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

if he eat saith Paul England yet feeleth such Mens Mercy There is I think but one of their Commissioners now surviving nor on our side but few even Dr. Tho. Pierce Dean of Salisbury And he moved for leave by Disputation there to prove that it is a work of mercy to all that think it unlawful to receive the Sacrament kneeling to deny it them and the Communion of the Church though the prohibition of all kneeling in Adoration on any Lords Day was one of the Ancient Ceremonies of the Church setled also at the great Council of Nice and continued near a Thousand years saith Dr. Heylin But Morley had the wit to take him off that dispute § 90. Accus LXXIII Page 96. After other Harangues he alledgeth false Causes of my refusing a Bishoprick I satisfied the Lord Chancellor Hide by a Letter with truer Reasons too long here to repeat § 91. Accus LXXIV He next accuseth my Moral Prognostication Ans Let it answer for it self to the Impartial Reader § 92. Accus LXXV He threateneth me for blaming the Laws Ans And do not many Bishops now blame the Laws If Laws be made engines of Schism and Persecution let them justifie them that can and that love them David saith Shall the Throne of Iniquity have Fellowship with thee that frameth mischief by a Law How many German Divines blamed the Interim imposed by the Emperor as for Peace § 93. Accus LXXVI He next reciteth Bishop Morley's Accusations in his printed Letter Ans Which I have proved to abound with falshood in a full Answer which for want of printing hath lain by me these six and twenty years Mr. Baldwin is yet living who was present when he forbad me to preach And Dr. William Bates is yet living who joyned with me in the Savoy Disputation which he misreported § 94. Accus LXXVII He accuseth my Book called The Cure of Church Divisions and yet saith It is the only Book that Mr. B. hath written that hath any thing of moderation Ans Must the World have a confutation of so gross a Liar after the visibility of above Sixscore Books that are an evidence against him and after the testimony that the Lord Chancellor Hide and Morley gave of me producing one of these Books before the King Lords and Drs. at Worcester-House If I understand them above a hundred Books have been written by me with a special design for Moderation Unity and Concord § 95. Accus LXXVIII Page 101. He is not ashamed to be a procurer of the Indulgence for Popery 1. Because I said I would have Papists used like Men. 2. I would have no Man put to death for being a Priest 3. I would have no writ de Excommunicato capiendo or any Law to compel them to our Communion and Sacraments Ans This Man is for Moderation Do you think he or I is more for Popery or hath written more against it Would he not have them used like Men nor suffered to live And must they be cast out of a Church that they were never in It seems he would receive them all to his Sacramental Communion if they will but chuse his Church before the Goal § 96. Accus LXXIX Page 102. Because I hold that If a Bishop or their Church Party would lay us in Goal for our Duty to God it is lawful to accept deliverance from a Papist that is in Authority He feigneth that If they will not come to us I would go to them And if a Protestant did Hang this Man himself would he take it for Popery or Sin to consent that a Papist cut the Rope You see what kind of crimes we Nonconformists are guilty of A willingness to live out of Goals against the Churchmens will Nay it is yet more our Crime is that we will not damn our selves by Subscribing or Swearing falsly and breaking our Ordination Vow by giving over our Ministry The proof that these Men are against Popery is that they would have the Nonconformists die in Goals and have no Papist seek to deliver them § 97. Accus LXXX Accusing my Book against Sacrilegious Desertion of the Ministry he asketh me Why I Baptize not nor Administer the Lords Supper and so seem to desert Christianity Ans Because I was called to preach and not to Baptize and Administer the Lords Supper by the Necessities of the people where I lived There were in Martins Parish about 60000 more than could come into the Church to hear But they had Curates enough to Baptize and they were compelled to the Lords Supper or might have come and neither Minister nor People desired my help And if these Men believe it not I do That we may and must preach to many that yet are not capable of Sacraments And to many whose Pastors and Judges herein we are not Shall every Minister that preacheth occasionally for him presume to Congregate his Flock and give them the Sacrament Or is he displeased that I gathered not a separated Church § 98. Accus LXXXI As to his Accusation of the Book I leave it to the Readers Judgment that will impartially peruse it But I am not yet convinced by him that it is a Crime to name the heinous sins that have torn this poor Nation and no Crime to commit them Most of his Accusations are that I tell them of their sin and perswade them to repent § 99. Accus LXXXII He accuseth my Plea for Peace and my Book called The true and only way of the Churches Concord as being utterly against Peace Ans Read them and Judge § 100. Accus LXXXIII He accuseth my History of turbulent Bishops and Councils and their Anathematizing as if it were false and almost all was done by Presbyters Ans Let him that hath read it and the proof I cite freely judge who is the falsifier As to his talk about Nestorius had he read David Derodon and what I have said in my Reply to the Defender of Dr. Stillingfleet Mr. Morrice it might have acquainted him with more than he seemeth to know about the Nestorians Eutychians and Monothelites As to his talk against the Arrians I am as much against them as he but not so much against Peace Dr. Henry More a Learned Conformist saith that those after the Council of Nice were to be numbered with the Catholicks and not with the Antichristians Though a Presbyter began their Sect it was Bishops and Persecuting Emperors that upheld it As to my words of many Writers mistakes therein before the Council of Nice he may find them with abundance more in Petavius de Trinitate As to his words of the Controversies and Councils de tribus Capitulis he that excuses the said Councils and Bishops as faultless as to all the doleful Divisions that followed hath not a due love to peace and prudence The same I say of the Monothelites § 101. Accus LXXXIV His great Accusation Page 126. is that If I had any fear of God or reverence of Man I would not reproach the

if living who drew the King from his Parliament to defend Delinquents by an Army from the due course of Legal Justice and to be ruled by such men of guilt before and against his Supream Council § 8. I received once a Letter almost like yours from Serenus Cressy if you were of his Religion I should less wonder at your partiality for the Church and its crimes than at the like in a Protestant O how little would it have cost your Church-men in 1660 and 1661 to have prevented the calamitous and dangerous Divisions of this Land and our common dangers thereby and the hurt that many hundred thousand Souls have received by it And how little would it cost them yet to prevent the Continuance of it § 9. But I that here obey your Call to Repentance am past doubt that by the true and just defence which you have forced or called me to I shall seem to the Guilty and to men of your tenderness and partiality to add yet much more to my offence For you have referred me to an Accuser of such a temper stile and guilt as can bear no true Answer adapted to the matter but what will seem uncivil and too sharp It was ill Counsel that was given to one that askt How he should have the better of any Adversary that blamed him viz. Speak and do things that are most odious as Perjury Lying Persecution c. and cover them with sacred Pretences and then all that accuse thee will be taken for uncharitable Railers If we will defend our selves against Slanderers and impudent Lyars and Churchconfounders and oppressing Persecutors we must find some other than the common names for such mens sins yea names that are not disgraceful and provoke them not to Repentance especially if they are listed in an Army of Crusado's where those by the Honour and Power of their Company take themselves as fortified that would be afraid were they assaulted in their singular state Every Delinquent thinks all his Crimes are secured and garrisoned by the Honour of the Army or Body that he is Listed in They can bear it if we call a common Lay Drunkard or Whoremonger by his Name yea if one call a Godly Man an Hypocrite or a Peace-maker a Schismatick But he is a Railer that calleth a Clergy Liar or Persecutor or Schismatick or a Betrayer of Souls by his proper Name They know not how to Preach without calling other Men to Repentance but to motion themselves to Repent of Sins that destroy Souls confound Churches and endanger the Land is to enrage them by dishonouring them and deserveth the bitterest Reproaches and Revenge § 10. I think your Author hath greatly wronged Dr. Stillingfleet now Lord Bishop of Worcester by pretending as his Second to be the Vindicater of his Cause for he hath thereby occasioned a common conceit that Dr. Stillingfleet in revenge for my Defence against his Accusations of Schism did instigate Mr. Morice and this supposed Mr. Long to do that which he was loth to own himself But I take my self bound to believe that this report is false while there is no proof of it no not in his Dialogue with the Army Chaplain and while his Irenicon his Origines Sacrae his Treatise of Satisfaction c. his Church History and other Writings deserve so well and his known parts and worth are an honour to the Church Charity believeth not unproved evil Far be it from me to think that he approveth of this Mans Lies no nor of Mr. Morice's mistakes yet undefended since my Reply though it was by one said that Book deserved a Bishoprick He hath truly said in a late Sermon May 1. Page 9. The Government of Passions is Tyrannical and Boisterous uncertain and troublesom never free from doing mischief to it self or others The greatest pleasure of Passion is Revenge and yet that is so unnatural so full of anxiety and fear of the Consequents of it that he that can subdue this unruly Passion hath more real pleasure and satisfaction in his mind than he who seeks to gratifie it most And Page 5. If it be intended for an affront though never so little the brisker Mens Spirits are and the higher Opinion they have of themselves so much deeper impression is presently made on the mind and that inflameth the Heart and puts the Blood and Spirits in motion in order to the returning the affront to him that gave it § 11. To conclude I desire those that have censured me for leaving such a Book as the Accusers so many years unanswered to accept of such reasons as these of the Drs. for my excuse And those that are glad that I have answered it at last to thank Mr. Cantianus and not me and those that are offended that I answer it now and in words suitable to it to fear lest they make his sin their own and to consider that Truth of Words lyeth in their agreement to the Matter and the Speakers Mind and that wilful disagreement to the Matter is a degree of Falshood or Deceit And them that blame me for confessing my youthful and private sins I desire to allow me the excuse that they allow to a greater Man St. Augustine who gave me his Example of the like and more And to imitate whom you here invite me And I hereby according to your desire earnestly intreat the Reverend Clergy Men who judge of my faults as you do that in Charity they will help to convince me of them but not as Bishop Morley and the Author of the Mischiefs have done by multiplied untruths in matter of fact But it must be speedily or death will make it come too late § 12. And as to Retractations I have here and oft already search'd after and Retracted all that I can find amiss in my Writings as to the MATTER or Doctrine But as for the MANNER I dare not wholly justifie any one leaf that ever I wrote nor undertake to correct all that is amiss I never did any thing that might not have been better done Sometime there is disorder And sometime Omissions and oft uncomely Repetitions and always too much dulness and frigidity about high and holy things And about lesser and personal matters I am conscious that I am oft too sharp and provoking But about the heinous sins of Church Corrupters Confounders Dividers Silencers Persecutors and Betrayers to a Forreign Jurisdiction I fear lest I have said too little though the guilty hate me for saying so much Of my Sins known and unknown I daily and earnestly beg pardon of God by the Sacrifice Merits and Intercession of my Saviour God be merciful to me a Sinner RICH. BAXTERS Confession and Vindication Chap. I. The Reasons of the Necessity of REPENTANCE § 1. REPENTANCE is a subject so ordinarily preached or written of that I will presuppose the Reader acquainted with the meaning of the word Only here telling you 1. That it is not meer sorrow for having sinned when the

we had great plenty of such Fruit at Home sometime with a grudging Conscience I ventured over the Hedge to a Neighbours Fruit. A Sin that Austin himself confesseth V. I was in a School where one or two Lads corrupted many by obscene talk and immodest actions In which I did not sufficiently disown them or rebuke them but oft too much countenanced them in it As also in fighting and abusing the weaker though I was unable thereto my self VI. Though I was bred under many meer Readers and Tipling or Drunken Schoolmasters and Curates and scarcely heard a Sermon in a long time till I was about Fourteen years of Age or then and after none that I felt any profit by I was not troubled at the loss nor at my ignorance and unprofitableness VII When it pleased God by reading some good Books and by my danger of Sickness about Fifteen years of Age to waken my Conscience I was not so obedient to that awakening Call as I should have been But was oft tempted to my old sin of pleasing my Appetite and had almost been drawn away to a covetous love of Gaming at Cards But God quickly check'd it by an unusual Providence VIII I was strongly possest I think by Pride joyned with a Love of Learning to have setled at the University till I had attained some Eminency of Learning and Titles but God in great Mercy by Sickness and other hinderances saved me from that danger and loss of time and bred me up in a more humbling way and gave me some little help of safe and pious Countrey Tutors IX Weakness keeping me in expectation of Death and God then having given me a greater sence of Mans Everlasting state and of the differences between Faith and Hypocrisie Holiness and a worldly state I thirsted to win others to the same sense and state and to that End offered my self to Ordination when I was too low for so high a Work both in Learning and in a methodical knowledge of Theology And though I was naturally inclined to Logical and Metaphysical Accurateness and method I was too ignorant in Languages and Mathematicks and divers parts of Knowledge had I not been a continual Learner by Books while I was a Teacher I had been a dishonour to the Sacred Office and Work and do repent that I made such haste X. I too rashly in this Ignorance took the Judgment of the Countrey Ministers that had been my Helpers and told me of the Lawfulness of Conformity and believed the Books for Conformity which they perswaded me to read for the English frame of Government and Subscriptions before I had read impartially what was against it or heard any speak on the other side or had well studied the case And so I subscribed sinfully because temerariously And though I was so rash that I cannot say that I am sure that I took the Oath of Canonical Obedience it is so long since yet I think I did because else I had not been Ordained Of this I repent and beg forgiveness for the Merits of Christ Though I had never been like to have been a Minister without it but had turned to some other Calling XI Though I know not that ever I broke the Oath of Canonical Obedience or ever disobeyed my Ordinary yet I changed my Judgment of the Canons of which I cannot repent While I lived a year as a Schoolmaster my Ordinary commanded me nothing which I disobeyed When I removed to a Priviledged place Bridgnorth I was only a Lecturer and my Ordinary commanded me nothing which I did not I did read most of the Liturgy and kneel at the Sacrament And my Ordinary himself Baptized without Crossing and never commanded me to use it or the Surplice VVhen I came to Kidderminster Bishop Thornbury died and Bishop Prideaux never gave me any Command or Prohibition I being a meer Lecturer that never had Presentation and the Vicar using the Liturgy and Ceremonies But yet I repent ●●at I did think worse of that sort of Diocesane Government which puts not down the Parochial Pastors and Churches than I now do and these Forty years have done For I think that a General Episcopacy over many Churches and Bishops is Jure Divino an Order succeeding Apostles and Evangelists in that part of their Office which as Ordinary must continue But I repent not that I renounced that sort of Diocesanes who put or keep down all the Parochial Pastors or Bishops and Churches making them but as Chappels Parts of a Diocess as the lowest Church and taking on them the sole Episcopacy of many score or hundred Churches Nor do I repent of my unanswered Treatise of Episcopacy written against this sort XII Though I ever disliked the Censorious and Separating Spirit that run into Extreams against Conformity yet I Repent that I did no more sharply reprove it But because almost all the people where I came to preach that were not meer VVorldlings but seemed to be seriously Religious were either against Conformity or wish'd it removed for the Divisions which it caused I overmuch valued their Esteem and Love because I loved their serious piety and having sometimes but very seldom spoken against the Corruptions of the Church Government specially the Silencing of Ministers I can scarce tell to this day whether I did well or ill more good by telling Men what to lament and pray against or more hurt by heartening those that were apt overmuch to Censure Government and the Orders of the Church But I beg God to forgive what was amiss XIII Though I desired such a frame of Episcopal Government as Sir Edward Deering offered or as since Archbishop Usher hath described as Primitive yet out of the sense of the evil that Silencers and Persecutors had done I too much rejoiced when the Tidings came that the Prelacy was Voted down not knowing then what would be set up nor well what to desire For neither Presbytery nor Independency had been then debated or were well understood XIV VVhen I heard of the Scots Covenanting and Arming and entering England though I had not so much knowledge of their Cause as should be a just satisfaction in so great a matter yet I was in Heart glad of it for the appearance that it shewed of enabling the Lords and Commons of England to appear more boldly to plead for their Liberties and Laws But I now think that a Suspension of my thoughts as wanting Evidence had been better XV. VVhen I heard of the tumultuous manner of the Apprentices in London petitioning against Bishops I disliked it and the means that encouraged them and the publick reproach that was cast by the Rabble on those called Straffordians such learned men as the Lord Faulkland Lord Digby c. yea and the urging the King so much for his Execution But I too much silenced my dislike XVI VVhen I saw Mr. Burton's Protestation Protested and the forwardness of many Religious unlearned Persons to run toward Extreams