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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	devil_n	father_n	lie_n	3,415	5	9.0726	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26982	Richard Baxter's penitent confession and his necessary vindication in answer to a book called The second part of the mischiefs of separation, written by an unnamed author with a preface to Mr. Cantianus D. Minimis, in answer to his letter which extorted this publication.; Penitent confession and his necessary vindication in answer to a book called The second part of the mischiefs of separation. 1691	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Minimis, Cantianus D.	1691 (1691)	Wing B1341; ESTC R13470	98,267	107

RICHARD BAXTER's Penitent Confession And His Necessary VINDICATION In Answer to a BOOK called The Second Part of the Mischiefs of Separation Written by an Unnamed Author With a PREFACE to Mr. Cantianus D Minimis in Answer to his LETTER which extorted this Publication Psal 32. 5. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin Psal 19. 12 13. Who can understand his Errours Cleanse thou me from secret faults Keep back thy Servant also from presumptuous sins Let them not have dominion over me Then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression John 8. 44 45. Ye are of your Father the Devil and the Lusts of your Father you will do He was a Murderer from the beginning and abode not in the Truth because there is no truth in him When he speaketh a Lie he speaketh of his own for he is a Liar and the Father of it And because I tell you the truth ye believe me not Isa 5. 20. Woe to them that call Evil Good and Good Evil That put darkness for light and light for darkness that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter Prov. 24. 24. He that saith to the wicked Thou art Righteous him shall the People Curse Nations shall abhor him Sharp words LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel 1691. For the very Reverend Dr. Edward Stilling fleet Lord Bishop of the Diocess of Worcester Reverend Sir SUpposing the Book which I answer as injurious to you as to me I judge it meet to propose to you this Opportunity of your own Vindication Or if I be herein mistaken to crave your help for my own Conviction Your former Accusation of such as I of the heinous Sin of Schism or Separation I confess I answered in a manner that required your Patience If it was too free and provoking I beg your pardon and do not Justifie it My Reasons were 1. That I thought that to take such as I for Schismaticks or Separatists was a great hardening and strengthening of the real Separatists when my Character and such others should seem to be theirs and if we were falsly accused they should seem to be so too 2. Because I knew how much your Authority and just Reputation would add as a Whet-stone to the keenness of their Zeal who thought us unmeet to live out of the common Goals 3. Because I knew whatever is said against it how great a Loss it would be to Souls to have all silenced Ministers give over preaching to any more than four and what Sacrilege we should be guilty of to give over our Ministery which we were vowed to and to be banished five Miles from all Corporations or there to avoid all publick worshiping of God And your Pacificatory Accommodation so earnestly restraining Parents without excepting the Nobility from chusing School-masters for their own Children seemed to one to be an unsufferable Overthrow of that Family Government which is of Divine Institution antecedent to Regal and most literally required in the Fifth Commandment These Reasons carrying me to Earnestness I perceive the Conceit or Suspition is too common that your Exasperation was the Spring both of Dr. Morrice's Defence of you and of this Book which is commonly famed to be written by Mr. Long of Exeter a Member of the Representative Church of England of whom I will not say as Bishop Morley of me Ex uno omnes This Concest is increased by the Title of his Book the same with yours as The Second Part and by your Collocutor's Title The Army-Chaplain and such other Circumstances For my part I take it for my duty to believe that you abhor such a Fardel of malicious impudent Lyes And that he that hath written so many excellent Books of which I thankfully acknowledge the Receipt of many as your Gift will by no Temptation be poysoned to the Approbation of so venomous a Label But if I should be in any part mistaken and while you own not the manner of his Writing you should own the main Cause or Accusation I humbly and earnestly beg that before I dye if it may be you will afford me that help of Conviction and Repentance which may be expected from a Man of Learning Piety and Truth and the now Bishop of that Diocess where the surviving part of my only Flock that ever I had remain among whom you may learn more of the falshood of this Man's Accusations And as I cannot but think that the present Necessity brought about by God's Providence without us will engage a Man of your Knowledge and Temper to use your Interest and Parts to the uttermost both in Parliament and Convocation for the strengthening of this Nation and Church by Concord and necessary Amendment and unlocking the ●oors of the Parish-Churches to the Lovers of Unity and Peace So Acquaintance enableth me to be confident that though such as I are past having our part in such a Blessing on Earth yet a great number of young Preachers will be ready joyfully to accept of any lawful Terms for so good an End who now serve God on Terms of S●lfdenial and are Men of greater Orthodoxness Piety Learning and skilful powerful Preaching than you would have believed our Nonconformists Schools would have brought forth And if that blessed Day may hasten I doubt not but those of the suffering Ministers that have overlived their long Silencing Imprisonments and Distresses will gladly do as Joseph forgive the Envy and Injuries of their Brethren and Afflicters observing how much of the Hand of God was in the Over-ruling of all and making use of that Sin which he did neither cause nor justifie Sir As the Importunity of Cantianus with many others drew me to publish this Writing which I once cast by as never to have been seen so the opportune Occasion of my desiring your own Vindication or your help for my Conviction hath caused this Address to you from Jun. 13. 1691. A willing Learner And Penitent Ri. Baxter A LETTER to Mr. BAXTER Reverend SIR I am a stranger to your person but not to your Excellent Writings for which I praise God and give you my hearty thanks I have many I have read many I have given away and recommended many to others to read and I bless God have received much light and warmth from many of them whereby I am engaged to pray for you and to take all occasions to speak write and act whatsoever may tend to your good here and hereafter And to that end I cannot be at peace with my self until I have desir'd you to take into your serious dying thoughts how you have walk'd towards the Church of England in your Practice and your Writings that before you appear at Gods Tribunal you may foresee your Sentence what it will be and whether your Writings and Practice have done or are likely after your death to do

been tryed therein by many but would not so easily resign what he had got He once admitted me to his Discourse and before the Lord Broghil Lambert and Thurloe I urged him to tell us what the People of England had done to forfeit their right to the Enjoyment of their ancient constituted Government which they professed to be for and still desired And all the answer that I could have was that God had changed it by his Providence the passages of which he talkt over near two hours till Lambert took on him to be asleep for we must not interrupt him Then Sir Francis sent me his Printed Books and some Papers to have disputed over all the Case of the War And not knowing how many such I might be put to answer I thought best in Print to tell him on what Grounds and Principles I had gone not undertaking that I had not mistaken but to desire him if I had erred to shew it by answering my Reasons there given But before I could have his Answer the distracted Armies had overturned all the present Government I repented Writing that Book 1. Because it came out unseasonably too late 2. Because in opposition to Harrington I had pleaded for Monarchy with some excess and I wisht that I had not medled with Government but left all to the Providence of God 3. Because it did occasion more hurt than good so that it became the common Theme of ambitious young Preachers especially at Court before K. Ch. II. as the way to Preferment to talk against The Holy Commonwealth falsly perswading men that by a Commonwealth I meant Democracy or Popular Government which the Book was purposely written against So that when the Oxford University burnt that Book with Dr. Whitby's excellent Reconciler and some others though I expostulated with the Vice-Chancellor concerning its Principles I told them I consented that the Book was burnt though I told them not why as now I do XXXVII Though both Nature and Grace inclined me to hate Lying and specially in Writers and Preachers and I honoured Jul. Caes Scaliger the more because his Son Joseph tells us how vehemently he hated a Lie so that he could not be reconciled to a Liar yet I confess that my impatience herein was faulty It was long before I well perceived that the Father of Lies doth Govern his Kingdom most of the World by meer Lying Call it Errour or Mistake or Falshood or what you will all signifieth the same thing It is delivering Falshood for Truth Christ had told us that the Devil is the Father of Lies and when he speaketh a Lie he speaketh his own Deceit is by Lying and by this he ruleth his World As God's Image consisteth in Life Light and Love the Devil's Image is Hatred Falshood and Hurtfulness or Murder Joh. 8 But alas to take this for some strange thing and to be over-impatient with Liars was my fault when now I find it is but the very state of corrupt unreneved Nature And Pride the Father and Ignorance the Mother make Kingdoms Cities and Persons like a rotting Carkass that swarms with Maggots You that read Histories read with Judgment and due Suspicion for the common corrupt Nature is a lying Nature And it is not about Religion only but the Fool rageth and is confident in all his Errours O what abundance of Lying Books are Shops and Libraries fill'd with even in History and Theology What abundance of false Counsels do Physicians give what abundance of false accusations doth Envy and Malice vend What abundance of false Doctrines and Censures doth ignorant Sectarian Zeal foment How many Lies for one Truth is carried for News or for Slander about the Streets And how few scruple receiving and reporting them how fewer rebuke them It 's useful for the World to know how common this Malady is but it was almost in despair that I lately wrote a Book against it of pretended Knowledge and Love I blame not my self for hating it but being too impatient with it especially in Books and Preachers as if it had been a strange thing XXXVIII When I wrote my five Disputations of Church Government I too hastily mis translated some words of Ignatius and though I then owned Apostolick Successors in the continued part of their Work I did not so fully as now understand how Christ by Institution then founded a National Church nor what a National Church was nor how that which was ultimum in executione a Christian Soveraignty was primum in intentione to which bare Preaching was preparatory XXXIX When I wrote my Treatise of Episcopacy I Calculated it to the Laudian Faction then prevalent that called it self the Church of England and though I distinguished them that put down all the Parochial Pastors and Churches and turned them all into meer Curates and Chappels or partes Ecclesiarum infimarum and so put down hundreds of Bishops and Churches under pretence of magnifying One from the old Reformed Church of England that put not down these but only sinfully fettered them yet I did not so largely open the difference as I ought which gave Mr. Lobb occasion to write confidently for Separation XL. When my Books against Conformity had irritated Dr. Stillingfleet to make me an instance of mischievous Separation who had constantly heard and communicated with my Parish Churches and for my private or occasional Preaching had the Bishops Licence approved under the hands of two the greatest Lawyers of England the Lord Chief Justice Sanders and the now Lord Chief Justice Polix●en I doubt that I too provokingly took the advantage of his temerity and confuted him in too provoking terms not considering enough that a Man of great Learning Labour and Merit and Name hath a great interest of Reputation which he would not be insensible of And if it were true as many without proof report that his exasperation engaged first Mr. Morrice and after the second Author of the Mischief of Separation whose writing against me is the transcript of the Character given by Christ John 8. 44. yet I honour the Reading Learning Labour and great Worth of Dr. Stillingfleet now Bishop of Worcester and what ever hand he had in it I unfeignedly forgive him XLI And in defence of the Nonconformists against the false accusation of Shism laid on them by the Imposing Schismaticks I doubt I was too keen in confuting Mr. Sherlocke I found it hard to discern whether the defence of truth and slandered suffering Servants of Christ or not exasperating false Accusers should command my style XLII What other Errors there are or have been in my Life or Writings I daily beg of God to discover to me and pardon For I never did any thing which might not and ought not to have been done better Particularly I beg pardon for too frequent hastiness and harshness of Speech to my nearest Domesticks from whom I never differed one moment in point of Interest or Love but had too often sour over-hasty