faithful dealing with your Brethren or your Consciences pardon our Freedom in so weighty a Case to dispute as though you made a Bishop but an Archbishop to see by a general Inspection of the Parish-Pastors that they do their Office and as if they only ruled the Rulers of the particular Flocks which you know we never strove against when as no knowing English Man can be ignorant that our Bishops have the sole Government of Pastors and People having taken all Jurisdiction or proper Government or next all from the particular Pastors of the Parishes to themselves alone Is not the Question rather as whether the King can rule all the Kingdom by the Chancellor or a few such Officers without all the Justices and Mayors or whether one Schoolmaster shall only rule a thousand Schools and all the other Schoolmasters only teach them You know that the depriving of all the Parish Pastors of the Keys of Government is the matter of our greatest Controversies Not as it is any hurt to them but to the Church and a certain Exclusion of all true Discipline And whether the Office of the Bishops of particular Churches infimi Ordinis velâ— gradus be not for Personal Inspection and Ministration as well as the Office of a Shoolmaster or Physician you will better know when you come to try it faithfully or answer fearfully for Unfaithfulness We know that the knowing Lord Bacon in his Considerations saith so as well as we And for what you say of Suffragâ—â—s you know there are none such § 10. 2. We are glad that in so great a matter as Lay-Chancellors Exercise of the Keys in Excommunications and Absolutions you are forced plainly and without any Excuse to confess the Errors of the way of Government And let this stand on Record before the World to Justify us when we shall be silenced and reproached as Schismaticks for desiring the Reformation of such Abuses and for not swearing Canonical Obedience to such a Government § 11. 3. And you have almost as little to say in this Case Mark Reader that we must all be silenced and cast out of our Offices if we subscribe not to the Book of Ordination ex Animo as having nothing contrary to the Word of God And the very Preface of that beginneth with the Affirmation of this Distinction of Orders Offices Functions from the Apostles Days and one of the Prayers ascribeth it to the Spirit of God and yet now it is here said that whether a Bishop be a distinct Order from a Presbyter or not is none of the Question That must be none of the Question when the King calleth them to treat for a Reconciliation or Unity which will be out of Question against us when we are called to subscribe or are to be forbidden to preach the Gospel And let what is here confessed for Presbyters Assistance in Ordination stand on Record against them when it is neglected or made an insignificant Ceremony § 12. 4. In the last also you give up your Cause and yet it 's well if you will amend it Whether the Canons be Laws let the Lawyers judge And whether all the Bishops Books of Articles as against making Scripture our Table-talk and many such others be either Laws or according to Law let the World judge The Remedies offered for reforming these Evils § 13. 1. Whereas to avoid all Exception or frustrating Contentions or Delays we offered only Bishop Usher's Platform subscribed also by Dr. Holdsworth that the World might see that it is Episcopacy it self that we plead for you tell us that it was formed many Years before his Death and is not consistent with two other of his Discourses In which either you would intimate that he contradicteth himself and could not speak consistently or that he afterward retracted this Reduction For the first We must believe that many Men can reconcile their own Writings when some Readers cannot as better understanding themselves than others do And that this reverend Bishop was no such raw Novice as not to know when he contradicted himself in so publick and practical a Case as a Frame of Church-Government Nor was he such an Hypocrite as to play fast and loose in the things of God But upon Debate we undertake to vindicate his Writings from this Aspersion of Inconsistency only you must not take him to mean that all was well done which as an Historian he saith was done And as to any Retraction one of us my self is ready to witness that he owned it not long before his Death as a Collection of fit Terms to reconcile the Moderate in these Points and told him that he offered it the late King And
only your Labours but also your special Assistance in a time of need unto the promoting the welfare of this poor Country certified unto us by Captain Leveret upon which account our General Court thought good to return unto you their Thanks in a Letter which I hope before this is received have made your Name both known and precious to us in these Parts The Occasion of these is in the behalf of one Mr. William Leet Governour of New Heven Jurisdiction whose Case is this He being conscious of indiscretion and some neglect not to say how it came about in relation to the expediting the Execution of the Warrant according to his Duty sent from his Majesty for the apprehending of the two Colonels is not without fear of some displeasure that may follow thereupon and indeed hath almost ever since been a Man depressed in his Spirit for the neglect wherewith he chargeth himself therein His endeavours also since have been accordingly and that in full degree as besides his own Testimony his Neighbours attest they see not what he could have done more Sir If any report prejudicial to this Gentleman in this respect come unto your Ear by your prudent Enquiry upon this Intimation or otherwise so far as the signification of the Premises unto his Majesty or other eminent Person may plead for him or avert trouble towards him I assure my self you may report it as a real Truth and that according to your Wisdom you would be helpful to him so far therein is both his and my desire The Gentleman hath pursued both others and my self with Letters to this effect and yet not satisfied therewith came to Boston to disburden his heart to me formerly unacquainted with him only some few times in Company where he was upon issue of which Conference no better Expedient under God presented it self to us than this So far as you shall see cause as the matter requireth to let the Premises be understood is finally left with your self under God Sir The Author of these Lines it shall be your favour and a pledge of Love undeserved to conceal farther than the necessity of the End desired shall call for And if hereby you shall take occasion being in place of discovery to intelligence the Writer touching your observances with relation to the concernments of this People your Advertisements may not only be of much use unto this whole Country but further your account and minister unto many much cause of Thansgiving on your behalf And I shall be bold upon such encouragement if God permits to give you a more distinct account how it fareth with us I mean of the steps of Divine Providence as to the Publick both in our Civils and Ecclesiasticks which at some spare time may hapâ—y be looked at as a matter of contentful Meditation to your self I crave now pardon for being thus bold with you and will not presume any further to detain you The Lord Jesus be with your Spirit and let him also be remembred by you in your Prayers who is in chief SIR Yours in any Service of the Gospel John Norton Boston Sept. 23. 1661. For the Reverend and his much Honoured Friend Mr. Baxter Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty Reverend and much esteemed in the Lord HOwever black the Cloud is and big the Storm yet by all this the Work and Design of Jesus Christ goeth on and prospereth and in these Clouds Christ is coming to set up his Kingdom Yea is he not come in Power and great Glory When had the Truth a greater or so great and glorious a Cloud of Witnesses Is not this Christ in Power and great Glory and if Christ hath so much Glory in the slaughter of his Witnesses what will his Glory be in their Resurrection Your Constancy who are in the heat of the Storm and Numbers ministers matter of humbling and quickning to us who are at a distance and ready to totter and comply at the noise of a probable approach of our Temptation We are not without our Snares but hitherunto the Lords own Arm hath brought Salvation Our Tents are at Ebenezer However the trials and troubles be we must take care of the present Work and not cease and tarry for a calm time to work in And this Principle doth give me occasion to take the boldness to trouble you with these Lines at present My Work about the Indian Bible being by the good hand of the Lord though not without difficulties finished I am meditating what to do next for these Sons of this our Morning they having no Books for their private use of ministerial composing For their help though the Word of God be the best of Books yet Humane Infirmity is you know not a little helped by reading the holy Labours of the Ministers of Jesus Christ. I have therefore purposed in my heart seeing the Lord is yet pleased to prolong my life to translate for them a little Book of yours intituled A Call to the Unconverted The keenness of the Edge and liveliness of the Spirit of that Book through the blessing of God may be of great use unto them But seeing you are yet in the Land of the Living and the good Lord prolong your days I would not presume to do such a thing without making mention thereof unto your self that so I might have the help and blessing of your Counsel and Prayers I believe it will not be unacceptable to you that the Call of Christ by your holy Labours shall be made to speak in their Ears in their own Language that you may preach unto our poor Indians I have begun the Work already and find a great difference in the Work from my former Translations I am forced sometime to alter the Phrase for the facilitating and fitting it to our Language in which I am not so strict as I was in the Scripture Some things which are fitted for English People are not fit for them and in such cases I make bold to fit it for them But I do little that way knowing how much beneath Wisdom it is to shew a Man's self witty in mending another Man's Work When this Work is done if the Lord shall please to prolong my Life I am meditating of Translating some other Book which may prescribe to them the way and manner of a Christian Life and Conversation in their daily Course and how to worship God on the Sabbath fasting feasting Days and in all Acts of Worship publick private and secret and for this purpose I have Thoughts of translating for them the Practice of Piety or some other such Book In which Case I request your Advice to me for if the Lord give opportunity I may hear from you if you see cause so far to take Notice hereof before I shall be ready to begin a new work especially because the Psalms of David in Metre in their Language are going now to the Press which will be some Diversion of me from a present
former naughty lives as is partly expressed in the Rubrick and more fully in the Canons Rubrick Exception Then shall the Priest rehearse distinctly all the ten Commandments and the People kneeling shall after every Commandment ask God's mercy for transgressing the same We desire 1. That the Preface prefixed by God himself to the ten Commandments may be restored 2. That the fourth Commandment may be read as in Exod. 20. Deut. 5. He blessed the Sabbath day 3. That neither Minister nor People may be enjoyned to kneel more at the reading of this than of other parts of Scriptures the rather because many ignorant Persons are thereby induced to use the Ten Commandments as a Prayer 4. That instead of those short Prayers of the People intermixed with the several Commandments the Minister after the reading of all may conclude with a suitable Prayer Rubrick Exception After the Creed if there be no Sermon shall follow one of the Homâ—â—â—es already set forth or hereafter to be set forth by common Authority We desire that the Preaching of the Word may be strictly enjoined and not left so indifferent at the Administration of the Sacraments as also that Ministers may not be bound to those things which are are as yet but future and not in being After such Sermon Homily or Exhortation the Curate shall declare c. and earnestly exhort them to remember the Poor saying one or more of these sentences following Two of the Sentences here cited are Apocryphal and four of them more proper to draw out the Peoples Bounty to their Ministers than their Charity to the Poor Then shall the Church-wardens or some other by them appointed gather the Devotion of the People Collection for the Poor may be better made at or a little before the departing of the Communicants Exhortation  We be come together at this time to feed at the Lords Supper unto the which in Gods behalf I bid you all that be here present and beseech you for the Lord Iesus Christ sake that ye will not refuse to come c. If it be intended that these Exhortations should be read at the Communion they seem to us to be unseasonable The way and means thereto is first to examine your Lives and Conversations and if ye shall perceive your offences to be such as be not only against God but also against your Neighbours then ye shall reconcile your seâ—ves unto them and be ready to make Restitution and Satisfaction And because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy Communion but with a full trust in Gods mercy and with a quiet Conscience We fear this may discourage many from coming to the Sacrament who lye under a doubting and troubled Conscience Before the Confession  Then shall this general Confession be made in the name of all those that are minded to receive the holy Communion either by one of them or else by one of the Ministers or by the Priest himself We desire it may be made by the Minister only Before the Confession Exception Then shall the Priest or the Bishop being present stand up and turning himself to the people say thus The Minister turning himself to the People is most convenient throughout the whole Ministration Before the Preface on Christmas day and 7 days after  Because thou didst give Iesus Christ thine only Son to be born as this Day for us c. First We cannot peremptorily fix the Nativity of our Saviour to this or that day particularly Secondly it seems incongruous to affirm the Birth of Christ Upon Whitsunday and six days after and the descending of the Holy Ghost to be on this day for seven or eight days together According to whose most true promise the Holy Ghost came down this day from Heaven  Prayer before that which is at the Consecration  Grant us that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body and our Souls washed through his most precious blood We desire that whereas these Words seem to give a greater efficacy to the Blood than to the Body of Christ they may be altered thus That our sinful souls and bodies may be cleansed through his precious Body and Blood Prayer at the Consecration We conceive that the manner of the consecrating of the Elements is not here explicite and distinct enough and the Ministers breaking of the Bread is not so much as mentioned Hear us O merciful Father c. who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave to his Disciples saying Take eat c.  Rubrick  Then shall the Minister first receive the Communion in both kinds c. and after deliver it to the people in their hands kneeling and when he delivereth the bread he shall say The Body of our Lord Iesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting Life and take and eat this in Remembrance c. We desire that at the Distribution of the Bread and Wine to the Communicants we may use the Words of our Saviour as near as may be and that the Minister be not required to deliver the Bread and Wine into every particular Communicants hand and to repeat the words to each one in the singular number but that it may suffice to speak them to divers jointly according to our Saviours Example  We also desire that the Kneeling at the Sacrament it being not that Gesture which the Apostles used though Christ was personally present amongst them nor that which was used in the purest and primitive times of the Church may be left free as it was 1. and 2. EDW. As touching Kneeling c. they may be used or left as every Mans Devotion serveth without blame Rubrick Exception And note that every Parishioner shall Communicate at the least three times in the year of which Easter to be one and shall also receive the Sacraments and other Rites according to the Orders in this Book appointed Forasmuch as every Parishioner is not duly qualified for the Lord's Supper and those habitually prepared are not at all times actually disposed but many may be hindered by the Providence of God and some by the Distemper of their own Spirits we desire this Rubrick may be either wholly omitted or thus altered  Every Minister shall be bound to administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper at least thrice a Year provided there be a due number of Communicants manifesting their Desires to receive And we desire that the following Rubrick in the Common-Prayer-Book in 5 and 8 Edw. established by Law as much as any other part of the Common-Prayer-Book may be restored for the vindicating of our Church in the matter of Kneeling at the Sacrament although the Gesture be left indifferent Although no order can be so perfectly devised but it may be of some either for their Ignorance and Infirmity or else of Malice and Obstinacy misconstrued depraved and
Subscriptions have better invitation to conform in other things Bishop Morley Bishop Ward and Bishop Dolbin spake ordinarily their desires of it but after long talk there is nothing done which maketh Men variously interpret their Pretensions which time at last will more certainly expound Some think that they are real in their desires and that the â—indrance is from the Court And others say they would never have been the grand causes of our present Case if it had been against their Wills and that if they are yet truly willing of any healing they will shew it by more than their discourses as a Man would do when the City was on Fire that had a mind to quench it and that all this is but that the Odium may be diverted from themselves while that which they take on them to fear is accomplished But I hope yet they are not so bad as this Censure doth suppose But it 's strange that those same Men that so easily led the Parliament to what is done when they had given the King thanks for his Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs can do nothing to bring them to moderate abatements and the healing of our Breaches if they are truly willing For my part I suspend my Judgment of their Intents till the Event shall make me understand it Grant Lord that it be not yet too late for Charity commandeth us to take nothing of others minds for certain till we have certain Proof how perilous soever our Charitable hopes may prove § 180. Mr. Bagshaw wrote a Second Book against my Defence full of untruths which the furious temerarious Man did utter or the rashness of his Mind which made him so little heed what he had read and answered as that one would scarce think he had ever read my Book I replied to him in an Admonition telling him of his mistakes To which he pretended a Rejoinder in a third Libel but I found as I was told that his design was to silence almost all that I said and to say all that he thought might make me odious because that those that read his Books would not read mine and so would believe him and be no whit informed by my answers at all § 181. This same year 1671. I was desired by my Friend and Neighbour Mr. Iohn Corbet to write somewhat to satisfie a good man that was fallen into deep melancholly feeding it daily with the thoughts of the number that will be damned and tempted by it to constant Blasphemy against the goodness of God who could save them and would not but decreed their damnation And I wrote a few Sheets called The vindication of God's Goodness which Mr. Corbet with a prefixed Epistle published § 182. Also Dr. Ludov. Molineus was so vehemently set upon by the crying down of the Papal and Prelatical Government that he thought it was the work that he was sent into the World for to convince Princes that all Government was in themselves and no proper Government but only Perswasion belonged to the Churches to which end he wrote his Paraenesis contra aedificatores Imperii in Imperio and his Papa Vltrajectinus and other Tractates and thrust them on me to make me of his mind and at last wrote his Iugulum Causae with no less than seventy Epistles before it directed to Princes and men of Interest among whom he was pleased to put one to me The good Man meant rightly in the main but had not a head sufficiently accurate for such a Controversie and so could not perceive that any thing could be called properly Government that was no way coactive by Corporal Penalties To turn him from the Erastian Extreme and end that Controversie by a Reconciliation I published an Hundred Propositions conciliatory and of the difference between the Magistrate's power and the Pastor's § 183. Also one Dr. Edward Fowler a very ingenious sober Conformist wrote two Books One anâ— Apology for the Latitudinarians as they were then called the other entitled Holyness the design of Christianianity in which he sometimes put in the word only which gave offence and the Book seemed to some to have a scandalous design to obscure the Glory of free Iustification under pretence of extolling Holiness as the only design of Man's Redeemption Which occasioned a few Sheets of mine on the said Book and Question for reconciliation and clearing up of the Point Which when Mr Fowler saw he wrote to me to tell me that he was of my Judgment only he had delivered that more generally which I opened more particulary and that the word only was Hyperbolically spoken as I had said but he spake feelingly against those quarrelsome men that are readier to censure than to understand I returned him some advice to take heed lest their weakness and censoriousness should make him too angry and impatient with Religious People as the Prelates are and so run into greater Sin than theirs and favour a looser Party because they are less censorious To which he returned me so ingenious and hearty thanks as for as great Kindness as ever was shewed him as told me that free and friendly Counsel to wise and good men is not lost § 184. I was troubled this Year with multitudes of melancholly Persons from several Parts of the Land some of high Quality some of low some very exquisitely learned some unlearned as I had in a great measure been above twenty years before I know not how it came to pass but if men fell melancholly I must hear from them or see them more than any Physician that I know Which I mention only for these three uses to the Reader that out of all their Cases I have gathered 1. That we must very much take heed lest we ascribe Melancholy Phantasms and Passions to God's Spirit for they are strange apprehensions that Melancholy can cause though Bagshaw revile me for such an intimation as if it were injurious to the Holy Ghost 2. I would warn all young Persons to live modestly and keep at a sufficient distance from Objects that tempt them to carnal Lust and to take heed of wanton Dalliance and the beginnings or Approaches of this Sin and that they govern their Thoughts and Senses carefully For I can tell them by the sad Experience of many that venerous Crimes leave deep wounds in the Conscience and that those that were never guilty of Fornication are oft cast into long and lamentable Troubles by letting Satan once into their Phantasies from whence 'till Objects are utterly distant he is hardly got out especially when they are guilty of voluntary active Self-pollution But above all I warn young Students and Apprentices to avoid the beginnings of these Sins for their Youthfulness and Idleness are oft the incentives of it when poor labouring Men are in less danger and they little know what one Spark may kindle 3. I advise all Men to take heed of placing Religion too much in Fears and Tears and Scruples or in any other kind of