new Historians would make us believe that the Reformed Church of England before Bishop Lauds time were of their mind that now call themselves Bishops and Doctors of the Church of England in holding as they do that there is an Universal humane Soveraignty with Legislative and Judicial power over all the Churches on earth and that this is in Councils or an Universal Colledge of Bishops of which the Pope may be allowed to be president and Principium Unitatis c. and that he must be obeyed as Patriarch of the West and so we must be under a forreign Jurisdiction Whereas it is notoriousy known that before Bishop Lauds time the doctrine of this Church was quite Contrary as may be seen at large in the Apology the Articles of Religion the writings of the Bishops and Doctors Yea they writ copiously to prove that the Pope is Antichrist and put it into their Liturgy And Dr. Heylin tells us that the Reason why Bishop Laud got it out was that it might not offend the Papists and hinder our reconciliation with them And the Oath of Supremacy sweareth us against all forreign Jurisdiction XV. The same Historians would make us believe that these mens doctrine is now the doctrine of the Church of England or agreeable to it Whereas the Oath of Allegiance is still in force and so are the Homilies and the Articles of Religion and the Laws and Canons for the Kings Supremacy against all forreign Jurisdiction And there is no change made which alloweth of their doctrine And the Church doctrine must be known by its publick writings and not by the opinions of new risen men XVI The new Historians make the Nonconforming Ministers to be men grosly ignorant preachingfalse doctrine of wicked principles and lives and not fit to be suffered out of Gaols And yet these 19. or 20. years how few of them have been convict of any false doctrine And I have not heard of four in England that have ever been convict since they were cast out of being once drunk or fornicating cheating swearing or any immorality unless preaching and not swearing Subscribing c. be such nor for false doctrine XVII The new Historians have made thousands believe that the doctrine or opinions of the Nonconformists is for sedition and rebellion And that it is for this that they refuse to renounce the obligation of the Covenant as to all men besides themselves and that they refuse to subscribe that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against any Commissioned by the King Whereas we have at large in a second Plea for peace opened our judgments about Loyalty and obedience and none of them will tell us what they would have more nor where our profession is too short or faulty Nor have they convict any of my acquaintance of preaching any disloyal doctrine XVIII Yea they have by writing preaching and talking made multitudes believe that the Nonconformists or Presbyterians have been long hatching a rebellion against the King and have a Plot to take down Monarchy under pretence of opposing Poperty And how far these Historians are to be believed true Protestants by this time partly understand XIX Yea these Historians have made multitudes believe that the Parliaments that have been disolved here of late years have been designing to change the Government of Church and state under pretence of opposing Popery As if that Parliament that did that for them and against us which is done and made all the Acts which are for the Renunciation of the Covenant and for all the Declarations Subscriptions and Practices Imposed and for Fining us 20 l. and 40 l. a Sermon and laying us in Gaols had been for Nonconformists and against Episcopacy and they that made the Militia Act and such other had been against the King or his Prerogative Or the other following had not been of the same Religion XX. But the boldest part of their History is their description of the two sorts of the People in England those that are for the present Nonconformists and those that are against them Those that are against them they account the most Religious Temperate Chast Loyal Credible and in a word the best people through the Land for of our Rulers I am not speaking And those that are for the Nonconforming Ministers they defame as the most proud hypocritical treacherous disloyal covetous false and in a word the worst people in the Land or as Fowlis saith the worst of all mankind and unfit to live in humane Society How long will it be ere the sober people of this Land believe this Character One would think that the quality of the common Inhabitants of the Land should not be a Controversie or unknown thing All that I will say to this History is to tell the Reader the utmost of my observation and experience from my Youth up concerning these two sorts of men Where I was bred before 1640. which was in divers places I knew not one Presbyterian Clergy man nor Lay and but three or four Nonconforming Ministers Nay till Mr. Ball wrote for the Liturgy and against Can and Allen c. and till Mr. Burton Published his Protestation protested I never thought what Presbytery or Independency were nor ever spake with a man that seemed to know it And that was in 1641. when the War was brewing In the place where I first lived and the Country about the People were of two sorts The generality seemed to mind nothing seriously but the body and the world They went to Church and would answer the Parson in Responds and thence go to dinner and then to play They never prayed in their families but some of them going to bed would say over the Creed and the Lord's Prayer some of them the Hail Mary All the year long not a serious word of holy things or the Life to come that I could hear of proceeded from them They read not the Scripture nor any good Book or Catechism Few of them could read or had a Bible They were of two ranks the greater part were good Husbands as they called them and savoured of nothing but their business or Interest in the World the rest were Drunkards Most were Swearers but not equally Both sorts seemed utter strangers to any more of Religion than I have named and loved not to hear any serious talk of God or Duty or Sin or the Gospel or Judgment or the Life to come But some more hated it than others The other sort were such as had their Consciences awakened to some regard of God and their Everlasting State and according to the various measures of their understanding did speak and live as serious in the Christian Faith and would much enquire what was Duty and what was Sin and how to please God and to make sure of Salvation and made this their Business and Interest as the rest did the world They read the Scripture and such Books as The Practice of Piety and Deut
can they tell the Church that they are subject to the six first General Councils and yet not to the seventh eighth ninth or any since 3. I have oft against Johnson and elsewhere proved that there never was an universal Council of all the Churches but only of part of those in the Roman Empire Were there no proof but from the recorded Names of the Callers of Councils and all the Subscribers it is unanswerable 4. Who knows not that the Church is now divided into about Twelve Sects all condemning one another And that they are under the Power of various Princes and many Enemies to Christianity who will never agree to give them leave to travel to General Councils And who shall call them or how long time will you give the Bishops of Antioch Alexandria the Jacobites Abassines Nestorians Armenians Muscovites and all the rest to learn so much of each others Languages as to debate intelligibly matters of such moment as Laws for all the World must be Twenty more such absurdities make this Aristocracy over all the World as mad a conceit as that forementioned And when we know already what the Christian Parties hold and that the said Jacobites Nestorians Armenians Circassians Mengrelians Greeks Muscovites c. are far more than either Protestants or Papists do we not know that in Councils if they have free Votes they will judge accordingly against both But this sort of men are well aware that the Church is always but Councils are rare and it 's at least uncertain whether ever there will be more and the Articles of the Church of England say They may not be called without the Will of Princes and the Church is now under so many contrary Princes as are never like to agree hereto And they know that some body must call them and some body must preside c. Therefore they are forced to speak out and say that the Pope is St. Peters Successor the prime Patriarch and principium Unitatis and must call Councils and as President moderate and difference the lawful from the unlawful And that in the Intervals of Councils he as Patriarch is to govern at least the West and that every Diocesane being ex Officio the Representer of his Diocess and every Metropolitane of his Province and every Patriarch of his Patriarchate what these do all the Bishops on Earth do And so the Riddle of a Collegium Pastorum is opened and all cometh but to this that the Italians are Papists who would have the Pope rule Arbitrarily as above Councils but the French are no Papists who would have the Pope rule only by the Canons or Church Parliaments and to be singulis Major at universis Minor This is the true Reformation of Church-Government in which the English should by them agree And now you know what I am warning you to beware of We are for a twist conjunction of the civil Power and the Ecclesiastical and for Christian Kingdoms and Churches so far national as to be ruled and protected by Christian Kings in the greatest Love and Concord that can be well obtained And for Councils necessary to such ends But we are not for setting up a Foreign Jurisdiction over King and Kingdom Church and Souls upon the false claim of uncapable Usurpers One of your selves in a small Book called The whole Duty of Nations and another Dr. Isaac Barrow against Papal and all Foreign Jurisdiction published by Dr. Tillotson have spoken our thoughts so fully as that we only intreat you to take those for our sense and concurr with us therein for our common Peace and Safety We reverence all Councils so far as they have done good we are even for the Advice and Concord of Foreigners but not their Jurisdiction If you know the difference between an Assembly of Princes consulting for Peace and Concord and a Senate to govern all those Princes as their Subjects you will know the difference between our Reverence to Foreign Councils and the Obedience to them now challenged as the only way to avoid Schism I hope you will join with us in being called Schismaticks both to Italian and French Papists The great Instrument of such mens Design being to over-extol Councils called General and to hide their Miscarriages and so by false History to deceive their credulous party who cannot have while to search after the truth I took it to be my Duty to tell such men the truth out of the most credible Historians especially out of the Councils themselves as written by our greatest Adversaries that they may truly know what such Bishops and Councils have done Among others this exasperated a Writer by same called Mr. Morrice who would make men believe that I have wronged Councils and Bishops and falsified History and divers other accusations he brings to which I have tendered you mine Answer I have heard men reverence the English Synods who yet thought that the 5th 6th 7th 8th Excommunicating Canons and the late Engines to cast out 2000 Ministers proved them such to England as I will not denominate I have heard men reverence the present Ministry and Universities who yet have said that they fear more hurt from the worser part of them to England than they should do from an Army of Foreign Enemies whom we might resist I write much and in great weakness and haste and have not time for due perusal And my judgment is rather to do it when I think it necessary as I can than not at all And Mr. M. would make his Readers believe when he hath found a word of Theodorets hastily mistaken and Calami translated Quils and such matter for a few trifling cavils that he hath vindicated the Councils and Bishops and proved me a false Historian And can we have a harder censure of General Councils than his own Reverend Lords and Patrons pass upon them who tell us that there is but six of all the multitude to be owned If all the rest are to be rejected I think the faults of those six may be made known against their Designs who would bring us under a Foreign Jurisdiction by the art of over-magnifying General Conncils I confess these men have great advantage against all that such as I can say for they have got a sort of Followers who will take their words and are far from having will or wit impartially themselves to read the Hiflories and try the case but will swear that we are all Rogues and Schismaticks and unfit to be suffered And they have got young Reverend Priests who can cry away with them execute the Laws being conscious how much less able they are to confute us than the Gaoler is But this is but a Dream The morning is near when we shall all awake Perhaps you remember the jeasting story with which Sagâ—tarâ—us begins the Preface to his Metaphysicks Indeed the hysterical suffocating Vapours do ordinarily so work that in a place of Perfumes or sweetness the Women faint and swoun away as dead
which was simple Christianity we returned to it by Reformation Besides the Dectrine of Two Natures about which they saw they agreed in sense while the Jesuites Hereticated them three things much alienated the Habassines 1. Denying them the Sacrament of the Eucharist in both kinds 2. Rebaptising their Children 3. Reordaining their Priests This much being done the Papists were by degrees soon overcome 1. The Patriarch is accused for preaching Sedition 2. Then the Temples are taken from them and they break their own Images lest the Habassines should do it in seorn 3. On Sept. 16. 1632. the King died and his Son Basilides was against them 4. Ras-Seelaxus their most powerful friend is banished and others after him 5. Upon more Accusations their Farmes Goods and Guns are seised on 6. They are confined to Fremona Thence they petition again for new Disputations The King Basilides answereth them thus by writing What I did heretofore was done by my Fathers command whom I must needs obey so that by his conduct I made War against my Kindred and Subjects But after the last Battle in Wainadega both learned and unlearned Clergy and Laity Civil and Military men great and small fearlesly said to my Father the King How long shall we be vexed tired with unprofitable things How long shall we fight against our Brethren and near Friends cutting off our Right Hand with our Left How long shall we turn our Swords against our own Bowels when yet by the Roman Belief we know nothing but what we knew before For what the Romanes call two Natures in Christ the Divinity and Humanity we knew it long ago from the beginning even unto this day For we all believe that the same Christ our Lord is perfect God and perfect Man perfect God in his Divinity and perfect Man in his Humanity But whereas those Natures are not separated nor divided for each of them subsisteth not by itself but conjunct with the other therefore we say not that they are two things for one is made of two yet so as that the Natures are not confounded or mixed in his Being This Controversie therefore is of small moment among us Nor did we fight much for this but specially for this cause that the Blood was denied the Laity in the Lucharist whenas Christ himself said in the Gospel except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye shall not have eternal Life But they detested nothing more than the Reiteration of Baptisms as if before the Fathers rebaptized us we had been Heathens or Publicanes And that they Reordained our Priests and Deacons You too late offer us now that which might have been yielded at the first for there is now no returning to that which all look at with the greatest horrour and detestation and therefore all further Conferences will be in vain In short the Patriarch and all the rest were utterly banished out of the Empire Ludolph l. 3. c. 13. I add one but thing ex cap. 14. to end the story As the new Alexandrian Abuna was coming out of Egypt the foresaid Dr. Peter Heyling of Lubeck being then in Egypt took that opportunity to see Habassia and went with him On the Borders at Suagena they met the departing Roman Patriarch where Peter Heyling enters the List with him so handled him as made it appear that it was only the poor Habassine Priests unlearnedness which had given the Jesuits their Success And the Patriarch at the parting sighing said to his Company If this Doctor come into Habassia he will precipitate them into the extreamest Heresie But what became of him is yet unknown And so much for this History of the Roman Conquest in Habassia by the Calcedon Council and the Hereticating the Habassines about the one or two Natures and the Eight years possession Popery got by it and the many bloody Battles fought for it the Prelates powerful Oratory for it and the Peoples more powerful against it the Kings mind changed by sad experience and the Papists finally Extirpated And it is exceeding observable that their very Victories were their Ruine and the last and greatest which killed 8000 was it that overcame them when they thought they had done their work And those that conquered for them drove them out when they considered what they had done But had it not been better known at a cheaper rate This Tragedy is but the fruit of the Council which Mr. Morrice justifieth The fruit of a Church determination above 1200 years ago If you had seen the Fields of blood in Habassia would it not have inclined you to my Opinion against Mr. M. Or if he had seen it would it not have changed his mind I doubt it would not because the Silencings and Calamities in England no more move such men and because they still call for Execution against those that obey not all their Oaths and Ceremonies and will abate nothing what ever it may ost the Land by the strengthening of them that are for our Division And because the 1200 years experience hath not yet been enough to make them see the faultiness of such Bishops Councils â—ay because they yet take not all Gods Laws in Nature and Scripture for sufficient to Rule the Catholick Church in Religion without the Laws of these same Councils which have had such effects But some Bishops and Cleâ—â—gâ— Men yet stand to it that All must be taken as Schismaticks who obey noâ— these same Councils Decrees as the Laws of the Universal Church And if Ludâ—lpâ—â—s and the Abassines can say so much against Here 〈…〉 g those called Eutychians much more may be said for the Nestorians to prove that the Contro vâ—â—sâ— was but verbal There is in Biblioth Pat. To. 6. p. 131. the Missa quâ utuntur antiqui Christiani Episcopatus Angamallensis in Montanis Mallabarici Regni apud Indos Orientales emendata ab erroribus blasphemiisque Nestorianorum expurgata per Alexium Menesium Archiepiscopum Goanum an 1599. I had rather have had it with all its Errours that we might have truly known how much is genuine But it being one of the most Scriptural rational and well composed Liturgies of all there published It would make one think 1. That these Nestorians were not so bad a people as their Anathematisers would have made the world believe them 2. That the Banishment of the Nestorians and Eutychians accidentally proved a great means of the Churches enlargement beyond the bounds of the Romane Empire whither they were banished And this is plain in current History I have given you this account of my Design in both the Books The History of Councils with its Vindication and the following Treatise I add an Answer to a Lord Bishop of Corke and Rosse who hath written many Historical Untruths by his credulity believing false Reporters As to his and others Reprehension of my sharp unpeaceable words my Case is hard My own Conscience at once forbids me to justifie my
Stile or Passion and also tells me that if making odious Gods servants silencing and persecuting faithful Ministers and Perjury should prove as great a guilt and danger of Destruction to the Land as is feared I cannot justifie my long Silence nor that I use no more plainness and fervency in calling the guilty to Repent The CONTENTS I. A Specimen of the Way by which this Generation confuteth their Adversaries in several Instances II. In the General Part § 1. Hard for young men to know what Teachers or History to believe § 7. Tempting Reasons for Papacy § 8. Evident against it § 9. The Steps by which Bishops ascended to Papacy § 15. The different Opinions of Popery in the English § 18. The Case of Fact discerned what Judgment I settled in about Church-Power § 20. For what Mr. M. hath wrote with so much displeasure against me § 22. Instances of above an Hundred Councils besides particular Bishops all before An. 1050. of whom I appeal to the Consciences of all sober Men whether they have not been the Tearers of the Church General Instances of the greater Schisms since then by popish Bps. Some Questions put to Mr. M. and some Reasons to abate his displeasure § 22. Of a late Book of the History of my Life to prove me the worst of men § 24. Whether I be guilty of falsifying History III. The particular Answer to Mr. M's Vindication Ch. 1. The Reason and Design of my History of the Schisms of Bishops and Councils Ch. 2. Whether we ought to tell of the Bishops and Councils Church-corrupting Ways Ch. 3. Of Mr. M's Industry to shew me to be unlearned Ch. 4. Whether I vainly name Historians which I never read Ch. 5. Of my use of Translations and following Binnius Ch. 6. His charge of my own mistranslations and mistakes Ch. 7. His false Supposition that I am only for a Church of one Congregation Ch. 8. His false Supposition that I am against Diocesanes when it 's only the ill species Ch. 9. And that I am a Independent and yet plead for Presbyterians Ch. 10. His false Accusation that I make the Bishops the cause of all Heresies and Schisms Ch. 11. And that I mention all the Bishops Faults and none of their Goodness Ch. 12. His Accusation of Spite Malice and Railing examined Dr. Burnet satisfied Ch. 13. His Supposition that I speak against all Bishops Councils Ch. 14. Some mens Credit about ancient History tried by their History of this Age. Twenty Instances of the History of our times My own experience of it Whether I hate compliance with Superiours or to preach by Licence Ch. 15. Mr. M. Magisterial authorising or rejecting what Historians he pleases His Accusation of Socrates and Sozomene and valuing Valesius Simond c. Ch. 16. His Observation on my Notes of credible and incredible History His Instances of my Railing particularly considered Whether the word Hereticating be railing or causeless An Instance of Fifty five of Bp. St. Philastrius's accused Heresses by which I desire any sober man to judge Other Instances Whether St. Theophilus or Socrates and Sozomene were the Criminals Even Pope Honorius and Vigilius hereticated for being wiser than other Popes Ch. 17. Of his Censure of my Design and Church Principles Whether I be guilty of exposing Christianity more than Julian Lucian Ch. 18. Of his 2d Chap. Who is most against Discipline Of Anathematising Whether Novatus was a Bishop or an ordaining Presbyter Councils for rebaptising His Self-contradictions Some Questions to him Whether the Diocesane Party as Mr. Dodwel who nullifie our Sacraments are Hereticks if the Re-baptisers were such The old qu. was not of Rebaptising Hereticks but of such as Hereticks had baptised Of the Donatists and many Councils Of our Liturgy's Rule to find Easter-day What the Novatians held Petavius and Albaspineus Testimony of them His quarrels about Epiphanius the Arians the Audians divers Synods Antioch Of the Circumcellians Optatus of the Donatists as Brethren His Excuse of the Bishops Ch. 19. Of the 1st General Council at C. P. Whether Bishops followed Emperours Their usage of Greg. Nazianz. Of the Priscillianists the Bishops and Martin Of my Letter to Dr. Hill Of the Council at Capua Jovinian Easter African Bps. Donatists Theophilus Aliars Ch. 20. His 5 Chap. Of the 1st Ephes Council His reviling Socrates and Sozomene as against Cyril Cyrils Story Of the Presbyterians Cruelty Nestorius Case His cavils against my Translations The effects of that Council at this day considered Ch. 21. Of the 2d Ephes Council Of Cyril the Eutychians and Dioscorus Ch. 22. Of the Calcedon Council Pulcheria and Eudocia What one sound man can do in a Council Whether our late Conciliatory Endeavours about Arminianism have been as vain as these Councils Of Theodos 2. and the Eutychians The whole story of that Council Luther as well as I makes the Controversie verbal Of the Bishops Peccavimus Many Accusations refelled More of the Councils Successes and late Conciliators The Westminster Synod Mr. M's way of Concord Of the old Conformity and ours Mr. Edwards Gangrena and the late Sects and Heresies Ch. 24. Of his 7th Chapter Of the old Heresies Whether Projects for Moderation have been the chief distracters of the Church He ost falsly saith that I charge the Bishops with all the heresies in the world What it is that I say of them The true cause of Schism confessed His misreports of the cause and Bishops His false saying of me that I compared Oliver and his son to David and Solomon My profest Repentance which he seigneth me an Enemy to What Nonconformity is and what his misreports of it An explitatory profession of the meaning of this Book against Misinterpreters THE Ready Way OF Confuting Mr. Baxter A SPECIMEN OF THE PRESENT MODE OF Controversie in England Joh. 8. 44. 1 King 22. 22. Prov. 29. 12. 19. 5 9. Rev. 21. 8. 22. 15. IN 1662. Dr. Boreman of Trinity-Colledge in Cambridge Published a Book against me as having written to Dr. Hill against Physical-Predetermination to Sin and in it saith That it is reported That I kill'd a Man with my own Hand in cold Blood and if it be not true I am not the first that have been wronged The Man though promoted to the Charge of this Parish St. Giles in the Fields was accounted so weak forbearing his Ministry and saying he was suspended some Years before he died that I thought it vain to take publick Notice of his Words neither imagining whence he had them nor ever hearing of them before But a few Weeks before the late Plot was reported one Mr. P. came to me and told me That at the Coffee-House in Fullers-Rents where Papists and Protectants used familiarly to meet he provoking the Papists to Answer my Books or to Dispute with me was answered by a Gentleman of this Parish said to be of the Church of England That Mr. Baxter had kill'd a Man in cold Blood with his
and tell the one Schoolmaster as a Monitor what they did amiss but might correct none nor put them out 21. By this time they began to live on blood and even as they swelled in the beginning cruelty grew up equally with Pride For Reason and Scripture were not on their side nor would justifie their Cause and them and therefore violence must do it They desired not the bare title of Power but the exercise of it to promote the Issues of their Wit and Will They began with rash silencing ejecting and deposing Dissenters and thence to anathematizing them and thence to banishing till at last it grew up to tormenting in the Inquisition and burning them 22. And whereas notwithstanding the petty Heresies among Christians too early the glory of the Antient persecuted Christians was their entire Love and Concord and the shame of the Philosophers was their discord it came to that pass that whereas a Heresie of old did start up among a few for a small time like our Ranters and Quakers who shame Religion no more than Bedlams shame Reason Now the great Continents of the Earth have been the Seats of the millions of those called Hereticks and Schismaticks by each other about 1400 or 1300 years Eusebius in Praepar Demonstr copiously sheweth that the Philosophers were all confounded in dissention and yet did not persecute each other but that the Christians were all of one Religion cleaving to one Sacred Word of God Of which also see Raym. Breganium in Theol. Gent. de Cogn Dei Enar. 5. cap. 8. To be Lovers of good men was the character of the old Bishops To be dividers and haters and slanderers and silencers and persecutors and murderers of them grew up with corrupters Pride 23. And with these did gradually grow up corruptions of Doctrine even while they pretended a burning Zeal against Heresie and corruption of God's publick Worship till it grew up to all the Mass and Roman Impurities 24. And to secure all this against Reformation ridiculous Legends and falsification of Church-History made it hard for posterity what to believe or whom § 15. Being thus far sure of the matter of fact by what degrees Prelacy grew up to the height that it hath now attained in the World abroad I considered what men thought of it now at home I am speaking yet but of matter of fact and I found great diversity in mens thoughts of it 1. As to the Roman height I found that the Church of England since the Reformation till A. B. Laud's time took the Pope to be the Antichrist It was in their church-Church-books Many other Bishops as well as Bishop Downam have written for it What Bishop Morton and Hall and Abbot and abundance such have written against Popery I need not name 2. I found that then the stream began to turn and the name of Antichrist was put out and our Reconciliation with Rome was taken to be a hopeful work and actually endeavoured which by their conversion all good men desire 3. I found that many among us of greatest reverence and name had laid down such tearms as these That the Catholick Church is one Visible Society under one humane Governing Soveraignty That this Universal Soveraign hath power of Universal Legislation and Judgment That the Colledge of Bishops through all the World are this one Supreme Universal Soveraign That they exercise it in General Councils when they sit That every Bishop is by Office the Representative of his Diocesan Church and these Bishops may or must have Metropolitans and Patriarchs and by these Patriarchs and Metropolitans per literas formatas and their Nuntii the Universal Supreme Colledge may exercise their Power over all the World And what they do thus the Church or Colledge doth in the intervals of General Councils That the Pope of Rome is to be acknowledged the Principium Unitatis to this Universal Church and Colledge of Bishops and the Ordinary President of General Councils ex Officio That Councils called without the President who hath the sole power are unlawful Assemblies and punishable Routs That the approbation of the President if not of the most of the Patriarchs is the note by which an authoriz'd obliging Council is to be known from others That the Pope is to be obeyed accordingly as Prime Patriarch Principium Unitatis President of General Councils and Patriarch of the West That all that will not unite with the Church of Rome on these tearms are Schismaticks and so to be accounted and used That those that thus unite with the Church of Rome are no Papists But a Papist is only one that holdeth all to be just and good that is done by Popes or at least one that is for the Pope's Absolute Power of Governing above Canon-Laws and Church-Parliaments or Councils And that if they will but abate their last 400 years Innovations or at least not impose them on others we may unite with the Church of Rome though they claim as Peter's Successors the Universal Supremacy at least to be exercised according to the Canons of Councils And that it is not the Church of Rome but the Court of Rome which at present we may not unite with That the Church of Rome is a true Church and hath had an uninterrupted Succession and its Sacraments true Sacraments But none of those Protestant Churches are true Churches that have not Diocesan Bishops nor any of their Pastors true Ministers of Christ who have not Diocesan Episcopal Ordination nor any that have such unless it hath as such been conveyed down from the Apostles by uninterrupted Succession by such Diocesans That such men have no true Sacraments God not owning what is done by any not so ordained That therefore they have no Covenant-promise of or right to Pardon and Salvation because such right is given only by the Sacrament That therefore all such Protestants Sacraments are but nullities and a prophanation of holy things And that the Holy Ghost being the Instituter of these sacred things it is the sin against the Holy Ghost to undertake and exercise the Ministry celebrate Sacraments without such uninterrupted successive Ordination That an Ordained Minister hath no more power than was intended him by his Ordainers That in such Presbyterians or Episcopal Churches which have their power from the Ordainers and so far for want of Succession are nullities it is safe for men as e. g. in France to be rather of the Roman Church than theirs § 16. And as I found this Doctrine in the ascendent in England so I met with such as were for using Protestants accordingly even for the silencing of them by thousands if they would not swear profess promise and do all that And for using the People accordingly And abating neither big nor little an Oath or a Ceremony to unite or save them And I lived in an Age where these things were no idle speculations § 17. Being thus far sure of the Matter of Fact I studied as well as
them where and when and with what success the aspiring humour did begin If we have small visible probability of escaping we must yet before we come to Smithfield satisfy our Consciences that we betrayed not the Church CHAP. III. Of Mr. M's notice that I am Unlearned § 1. MR. M's Preface Contracteth the Chief things which he hath to say against me in his book that the Reader may find them there all together And of these that I am unlearned is not the least And if that be any of his question I assure him it shall be none of mine I am not yet so vain as to plead for my Learning Yea I will gratify him though he accuse me of being against repentance with an unfeigned confession that my ignorance is far greater than his accusation of unlearnedness doth import Alas I want the knowledge of far more excellent things than languages I do but imperfectly know my self my own soul my own thoughts and understanding I scarce well know what knowing is Verily if no knowledge be properly true that is not adequate to the object I know nothing And subscribe to Zanchez quod nihil Scitur by such as I. Alas Sir I groan in darkness from day to day I know not how to be delivered How little do I know of that God whom the whole Creation preacheth and of that Society which I hope to be joyned with for ever and that world which must be my hope and portion or I am undone Many whom I am Constrained to dissent from upbraid me with my ignorance and I suppose it is that for which they silence me reproach hate and prosecute me even because I have not knowledge enough to discern that all their impositions are lawful or else I know not what it is for But none of them all can and will tell me how I should be delivered from this ignorance If they say It must be by hard study I can study no harder than I have done If they say I must be willing to know the truth I take my self for sure that I am so If in that also I am ignorant in thinking that I know my own mind when I do not what else then can I hope to know If they say You must be impartial I think I am so saving that I must not deny or cast away the truths already received If they say You should read the same books which have convinced us I read far more of the Papists and Prelatists and other sects that write against me than of those that are for me And the more I read the more I am confirmed And when these men preach and write against the Calvinists they render them odious as holding that men are necessitated to sin and to be damned and that it is long of Gods Decree which cannot be resisted Therefore I suppose they will not lay the Cause on God I do then confess my Ignorance of matters a thousandfold greater and more needful than those which they mention in their accusations I confess my self unlearned But I intreat them that tell me of my disease which I know to my daily grief much better than they to tell me also how I may be cured If they say that it must be by Fines and Imprisonment it hath been tryed I am yet uncured I hope they will not pronounce me remediless and not tell me why who use themselves to speak against those that preach men into desperation would they but tell me the secret how so many thousands of them came to be so much wiser than I in far shorter time and with far less study it would be if true an acceptable deed of Charity rather than to tell me of the Ignorance which I cannot help Could I but know needful truth in English I would joyfully allow them to glory of being more skilful in all the Oriental Tongues and also in French Irish Spanish and Italian than I am CHAP. IV. Of his Accusation that I vainly name Historians which I never saw or read § 1. I Must profess that it never was my purpose to tell the world how many Historians I have read nor to abridge all that I have read And those that I have most read I have there made no mention of as not being for my intended end And multitudes that stood by me I never opened to the writing of this history my design being chiefly against the Papists and those Protestants who most esteem their writings and had rather unite with the French Papist Church than with us Nonconformists Therefore when I was past the first 400 or 500 years it was the greatest and most flattering Popish historians that I abriged as ad hominem being likest not to be denyed I told the reader that I made not use of Luther the Magdeburgenses nor the Collections of Goldastus Marquardus Freherus Reuberus Pistorius c. And the Printer having put a Comma between Marquardus and Freherus he Conjectures that I took him for two men because I added not the Christian names of the rest And he concludes that whoever this mistake belongs to it 's plain that M. B. had but little acquaintance with those Collections For I name some of the Authors therein Ans Seeing these things are thought just matter for our accusers turn I will crave the Readers patience with such little things while I tell him the truth It is about 25 years since I read the Germa History in the Collections of Freherus Reuberus and Pistâ—rius and about 30 years since I read the Collections of Goldastus The Magdeburgenses Osiander Sleidan or any such Protestants I thought vain to alledge to Papists About seven or eight years ago as I remember I was accused for Preaching and Fined by Sir Thomas Davis and the Warrant was sent by him to Sir Edm. Bury Godfrey to levy it on me by Distress I had no way to avoid it but bona fide to make away all that I had Among the rest I made away my Library only borrowing part of it for my use I purposed to have given it almost all to Cambridge in New-England But Mr. Knowles yet living who knew their Library told me that Sir Kenelme Digby had already given them the Fathers Councils and Schoolmen but it was History and Commentators which they wanted Whereupon I sent them some of my Commentators and some Historians among which were Freherus Reuberus and Pistorius Collections and Nauclerus Sabellicus Thuanus Jos Scaliger de Emendat Temp. But Goldastus I kept by me as borrowed and many more which I could not spare and the Fathers and Councils and Schoolmen I was stopt from sending Now whether I was unacquainted with those that partly stand yet at my Elbow and which I had read so long ago must depend on the Credit of my Memory and I confess my Memory is of late grown weak but not so weak as to think that Marquardus Freherus was not one man and a Palatinate Councillor though it be
THE TRUE HISTORY OF COUNCILS Enlarged and Defended Against the Deceits of a pretended Vindicator of the Primitive-Church but indeed of the Tympanite Tyranny of some Prelates many hundred years after Christ With a Detection of the false History of Edward Lord Bishop of Corke and Rosse in Ireland And a Specimen of the way by which this Generation confuteth their Adversaries in several Instances And a Preface abbreviating much of Ludolphus's History of Habassia Written to shew their dangerous Errour who think that a general Council or Colledge of Bishops is a supream Governour of all the Christian World with power of Universal Legislation Judgment and Execution and that Christs Laws without their Universal Laws are not sufficient for the Churches Unity and Concord By RICHARD BAXTER a Lover of Truth Love and Peace and a Hater of Lying Malignity and Persecution To which is added by another Hand a Defence of a Book Entituled No Evidence for Diocesan Churches Wherein what is further produced out of Scripture and ancient Authors for Diocesan Churches is discussed London Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1682. To the Pious and Peaceable Protestant-Conforming Ministers who are against our Subjection to a Foreign Jurisdiction The notice of the Reason of this Book with a Breviate of Ludolphus's Habassian History Reverend Brethren WHen after the effects of our calamitous divisions the rejoycing Nation supposed they had been united in our King newly restored by a General and Army which had been fighting against him invited strengthned by the City many others an Act of Oblivion seemed to have prepared for future amity some little thought that men were about going further from each other than they were before But the Malady was evident to such of us as were called to attempt a Cure and neither the Causes nor the Prognosticks hard to be known A certain and cheap Remedy was obvious but no Pleas no Petitions could get men to accept it The Symptomes then threatned far worse than yet hath come to pass God being more merciful to us than mistaken men We were then judged criminal for foreseeing and foretelling what Fruit the Seed then sown would bring forth And since then the Sowers say the Foretellers are the cause of all We quickly saw that instead of hoping for any Concord and healing of the Bones which then were broken it would become our Care and too hard work to endeavour to prevent a greater breach Though we thought Two Thousand such Ministers as were silenced would be mist when others thought it a blessing to be rid of them we then feared and some hoped that no small number more would follow them It was not you that cast such out nor is it you that wish the continuance and increase of the Causes We agree with you in all points of the Christian Reformed Religion and concerning the evil of all the sins which we fear by Conforming to commit though we agree not of the meaning of those Oaths Promises Professions and Practices which are the matter feared We live in unfeigned Love and Communion with those that love Truth Holiness and Peace notwithstanding such differences as these God hath not laid our Salvation or Communion upon our agreeing about the meaning of every word or Sentence in the Bible much less on our agreeing of the sense of every word in all the Laws and Canons of men Two things we earnestly request of you for the sake of the Christian Religion this trembling Nation and your own and others Souls 1. That you will in your Parish Relations seriously use your best endeavours to promote true Godliness and Brotherly Love and to heal the sad Divisions of the Churches We believe that it must be much by the Parochial Ministers and Assemblies that Piety and Protestant Verity must be kept up And what we may not do we pray that you may do it who are allowed 2. That you will join with us against all Foreign Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical or Civil The Party which we dread I have given you some account of in my Reply to Mr. Dodwell By their Fruits you may know them 1. They are such as labour to make our Breaches wider by rendring those that they dissent from odious which commonly is by false accusations They call out for Execution by the Sword against those that dare not do as they do and cry Go on abate nothing they are factious Schismaticks rebellious They might easily have learnt this Language without staying long in the Universities and without all the Brimstone Books that teach it them An invisible Tutor can soon teach it them without Book He that hateth his Brother is a murtherer and hath not eternal Life abiding in him 2. They are for an universal humane Government with power of Legislation and Judgment over the whole Christian World How to call it they are not yet agreed whether Aristocratical or Monarchical or mixt Some of them say that it is in the Collegium Episcoporum governing per Literas formatas for fear lest if they say It is in Councils they should presently be confuted by the copious Evidence which we produce against them And yet they may well think that men will ask them When did all the Bishops on Earth make Laws for all the Christian World or pass Sentences on Offenders without ever meeting together And how came they to know each others minds and which way the major Vote went And what and where are those Laws which we must all be governed by which neither God nor Councils made The Canons were all made by Councils If you say that I describe men so mad as that I must be thought to wrong them I now only ask you whether our Case be not dismal when such men as you call mad have power to bring us and keep us in our ` Divisions or to do much towards it without much contradiction But others who know that such palpable darkness will not serve their cause do openly say that it is General Councils which are the Legislative and judging Governours to the whole Church on Earth as one Political Body For they know that we have no other Laws besides Gods and theirs pretended to be made for all the World But when the Cases opened by me in the Second part of my Key for Catholicks and else where do silence them this Fort also is deserted by them Even Albert. Pighius hath rendred it ridiculous 1. If this be the specifying or unifying Head or summa Potestas of the Universal Church then it is not monarchical but Aristocratical 2. Then the Church is no Church when for hundreds of Years there are no General Councils an essential part being wanting And they that own but the 4 or 6 first General Councils make the Church no Church or to have been without its essentiating Government these Thousand Years And by what proof besides their incredible Word
is not necessary by Gods Law but by the Councils And if I be a Schismatick for holding that Christs Universal Law is so sufficient for his Church as that a Legislative Power in Councils to make such Laws as shall tear all to pieces the Churches for 1300 Years and teach our Holy Fathers to damn Millions of the Innocent is not either necessary or desireable a Schismatick I will continue Ludolphus proceeding to open the ambiguity of the words addeth A famous Country-man of ours who anno 1634 dwelling in Egypt read the Books of the Cophties Pet. Heylin of Lubeck judged that the Dissent of the Parties was more in their fear of the Sequele than in the matter itself For the Greeks would obviate the Hereticks who confound Christs Divinity and Humanity And the Cophties those who feign two Persons in Christ And if indeed this be the case that the Fight either of old was or still is only about the sense of words verily no kind of Tears can be so sharp as to suffice to weep for this unhappy Word-War No Breast can be so hard which would not mourn for the unhappy Contentions of them to whom Christ by his own example solicitously commended the strictest Bond of Charity No mind can be so cruel which for the name of Nature would loose the knot of Concord between those whose Nature the eternal Word assumeth into his most sacred Hypostasis Fie Mr. Ludolphus can you so well describe Ethiopia and no better know your Neighbours Come into England and you may soon know the Reverend and Right Reverend who will not only defend this Councils Acts and condemn those that be not of their mind but are ready to do the like themselves and triumph over the thousands silenced as they judge for lesser things yea and make that Councils Canons such a Law to the Universal Church as that all are Schismaticks that obey it not But Ludolphus yet considering addeth But such is the Infirmity of our most corrupt Nature that where once Ambition hath begun and from Ambition Emulation and from Emulation Envy and from Envy Hatred the mind possessed with such affections no more perceiveth Truth but as with Ears and Eyes shut up neither heareth nor seeth how or with what mind any thing is spoken or written by the other side O Sir now I perceive you understand more than you seemed to do But yet the History is behind The Pope hath long had a great desire to be the Church Governour of Habassia but could never come to know it much less to bear Rule over it At last the Portugals getting possession of some Maritime parts whence with much difficulty it was possible to come to them the Pope got them to help the Habassines in a dangerous War which they had against their Neighbour Mahometanes and Heathens on condition that the Habassines would receive a Patriarch and Jesuites from Rome The Portugals Guns which that Country had not and their own necessity made the Habassines consent The Roman Patriarch and Jesuits came over The custom of Habassia had long been to receive a Metropolitan called their Abuna from the Patriarch of Alexandria who being a poor unlearned Subject and almost Slave to the Turk made Abunas and Priests as unlearned as himself when the Jesuits came furnished with Arts and Sciences the matter came to long Disputes for the People especially the Monks and the Rulers were loth to change their old accustomed Religion called the Alexandrian for that called the Romane The King would needs have it done by hearing both parties speak But the learned Jesuites were still too hard for the unlearned Habassines One King seemed to like the Romanes but his Son Claudius stiffly resisted them Others afterward again needed help and received them and by their Disputes seemed really to be for them seeing how much the Jesuites excelled their Priests specially K. Zadengelus being taken with the Jesuits Preaching when all his own Clergy only read Liturgies Homilies never preacht He set up the Romane Patriarch power K. Susneus after him sware Obedience to the Pope and resolutely established Popery Disputes brought him to it And the Jesuites knowing that it must be somthing which seemed to be of Weight which must make the Empire submit to a Change of their Religion accuse the Abassines as erring with the Eutychians in rejecting the Council of Galcedon and denying two Natures and Wills in Christ This was chosen as the main Subject of the great Disputes The Emperour was convinced of their Heresie and became a resolute Proselite to Rome And Popery Eight Years had the upper ruling hand But all this while the Empire was in discontent The Royal Family and the Sub-Governours oft broke out into Rebellion To be short many bloody battels were fought The Emperour usually had the Victory But when one field of blood was dried up a new Rebellion still Sprung up The Papists still told the K. that God gave him the Victory for owning his Church and Cause His Rulers Priests and Monks told him he killed his Subjects and in the end would lose his Empire for nothing but bare words After many fights in the last about Eight Thousand of his Subjects called his Enemies were killed The Kings own adherents being no friends to the Roman Change desired the King to view the dead and made to him presently this Speech These were not Heathens nor Mahometanes in whose death we might justly rejoice They were Christians they were formerly your Subjects our Countrymen and near in Body some of them to you and some to us How much better might so many valiant Breasts have been set against the deadly Enemies of your Kingdom It 's no victory which is got upon Citizens with the Sword by which you kill them you stab your self Those whom we persecute with so terrible a War do not hate us but only are against that Worship which we force them to How many have we already killed for the changing of Religion Sacrorum How many more are there yet to be killed What end will there be of Fighting Give over we beseech you to drive them to your new Religious things nova sacra lest they give over to obey you else there will never be a safe peace Yea the Kings eldest Son and his Brother got the Gallans Heathens that had been Souldiers for the King to tell him they would fight against his Dissenting Christians no more The K. growing weary of War and seeing and hearing all this changed his mind and called a Council in which it was agreed That the Alexandrian Religion should be restored And to effect this they declared that indeed the Roman Religion was the very same Both said that Christ is true God and true Man And to say There is one Nature or there are two are words of small moment and not worthy the ruining of the Empire And thus the King was brought to give Liberty of Religion to the Dissenters
I was able to know which of these waies was right And I saw that either Popery that is the Popes universal Headship or Government is of Divine Institution or elss it is a heinous Usurpation and formeth a sort of Church which is not on any pretence of Concord to be owned And as to the first I have said before and in many Books what I have to say against it which is all summed up in Doctor Iz. Barrow and Doctor H. Moore and largely told the world by Chamier Sadeel Whitaker Jewel Usher Morton White Chillingworth Crakenthorne and abundance more And I thought it strange if either Papacy or that Tympanite of the Clergy which tended to it were of God that the Persons should be ordinarily so bad and it should introduce so great mischief in doctrine worship and practice over the Christian world and bring the Church into such a divided and polluted state and that as the Clergy swelled the Body should pine away and the Spirit of holiness and Love be turned into the Skelleton of Ceremony and Formality and into hatred cruelty and tearing and tormenting pains § 18. Upon all such thoughts I concluded in these resolutions 1. That I must not accuse any Office made by God for mens abuse of it 2. Nor must I accuse the good for the faults of the bad 3. Nor Confound the Office it self with its disease and the accidental Tympanite 4. Nor aggravate humane infirmities in good men as if they were the crimes of malignant Enemies 5. Much less lay any of the blame on Christianity or Piety when nothing in the world is so much against all these Evils nor would they have been so far limited restrained or resisted had it not been for that Christianity and Piety that was kept up against it nor is there any other cure of it It is not by Religion but for want of more true and serious Religion that all these mischiefs have so lamentably prevailed § 19. I therefore resolving to avoid extreams concluded thus 1. That it is most certain that Christ is the only Head of the Church 2. And that as such he himself did make universal Laws and will be the final universal Judge and there is no other that hath universal Legislative and Judicial Power but he 3. As such he instituted necessary Church-Officers first extraordinary ones to be his Instruments in Legislation as Moses was to the Jews giving them his Spirit extraordinarily for that use to bring all that he taught them to their remembrance and guide them to deliver and record all his Commands And ordinary Ministers as the Priests and Levites to the Jews to teach and apply these Commands or universal Laws to the end of the World but not to add diminish or alter them 4. That the formal Essence of this continued Sacred Ministry consisteth in a derived Power and Obligation in subordination to Christ as Prophet Priest and King to Teach to Guide the Churches in holy Worship and to Rule them by the Pastoral Power which maketh them Ministerial Judges of mens capacity for Church-Communion but they have as such no forcing power of the Sword 5. That there are two sorts of these Ministers accidentally distinguished 1. Such as are only ordained to the Ministry in general and not specially related to any one particular Church more than other whose work is to do their best to Teach Infidels and baptize them and gather Churches and occasionally to Officiate orderly in such Churches where they come as need their help 2. Those that have moreover an additional call to be the stated Pastors Overseers or Guides of particular Churches as fixed Officers of Christ All which have the three foresaid Essentials of the Office to Teach Worship and Rule 6. That the Office of these men is to be performed by themselves and no Lay-man may do any Essential part of them by their deligation and therefore as in Physicians Tutors c. necessary Personal abilities are as essential as the necessary dispositio materiae is ad receptionem alicujus formae And ex quovis ligno non fit mercurius 7. That it is very much and great and most important work which these Ministers have to do To Preach God's Word understandingly faithfully constantly fervently to resolve the doubtful to reprove the scandalous to persuade the obstinate to confute gainsayers to comfort the sad and strengthen the weak particularly as there is occasion To visit the sick Catechize Baptize besides all acts of publick Government Therefore one man cannot possibly do all this for too great a number of souls but great Congregations must have many Ministers And so they had in the Primitive Church where the most able Speakers preacht usually in publick and the rest did more of the personal and more private work 8. And whereas it was very early that most single Churches had one that had a preheminence amongst the rest not as of another Office but as a President in a Colledge of Philosophers Physicians or Divine Students to be a Governour over those of his own profession by moderate Guidance and it is not unmeet that when one worthy Teacher hath gathered a Church and brought up younger Christians to Ministerial abilities that they when they are ordained should take him for their Father I will never gainsay such an Episcopacy in single Churches that is societies of Christians combined for personal Communion in Doctrine Worship and Holy living under such Pastors as aforesaid 9. And because I find that the Apostles and Evangelists had a Ministerial care of many Churches to teach reprove exhort the Pastors and People And though the Apostles extraordinary power and work ceased yet Church-Oversight as well as Preaching being an ordinary continued work and when I find Christ hath instituted some Teachers over many Churches I dare not say that he hath repealed this till I can prove it And the nature of the thing tells us that if some grave holy men have the care of counselling and warning and reproving the Ministers of many Churches who are below them in parts and worth It may do much good and can do no harm to the Churches while they have no power of force or tyranny Therefore I resolved never to speak or do any thing against such Bishops of Bishops though Diocesan § 20. Thus far I have oft declared my self for Episcopacy But finding in all the aforesaid History how the Church came to the woful State that it hath been in these 1200 years and what it suffereth by the Bishops and their Clergy in almost all parts of the Christian World and that even the English Diocesans can endure no more Parochial Pastoral Discipline than they do I mean such as Bucer in Script Anglic. prest so vehemently on King Edw. and the Bishops and that they cannot contentedly hold their Lordships Wealth and Honours without silencing and ruining Two thousand such as I or better and using many thousands of godly Christians as they do
verbo discedimus omnia limatius subtilius scrutamur quam ipse vult nos scrutari Whether you reverence Luther any more than Calvin I know not 11. To conclude this matter two things I desire you or at least the Reader to consider 1. Whether it be not a dreadful thing for a man to make the Church corrupting dividing and confounding sin◠to be all his own by defending or excusing them on a false pretence of Vindicating the Primitive Church Government which was contrary to them 2. Whether you trust to Truth and Evidence or to Interest and depraved Judgments if you think men shall believe that you have confuted all this undoubted History and the present experience of all the woful Christian World by a general Cry that I write falsly and maliciously or by saying that I am unlearned or that I trusted to a Translation or Binnius or that Binnius mistook the year things that I will not turn over my Books to try or that I misplaced or misunderstood a word of Theodorite or mistranslated Calami or such like Such Believers of you are guilty of their own deceit § 22. There is lately published by a nameless Prelatist to shew the World what Spirit he is of a Book pretending by the description of my Life from 1640. till 1681. to prove me one of the worst men alive To that I will now say but these few words 1. That let them take me to be as bad as they will so they would have some mercy on their own and others Souls and the Church of God 2. That it 's no wonder that we differ about Antient Times and History and present Impositions when the main difference in our Times is who are godly yea tolerable Christians and who are intollerable Rogues and those that as before God by long and intimate acquaintance I judge to be the most serious conscionable humble holy Ministers and People that were ever known to me are the Persons that the Prelatists prosecute silence and cry out against as the most intollerable wicked Enemies of Piety Truth and Peace What is it that is the root of this 3. That this foresaid Book is one continued Calumny unworthy of an Answer partly making my duty my sin as that I disliked the many drunken Readers that were the Teachers of my Youth c. and partly perverting scraps of sentences and partly reciting one revoked Book and a few retracted sentences of another when Augustin is commended for retracting far more and filling it with a multitude of most gross untruths of his own fiction 4. That as to his and Mr. Morrice and others talk of the Wars I say 1. That I never thought the Parliament blameles◠2. That yet on Bilson's grounds I was in my Judgment and Speech and Action comparatively for them while they made their Commissions to Essex for King and Parliament 3. That from Naseby Fight I wholly laboured to have drawn off their Souldiers from Errour and Rebellion and Usurpation in which I did and suffered more than multitudes of my Accusers 4. That I never went so far against the Power of the King as R. Hooker whom I have long ago confuted 5. That I never struck or hurt man in the wars 6. That I will consent to be silenced and imprisoned if they will but give those Ministers leave to preach Christs Gospel that never had to do with wars unless for the King 7. That when our beginning Concord had restored the King the Scots though unsuccessfully fought for him Monk his Army that had bloodily at Dundee c. fought against him had with the Concurrence of Sir Tho. Allen the Londoners and Presbyterians restored him when the King by them came in Triumph Honoured Monk and others of them confest them the Cause of his Restoration past an Act of Oblivion that we might all live in future Peace I say If after all this it be Prelacy and Clergy Interest and Spirit that will rub over all the healed wounds and strive again what ever it cost us to ulcerate the peoples minds and resolve that the Land and Church shall have no Peace but by the destruction of such as restored the King I shall think never the better of Prelacy for this But ask them why did you not Speak it out in 1660 to Monk and his Army or till now § 23. And whereas that Advocate described Job 8. and you are still deceiving the ignorant by facing men down with Confidence that I lie in saying that Two Episcopal Parties began the War in England and the Papists and Presbyterians came in but as Auxiliaries I again say 1. Allow me but reasonable leave and I will prove it to the shame of you if you deny it 2. At present I will but recite one clause in Whitlocks Memorials pag. 45. even after they thought themselves under a necessity to please the Scots as far as they could Anno 1640. The Commons had debate about a new Form of Ecclesiastical Government and July 17. agreed That every Shire shall be a several Diocess a Presbytery of Twelve Divines in each Shire and a President as a Bishop over them and he with the assistance of some of the Presbytery to ordain suspend deprive degrade and excommunicate To have a Diocesan Synod once a year and every third year a National Synod and they to make Canons but none to be binding till confirmed by Parliament The Primate of Armagh offered an expedient for conjunction in point of Discipline that Episcopal and Presbyterian Government might not be at a far distance but reducing Episcopacy to the Form of Synodical Government in the Primitive Church Were not these men Episcopal It 's much like Mr. Thorndike's own motions saving his Opinion for Forein Jurisdiction § 24. As to your first and last Chapters and about the Antient Extent of Churches while my Treatise of Episcopacy which fully confuteth you is unanswered if I repeat it again it will not be read by weary men And another hath answered those parts of your Book which is ready for the Press I after tell you where Chrysostom even in his time numbers the Christians in that great Imperial City to be an hundred thousand that is as many as in Martins and Stepney Parishes and perhaps in Giles Cripplegate too § 25. To conclude whereas Mr. M. in general chargeth me as falsifying History I still call my self a HATER of FALSE HISTORY and loath Mr. Morrice's History because it is false But if he will instead of falsifying and trifling shew me any false History that I have owned I will thank him unfeignedly and retract it But factious reproaching of good men and painting the deformed face of Vice go not with me for convincing proof If I am not near of kin to Erasmus I am a stranger to my self even as Merula and M. Adamus describe him Ingenio erat simplex adeo abhorrens a mendacio ut puellus etiam odisset pueros mentientes
names that I most forget why I gave not the Christen names of Reuberus and Pistorius whether because I forgat them or because I minded not so small a thing not dreaming what would be inferred from it I remember not But when I wrote that abridgment I made use of none that I thought the Papists would except against For the first ages I gathered what I remembred out of the Fathers and out of Eusebius Socrates Sozomen Evagrius Theodoret the Tripartite Nicephorus Liberatus Brev. Victor Utic Beda and such others as are by them received Besides which I principally followed and Epiâ—omized Binnius and Crab and partly Baronius with Platina Onuphrius Panunius Stella Petavius and others of their own And I resolved I would not so much as open Goldastus or any Protestant Collector that they might not except against their Credit and reject them as malicious cursed Hereticks as Labbe doth Melchior Goldastus and almost all such others as he mentions and as Gretser Sanders and other Papists commonly do Therefore even those Histories which be in Goldastus I would not take as out of him but some of them from the books published by others and some as cited by Binnius Petavius or other such And this is now the proof of my Vanity § 2. It is a mistake if he think that I intended as he speaks to be a Compiler of General Church History When I professed but to acquaint the English Reader with the true matter of fact out of the Papists themselves what the ambitious part of Bishops and Councils have done and by what degrees the Papacy sprang up and whether subjection to the ascendent exort Prelacy be absolutely necessary to Concord and Salvation § 3. As to his saying I am the first that ever reckoned Nazianzen among Historians I take the writings of the Fathers especially Justin Clemens Alex. Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Basil Nazianzen Hierom Chrysostom Augustin to be the best part of Church History especially their Epistles And of this opinion I am not the first CHAP. V. Of his Accusation of my citing Hanmer and other Translators and being deceived by Binnius and such others § 1. 1. HE accuseth me for not using Valesius his Edition of Eusebius and those Editions of the Councils which he accounteth the best To which I say 1. I am not Rich Enough to buy them nor can keep them if I had them Must none write but Rich men The French Councils would cost more than many of us are worth We have had no Ecclesiastical maintenance these 19 years and we cannot keep the books we have Luther wrote his book de Conciliis when it seems he had never read many of the Councils Acts but as related by Eusebius Socrates Sozomen and the Tripartite History 2. Dr. James hath long ago warned all Scholars to make much of Crab and other old ones and the Fathers as Printed at Basil by Erasmus Amerbachius c. and not to trust much to new Editions as coming through untrusty hands 3. Is Valesius a man of so much credit with you Do you believe what he saith of Grotius as being in judgment for the Papal Church and only in prudence delaying his visible Communion with them that he might draw in many with him Vales in Orat. de Petavio If he lye in this and the success of Petavius on Grotius why should he be more trusted than others If not I need not tell you what to think of those Bishops and Drs. who profess to be of the same mind and Church as Grotius nor again to tell you who they be 4. My design led me not to make use of Criticks but only to tell the world what the Papists themselves confess such as I have throughout cited § 2. As for my using Hanmers Translation of Eusebius and Socrates my case was â—s before described Valesius I had not Grineus I made use of heretofore But since I was by constraint deprived both of my books and money to buy more when I wrote that Abridgment I had only Hanmers Translation left me And if that sort of men that forced me to give away my books to keep them from being distreined on will make use of this to prove me ignorant of them the matter is very small to me If you say I should not then have written I answer could they so have silenced us in the Pulpit they had more answered their own judgment than mine I had no use for Criticks nor for any thing in Eusebius and Socrates that depends on the credit of the Translator § 3. As to his oft noting that in Translations and sometime in Chronology I err by following Binnius I answer had I written a full Church History I should better have examined him and others But I lay no stress of my cause of any of Binnius his Translations nor will I undertake for any Historian that I cite My business was but to tell those that believe Binnius and Baronius and such other what they say Nor do I yet intend to bestow any time in examining whether he wrong Binnius or not it being nothing to my cause nor me whether he mistook a year or the meaning of a word of the Authors whom he citeth § 4. He saith I use an old uncorrect Edition of Binnius 1606. Ans It is that which is in most common use entituled Recognita Aucta notis Illustrata dedicated to the Pope and to C. Baronius ejus monitu scripta qui veterem illam mendosam mutilam confusam compilationem mille locis illustravit c. commonly Preferred before Crab Surius Nicolinus c. But any quarrel serveth some men CHAP. VI. Of his Accusations of my own Mistranslations and Mistakes § 1. OF these are two real Oversights which he nameth committed by too much hast and heedlesness The one is that I misplaced Vere in the Translation of a Speech of Theodorets a gross oversight I confess The other that I put Episcopi as if it had been the 〈…〉 tive case when it was the Nominative plural which also was a heedless oversight And about the death of Stephanus he noteth my mistranslating Calami and I imagine yet he is scarce certain what it signified himself As for his note of my use of Scripture about the Ephesine Council I purposely kept to the literal Translation that none might say I did mistranslate it but I never said that by the Scriptures was meant the Bible § 2. This Accuser puts too great an honour on such a History as mine which goeth through so many Ages and Acts in noting so few and such little things I never pretended to be as good an Historian as he is yet I do not think that it was any thing but a slip of memory that made him put Eustathius instead of Flavian as kickt to death at Ephesus And me thinks he that thus begins his Errata of his own Book The faults that have escaped are almost infinite should not for one false Comma of the
Death I confess I understand not Latine I thought the Council meant Death by Lex perimi jubet but they would be more merciful which I blamed them not for but noted here what many other Canons instance where they also punish murder but with keeping men from Communion that this agreeth with some Sectaries Opinion I leave Mr. M's great skill in expounding Councils here to any equal Judge But if I ignorantly mistake in all this and neither Capitis sententia feriantur nor Vivas in terra desossas signifie Death but Excommunication yet many other Canons after cited fully tell us of the Bishops Clemency CHAP. VII Mr M's Exposition of Church History tryed by his Exposition of my own words And 1. Of his false supposition that I am only for a Church of one Congregation meeting in one place § 1. IF so many repetitions of my Opinion cannot save Mr M. from so untrue a supposition of my self I must not too far trust him of the sence of those that he is as distant from as I. Yet this supposition running through all his book shews that he wrote it against he knew not whom nor what His foundation is because I define a single Church by Personal present Communion § 2. I do so And 1. Doth he think there is no such thing as Christians conjoyned for assembling in Gods ordinary worship under the Conduct of their Proper Pastors I will not censure him so hardly as to think he will deny it 2. Are these Churches or not I suppose he will say Yea. 3. But is there no Personal Presâ—nt Communion but in publick worship Yes sure Neighbours who worship God in divers places may yet live in the Knowledge and conversation of each other and may meet for Election of Officers and other Church businesses and may frequently exhort reprove and admonish each other and relieve each other in daily wants and many meet sometimes by turns in the same place where they all cannot meet at once We have great Towns like Ipswich Plymouth Shrewsbury c. which have many Parishes and yet Neighbourhood maketh them capable of Personal Communion in Presence as distinct from Communion by Letters or Delegats with those that we neither see nor know And we have many great Parishes which have several Chappels where the People ordinarily meet yet per vices some one time and some another come to the Parish Churches Have these no Parochial Personal Communion To the well-being of a Church I confess I would not have a single Church of the lowest species have too many nor too few No more than whose Personal Communion should be frequent in Gods publick worship Nor so few as should not fully employ more Ministers of Christ than one But to the Being of a Church I only require that the End of their Association be Personal Communion as distinct from distant Communion by Letters and delegates And by Communion I mean not only the Sacrament § 2. It is in vain therefore to answer a book that goeth on such false suppositions and a man that will face down the world that I plead for that which I never owned and so frequently disclaim CHAP. VIII Of his false supposition that I am against Diocesan Bishops because I am against that species of them which puts down all the Bishops of single Churches and those Churches themselves § 1. THis supposition goeth through almost all the book In his preface he saith The superiority of Bishops over Presbyters is acknowledged by Catholicks and Schismaticks Hereticks c. and yet this Church history would have us believe the Contrary And so throughout § 2. And yet to shew that he knew the Contrary in one place he confesseth it and described part of my judgment and saith that none will be of my mind in it but it is singular to my self Yea I had in my Disput of Church Government which he taketh on him in part to answer and in my Treat of Episcopacy which he also pretends to answer in part told them of more sorts of Bishops than one that I oppose not no not A. Bishops themselves And one of them hereupon notes it as if I differed but about the name submitting to Diocesans so they may but be called A. Bishops To whom I answered that A. Bishops have Bishops under them so that though I over and over even to tediousness tell them it is the dâ—posing of all the first or lowest Species of Bishops and Churches and Consequently all Possibility of true Disâ—ipline that I opposâ— and submit to any that oversee many such Churches without destroying them and their priviledges instituted by Christ I speak â—ill in vain to them These true Historians face down the world that I write whole books to the clean contrary CHAP. IX Of his supposition that I am an Independent and yet that I plead for the cause of the Presbyterians § 1. THis is also a supposition that is part of the Stamina of his Book and how far he is to be believed herein judge by the evidence following 1. He knew what I said before for three sorts of Bishops 1. Episcopi Gregis Overseers of single lowest Churches as of Divine Institution 2. For Episcopi Episcoporum or Presidents-Bishops ejusdem Ordinis non ejusdem Gradus in the same Churches as of early Humane Institution which I resist not 3. Episcopi Episcoporum Overseers of many Churches which I suspect to be Successors of the Apostles and of such as Timothy Titus c. in the continued ordinary part of their work exercising no other Power than they did Insomuch that Dr. Sherlock would be thought so much less Episcopal than I as that he saith It is Antichristian to assert Episcopos Episcoporum § 2. And Dr. Parker hath newly written a Book for Episcopacy which I hear many despise but for my part I take to be the strongest that I have seen written for it these twenty years but to no purpose against me for it is but for Episcopacy in general which I oppose not It excellent well improveth the Arguments of the K. and Bishops at the Isle of Wight even that one Argument that a Superiority of some over others being settled by Christ and his Apostles that Form must be supposed to continue unless we have clear proof of the Repeal or Cessation I have ost said the same I could never answer that Argument But this will not justifie the deposing of thousands of Bishops and Churches and of their Discipline to turn them all into two or three Diocesans § 3. Also he knoweth that I have written these 35 years against Lay. Elders believing that the Colledge of Elders which of old assisted the Bishops were none of them Lay-men nor unordained but of the same Order though not Degree with the Bishop himself § 4. And I have also written that Synods of Bishops or Presbyters are but for Concord and have not as such by a major Vote a proper Government of the minor part
none of their virtues though it was not my work to record them While I am confuting the Errours of your book do I wrong you unless I write a Catalogue of your good works Morney Illyricus and many others have gathered a Catalogue of old witnesses for Protestant Verities And Bishop Morton hath cited multitudes of Papists against their party Have they wronged them because they have not also cited all that the same said for the Roman cause I have mentioned the virtues of some of the Popes even of Greg. 7. but of many others I have only mentioned their vices This is not to deny any good that is in them Nor do you accuse your selves of any injustice when you tell the world how bad men the Parliaments have bin and how bad Cromwell and the Armies and how bad the Nonconformists are and I in particular without naming any of their good deeds or virtues Because it is not your business CHAP. XII Of his Accusation that I do all in spite and malice against Bishops and as using ill language of them § 1. ANsw 1. Spite and Malice are heart sins If the same effect may come from other Causes how know you that these are the Cause Ans 2. Is it from Spight and Malice that Protestants commonly describe the vices of the Popes such as Greg. 7. Sergius Alexandr 3. Boniface 8. Joh. 12. and 13. 22 23. Eugen. 4. c. And also that they so hardly speak of the Jesuites Yea and Papists commonly Sure it may come from some other cause Ans 3. Is it from Spight and Malice that you recite the tumults of the German Anabaptists the faults of those at Munster the Errours of David George the many Enthusiastick Sects described by Beckman Exercit. of whom many as Thaulerus Kempis Behmen had much very commendable and Grotius praised Job Arâ—dt Is it from Malice that the Familists Seekers Quakers Anabaptists c. are usually by your party described by their faults without any mention of their goodness Ans 4. Is it from Spight and Malice that your Party have written what they have done of the great faultiness of the Nonconformists both former and latter and that Calvinists are so odiously represented that the Reformation by them is described by Heylin and others as Rebellious That such books are written as Heylins Aerius Redivivus H. Fowlis the Evangel Armatum The Eccles Polit. the Friendly Debate the Counterminer the Vindicaâ— of Dr. Stillingfleet the pretended second part which is a continued Calumny against my self so full of particular falshoods as are not to be without a tedious Volume answered And a multitude such written to render the Nonconformists odious and unsufferable If all these be not written in Malice how know you that mine were Ans 5. And whereas some pretending moderation accuse me of too bad provoking language 1. Is there any Comparison between the language of any of these books or yours and Dr. Sherlock's and mine Read but Learned Godly moderate Bishop Downam his Defence of his Visit sermon his frequent charges of shameless impudent Lying and much more against a Nonconformist that gave him no such language Read but the ordinary Writings of such as Bishop Bancroft Dr. Sutcliff and most others against the Old Nonconformists and of the Lutherans against the Calvinists even men that I am persuaded meant honestly but by Faction were exasperated as Hunnius Brentius Morlinus Mâ—rbackius Snepfius Wigandus Heshusius Andreas Seâ—necerus Heerbrand Caloviâ—s and many such Read but our Grammarians such as you may find in the many Volumes of the Collections of Janus Gruterâ—s even those of Cramer and Phil. Paraeus and others against himself where Fools Knaves Lyars Sots and worse make up much of the style Read but our Old Grammarian Reformers against the Popish Priests and Schoolmen I mean Erasmus Hutten Faber and the rest what Scorns their Writings do abound with I will not refer you to the Queen of Navarrâ— and Stephanus his World of Wonders against the Priests lest you think I approve of the excess Yea read but the Writings of our famous Learned Criticks Jul. and Joseph Scaliger Heinsius Salmasius c. from whom the railing Jesuite Labbe took advantage to say Tom. 1. p. 820. Rivâ—â—o praeâ—vâ—â—at Josephus Scaliger homo utique modestissimus qui Editores S. Iraeâ—aeâ— vocat clamosos maledicentissimos Câ—rcopâ—s Tartareos Pyriphlegetâ—oâ—tas virâ—lentiae probrorum coâ—câ—â—nâ—tores editionem coloniensem cloacam Sycophantiarum lâ—â—â—inâ—m convâ—tiâ—â—â—m staâ—â—lâ—m inscitiae Through God's great mercy while Malignity is the Complexion of the Serpent's Seed and Lying is their Breath and Murder is their Work the names of all these sins are odious in the world and guilt is impatient and cannot endure its own name Should I but mention the Language of Papists how they represent the holiest Protestants as Lyars Deceivers Devils intollerable whom it is as lawful to kill as Dogs Foxes or Toads it would concern none but those of you that use to say I had rather be a Papist than a Puritane or Presbyterian oâ— those that renounce Communion with us and own it with the Church of Rome who are alas too many Such Language as â—aâ—â—â—'s Vol. 1 p. 819. is of the sweeter sort viz. Quisquis es sâ—lutis tâ—â— amans Omnes illicâ— Calvinistas Lutheranos Socinianos Anabaptistas similesque generis humani pestes Cacodamonâ—m instar execrabere This is but what we daily hear But while we hear it in a Language so very like from the Papists and the Pulpits and Press and Roger Le Strange is become the Church's Advocate and Mouth it will harden them that did ill joyn together Popery and Prelacy in their rejections Honest Thuanus is amiable and honourable for Speaking well of all that deserved it without partiality But Gerb. Vossius is put to defend his Father-in-law Junius against his unjust censure Indeed Junius was a man of Eminent peaceableness and moderation I would Arminius and he had been the utmost prosecutors of that Controversie notwithstanding Dr. Twisses undervaluing his skill in School Divinity And few men were more unlike Thuanus his ill Character than Junius But Dr Manton hath told me that he hath been fully informed that it was not Junius that Thuanus meant but another that dyed that year which Junius did not and that by some ill chance a wrong name was put in Contrary to Thuanus intent § 2. Dr. Burnet is a man whom I much value and honour and pleadeth much for peace and moderation and therefore much the more amiable to me I thank him for his reproof of me to my face but because he goeth on to vend it as just behind my back where I cannot answer him I must do it here He saith that I began and that with unchristian provoking language against the Conformists in my first Plea for peace which caused all the succeeding heats Ans 1. I have to him and oft in print appealed to humanity and common sence
' s Plain Man's Path Way and Dod on the Commandments c. They used to pray in their Families and alone some on the Book and some without They would not Swear nor Curse nor take God's Name lightly They feared all known sin They would go to the next Parish-Church to hear a Sermon when they had none at their own would read the Scripture on the Lord's Day when others were playing These were where I lived about the number of two or three Families in twenty and these by the rest were called Puritanes and derided as Hypocrites and Precisians that would take on them to be Holy And especially if they told any one of his Swearing Drunkenness or Ungodliness they were made the common scorn Yet not one of many of them ever scrupled Conformity to Bishops Liturgy or Ceremonies and it was godly Conformable Ministers that they went from home to hear And these Ministers being the ablest Preachers and of more serious Piety were also the Objects of the Vulgar Obloquy as Puritanes and Precisians themselves and accordingly spoke against by many of their Tribe and envyed for being preferred by godly men This being the Condition of the Vulgar where I was when I came into the acquaintance of many Persons of Honour and Power and reputed Learning I found the same seriousness in Religion in some few before described and the same daily scorn of that sort of men in others but differently cloathed For these would talk more bitterly but yet with a greater shew of reason against the other than the ignorant Country People did And they would sometime talk of some Opinions in Religion and some of them would use some of the Common-Prayer in their Houses and some of them would swear but seldom and small Oaths and lived soberly and civilly but serious talk of God or Godliness or that which tended to search and reform the Heart and Life and seriously prepare for the Life to come or to awaken Souls to a care of their State and Salvation they would at least be very weary to hear if not deride as Puritanical Mr. Robert Bolton a Conformist hath fully opened all this of both sorts in his Discourse of True Happiness and Directions for walking with God And how the name Puritane was then used This being the Fundamental Division where I came some of these that were called Puritanes and Hypocrites for not being Hypocrites but serious in the Religion they professed would sometimes get together and as Drunkards and Sporters would meet to drink and play they would in some very few places where there were many of them meet after Sermon on the Lord's Daies to Repeat the Conforming Ministers Sermon and sing a Psalm and Pray For this and for going from their own Parish-Churches they were first envied by the Readers and dry Teachers whom they sometime went from and next prosecuted by Apparitors Officials Archdeacons Commissaries Chancellors and other Episcopal Instruments For in former times there had been divers Presbyterian Nonconformists who earnestly pleaded for Parish-Discipline as Bucer also did in Oper. Anglic. And to subdue these divers Canons were made which served the turn against these Meetings of the Conformable Puritanes and going from their own Parish-Churches though the Old Presbyterians were dead and very few succeeded them About as many Nonconformists as Counties were left and those few most stuck at Subscription and Ceremonies which were the hinderance of their Ministry and but few of them studied or understood the Presbyterian or Independent Disciplinary Causes But when these Conformable Puritanes were thus prosecuted it bred in them hard thoughts of the Bishops and their Courts as Enemies to serious Piety and Persecutors of that which they should promote Suffering bred this Opinion and Aversation And the ungodly Rabble rejoyced at their troubles and applauded the Bishops for it and were every where ready to set the Apparitors on them or to ask them Are you holier or wiser thâ—◠〈…〉 Bishops And their Accusations were readily entertained This much inclined them to hearken to them that were averse to Conformity when such rose up and to such as were more against the Bishops than there was cause so that by this time the Puritanes took the Bishops to be Captains and the Chancellors Archdeacons Commissaries Officials and Paritors their Officers and the Enemies of serious Godliness and the vicious Rabble to be as their Army to suppress true consciencious Obedience to God and care of mens Salvation And the censured Clergy and Officers took the Censurers to be Schismaticks and Enemies to the Church unfit to be endured and fit to be prosecuted with reproach and punishment so that the said Puritanes took it to be but the common Enmity that since Cain's daies hath been in the world between the Serpent's and the Woman's Seed And when the persons of Bishops Chancellors Officials Apparitors c. were come under such a repute it was easie to believe what should be sail against their Office And the more the Bishops thought to cure this by punishment the more they increased the Opinion that they were persecuting Enemies of Godliness and the Captains of the Prophane And when such sinful Beginnings had prepared men the Civil Contentions arising those called Puritanes mostly were against that side which they saw the Bishops and their Neighbour Enemies for And they were for the Parliament the rather because they seemed desirous to Reform the Bishops and Restore the Liberty of those whom they prosecuted for the manner of their serving God Yet they desired where-ever I was to have lived peaceably at home But the Drunkards and Rabble that formerly hated them when they saw the War beginning grew inraged and if a man did but Pray and Sing a Psalm in his house they would cry Down with the Roundheads a word then new made for them and put them in fear of sudden violence and afterwards brought the King's Souldiers to plunder them of their goods and they were fain to run into holes to hide their persons Martin Crusius in his Turco-Gracia describeth much the like Case of his Father And when their Goods were gone and their Lives in continual danger they were forced to fly for Food and Shelter To go among those that hated them they durst not when they could not dwell among such at home And thus thousands run into the Parliaments Garrisons and having nothing there to live upon became Souldiers We had an honest very Old Arminian Mr. Nayler in Coventry that was against the Parliaments Cause and he would say The King hath the best Cause and the Parliament the best Men. And that he wondred how it came to pass that the generality of sober Religious men should be all in the wrong and the most Irreligious and Prophane and Debauched be in the right But he knew but the Vulgar and not the Grandees who no doubt were many of them men of very laudable accomplishments And as the feud of the Bishops and
the men Ans And what did I ever say more It is his custom when he hath stormed at me to say in Effect the same that he stormed at Some Papists would persuade men that it was only Arian Councils that he meant but most Protestants that Write about Councils against them do cite vindicate these words of Gregory And the impartial Papists confess that it was the Councils also of the Catholicks that there and else where he spake of § 6. In the Case of Meletius and Paulinus two Bishops in a City and the Case of Lucifer Calaritanus made a Heretick for separating from lapsed Arians he saith over the same that I do that good men cannot rightly understand one another and so it ever hath been and it 's the Effect of humane frailty and not Episcopacy In all this I agree But 1. If humane frailty make Bishops swell in pride and ambition and domineering it hath far worse Effects than in other men 2. And Bishops are bound to excell their flocks in Piety humility Selfdenyal peaceableness as well as in knowledge If the Physicians of this city should prove unskilful and yet confident where they err it is not quatenus Physicians that they are such But if it be qui Physicians that are such they may kill thousands while the same faults in all their neighbours may kill few or none If your Interest made you not smart and angry without cause you would not cavil against such plain truth § 7. About the Priscillianists he saith I all along observe this Rule to be very favourable to all Hereticks and Schismaticks be they never so much in the wrong and to fall on the Orthodox party and improve every miscarriage of theirs into a mighty crime Ans If all along this accusation be false then all a long your History serveth such a use But in France Spain Italy he is favourable to Hereticks that takes not the orthodox for such or that is not for racking and burning them And in England he is favourable to Schismaticks that taketh not the greatest lovers of Piety and peace for such and the Church Tearers for Church-Healers As Mr. Dodwell phraseth it they are Schismaticks that suffer themselves to be excommunicate for unsinful things in the Bishops account and heinous sin in theirs and so that are not so ripe in Knowledge as to know all the unsinful things to be such which may be imposed § 8. What would this enemy of railing have had me said more than I did of the Priscillianists viz. that they were Gnosticks and Manichees Was not that bad Enough No I favour them still And what say I more of the Bishops and the whole cause than Sulpitius Severus the fullest and most knowing Describer saith Why doth he not accuse him for the same description Yea and their Mr. Ri. Hooker who in the Preface to his Eccl. Pol. saith of Ithacius the like Yea Baronius himself consenteth Where I say that to the death Martin separated from the synods of these Bishops I said not from all Bishops in the world he saith he renounced only the Communion of Ithacius his Party and that others did as well as he Reader it will be thy folly to take either his word or mine what an Author saith when we differ without looking into the Book it self Read Sulpitius Severus I will transcribe some words lest he say I mistranslate them Priscillianus familia nobilis praedives opibus acer inquies facundus multa lectione eruditus disserendi disputandi promptissimus vigilare multum famem sitim ferre poterat habendi minime cupidus utendi parcissimus Was it a crime to say so much good of him But proud of his Learning set up a Heresie and two Bishops Instantius and Salvianus ioyned with him and made him a Bishop At Caesar Augusta one Synod was gathered against him The Story I before recited Next a Synod at Burdeaux tryeth them Saith Sulpitius Ac mea quidem sententia est mihi tam reos quam accusatores displicere Certe Ithacium nihil pensi nihil sancti habuisse definio suit enim audax loquax impudens sumptuosus ventri gulae plurimum impertiens Hic stultitiae eo usque processerat ut omnes etiam sanctos viros quibus aut studium erat lectionis aut propositum erat certare jejuniis tanquam Priscilliani socios aut discipulos in crimen arcesseret Ausus etiam miser est ea tempestate Martino Episcopo palam objectare haeresis infamiam Imperator per Magnum Ruâ—um Episcopos depravatus à mitioribus consiliis deflexus So he tells how many were put to death Caeterum Priscilliano occiso non solum non repressa est haeresis sed confirmata latius propagata est Namque sectatores ejus qui eum prius ut sanctum honoraverant postea ut Martyrem colere câ—pâ—runt Ac inter nostros perpetuum discordiarum bellum exarserat quod jam per quindâ—â—im annos â—oedis dissensionibus agitatum nullo modo sopiri poterat Et nunc cum maxime discordiis Episcoporum turbari aut misceri omnia ceâ—nerentur cunctaque per eos odio aut gratia metu inconstantia invidia factione libidine avaritia arrogantia somno desidia essent depravata Postremo plures adversus paucos bene consulentes insanâ—s consiliis pertinacibus studiis certarent Inter haec Plebs Dei Optimus quisque probro atque ludibrio habebatur So ends Sulpitius History Do you not see Mr. Morrice that there have been Prelates and Puritanes even Episcopal Puritanes before our Times Doth not your stomach rise against Sulpitius as too Puritanical and severe Is not my Language of most of the Bishops soft in comparison of his Yet he was so early as to live in that which you now call the most flourishing Time of the Church Sir I hate Discord and love Peace but I never look that the Enmity between the Woman's and the Serpent's Seed or Cain and Abel should be ended or that the holy Title of Bishops and Priests should reconcile ungodly men to Saints Sir England knoweth that though some factious persons have done otherwise the main Body of those that your Law doth Silence Ruine and Revile have a high esteem of such Bishops as have been seriously godly such as were many in Antient and late Times And deride it as long as you will the seriously religious People in England are they that are most against Church-Tyranny and which Party most of the debauched and prophane are of hath long been known § 9. But the Reader shall further hear how little you are to be trusted Saith Sul. in Vita Mart. Apud Nemausium Episcoporum Synodus habebatur ad quam quidem ire noluerat There 's another Synod Et pag. 584. In Mon. Pat. Maximus Imperator aliâs vir bonus depravatus consiliis Sacerdotum post Priscilliani necem Ithacium Episcopum Priscilliani accusatorem caeterosque illius socios quos nominare non est necesse
any in the Anni Mirabiles or Whites Centuries of Scandalous Ministers any Fiction that reflects with disgrace on Bishops and Councils is set down for autâ—â—ntick no matter who delivers it friend or foe Answ Are not Baronius and Binnius friends to the highest Prelacy Doth not he himself say that Socrates is a credible Historian Is his Authority weighty enough to discredit them whom he contradicts Hath he proved one word false that I have said of Theophilus Is not Chrysostom as credible as he Doth he not know how ill he is spoken of by a great number of Chrysostom's Defenders And how smartly Isidore Pelusiota reflects on him But who could have disgraced him more than he that will imply that the things mentioned of him are as true as what is said in White 's Centuries of Scandalous Ministers or the Anni Mirabiles I know not all or most things in either of them But he was a stranger in England that had not credible Testimony of divers of the things in the Anni Mirabiles And Mr. White the Chairman of that Parliament-Committee was commonly reputed a grave and godly credible man and if he lied the whole Committee must concur in the Lie and the Witnesses must all be false I will not further meddle in so unpleasant a business than to tell you that all that I knew accused of Scandal had Witnesses of it that in the places where they lived were thought to make as much conscience of a Lie as the best of their Neighbours And whether such a mans scorn that was then in the shell is in History a sufficient proof that Committees of Parliament and Witnesses were all Lyars I leave to consideration I well know what School-masters and Curates I was bred under and what the two Ministers were that were sequestred in the place where I after came And all the Country can tell you They constrained me to name them and the Case in my Apology for our Preaching and my Answer to Mr. Hinkley It 's yet the same Age Any may enquire of them § 25. As to his Note of Altars I doubt not but there were at the Memorials of Martyrs Commemoratory Altars erected in the third or fourth Centuries But what 's that to Communicatory Altars and those in the first and second Century § 26. I suppose he wrote against my Book upon some others Reading I did in a Parenthesis say Innocent Excommunicated Theophilus Arcadius and the Empress And of another matter added yet did this pass without contradiction And he confounds them and saith Any thing passeth with him for History This Epistle of Innocent is all forged Answ I see not his proof But I had rather it were proved false than true But when I speak against Papal Usurpation be the men never so good I think to such Binnius and Baronius are meet Witnesses § 27. Boniface's Decree of exempting Bishops from Civil Judicatures he thinks not so Antient and saith We have only the Authority of Gratian for it But his Conjecture and a flirt at me is all the Confutation And he cannot doubt but that Exemption hath sufficiently priviledged Bishops since then As is after proved CHAP. XXI Of the first Council of Ephesus c. His Cap. 5. § 1. OUR Accuser in his Fifth Chapter passeth by the just Praises which I give to Peaceable Bishops as crossing his Slander that I dispraise all or such as well as the unpeaceable whose Justification it is that he undertaketh § 2. He begins with an Accusation that to prejudice the Reader against Cyril ' s Council I give the worst account of him that I could patch up out of all the Libels and Accusations of his Enemies Answ If by Prejudice be meant Informing him of Hâ—story and by Worst is meant Impartial Recitation of what History saith and by Patching up be meant such Reciting and by Enemies be meant the best and most credible Historians that have written of it then this is true Else it is the work of that Undertaker that is engaged to call Evil Good and Darkness Light and preserreth speaking good of bad actions before speaking truly § 3. And that you may know by what Spirit men that will not reproach the best that differ from the Prelates are themselves reproached by this Sect and also what sort of History this man giveth the Lie to on pretence of giving it me and how far he is from Railing he thus proceedeth The first thing he is charged with is the Oppression of the Novatians This was enough with Socrates or Sozomen to paint him as ugly as men do the Devil or Antichrist and therefore there is no great credit to be given them in these Relations as manifestly espousing the Cause and Quarrel of the Novatians Answ 1. Just as Thuanus or Erasmus espoused the Cause of the Protestants by Truth and Peace when others hated and belied them 2. Methinks the man revileth me very gently in comparison of Socrates and Sozomen the two most impartial and credible of all our Antient Church-Historians with Theodorot But who can wonder that he imitateth that which he defendeth § 4. But he saith It may be the Novatians deserved it and it 's not unlikely that they were very troublesom and seditious Answ It 's not unlikely now that others will say it was so But mark Reader which of these Historians is most credible Socrates and Sozomen lived with those that knew the things and persons They have told us Truth in the rest of their Histories If they had been Novatians Mr. M. saith They believed sinning after Baptism had no pardon or absolution And were they not like then to fear such Lying and false Accusing as paints a Saint like the Devil or Antichrist On the other side Mr. M. liveth above a thousand years after them He is one of the Party that take it to be not only lawful but a duty to say and swear all that is imposed now which I will not here describe How truly he writes the History of his own Age even of Parliament and Wars and living persons I have told you He saith no more against the Historians credit here but it may be and it's not unlikely and they were Novatians Schismaticks Alexandrians Even so their Counterminer and many Conformists that have many years reported us to be Raising a War against the King had their May-be'â— and It 's not unlikely and they are Schismaticks to prove it And others soon rose up and swore it And when some lament their Perjury it stops not the rest But some have such Free-will that they can believe whom they list § 5. Socrates saith he makes it part of his charge that he took on him the Government of temporal Affairs This was not the Usurpation of the Bishop but the Indulgence of the Emperour And he shews the Churches need of it Answ That which he is charged with is that he was the first Bishop that himself used the Sword And 1. Do you
think that so great a Patriarchate Diocess would not find a conscionable Pastor work enough without joyning with it the Magistrates Office 2. Was not the Church greatly changed even so early from what it was a little before in the daies of Martin and Sulpitius when even Ithacius durst not own being so much as a seeker to the Magistrate to draw the Sword against gross Hereticks and the best Bishops denied Communion with them that sought it And now a Bishop himself becomes the striker not of gross Hereticks but such as peaceable Bishops bore with I remember not to have read that Cyril had any Commission for the Sword from the Emperour Others then had not But I deny it not § 6. He saith that elsewhere I say I shall not dishonour such nor disobey them Answ I say and do so If a Bishop will take another Calling from the King's Grant when he hath undertaken already 40 times more work as a Diocesan than he can do I le honour and obey him as a Magistrate But I would be loth to stand before God under the guilt of his undertaking and omissions § 7. As to all the rest of the History about Cyril's Executions and the wounding of Orestes the Governour I leave it between the Credit of Mr. M. and Socrates And he very much suspects the Story of Cyril ' s making a Martyr of him that was executed for it I leave all to the Reader 's Judgment I think I may transcribe Socrates without slandering Cyril Here his spleen rising saith There are men in the world that honour such as Martyrs for murdering a King Answ You may smell what he insinuates I think he will not say that he ever did more against them than those that they call Presbyterians have done We Wrote and Preacht against them when he did not I know not the Presbyterian living to my remembrance that was not against the Murder of the King and Prin. whom the Bishops had cropt and stigmatized for being against them as an Erastian was the hottest in the Parliament for the Execution of the King's Judges But I knew divers Conformists that have written or spoken to justifie or excuse that Fact § 8. As for the Murder of Hypatia I leave him to his scuffle with Socrates and Damascius in which I interess not my self § 9. I thank Pope Innocent Mr. M. durst not deny Cyril's faults in his Enmity to the memory of Chrysostom and yet he calls my reciting the matter of Fact a reproach He is constrained to confess That the Quarrel was it seems hereditary to him so is Original Sin and he did prosecute it beyond all equity or decency against the memory of a dead man This was a fault and and he that is without any or without any particular animosity specially if he be in any eminent place let him â—ast the first stone Answ Thanks to Conscience We feel your Animosities But is not this man a Railing Accuser of Cyril if I am such What saith he less in the main Yea he now renews his Accusation of his Predecessor saying It was hereditary To prosecute malice against the very name of a holy extraordinary Bishop beyond all equity and decency what will Christianity or Humanity call it But Faction saith it was a fault and he that is without any c. Thus talkt Eli to his Sons So one may say To Silence 2000 Ministers or to hate the best men and seek their ruine is a fault a Prelatical peccadillo and so was Bonner's usage of the Martyrs and let him that is without any cast the first stone And St. John saith He that hateth his Brother is a murderer and none such hath Eternal Life abiding in him and that as Cain he is of the Evil One the Devil And I believe him § 10. But he saith I injuriously charge him with calling Alexander a bold faced man when Atticus was the first Author of that word Answ Atticus mentioned Alexander's confident true and necessary Counsel Cyril contradicting it calls the man A man of a confident face or mouth If another Bishop said the first words before him do I wrong him in saying he said the second O tender men His urging the keeping up the names of such as Nectarius and Arsacius and casting out Chrysostomus is so like our Canons about Readers and Nonconformists and our Canoneers descriptions of their Country Parsons and the Puritanes that I wonder not that you defend him § 11. But he saith that It 's a little unchristian to blast his memory with the faults which he corrected in his life-time Answ 1. It 's necessary to tell that truth which blasteth the Reputation of such sin as was growing up towards Papacy Ans 2. Then Christ was unchristian to tell the Jews of their very Fathers murders of the Prophets while they disclaimed it and built their Sepulchres Mat. 23. And then it was unchristian in the Holy Ghost to blast the memory of Adam Noe Lot David Solomon Peter yea or Manasseh with sins repented of 3. History must speak truth about things repented of or else it will but deceive the world 4. The Honour of God and Goodness and Truth must be preferred before our own Honour Repentance if true will most freely confess a mans own sin and most fully shame it § 12. Whether all his far-fetcht Conjectures that Cyril repented be true or no is nothing to me I will hope he did though I never saw it proved The very last Sentence of Death might do it His retortion is I know no man deeper engaged in the Contentions of the Church than I The writing of his Eighty Books being but like so many pitcht Battels he has fought and most commonly in the dark when he was hardly able to discover friend from foe Answ It 's too true that being all written for Peace the Enemies of Peace have fought against them Nimis diu habitavit anima mea inter osores pacis But pro captu Lectoris c. All men take not the words of such as he for Oracles How much I have written and done for Peace let others read and judge I long laboured and begg'd for Peace in vain with such as he defendeth And it 's admirable if this pittiless Enemy of Sects and Errours can be for all the Sects and Errours that I have written against Have I in the dark taken for foes by Errour the Atheists the Infidels the Sadduces the Hobbists the Quakers the Ranters the Papists the Socinians the Libertines called Antinomians the Anabaptists the Separatists and Sects as Sects Be of good comfort all These Prelatists that accuse us for too dark and sharp Writings against you seem to tell you that they will more hate persecuting or distressing you Yes when they agree with themselves His Prayer that I may have a more honorable opinion of Repentance he calls me to speak to in the End § 13. Whether good Isidore Pelusiota were a man very easy to
of them is softer than theirs that hereticate each other And Derodon hath fully proved that this Council when they condemned Nestorius were of his Judgment in the whole matter and said but the same as he § 14. As to his telling me that Eutyches denied Christ to be truly and properly man I will no more believe him than if he had said Cyril did so § 15. But he saith the Monothelites were the genuine Disciples of Eutyches They were of his mind in that Consequence And such another Controversie it was And how much greater errour against our Belief of the Father Son and Holy Ghost have I proved e. g. to be in your Dr. Sherloks Book And yet I hope he meant better than he spake § 16. P. 255. He confesseth of one Party what I said viz. Of Dioscorus and Flavian I am apt to believe they were much of the same Opinion as to the point in controversie and knew it well enough which was the only cause why Dioscorus with his party of Bishops and Monks would not endure to come to any Debate of the matter for fear it would appear that they all agreed and then there would have been no pretence to condemn Flavian which was the Design if not of the Emperour yet at least of those that governed him Ans Fie Dr. will you thus abuse so many Orthodox Bishops And almost condemn your vindicating Book And harden me in my Errour But I am much of your mind and if one of us err so doth the other § 17. And I like his Ingenuity saying Anatolius confesseth in Council that Dioscorus was not condemned for Heresie but Tyranny and no man contradicted him Ans Not in answer to those words but the Accusations of many contradicted him before § 18. That they mean one thing by their various expressions I have fully proved and he no whit confuteth That the Eutychians acknowledged no distinct Properties and Nestorius owned an Unity but in Dignity and Title only are his flat slanders to be no way proved but by their Adversaries accusations The very words I named even now Divino mirabili sublimi nexu and many clearer shew it of Nestorius And I wish him to take heed himself how he defineth the Hypostatical Union lest the next General Council if ever there be one make him an Heretick Can he believe that the great number of Eutychian Bishops were so mad as not to know that Christs Mortality possibility material Quantity Shape c. were the properties of Christs Humanity and not his Deity But some Men can believe any thing well or ill reasonable or unreasonable as Interest and affection lead them § 19. He saith that If it were a faction that denied this it was a strong one and never was opposed by any Person before Mr. Baxter Ans I heard you were a young man but if you be not above one Hundred Years old your reading cannot be great enough to excuse this confidence from such temerity as rendereth you the less credible How many Thousand Books be they which you or I never read How know you that none of them all oppose it But would you persuade the Reader that I call it a Faction to believe your sence of these Councils Factious men are forwardest to judge others Hereticks without cause and all that I say is that Though such deny my Assertion it is true Doth it follow that I take all for factious that deny it If I had said Though Papists deny it that had not been all one as to say All are Papists that deny it 2. But did never any person oppose it 1. I named you David Derodon before who though he largely labour to prove Cyril an Eutychian in words and sence and that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did mean Natura and not Persona yet as to Nestorius he copiously proveth that the Council of Calcedon was just of his Mind and condemned him for want of Understanding him Though you have not seen that Book of Derodons I have and you should not judge of what you never saw 2. Luther de Conciliis first accuseth Nestorius as a Heretick denying Christ's Godhead or holding two Persons And presently retracts it and confesseth he was seduced by believing the Papists but though he had not read much of the Councils but what he had gathered out of the Tripartite and such Historians yet he gathered from the Passages of the History that the difference lay only in words which he openeth at large and yet turns it sharply against Nestorius for thinking that we may not speak of Christs Godhead or Manhood by communicated names or Attributes and greatly rejoiceth that this serveth his turn in his Opinion about Consubstantiation and Sacramental words Because I will leave nothing in doubt with you but whether Luther was before my days and lest you say again that I cite Books which I see not I will give you some of his words beginning earlier not translating lest I have not skill enough but they are so like mine that I doubt you will be no Lutherane De Concil pag. 175. Ecclesiae Romana C. P. ambitiose rixatae sunt de re nihili vanissimis nugasissimis naeniis donec tandem utraque horribiliter vastata deleta est Illa omnia libentius recito ut videat prudens Lector quomodo ex tam celebri Synodo Constant inopolitana seu ex sonte manaverint semina maximarum Confusionum propterea quod ibi Episcopus Ecclesiae ut Patriarcha fuerat Praefectus p. 178. Quam horribilia certamina contentiones moverunt hi duo Episcopi de primatu ut facile judicari posset Spiritum sanctum non esse authorem hujus Instituti Alia habet Episcopus longe potiora quae agat quam sunt hi pueriles inepti ludi Praemonemur quod Concilia prorsus nihil novi debent comminisci vel tradere De Concil Ephes p. 180 181. Excesserant jam è vivis sancti Patres illi optimi Episcopi S. Ambrosius S. Martinus S. Hieronymus S. Augustinus qui eo ipso anno quo Synodus coacta est mortuus est S. Hilarius S. Eusebius similes eorumque loco prorsus dissimiles patres suborti fuerant Ita ut Imperator Theodosius amplius eligi Episcopum C. P. ex Sacerdotibus vel Clericis Civitatis C. P. nollet hanc ob causam quod plerumque essent superbi ambitiosi morosi qui movere certamina tumultus in Ecclesiis plerumque tolerent p. 182. Cumjam videret Nestorius tantas turbas ortas ex corruptela multiplici gemens prorupit in haec verba Tollamus è medio omnes ambiguitates quae primum praebuerunt occasiones istis certaminibus fateamur palam Mariam recte vocari Matrem Dei. Sed nihil profecit Nestorius ne tunc quidem eum revocaret suum errorem sed voce publica conde mâ—atus ex orbe Imperii universo ejectus explosus est Quanquam illi duo Episcopi
Ignorant World which is abused by such Historians as you and yours § 10. As for your assuring me that you look one day to answer for all you say it minds me of the words of your Dr. Ashâ—ton Chaplain to the Duke of Ormond who as going to the Bar of God undertakes to prove that it is through Pride and Covetousness that we conform not The Inquisitors also believe a day of Judgment And what is it that some men do not confidently ascribe to the most holy God § 11. Your praises of me are above my desert I am worse than you are aware of But mens sins against Christs Church and Servants in England Scotland and Ireland are never the less for that § 12. You shew us that you are deceived before you deceive You do but lead others into the way of falshood which you were led into your self when you say I am said to have asserted that a man might live without any actual Sin A Lord Bishop Morley p. 13. told it you and you a Lord Bishop tell it others and thus the poor World hath been long used so that of such Historians men at last may grow to take it for a valid Consequence It is written by them Ergo it is incredible I tell you first in general that I have seen few Books in all my Life which in so few Sheets have so many Falshoods in matters of Fact done before many as that Letter of Bishop Morley's which upon your Provocation I would manifest by Printing my Answer to him were it not for the charges of the Press 2. And as to your Instance the case was this Dr. Lany impertinently talkt of our being justified only by the Act of Faith and not the Habit I askt him whether we are unjustified in our sleep which led us further and occasioned me to say to some Objection of his that men were not always doing moral Acts good or evil and thence that a man is not always actually sinning viz. In a mans sleep he may live sometimes and not actually sin as also in an Apoplexy and other loss of Reason Hence the credible Bishop Morley printed that I said A man may live without any actual Sin Yea and such other Reasons are given for his forbidding me to preach the Gospel And now another pious L. Bp. going to answer it at Judgment publisheth it as from him O what a World is this and by what hands are we cast down Is my Assertion false or doubtful Dr. Bates and Dr. Jacombe who were present are yet both living By such men and means is the Church as it is Arise O Lord and save it from them § 13. You tell me as Bp. Morley of being the top of a faction of my own making neither Episcopal Presbyterian Independent or Erastian Ans So to be against all Faction is to be the top of a Faction I am neither an Arian nor a Sabellian nor an Apollinarian nor a Macedonian nor a Nestorian or Eutychian or Monothelite or a Papist c. Conclude ergo I am the top of a new Heresie and silence and imprison me for it and your Diocesane Conformity will be past all suspicion even at the heart But you will one day know that to be against all Faction and yet to bear with the Infirmities of the weak and love all Christians as such is a way that had a better Author § 14. P. 73 74. As to your extolled Friend a Nonconformist who you say told you that I am not able to bear being gainsaid in any thing for want of Academick Disputes c. Ans 1. Was your great Friend so excellent a man and was it a good work to silence him with which in your Conscience you think God is pleased 2. Now you name him not he cannot contradict you Mr. Bagshaw said somthing like it of Mr. Herle Prolocutor of the Assemblie which his Acquaintance contradict 3. I justifie not my Patience it is too little But verily if you had silenced me alone and Gods Church and Thousands of Souls had been spared I think you had never heard me twice complain Judge you whether I can endure to be gainsaid when I think there are Forty Books written against me by Infidels Socinians Papists Prelatists Quakers Seekers Antinomians Anabaptists Sabbatarians Separatists and some Presbyterians Independents Erastians Politicians c. which for the far greatest part I never answered though some of them written by Prelatists and Papists have spoken fire and Sword Nor to my Remembrance did any or all these Books by troubling me ever break one hour of my sleep nor ever grieve me so much as my own sin and pain which yet was never extream have grieved me one day Alas Sir How light a thing is the contradiction or reproach of man who is speaking and dying almost at once § 15. P. 75. As to my Political Aphorisms I have oft told you I wish they had never been written But all in them is not wrong which Bishops are against The first passage challenged by your Bishop Morley is My calling a pretence to unlimited Monarchy by the name of Tyranny adding my reason because they are limited by God who is over all Ministers were never under Turks thought worthy of punishment for such an Assertion But Bishop Morley is no Turk If Monarchs be not limited by God they may command all their Subjects to deny God or blaspheme him to take Perjury Murder and Adultery for Duties and they are unwise if ever they will be sick die or come to Judgment § 16. You say I was told by a Reverend Prelate that at the Conference at the Savoy Mr. Baxter being demanded what would satisfie him replied All or Nothing On this I reflected on what that gave Divine told me Ans Alas good man if for all other your historical notices you are faln into such hands what a mass of Untruths is in your Brain But why will you dishonour Reverend Prelates so much as to father them on such I never heard the question put What will satisfie you nor any such answer as All or Nothing When the King commissioned us to treat of such Alterations as were necessary to tender Consciences the Bishops 1. Would not treat till we would give them in writing all that we blamed in the Liturgy and all the Alterations we would have and all the additional Forms we desired 2. When thus constrained we offered these on supposition that on Debate much of it would be denied us or altered but they would not vouchsafe us any Debate on what we offered nor a word against our additional Forms Reply or Petition for Peace 3. To the last hour they maintained that No alteration at all was necessary to tender Consciences And so they ended and the Convocation doubled and trebled our Burden and the Bishops in Parliament together Once Bishop Cousins desired us to lay by Inconveniences and name only what we took for downright Sin I gave him a
us and keep us six Months in Gaol for every Sermon and so on for the next and for the next Or to pay 40 l. a Sermon and to banish us five Miles from Corporations and must not be told of any such thing He was not unpeaceable that said He that seeth his Brother have need and shutteth up the Bowels of Compassion from him how dwelleth the Love of God in him Nor for saying He that hateth his Brother is a Murtherer Nor Christ for telling us how he will judge them that did not relieve and visit him in his little ones and how he will use him that beat his Fellow-Servants It is with you and not with your sins that we would have peace Not only Massonius and Platina but even Genebrard and Baronius speak far sharplier of the faults of many Popes themselves and all Historians of their Prelates and yet are taken to be peaceable men Either those that I mentioned will repent here or hereafter and then will say far worse of themselves than I do And may I not foretel it them when it is but in necessitated deprecation of the miseries of the Land § 23. One of their Champions wrote that he was not bound to deny his own Liberty because others would pievishly take scandal at it I shewed the sinfulness of that Conclusion and that a mans Liberty often lay in as small a matter as a game at Chess a Pipe of Tobacco or a Cup of Sack and most scandal is taken by pievish persons and yet even a pievish mans Soul is not to be set as light by as such things Christ and Paul made more of Scandal And this very arguing of mine is numbred with my unpeaceable distempered words § 24. As to his talk about our Controversies of passages in Conformity he confesseth that he hath not read my Plea for Peace in which I have partly opened them And much less what I have said since of them to divers others and I consess I have neither mind or leisure to say all over again in Print upon the occasions of such words as his which have been oft answered § 25. I named the Martyr-Bishops Hooper Ridley c. as Nonconformists to the Laws of their Persecutors to shew that such Sufferers leave a sweeter name than their Persecutors and he feigneth me to have made them Nonconformists to our Laws and saith Ingenuity and Christian Veracity would blush to own this Art Thus still false History is that which assaulteth us But I humbly ask his Lordship 1. Whether he think that Cranmer Ridley and Latimer were more for Conformity than Jewel Bilson and Hooker and Abbot And 2. Whether he will so far reproach these men as to say that Jewel Bilson and Hooker would have conformed by approving that which they most expresly wrote against I have oft enough transcribed their words § 26. To shew that since my explusion I drew not the People of Kiderminster from the Bishops I said that I never since came near them nor except very rarely sent them one Line which he pretends I contradict by saying I sent them all the Books I wrote One might have found historical errours enough in his words without a Rack or Quibble 1. Sure Books are somwhat rarelier written than Letters 2. An ordinary Wit would have understood that I spoke of one Line of Manuscript or one Letter and not of Printed Books I delivered them to Mr Simmons or their Neighbours to send them without Letters And few of those Books were written before this Apology § 27. As a Self-contradicter he saith of me somtime I am against all Subscribing as p. 60 113. c. and sometimes not Ans Still untruth p. 60. The words are If men were not driven so much to subscribe and swear as they are at this day Reader is it true that this is against All Subscribing Pag. 113. The words are If we had learned the trick of speaking writing and swearing in universal terms and meaning not universally but particularly as many do we could say or subscribe orswear as far as you desire us And Take off the penalty of subscribing declaring crossing c. what good doth subscribing a Sentence which he believeth not Is this against All Subscribing § 28. Whether to profess our tenderness of other mens Reputation and yet to name the nature and aggravations of the sin which we fear our selves when we are importuned to it be contradictory let the impartial judge § 29. P. 92. He saith as my judgment To subscribe and declare that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King or that an unlawful Oath cannot bind men to unlawful Actions is Perjury some of the greatest that Hell suggesteth Ans Not one true word I believe all this to be as he saith Both in my first and second Plea for Peace I have largly told him what it is and what it is not which I own but he hath seen neither and yet feigneth me to say or hold what I have so oft renounced § 30. P. 94. He might have known how oft in Print I have retracted the Book called The Holy Common-Wealth wishing the Reader to take it as Non-scriptum Yet he saith as far as is generally known I have not done it And how should I make it generally known more than by oft Printing it § 31. P. 95. He pittieth me for calling the Author of the friendly Debate the Debate maker And I pitty England for such pittiers § 32. P. 96. Whereas the Convocation hath imposed on all Ministers a Profession of undoubted certainty of the Salvation of dying baptized Infants without excepting those of Atheists or Infidels I ask whether all the young unstudied sort of Ministers have arrived at this certainty any more than I and how they came by it and crave their Communication of the ascertaining Evidence And what doth his Lordship but pretend that I call the Convocation these young unstudied men as if they had made this Rubrick for none but themselves § 33. And he hath found another fault which exceedeth all and that is the Title and Dedication of my Methodus Theologiae where I say that I dedicate it not to the slothful hasty tired Sectaries c. but to studious ingenious humble c. young men as being the persons that are above all others born disposed consecrated to Truth Holiness and the Churches Peace c. Exceeding bad Will you hear the proof that this is excessive Pride 1. The Book in the frront indirectly and slily calls the Reader slothful rash foolish c. Ans Is this true 1. It is only those that I would not have to be the Readers Yea 2. Only those that I say it is not dedicated to And do you think there are none such in the world Will not his foresaid Debater and Dr. Parker and Dr. Sherlock and abundance more tell you that the Nonconformists are many of them such and will you now deny it If
not am I bound to dedicate my Book to such By what Obligation But he saith so voluminous and embost a Title will deter the Readers But do you not know the Dedication from the Title only because it is printed on the Title Page Is that unusual But the odious Arrogance followeth Could any thing easily be said with more appearance of Arrogance in the very Title Page too than that his Book is above all others of the same Subject I know not how otherwise to interpret his supra omnes viz. Methodus Theologiae Christianae c. framed disposed and hallowed to the propagation and growth of Holiness to the Peace and Honour of the Church I will now for ever acquit him of hypocritical Modesty Ans I desire Mr. Morrice to compare this Ld. Bp's Translation with that oversight of Theodoret's words which he fasteneth on in me What if I had said that this Bishop knoweth not how to interpret a plain Latine Sentence as he saith it of himself That which I most expresly say of pious ingenious Youth he feigneth me to say of my Book Reader look on the Book and judge whether Methodus the Nominative Case singular agree with natae dispositae consecratae the Dative Case when Juventutis Parti studiosae sedulae with many other Datives went before it There are no less than Twelve Adjectives joined to Parti in the Dative Case and yet he construeth the three last a agreeing with the very first Title-name in the Nominative Case And is this the way to make me lament my want of his Academical Education Is it any wonder if these men prove us Liars and proud and if they sentence us for lesser Crimes Yea here he concludeth that I write so pievishly so variously and unconstantly to my self so blindly as if willfully blind and not penitent of my own guilt and so arrogantly and disdainfully c. You have heard the proof § 34. Pag. 99. He proveth my unpeaceableness from the Petition for Peace and Additions to the Liturgy The Crime here is There 's not one Office no not one Prayer of the old Liturgy and is stiled A Reformation of the Liturgy and little more than a Directory Ans O miserable World What cure is there for thy Deceits This good man talks as he hath heard and so all goes on But 1. he knoweth not it seems what Title our Copy had but judgeth by that which some body printed 2. It seems he knoweth not that this Draught was only offered to debate expecting abundance of Alterations We openly declared that it was done on supposition of obliterating and altering all that they had any just exception against were it but as needless And for the clauses These or the like words we profest that we expected an Obliteration of them but had rather the Bishops did the imposing part if it must be done than we 3. He knew not it seems that ours were offered but as additional Forms that such of them as both sides agreed on might be mixt as Alias's with the old Liturgy And doth his Lordship then exclaim with reason that Not one Office not one Prayer of the old was in when all after correction was to be in and none left out Oh what is History and what men are its corrupters And that his work may be homogeneal p. 100 101. having recited my Commendation of their Liturgy as better than any in the Biblioth Patrum he addeth as an Accusation Yet p. 219. he complains of such failings in it that IT IS A WORSHIP which we cannot in faith be assured God accepteth Reader This is one of the lesser sort of deceiving Accusations I said that among greater sins which we fear in our Conformity we fear least by Assent and Consent to all things contained and prescribed c. we should be guilty of justifying all the failings in that worship and also of offering to God a Worship that we cannot in faith be assured that he accepteth This Lord so wordeth it that the Reader who peruseth not my words would verily think that I had said this of the Liturgy in the substance of Worship there prescribed which I said only as to the things which we dare not conform to And I explained it by saying We dare not justifie the best Prayer we put up to God in all things E. g. To dedicate Infants to God without their Parents exprest Dedication or consent or their promise to educate them as Christians and this upon the false covenanting of Godfathers that never owned them nor ever mean to educate them as promised as is known by constant experience neither they nor the Parents intending any such trust in the undertakers and to dedicate them by the sacramental Sign of the Cross or a badge of Christianity and to refuse all that will not be thus baptised This we fear is a worship that God will not accept But is this therefore said of the substance of the Liturgy And if the Lord Bp. be wiser or bolder than we and be beyond all such fears should he not suffer Fools gladly seeing he himself is wise And if he like not our fearing an Oath Subscription Declaration Covenant or Practice which he thinks to be true and good and we think to be false and evil why may he not endure our timorousness while he may rush on himself and venture should he not rather pitty us while St. Paul saith He that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not in Faith § 35. P. 108. He questions whether their communion be my practice and p. 110. giveth me two friendly Councils 1. To peruse my Books and retract what 's amiss 2. To tell the World now my sober Thoughts what I could and would do were I to begin the World again I heartily thank him for his Counsel for it is good and honest But alas what a thing is it to write of things which men know not 1. He knoweth not that I have retracted much already partly by disowning and partly by large Obliterations Of the first sort are my Aphor. of Justification and my Polit. Aphorisms though not all that 's in them Of the 2d he may see many and large Obliterations in my Saints Rest my Key for Catholicks c. 2. He seemeth not to know what bloody Books to prove me one of the worst men living their Church Advocates have written against me fetcht mainly from these retracted Books and Words Nor how they that commend Augustine reproach me as mutable for those Retractations 3. It seemeth he knoweth not that I have already performed his second Advice in my Cure for Church-Divisions my Second Plea for Peace about Government Yea Bishop Morley before the King Lords and Bishops at Worcester-house speaking of Ceremonies and Forms caused my Disputations of Church-Government produced and said No man hath written better than Mr. Baxter as if it were against my self And in Doctrinals my Cathol Theol. and Methodus Theol. and Christian Directory have expressed my maturest calmest thoughts But he that counsels me to it knows not that it is already done And more for Revising and Retractation I would do if necessity did not divert me even the want of time and strength § 36. P. 115. You say That Reverend and great man Bp. Morley tells us The generality of Nonconforming Divines shewed themselves unwilling to enter on Dispute and seemed to like much better another way tending to an amicable and fair compliance which was wholly frustrated by a certain persons furious eagerness to engage in a Disputation This was it seems the sense of both sides at that time Ans How far from Truth It was the sense and Resolution of the reconciling Party called by them Presbyterians We all desired nothing but an amicable Treaty We were promised by they should meet us half way When we met Bishop Sheldon declared the Agreement of his Party that till we had brought in all our Exceptions against the Liturgies and our additional Forms they would not treat with us Mr. Calamy Mr. Clark and others would have taken that as a final Refusal and meddled no more lest Dispute should do more harm than good I was against such an untimely end and said They will report that we had nothing to say It 's better let the case be seen in writing than so break off The rest wrote the Exceptions about the Liturgies some Agent of the Bishops answered them without the least concession for alteration at all I wrote a Reply and the Additional Forms and a Petition to the Bishops and they would treat of never a one of them But at the end put us to dispute to prove any Alteration necessary they maintaining that none at all was necessary to the ease of tender Consciences Of which before § 37. I had thought to have proceeded but truly the work which the Bishop maketh me is so unpleasant almost all about the truth or Falshood of notorious matter of Fact that I have more Patience to bear his Accusations whatever his learned Friend said of my impatience than to follow him any further at this rate But whereas he saith that some will think that many things in his Book want truth I am one of those and leave it to the Readers Judgment whether they judge not truly And whereas he lays so much stress on Bp. Morley's words if any Printer shall be at the charge of Printing it I purpose while he and the Witneesss are yet alive to publish the Answer to his Letter which I cast by to avoid Displeasure And if they will still be deceived let them be deceived I cannot help it It is no wonder that he that is described Joh. 8. 44. should carry on his Kingdom accordingly in the World But must his Dial be set on the Steeple of Christs Church and have a consecrated Finger for its Index O lamentable Case FINIS Had I said what is this Week published as one of their chief Dr's Elegy upon Oliver Cromwell with two others what should I have heard What abundance of Conformists flattered Oliver while I openly disowâ—nd him as a Usurper but now their malice hath got the handle * Diad since the writing of this
or absent Much less that Classes and other Assemblies are the stated Church-Government which all must obey And are the Presbyterians of any of the three forementioned Opinions § 5. I ever held a necessity of manifold dependance of all Christians and Churches As all depend on Christ as their Head so do all the People on the Pastors as their authorized Guides whom they must not Rule but be Ruled by 1 Thes 5. 12 13. Heb. 13. 17 24. And all these Churches depend on each other for Communion and Mutual Help as many Corporations in one Kingdom And frequent Synods well used are greatly helpful to these ends And the Command of doing as much as we can in Love and Concord doth bind all the particular persons to concur with the Synods in all things that tend to the Peace and Edification of the Church or are not against it And more than so if the general Visitors or Bishops that take care of many Churches do by God's Word direct instruct reprove admonish the particular Bishops and Churches they ought with reverence to hear them and obey them And if Independents really are for all this why do these Accusers represent them odiously as if it were no such matter but they were meerly for Church-Democracy Either you are not to believed in what you say of them or of me § 6. I know we have men that say that on pretence of acknowledging all this Episcopacy I put down all because I take from them the power of the Sword and leave all to despise them if they please Ans This indeed is the power that under the name of Episcopacy now too many mean Bishop Bilson knew no Power but Magistrates by the Sword and Ministers by the Word But why name I one man It is the common Opinion of Protestants and most sober Papists that Bishops as such have no power of force on Body or Purse But we deny not the forcing Power of the Magistrate 3. But we heartily wish that they would keep it in their own hands and never use it to force unwilling men into the Church or to Church-Communion high Priviledges which no unwilling person hath any right to This is my Independency CHAP. X. Of his Accusation That I make the Bishops the Authors of all Heresies and Schisms as distinct from Presbyters Monks and People § 1. THis also runs throughout his Book and must such Books be answered or believed I never denyed the guilt and concurrence of others with them I only say That as Bishops were the Chief so they had the chief hand as far as I can yet learn in Heresies and Schisms since they came to their height of Power and specially in those grand Heresies and Schisms which have broken and keep the Churches in those great Sects and Parties which in East and West it consisteth of to this day I never doubted or denyed but that 1. The Heresies that were raised before the Church had any Patriarchs or the turgent sort of Bishops were certainly raised without them 2. And afterward sometime a Presbyter began a Heresie 3. And the Bishops were but as the Generals of the Army in all the Church Civil Wars But I never denyed but the Prelatical Priests Monks and multitude were their obsequiâ—us Army § 2. Mr. M. saith That those Bishops that were Hereticks were mostly such or inclined to it before Answ 1. Was there then a good Succession of Ordination when the World groaned to find it self Arian Were all these Arians before their Consecration Answ 2. Were they not all Prelatical Presbyters that aspired to be Bishops and so as they say had a Pope or Bishop in their bellies I never thought that Prelatical Priests that studied Preserment and longed to be Bishops had no hand in Heresies nor Schisms no more than that the Roman Clergy are innocent herein and the fault is in the Pope alone What a deal then of this man's Book is lost and worse on such suppositions CHAP. XI Of his confident Accusation that I mention all the faults of the Bishops and none of their Goodness or Good Deeds § 1. THis also is a chief part of the Warp or Stamen of his Book In his Preface he saith This History of Bishops is nothing else but an Account of all the faults that Bishops have committed in the several Ages of the Church without Any Mention of their Good Actions of their Piety and Severity of their Lives of their Zeal for the Faith c. Answ 1. Whether this Fundamental Accusation be true or false let the Reader who loveth Truth see 1. In the very first Chapt. from § 41. to the end 2. Through all the Book where I oft praise good Bishops good Councels and good Canons and good Books and Deeds 3. In the two last Chapters of the Book written purposely to hinder an ill use of the Bishops faults In the first Chapter Very many of the Bishops themselves were humble holâ— faithful men that grieved for the miscarriages of the rest Though such excellent persons as Gregory of Neocaesarea Greg. Nazianz. Greg. Nyssen Basil Chrysostom Augustine Hillary Prosper Fulgentius c. were not very common no doubt but there were many that wrote not Books nor came so much into the notice of the World but avoided contentions and factious stirs that quietly and honestly conducted the Flocks in the waies of Piety Love and Justice And some of them as St. Martin separated from the Councils and Communion of the prevailing turbulent sort of the Prelates to signifie the disowning of their sins Of the Antients before the world crowded into the Church I never made question Such as Clemens Polycarp Ignatius Irenaeus and the rest How oft I have praised holy Cyprian and the African Bishops and Councils he sometime confesseth What I say of Atticus Proclus and other peaceable Bishops you may see p. 17. and very oft Yea of the Bishops of many Sects much of the Albigenses c. p. 17 18. Yea of the good that was done by the very worldly sort p. 18 19 20. Yea of the Papists Bishops that were pious p. 20. § 46. And § 47. I vindicate the excellency of the Sacred Office And § 53 58 59 60. I plead for Episcopacy it self in the justifiable species of it § 2. But perhaps he will say that at least I say more of their faults than their 〈◊〉 I answer of such good Bishops as Cyprian Basil Greg. Nazianzen Chrysostom Augustin Hillary Martin c. I speak of their virtues and nothing at all that I remember of their faults Of such as Theophilus and Cyril Alexandri and Epiphanius c. I speak of their virtues and some of their faults as the scripture doth of many good mens Of the more ambitious turbulent sort I speak only or mostly of their faults For I profess not to write a History of their lives but to inform the ignorant what Spirit it is that brought in Church tyranny and divisions I denyed