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england_n	king_n	power_n	supreme_a	3,860	5	9.0420	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26865	An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II. an answer to the accusations urged as reasons for the silencing of about 2000 by Bishop Morley ..., III. reasons proving it the duty and interest of the bishops and conformists to endeavour earnestly their restoration : with a postscript upon oral debates with Mr. H. Dodwell, against his reasons for their silence ... : written in 1668 and 1669, for the most of it, and now published as an addition to the defence against Dr. Stillingfleet, and as an account to the silencers of the reasons of our practice / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1189; ESTC R22103	219,337	268

obligation to obey him 3. But they are forced at last to resolve all their power and our duty into Humane will or institution It is Man that must make him my Bishop And this they call the application of the power But by what Act is this application Is it by Election or by another Consecration or how sure they will say by Election And doubtless some one must first Elect him to be a Bishop indeterminately It 's strange that men must be Consecrated that no men chuse Then they chuse themselves And then the Consecrators must Consecrate any one that will chuse himself to be a Bishop But if not so they make the Consecrators chusers and therefore should not say that Election doth nothing to make him a Bishop But who are the second determing Electors They know not who to lay it on nor who it is that maketh a man Bishop of these persons and this place One will say the Consecrators and then they know not who these must be and we may possibly have ten Bishops at once another will say the Clergy which really here chuse not another will say the King and they must all come to that or nothing though they are very loth for none of them will say The People 2. But what is the dependance of our calling on the Bishops supposing them of Gods appointment Is it a dependance 1. Of Essence 2. For Operation 3. Or for the Order and Circumstances of operation And do they mean that we depend 1. On the Bishops first Ordination 2. Or on his continued Will 1. If our Calling as to Authority and Obligation did depend in esse on the will of the ordainer as such that is that we receive it from him of which more elsewhere yet doth it not follow that the continuance of it dependeth on his Will and that he may undo what he hath done For he engageth men to God durante vita in a perpetual office which maketh the Papist call it an indelible Character In Ordination a Contract is made between Christ and the Minister and till they null it that contracted it he cannot do it that did but Ministerially contract them A Priest may Marry man and wise but cannot unmarry them A Bishop may Crown and Anoint the King but cannot depose him 2. And if the Bishop cannot null the esse of our Calling than the operation is not at his Will For 1. the Esse is nothing but the Potestas operandi cum obligatione 2. Else it were left to the Will of Bishops whether Christ should have any Ministers and Worship and whether the Gospel should be preached or Souls be saved 3. But if it be only the Time place and order of our Ministration that is left to Bishops they have no power to forbid the necessary preaching of the Gospel on pretence of ordering it To order operation is not to prohibit it He doth not order my studies writing travel building who biddeth me study write travel build no more 4. As the Bishops of Spain at Trent defended the Divine right of their office against the Pope so must we ours against the Prelates Christ hath instituted the office of Presbyters himself which is more generally agreed on among Christians than that he hath instituted our Prelacy But if Dr. Hammond's opinion hold true that there were no subject Presbyters in Scripture-times we shall think it hard to prove that there ought to be any now And then all Ministers must be of one order 5. Suppose Scotland possessed of the Christian Religion under such Presbyters as Coleman Aidan Finan c. and after a Courtier perswadeth the King to call one man their Bishop and make him be Consecrated Are all those Churches and holy Pastors on a sudden by that act become such dependants on that Bishop as that they must give over preaching when he bids them 6. By your Rules men may enlarge Diocesses at their pleasure and if the King will make all England one Diocess he may put down all the Bishopricks save one and give one man power to chuse whether Christ shall have any Gospel or souls in England and so Christ must shortly be no Christ or Saviour without the Bishops leave II. To the second Reason I deny that by preaching we use any Prelatical power the pretended Office of a Prelate is not to be the sole Preacher but the Governour of Preachers If we made our selves Governours of Preachers we should assume their power But to preach is our own work Obj. You call and govern assemblies Ans. We govern not Diocesses nor other Presbyters and to guide particular Assemblies in worship was ever acknowledged the Presbyters work Obj. Yes under the Bishops government but not without him Ans. To do the work of his own office without him that should govern him could be but a disobedience against that Governour but not a deposing him and usurpation of his Government If a Physician Taylor or Shoomaker exercise his Calling when the King forbiddeth him yea or a Schoolmaster or Minister who governs others this is not to depose the King and take his power but only to disobey his power Can you perswade all Popish Priests in England that they depose the King III. The third Reason is as gross a fallacy supposing that our silence is but passive obedience but passive obedience as it is commonly called is but patient suffering without resistance If the Bishops excommunicate us or imprison us or deprive us of all Ministerial maintenance or take all our Estates we never resist them but endure all But when the first part of Religion is positive and the second negative will any say that it is but passive obedience to omit all our duty if a Bishop forbid it us Then it were but passive obedience to give over loving God and man and maintaining our Families or praying to God or doing any good if the Bishop forbid it us 2. And for keeping peace which you demand how it should be done I answer you 1. Satan keepeth possession of his Kingdom in some peace Peaceable unholiness is the surest way to hell 2. We are commanded but if it be possible and as much as in us lieth to live peaceably with all men But peace is first in the power of Rulers and if they will have no peace it is not in our power to procure it against their wills but only to do our part towards it If a Bishop should forbid all men to feed their children and servants with any wholsome food and then say What peace or order can you have without such obedience This is but to put a scorn on the Churches when they have persecuted them and to take away their peace and then ask them why they will not have it IV. To the fourth Reason That the Bishop is judg who shall preach I answer 1. Were the Bishops Calling justified yet he hath not power to judg in partem utram libet whether there shall be preaching or

led them to call in the Scots and Presbytery came in with them If you doubt of it see the Propositions to the King at Nottingham where a limited Episcopacy is one II. The Lord Lieutenants that seized on the Militia were far most Conformists and scarce any Presbyterians at all III. The General Officers and Colonels of the Earl of Essex's Army were ten to one Conformists and few if any Presbyterians save a few deboist Mercenary Scots if they were such which I know not and the General Episcopal himself IV. The Major Generals of the Militia in the several Counties were mostly Conformists and scarce any Presbyterians V. The Assembly at Westminster when they went thither were all Conformists save about eight or nine and the Scots Commissioners V. One of the two Archbishops was a General in the Parliaments Army VI. Many of the present Conformable Ministers were in arms against the King and some wrote for his death and many of them took the Covenant and Engagement VII The most of the Conformable Gentry of my acquaintance that were put upon it took the Engagement against the King and House of Lords VIII The Nonconformable Ministers of Gloucestershire Mr. Geery Mr. Capel Mr. Marshall c. were against the Parliaments War though the Parliaments Garison was over them Mr. Bampfield who hath lain six or seven years in the Common Goal for Preaching with his brother sometimes Speaker of the House of Commons was so much against the Parliaments cause that to this day even while he lay in Goal he most zealously made his followers renounce it Many Nonconformists in many Counties were of the same mind IX Many of the Nonconformists lived in the Kings quarters and never were drawn the other way as Dr. Conant lately one of them and others in Oxford and so in other parts X. Some of the Nonconformists were in the Kings Army Poor Mr. Martin of Weeden lost an Arm in his Army and yet the other arm lay long with him in Warwick Goal for Preaching XI Almost all the Nonconformists of my acquaintance in England save Independents and Sectaries refused the Engagement and took Cromwell and the Commonwealth Parliament for Usurpers and never approved what they did nor ever kept their days of Fasting or Thanksgiving To tell you of the London Ministers Printed Declarations against the intended death of the King you will say is unsatisfactory because too late XII Most of the Nonconformable Ministers of my acquaintance were either boys at School or in the University in the Wars or never medled with it so that I must profess that setting them all together I do not think that one in ten throughout the Kingdom can be proved to have done any of these things that you name against the King XIII We have oft with great men put it to this trial Let them give leave but to so many to Preach the Gospel as cannot be proved ever to have had any hand in the Wars against the King and we will thankfully acquiesce and bear the silence of the rest make but this match for us and we will joyfully give you thanks XIV Who knoweth not that the greatest Prelatists were the masters of the Principles that the War was raised on Bilson Jewel c. and Hooker quite beyond them all XV. But because all proof must be of individuals I intreat you as to our own Countrey where you were acquainted tell me if you can I say it seriously if you can whatever was done or said against the King by Mr. Ambrose Sparry Mr. Kimberlye Mr. Lovell Mr. Cowper Mr. Reignolds Mr. Hickman Mr. Trustram Mr. Baldwin Senior Mr. Baldwin Junior Mr. Sergeant Mr. Waldern dead Mr. Joseph Baker dead Mr. Wilsby Mr. Brian Mr. Stephen Baxter Mr. Badland Mr. Butcher Mr. Eccleshall Mr. Read Mr. Rocke Mr. Fincher of Wedgbury Mr. Wills of Bremicham Mr. Paston c. I pass by many more And in Shropshire by old Mr. Samuel Hildersham Old Mr. Samuel Fisher Mr. Talents Mr. Brian of Shrewsbury Mr. Barnet Mr. Keeling Mr. Berry Mr. Malden of Newport Mr. Thomas Wright dead Mr. Taylor c. These were your neighbours and mine I never heard to my remembrance of any one of them that had any thing to do with the Wars against the King It 's true except Mr. Fisher and some few they were not ejected but enjoyed their places And did not you as well as they If I can name you so many of your neighbours that were innocent will you tell the King and Parliament and the Papists and Posterity that All the Nonconformists without any exception had their hands stained with the Royal blood What! Mr. Cook of Chester and Mr. Birch c. that were imprisoned and persecuted for the King What! Mr. Geery that dyed at the news of the Kings death What Sir Francis Nethersole and Mr. Bell his Pastor who wrote so much against the Parliament and was their Prisoner at Kenelworth Castle almost all the Wars What may we expect from others when Dr. Good shall do thus I put not in any excuse for my self among all these It may be you know not that an Assembly of Divines twice met at Coventry of whom two Doctors and some others are yet living first sent me into the Army to hazard my life after Naseby fight against the course which we then first perceived to be designed against the King and Kingdom nor what I went through then two years in opposing it and drawing the Soldiers off Nor how oft I preached against Cromwell the Rump the Engagement but specially their Wars and Fasts and Thanksgivings Nor what I said to Cromwell for the King never but twice speaking with him of which a great man told me but lately that being an ear-witness of it he had told his Majesty But yet while I thought they went on Bilsons principles I was then on their side and the observator Parker had almost tempted me to Hookers principles but I quickly saw those reasons against them which I have since published His principles were known by the first book before the last came out and I have a friend that had his last in M. S. But I am willing unfeignedly to be one of those that shall continue silenced if you can but procure leave to Preach Christs Gospel only for those that are no more guilty of the Kings blood than your self and that no longer than there is real need of their Ministerial labour Reverend Sir if you will but so long put your self as in our case I shall hope that with patience you will read these lines and pardon the necessary freedom of London Feb. 20. 1673. Your truly loving friend and obliged servant RICHARD BAXTER Note 1. That this Dr. Good was one of the most peaceable moderate and honest Conformists of my acquaintance and subscribed our Worcestershire Agreement published for Concord and joyned with us in our Association and Meetings at Kidderminster and was the man that drew up the

it is our comfort that we have a King and Parliament whose aversness to Popery and their Law against all such surmises doth put them out of the peoples suspicions And I think you should do no less but more than any others to avert all unjust suspicions from your selves 20. Is it possible that any partiality interest or passion can make you think either that the people of England need not as much Teaching and Exhortation and Ministerial help to bring them to Repentance and Salvation as all the qualified Ministers in the Land together are able to afford them or that God may not bless the labours of such men as Burges Allen Norman and hundreds more that now are silenced to the conversion of many hundred or thousand sinners unto Repentance and a holy life And if you cannot or dare not deny this have you considered whether your reasons for silencing them be so weighty as will countervail the salvation of so many Souls and will comfort and excuse you at the bar of God And whether then you can justifie your selves by saying Lord though so many Souls persisted in sin and are damned that might have been saved by the Ministry of these learned grave and godly Preachers yet the good which we obtained by their silencing and all their other sufferings was greater than so many mens salvation would have amounted to And if deliberately you will venture on such a cause your selves what would you wish the silenced Ministers to do You say it is our duty to forbear preaching when we are forbidden But what if it prove otherwise and that we must be judged as sacrilegious for alienating consecrated persons from Gods work and as guilty of the blood of all those souls that have perished by our silence and neglect What say you Will you undertake to justifie us and answer for us and bear all the divine displeasure your selves which shall fall upon us for our obeying your silencing commands Are you willing to run all that danger for us But why do I ask you such a question when your undertaking would but shew your greater obdurateness and neither save us nor your selves If you say that the crime is ours for not conforming that is to be examined by it self If ever Episcopacy had two learned and judicious defenders it was Bishop Bilson and Bishop Andrews let not interest now make you differ from your chiefest champions I will add the words of one of them at large Bilson of Subjection p. 399. saith The election of bishops in these days belonged to the people and not to the Prince and though Valens by plain force placed Lucius there yet might the people lawfully reject him as no bishop and cleave to Peter the right Pastor And indeed the people so rejected Lucius that the boys in the street would not touch the ball any more which Lucius's horse feet had trod upon and to the last suffered all the Magistrates displeasure in refusing the Pastor imposed on them who yet perswaded them that he was Orthodox And the error of a Magistrate taketh not away his power as I before said but only his aptitude to use it aright And the Nonconformable people think that they lawfully adhere to their old known faithful Pastors and reject unknown obtruded persons Pag. 236 he saith Princes have no right to call or confirm Preachers but to receive such as be sent of God and give them liberty for their preaching and security for their persons And if Princes refuse so to do Gods labourers must go on forward with that which is commanded them from heaven not by disturbing Princes from their thrones nor invading their Realms as your holy father doth and defendeth he may do but by mildly submitting themselves to the powers on earth and meekly suffering for the defence of the truth what they shall inflict How you gather out of this or any words of ours that Christ and his Apostles might not preach the Gospel without Cesar's delegations and license from others the Kings of the Countreys whither they went I see not except you take the word Supreme for superior to Christ all which standeth neither with our assertion nor intention but is a very pestilent and impudent sophistication of yours Marg. Bishops may preach without Cesars leave if they submit themselves to Cesar's sword as the Apostles did To this I pray add his two pages p. 233 234. to prove that Patriarchs were not erected by Christ but by the consent of Bishops and that Archiepiscopal and Metropolitan Dignities were the gifts of Princes and then consider how far that Office of Presbyters which is of Christs own instituting is to be forsaken in obedience to the command of a Metropolitan or any power of mans ordaining Pag. 226. The charge which the Patriarchs and Bishops of England have over their flocks proceedeth neither from Prince nor Pope nor dependeth on the will or word of any earthly creature therefore you do us the more wrong to say what you list of us By supreme Governours we do not mean Moderators Prescribers Directors Inventors or Authors of these things as you misconster us but Rulers and Magistrates bearing the sword to permit and defend that which Christ himself first appointed and ordained and with lawful force to disturb the despisers of his will and testament Now what inconvenience is this if we say that Princes as publick Magistrates may give freedom protection and assistance to the preaching of the Word Ministring of the Sacraments and right using of the Keys Doth that prove that all Ecclesiastical power and cure of Souls do proceed and depend of the Princes right See also Page 362. And p. 259. As Bishops ought to discern what is truth before they teach so must the people discern who teacheth right before they believe Pag. 261 262. Princes as well as others must yield obedience to Bishops speaking the word of God But if they pass their Commission and speak besides the word of God what they list both Prince and people may despise them See him further proving that all have a judicium discretionis Pag. 259 260 261 262. Bishop Andrews his determination against giving unfit Kings the Sacrament and in what sense the Pastors rule their Princes and consequently may not obey them in the neglect of their own office I have shewed in the decision of the Erastian Controversie and need not repeat it yea he alloweth the very Deacon to deny an unworthy King admittance to the Sacrament And Chrysostome would lose his life rather than give it to the greatest that is unworthy How far then Christs Ministers must give over Preaching Sacraments and all if men command them so to do you may hence gather by these mens judgments And in the conclusion let me again remember you that the trick of twisting your interest pretendedly with Princes and making them believe that those that you would have to be afflicted or expelled are more against Monarchy and Loyalty than