such an abuse and you say you will not receive it because such a Learned and good man was of another mind you sin in an high degree against God for you oppose the credit of man to the Authority of Gods word In this case we must remember what the Apostle saith Gal. 8 9. Thirdly we are not to rest in the judgement and practise of those good men that have lived before us for as it is with the particular members of the Church so it is with the whole Church it must grow and encrease in grace and knowledge Though Asa was a good King and Reformed much in his first days yet Jehosaphat Reformed more 2 Chron. 17.6 and Josiah went further then either Jehosaphat or any other that had been before him 2 Kings 23.25 And whereas you mention the Holiness and Learning of those Non Conformists thereby to deterr us from going beyond their Line Measure I may reply in that same worthy Authors words Though they were Holy and Learned Men yet it may well be that the Lord hath revealed that to his servants now which they saw not for the Lord hath oft done so David had more understanding than his Teachers had Psal 19.99 and the Disciples of Christ saw many truths which many of the Prophets though they were it may be holier then they did not see Luke 10.24 Many points of Gods Truth are revealed now even to Babes what the Patriarchs and Prophets though Holy Men and highly in Gods favour saw not He adviseth therefore rest not so much on the Judgment advice and example of the best men but examine them by the Scriptures for good men have oft proved Satans instruments to deceive others as Peters example misled Barnabas Gal. 2.12.14 Thus far and much more to the same purpose saith that excellent Author whose words because I thought they might be of weight to you I chose to transcribe at large rather then to say the same things in other words of mine own To the same purpose Mr. Gee when he was urged with the authority of Calvin Bucer Pareus c. who all give an other interpretation then that which he follows in his exposition of Rom. 13. Replyes thus The opinion or averment of man even of the best for Learning and Piety in a Case of Conscience or in the enquiry what is the sense of such and such a Scripture or such a Divine Precept is not an Oracle neither will it pass for such in any controversie The truth is we are very prone to attribute some authority to it and to urge it upon others so far as we find it concurrent with our own perswasions but who is he that will be prejudged or concluded by it contrary to the opinion that he hath received or in what he is otherwise doubtful The words of that Learned Man may be applyed to the present Case for Sir you know how much you have departed from the Doctrine of those Famous Non-Conformists in many the most material points of Religion and therefore cannot justly be allowed in this to make use of their Authority It will I suppose be easily granted that it is a very improper thing for any to seem to magnifie so much the Opinion of those worthy men as to press it now upon their Brethren in the business of Ceremonies and Conformity when they themselves refuse to follow them in their other more sound and substantial Doctrines To give you a few Instances First The former Nonconformists held Armenianisme that is the Doctrines of of Free-will in the things of God of Vniversal Grace and Vniversal Redemption to be so Fundamental and dangerous an Error that they have called it a Beelzebub-Error and Another Gospel But you do not only speak favourably of it but also proudly tell us that of you are very confident not one of many hundreds who speak against Communion with Arminians do understand what Arminianisme is As if the difference were either so small that it was not worth the while to oppose it or else so abstruse and difficult that plain Christians could not easily come to know it Truly Sir I acknowledge my self the meanest of my brethren and yet I think who understands the necessity of being born again and renewed by the Spirit of God must needs understand his own Free will hath not the least power to receive the things of God and whoever doth this knows very well what Arminianisme is though perhaps he may be ignorant of the Name which is not at all material in the Controversie and indeed I wonder you can so confidently plead for Communion with Arminians and that with an c. too when you formerly told us That in the points of Predestination Redemption Free-will Effectual grace Perseverance and Assurance of Salvation the Jesuites and Arminians do teach the same Doctrine Sir I hope you do not intend to enlarge your Communion so far as to take in the Iesuites also if you do pray deal clearly with us and tell us so and do not delude us with an unlimited and untelligible etcetera Secondly The former Nonconformists did so fully hold that the Scripture was to be believed upon it's own authority and Testimony that they all unanimously affirm It is a dangerous thing not to rest in the authority of Scripture not to count it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But you Jesuite-like for I am sorry ◠cannot give it a milder term are not afraid to say The Scripture tells us not sufficiently and particularly which Books in it self are Canonical nor what various Readings are the right nor whether every Text be brought to us incorrupted So that in effect you do resolve the credit of the Holy Scripture into the Truth of Church-History which words are so contrary to the true Protestant Doctrine so derogatory from the Self-evidencing Light and Divine Authority of the VVord of God contained in the Scripture and so fully agreeing with the Doctrine of the Jesuites in this Point that all which you have writ pretendedly for the Defence of the Scripture when indeed you betray it is not able to make any tolerable satisfaction What need I mention more as that the Former Nonconformists thought there was no possibility of Salvation for the Papists no more than for a Samaritan or an Idolater but you tell us that you confesse you affect not the Honour of that Orthodoxousness And in one of your Books if I am not mistaken in my Collections you seem to affirm at least strongly imply that a man may be saved in any Religion that lives morally though he knows not Christ which is as Mr. Hildersham calls it a damnable conceit since it renders the whole mystery of Salvation by Christ alone vain and ineffectual Add to this the Former Conformists said The filth of Nature cannot be sufficiently spoken of nay no Angel can sufficiently point out the mystery of sin and filthiness of nature But you advise us to take
A DEFENCE OF THE ANTIDOTE AGAINST Mr. Baxter's Palliated Cure of Church Divisions WHEREIN Mr. Baxter's Contradictions and Inconsistences with the Truth and with Himself are clearly discovered And the great question about Conformity briefly stated In a Letter to Mr. Richard Baxter By Edward Bagshaw How long do yee halt between two Opinions 1 Kings 18.21 Should not the multitude of words be answered and should a Man full of Talk be justified Job 11.2 Thou canst not bear them which are evil and thou hast tried them which boast themselves to be Apostles and are not and hast sound them Lyars Rev. 2.2 Printed in the Year 1671. TO Mr. RICHARD BAXTER Health Peace and a Sound Mind SIR I Perceive you take it for granted without any particular enquiring from my self about it that I wrote those just and weighty exceptions which were lately published against your Pretended and Palliated Cure of Church Divisions and notwithstanding any necessary Sharpness which I was forced to use in that seasonable Antidote yet I find you still are pleased to call me Brother which is a Civility I should have thanked you for had the rest of your stile been answerable to the mildness of that expression but since you take that Unbecoming liberty as to revile when you should repent and instead of Confessing and Forsaking your Errors charge me with crimes which I bless God I dare not allow in my Words much less in my Writings which are more deliberate This makes me suspect that your Pretence of Friendship and allowing me the title of Brother was only done with the same design that Joab had when he thus saluted Amaza to make the Sword in your right Hand to be the less observed and my wound thereby the more deadly and unavoidable so that till my Truth and Innocence be cleared and your Repentance for wronging me in both manifested it will be a Favour if you look upon me as one who neither desires nor if you believe what your self hath writ Deserves any such expressions of your familiarity To shew how much you are for the Middle-way tha is in other words neither to be Hot nor Cold or neither to be altogether for Truth nor altogether for Error but to hang Laodicea like in a Lukewarm and Neutral indifference between both you have taken pains to find out a Middle name between a Mistake and a Lye which you wittily call an untruth and this you are pleased to charge upon me as a very soft word and one that I would not be offended with But Sir this frothy complement might have been spared for I hope you are not to learn that every untruth is a lye Iohn 1.62.2.2 and you needed not have been so scrupulous of speaking your thoughts in Scripture language but this I ought not to wonder at since you are not afraid to dethrone the Scripture from being a Perfect Rule and therefore would manifest by this Invention that you thought it not sufficient to teach us the right way of speaking and so was not a Perfect Rule of good manners But leaving your Phrase I rather chuse to speak unto the Thing you mean by it and whether I have been so guilty as to wrong you either by a Mistake or a Lye or an Vntruth or whatsoever fine word else you please to use remains now to be examined in this brief review and defence of some of the principal Exceptions that I have already urged against you upon the clearing of which the whole cause that is in controversie between us will depend My first Exception was That the whole design of your Book was to make your Brethren that have not your latitude and cannot reach the subtilty of your Distinctions Odious This you tell me is a Fundamental Vntruth which animates all the rest for it was not your Design at all Truly Sir I am so unwilling to charge either you or any else with more then I have grounds to think is justly your due that I would gladly take your word in this matter and so pass it over but I hope you will pardomme if I cannot because First Many hundreds of sober impartial and unbiassed persons have carefully read your Book as well as my self and they all make the same judgment of it and I think in reason that is to be esteemed the design of a Book whatever was the secret and unknown intention of the Writer which the words themselves and the manner of writing without any streining do offer unto every serious and inquisitive Reader Secondly This use hath already been made of your Book to render such as cannot Conform much more criminal then before in that your Name and Credit is urged against them and this not only in discourse by many but by a late Author in Print who quotes your Book to justifie his Treatise against Toleration Thirdly in your very next Paragraph and likewise elsewhere in this last Book You call Separation a crying Sin nay the crying sin and you scruple not to insinuate that all the iudgments which in this Nation we do either feel or fear were to be changed upon separation as the principal procuring cause Pray Sir consider this and then tell me what can make your Brethren more Odious and more expose them to the peoples fury and to the Rulers Revenge then thus to make them the Causes of the Nations Calamity If in separating from the publick Forms of Worship which we therefore account false because God hath not commanded them our sin is so great that the place where we live cannot be held Innocent but must suffer from the Hand of God for our sakes we are certainly a people who deserve to be hated of all and the Confiscations Imprisonments and Deaths which some of us have already felt and possibly may yet remain in greater extremity to be our portion are no longer to be bewailed and grieved for as Persecutions of the Innocent but rather to be rejoyced and gloried in as due punishments of Noxious Offenders so that either you must retract and blot such passages out of your Book and thereby testifie your Repentance of them or we are confident both God and the World will justifie us if we still retain our Opinion of the ill meant and unworthy design of your Book against us Your next attempt is to free your self from being looked upon as an Earnest and Active Instrument in the late Warr I mean since you press me to speak plainly in the Parliament's War against the King I said It became not you to mention with so much Bitterness what was then done because you were as guilty of stirring up and fomenting that warr as any one whatsoever This you absolutely deny and boast much of your Loyalty and seem to be greatly offended that such a thing should be charged upon you and I am again reproached wth Vntruth for it Sir I am not willing to take up former matters nor do I at all delight to
Fifty Books against the Profane the Jews and the Mahumedans I will not enquire to what purpose for I am very confident none of those did ever read what you have written against them But adde to these your several other Treatises as about Baptism Confirmation Church Government Commonwealth c. Your Books will in all amount to as many Volumes as Tostatus writ concerning whom and all such kind of Writers you once gave this true Character though since you have most unhappily forgotten it I cannot but account all those Tostatus's impudently proud who think the world should read no Bodies Works but theirs Pray Sir read this passage again and compare it with what you have already writ and what as I hear you do yet farther intend to write and then tell me in earnest what you think of your self for here according to your own Words Evidence must decide the Case I think Sir I may say to you with every whit as much truth and candour what you dis-ingeniously reply upon me I have no mind to make you odious nor to open your sin to others but you have opened it to the world and I must open it to you if possibly you may repent and therefore having said this to your self that by setting before you some few of your many failings you might be Humbled and come to a more sober understanding of your self and way I come now to speak something and that very briefly to the Question about Conformity which hath occasioned all this heat betwixt us and in the handling of this I think I may also say as you sometimes did I approve not Tautologies nor a tedious stile nor the heaping up of useless matter and words which Rule in writing though you forget to observe yet I shall keep close to for Truth needs not many words to defend it In the stating of this Question you do your self grant so much that you scarce leave any thing to be either disputed or denyed by those whom you pretend with so much vehemency to oppose For First you grant that we are not to have Communion with a Diocesan Church as such and that we are not to own Diocesan Bishops Secondly You allow that we are not to have Communion with Persecutors nor with such as have consented to our Silencing Thirdly You affirm that we are not to communicate with Parish Churches only nor with all of them and particularly not with such whose Pastours are through insufficiency Heresie and Impiety Intolerable And this you tell us was your own Practise For you say you resolved if you lived where was an intollerable Minister you would not hear him nor come near him so as to encourage him in his undertaking of that Sacred Office All this and more of this nature which you assert being granted I scarce see what it is that you contend for or so earnestly declaim against since from these Grounds Separation at this day may easily be justified For First every Parish Church is a Part of the Diocesan and if a Diocesan Church as such is not to be communicated with then a Parish Church as such is to be seperated from since there is the same Reason of the Parts as of the Whole And you must find out a new Logick before you can prove that if the Whole be Corrupt any of the Parts are clean and fit for our Communion Secondly a Parish Minister is in that station and office but a Servant of the Diocesan Bishop and therefore rightly called a Curate and if we may not own as you grant the Bishop I think it will necessarily follow that his Substitute and Curate hath no reason to expect any Respect from us We doe not use in other cases to Regard the Man when we think it a duty to despise the Master Thirdly If Persecutors are not to be communicated with nor such as have consented to our Silencing which you also allow though I could wish you had proved it better then by the obscure and disputable Example of Martin then I think very few if any of the Parish Ministers but must even upon this account also be separated from since either by Open Consent or else by an Vndoing and Pernicious silence they have all made themselves guilty of that grievous sin There being but little difference in the sight of God between the persecuting of Brethren ourselves and by not sharply reproving it seeming to approve of it in others Lastly admitting there are some Worthy and able men among the Parish Ministers which for my own part I believe never a whit the more because you affirm it yet this we must say that their sin is great in submitting to so undue a way of entring into the Ministry and therefore we both forbear our selves and warn all others not to hear them because we cannot think our Lord Christ ever sent such to Preach in his Name who directly and by a solemn Oath have Renounced their Christian liberty under pretence of Preaching Christ and are indeed nothing else as to the whole discharge and exercise of their Office but Servants of men which we have already fully learned from the Apostles is altogether inconsistent with being Servants of Christ Galatians 1.10 1 Corin. 7.23 and therefore as such we cannot own them For the question is not as you weakly and insignificantly word it Whither a Defective Faulty True Church may ordinarily or at least sometimes he joyned with but whither a defective faulty imposing Church is not to be separated from This we affirm Because First we know not how else to preserve our Christian Liberty which it is an indispensible duty to maintain but by separating from those who would unduly take it from us Secondly Being present where those things are used in the Worship of God which God hath not commanded This would involve us in the guilt and contagion of them nor doe we believe however we have your Word for the contrary the Lord will otherwise interpret it since he hath so strictly charged us To keep far from a false matter and not to partake in other mens sins Lastly whatever pretences may be used as it is easie to write Declamations for the keeping of Peace yet to speak strictly and so as to satisfie conscience Peace is but ill bought if we must purchase it at so dear a rate as with the loss of Truth And this Truth concerning the sole Sovereign power of our Lord Christ in appointing all matters of his Worship He being the Lord of his House and Faithful in all things as Moses Heb. 5. this is a point so necessary to be maintained and so utterly inconsistent with the supposing that any thing is to be Obtruded which he hath not Commanded that we dare not allow our selves in the practise of any thing which may prejudice that Fundamental And we judge we have sufficient warrant from what the Apostles did in a like case Acts 15.24 For if