Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	hear_v	lord_n	please_v	2,566	5	8.2986	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

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

call me to Repentance who while they falsly judge of the History can be no true Judges of the Application I proceed therefore to the exercise of Repentance as far as I can know SECTION 5. XXIV I Greatly repent that I at Coventry took the Scots Covenant for the many Reasons which I shall hereafter rehearse And that once I gave it to one Man a Papist Physition who pretended to be converted and desired me to give it him But suspecting his Hypocrisie I never gave it more but kept I think Thousands from taking it in Worcestershire and elsewhere I thought at first that it was intended only as a Test to the Garisons and Armies and knew not that it would after be made a dividing test for the Magistracy and Ministry through the Land which yet by the tenour of it I might have understood But I repent not that I neither sware nor subscribed that no man that ever took it is obliged by it to that part which is good and necessary Perjury is no jesting Matter XXV I more repent that I once publickly defended it against a Writing of Sir Francis Nethersole which he wrote against Mr. Vines who had Preached for it And that I did not more impartially consult with Sir Francis and hear all that he had to say against it For he was near us and I Preacht to him once at Kenelworth-Castle where as a Prisoner he was liker the Master of that Pleasant Seat under Colonel Needham for he seemed purposely to force the Committee to Imprison him by constant provoking them who would fain have let him alone But by that means he saved House-keeping and scaped both Plundering and Sequestring on both Sides and secured his Estate and his Person in a place of freedom and delight by Water and Land XXVI And though I thought that a Parliament's Judgment was above all Lawyers yet I repent that I had not more diligently consulted Lawyers on the other side Though indeed I knew not well where to find them the Lawyers of my Acquaintance being for the Parliament XXVII And whereas I then thought that Neutrality was a heinous Sin to stand by in the Danger of the Land I now repent of that Opinion considering that in a case of Blood Men should very clearly be resolved before they venture on either side XXVIII And I repent that I was by Ignorance in too much fear of Religion by the danger of Arminianism and thought too hardly of the Laudian party on that account For though I am no Arminian I have fully proved in my Catholick Theology that the difference is more verbal and small than the Zealots of either side do imagine which Book is yet answered by none XXIX Accordingly I at Coventry engaged in a dispute against Mr. Cradock and Mr. Diamond to prove Remission of Sin not only Conditional but Actual to be an Immediate effect of Christ's Death and pleaded for it Heb. 1. 3. and Rom. 8 32. and against Universal Redemption which I since perceive I misunderstood and abused XXX I repent that I sooner enquired not into the danger that the Land was in by Cromwell and his Sectaries And I repent that when his fundamental Troop at Cambridge which after made Commanders headed his Army wrote to me with Subscribed Names to be their Pastor I refused and rejected the offer to their offence telling them that I was neither for a Military Church nor an Independent popular Church Had I gone to them then what might I have prevented XXXI Though I am not able to see that I did not my Duty my most Self-denying and costly Duty in taking the defence of the Nation Religion King and Parliament to be reduced to Unity to be my necessary Employment while I owned not their Miscarriages yet knowing the frailty of my understanding I daily beg of God that if I was mistaken he will make me know it for which I have long Prayed and that he will pardon my Sins which I would fain know and fain repent of and publickly confess if I could know them but dare not take the greatest Duty of my life to be my Sin XXXII I am in great doubt how far I did well or ill in my opposition to Cromwell and his Army at last I am satisfied that it was my duty to disown and as I did to oppose their Rebellion and other Sin But there were many honest Pious men among them And when God chooseth the Executioners of his Justice as he pleaseth I am oft in doubt whether I should not have been more Passive and Silent than I was Though not as Jeremy to Nebuchadnezzar to perswade men to submit Yet to have forborn some sharp publick Preaching and Writing against them too late when they set themselves to promote Piety to ingratiate their Usurpation To disturb Possessors needeth a clear Call when for what end soever they do that good which men of better title will destroy XXXIII When they commanded days of Prayer and Thanksgiving for their Wars in Scotland c. And when they imposed the ENGAGEMENT to be true to the Commonwealth as it was established without a King and House of Lords I repent not that I refused it and wrote and preach'd against it But I doubt whether I did well in overdoing herein And had not waited more silently on God's Providence till he had cleared my way XXXIV I repented oft that I wrote the Book called Aphorisms of Justification and the Covenant Not but that I think it sound Doctrine and useful But it being my first is defective in Method and in some words which should have been more clearly and cautelously exprest And in my personal opposition to Dr. Owen's Errours I should have considered what a temptation it would prove to the Passions of such a man who yet grew more humble and orthodox before he died XXXV Though my Conscience telleth me that the very many Books which I after wrote were for the propagating and defending of needful Truth and that I never trusted to any thing but Truth and Evidence for Victory yet I fear lest in many of them there be the faultiness of some imprudent provoking words and that I did not always sufficiently consider what mistaking men cannot bear as well as what is congruous to the Matter and Cause I still found it difficult to avoid too much Keenness and yet not to wrong the Cause by dull pretence of Lenity XXXVI Two things concurred to cause me to write my Political Aphorisms or Holy Common-wealth of which I afterward repented 1. James Harrington wrote his Oceana for a loose Popular Government and Sir H. Vane was contriving another for a Military and Phanatick Democracy both which I saw were utterly inconsistent with the Obligations Peace and Safety of the Land 2. Sir Francis Nethersole sent purposely to me a Messenger to desire me to go to London to Cromwell and perswade him to resign the Government to King Ch. II. I answered him that Cromwell had

me Mr. Baldwin yet living was present 17. When Lying same accused me for almost every Sermon that I preached in London after Bishop Sheldon told me plainly that he had some to hear me and could they have got any thing against me I had soon heard from him 18. When we were all silenced on Aug. 24. 1662. I forbore both preaching and privater Meetings till after the great Plague 1665. to see whether our obedience would mollifie Mens exasperated Minds All that while and after constantly I went to my Parish Church Morning and Evening and staid from the beginning of Common Prayer to the end and after the Plague I only taught such Neighbours as came into my House between the publick Exercises and led all the people into the Church to Common Prayer In so much that my Excellent Neighbour Judge Hale countenanced me therein by his Carriage and thought I did great Service to the Church of England I remember not two of all that heard me that went not with me to the publick Church And that One that would not refused because the Dr. Rieves would Swear in his common talk But I told her that he did not Swear in the Pulpit 19. When in his Sermon he told them that It was because we could not be Bishops that we Conformed not the people look'd at me as a confutation But I forbore not ever the more to hear him 20. When he was no longer able to bear the peoples coming to my House though he converst with me placidly and never spake to me against it he went to the King and got his Order to the Bishop Hinchman and by him to Justice Rosse and Auditor Philips for my Imprisonment And when these Justices at Brainford Examined me they shut the Doors against all Witnesses and would let none in but their Clerk though Alderman Ashhurst Captain Yarrington and many others at the Door claimed open audience as a Legal Priviledge And after they raised false reports of my words to them when I was allowed no one Witness 21. I lay quietly in New Prison though kept waking by the constant noise of rude Prisoners and knocking under me at the Gate And upon my Habeas Corpus all the four Judges of the Common Pleas were for my Deliverance 22. When I was delivered the Parliament making a new Act against Conventicles added three new clauses which drove me to dwell in another County Where also I went constantly Morning and Evening to the publick Church and Common Prayer and gave 2 l. per Annum to increase the Ministers Maintenance 23. When Ministers had some time forborn publick Sacraments in the Parish Churches I got many of the most Eminent in London together and in writing gave them so many reasons for such Communion as they approved But the Oxford Parliament having by an Act Banished us five Miles from all Corporations forc'd them from the London Churches when in Conscience they durst not leave London Service when 100000 had died of the Plague and the Ministers fled and left the dying without their help many Nonconformists ventured their lives among them beg'd Money for them and relieved them and found the dying Persons so much inclined to hear repent and pray that this brake the Bonds of the Acts of Uniformity and Banishment so that they resolved rather to die than to cease preaching while they were out of Prison and could speak And the City being burnt the next year confirmed their resolution the Conformists ceasing to preach long for want of Churches But all this time had a Nonconformist Minister been seen in a Parish Church he must for Six Months have lain in Goal with Rogues So that the sum of their imposed Obedience was Either inhumanely desert the deserted City after Plagues and Flames left desolate or go to the Parish Ministers when they return and Communicate with them and go Six Months to Goal or else be Excommunicate and lye in Goal for not Communicating with them Of these three they had their choice But in all this time I was driven far off and kept constantly to the publick Church at Toteridge 24. I never became the Pastor of any Church since I was expelled from Kiderminster I offered when I refused a Bishoprick to preach there for nothing under the ignorant Reader that was Vicar But the Lord Chancellor Hyde wrote to Sir Ralph Clare that his Majesty thought himself not well dealt with that Mr. Baxter that had deserved so well of him had not the Vicaridge and he promised to pay the Vicar the worth of it by his own Steward Mr. Clutterbuke out of his own Rents But durst not give a Prebend much less a Pastoral Charge to the Vicar lest it disgrace the Ministry I was not so ignorant as not to know what the King and Chancellor meant by all this and by the Gracious Declaration But he gave me unsealed the Copy of his Letter to send And the Vicar answered as he was taught that he would not quit his place for an uncertainty nor would Bishop Morley let me preach for nothing under him 25. When the King sent out his Declaration that gave us leave to preach I returned to London and chose only St. Martins Parish to preach in because there were said to be above Sixty Thousand Souls more than could hear in the Church and hiring a room over the Market-house at St. James's where we were all delivered by almost a Miracle from a crack in the Floor I published to the Hearers and left to them in writing that I came not thither to gather or preach to any new Church or as separating from the Parish Church but being Vowed to the Ministry in necessary compassion pro tempore to help part of the many thousands that could not come into the Parish Church For which some Separatists censured me And we used the Scripture part of the Liturgy and more 26. Being driven from that Room by the breach of the Main-beam I built a Room and Leased the Ground at too dear rates in Oxenden-street near But had preached but one Sermon but Secretary Henry Coventree with two Justices more came with a Warrant to apprehend me and I being twenty Miles distant they seized on Mr. Sedden a stranger that preached for me And though he had by the Cromwellians suffered Imprisonment for seeking to bring in King Charles the Second they sent him to the Goal where it cost me twenty pound for his Charges but my Wisest and most Over-valuing Friend Judge Hale proved the Mittimus void and released him by the Sentence of all the Court. 27. When I could not be suffered there I hired a Room to preach in for nothing in Swallow-street and ask'd the Bishops leave who gave some hope of his favour But after a few days many Constables Church-wardens and other Officers were set at the Door to take me had I come and so continued about three Months till another came 28. I then that the people might