did conclude his own Prayer with it a great part of his Auditory would presently depart out of the Church as if it were impossible for them to be edified by such a Preacher as had no better Gift of Prayer And thus to make a thorough Reformation they first agreed on no more Addresses unto God before they Voted no more Addresses to the King The Creed and Commandments suffer the same Indignities being generally omitted in their Publick Worship and in many places especially at their Lectures scarce a Chapter of the Holy Scripture read to the People the whole Exercise being made up of Extemporary Prayer and Preaching the best of their Sermons if I may account them so that are printed and were preached in the greatest Congregations on most Solemn Occasions abounding with such Invectives against the King such Arguments and Motives to Rebellion and Shedding of Blood as will be an indelible Reproach to the Presbyterian Party who so taught others the Doctrine of Resisting their Superiours that they soon felt it to be practised against themselves who had broken down all the Fences of Government and opened those wide Breaches by which so many Heresies and so great Confusion overflowed the Nation so that the Pulpit-Drums exceeded those of the Field in doing Mischief drawing on more Souls to Destruction than the other did Bodies Mr. Baxter p. 43. of his Life tells us what Chaplains were in Essex's Army Abundance of famous excellent Divines were Chaplains to his Army Stephen Marshal and Dr. Burgess to Essex 's Regiments Obadiah Sedgwick to Col. Hollis Calibut Downing to the Lord Roberts John Sedgwick to the Earl of Stamford Dr. Spurstow to Hamden 's Mr. Perkins to Col. Goodwin 's Mr. Moore to the Lord Wharton 's Adoniram Bifield to Sir Henry Cholmley 's Mr. Nalton to Col. Grantham 's Mr. Simeon Ash to the Lord Brooks Mr. Morton of Newcastle to Sir Arthur Haslerigge with many more These were the first Incendiaries Boutefew's that first kindled and continued the Wars and such of the King's Friends as escaped the mouth of the Armies Swords were sentenc'd to a worse Death by the Sword of these Mens mouths In the Year 43. when the Parliaments Army were worsted and weakned by the King and they thought themselves in danger of being overcome they intreated help from the Scots who taking advantage of their straits brought in the Covenant as the Condition of their help Thus Mr. Baxter p. 127. of his first Plea who confesseth it was contrived as a Stratagem of War to bind the Faction in both Nations in a Confederacy against the King and strengthen the War against him for the doing whereof they pawned their Souls to each other as his Majesty observes in the Chapter of the Covenant And if it be considered by how many Solemn Oaths and Protestations the Subjects of both Nations as well as by the Laws of God and Nature were obliged to defend his Majesty's Person and the Laws and Government established it will appear to be true as Mr. Philip Nye observed concerning the Covenant That for Matter Persons and other Circumstances the like hath not been in any Age or Oath we read of in Sacred or Humane Story But it did the work for which it was designed it brought in the Scots Armies by by the promised hopes of dividing the Church Lands upon the Extirpation of Episcopacy and was as fatal to the King as to the Bishops For the King's Forces being broken he withdraws from Oxford where he was besieged and commits himself to the Scots Army who sollicite him to take the Covenant and sign their Propositions for the Presbyterial Government Henderson is sent to dispute the point with the King and he being baffled Mr. Cant Blaire and Douglas endeavoured the same but more by railing than reasoning with him One of them besides many rude expressions in his Sermon before the King called for the 52 Psalm which begins thus Why dost thou Tyrant boast abroad Thy wicked works to praise Whereupon the King presently stood up and called for the 56 Psalm which begins thus Have mercy Lord on me I pray For men would me devour Which the People readily sung leaving the other And the Commissioners of the General Assembly resolved That if the King be excluded from Government in England for not granting the Propositions concerning Religion and the Covenant it was not lawful for that Kingdom to assist him for the Recovery of the Government Nay they threaten to deliver him up to the Parliament of England as shortly after they did for 400000 l. for the raising of which Sum an Ordinance is past for Sale of the Bishops Lands at Ten years value Nov. 16. And by another Ordinance Febr. 8. none were to bear any Office Civil or Military that refused to take the Covenant The Parliament having gotten the King in their power thought themselves very secure and therefore resolves to disband the whole Army Horse and Foot and to send a good part of them for Ireland which so startled the Army that they began to take new measures And first they demand their Arrears for 56 Weeks Next that a Declaration against the Army March 13. might be recalled and they secured for what had been done in the late Wars which things at a general Rendezvouz they petition the Parliament for who being under great fears Vote all that was desired But the Army had a farther design and by 1000 Horse under Cornet Joyce seize the King's Person and detain him in the power of the Army which was Cromwel's design who though he sate with the Members at Westminster and protested there with Execrations against himself and his Family that he was ignorant of the Fact yet he told his Considents that having got the King into his hands he had the Parliament in his Pocket And presently he falls to purging of the House impeaching Eleven of the chief Presbyterians of High Treason and secluded them the House and afterward got the Militia of London into their hands for the Army being drawn up on Hounslow-heath marched up to the Parliament House and gave it a second purge of many more Members and marching triumphantly through London did demolish their Works and never left till he had setled the Parliament to his own liking But to return to Mr. Baxter Four years he says he was a Member of the Army part of which time by what follows will appear to be after that the Independent Party was predominant and the Army new modelled yet he tarried with this Army under Cromwel until the King was murthered and till Richard the Protector was cast out of the Government by those that had placed him in it Hear what Mr. Baxter says p. 14. of his Answer to Bagshaw Is it possible for any sober Christian in the World to take them to be blameless or these to be little sins What the violating of the King's Person and the Life of so good a King and the Change
have more sound and loyal Principles of Government and Obedience And yet they have preacht and publisht to the World the same Doctrines which were voted January the 4th 1648. That the Representative of the People in Parliament have the Supream Power of the Nation and whatever is enacted or declared for Law by the Commons in Parliament hath the form of a Law and the People are concluded thereby though the Consent of King and Peers be not had thereunto Which Votes were passed in order to the King 's Trial. Were not they the King 's most Loyal Subjects that carried on a War against him until they made him their Prisoner and then used him as a captiv'd Slave denying him the liberty of a Man the society of Wife Children and any Attendant whom he could trust and of a Christian denying him the assistance of his Chaplains leaving him no Comfort that might make his Life desirable but perpetually baiting him with the Covenant and such unreasonable Propositions as they knew before-hand the King could not in Honour or Conscience comply with Being thus bound and chain'd the Independants take him out of their hands and put an end to his Sufferings Salmasius a great Presbyterian himself truly represents the Case If a Thief says he p. 353. of his Defensio Regia apprehends a Traveller disarms him robs him of his Money and leaves him naked and fast bound to some Tree and some ravenous Beast finding him in that condition kills and devours him to whom ought the cause of his Death to be imputed to the Thief or to the Beast And he concludes Ita justum Regem sanctum extinxere Presbyteriani These disarmed him of his Militia these bought and sold him as a Captive these covenanted to preserve his Life with a Condition of his preserving their Religion which when he should refuse they thought themselves bound by Covenant to desert him The Army in a Remonstrance from St. Albans Novemb. 16. say that Whereas it might be objected that the Covenant obliged them to preserve the King's Person They say It was with this restriction In the preservation of the true Religion Religion and Publick Interest were to be understood the principal and supream Matters engaged for the King's Person and Authority were inferiour and subordinate which being not consistent with the preservation of Religion and Publick Interest they were by the Covenant obliged against it And what was it less that the Commissioners of the General Assembly of the Scots resolved on viz. That if the King were excluded from Government in England for not granting the Propositions concerning Religion and the Covenant it was not lawful for that Kingdom to assist him for the recovery of his Government yet this is that Solemn Covenant for the obligation whereof Mr. Baxter so contumaciously pleads against the Authority of the whole Nation And upon these and such like Proposals from Scotland the Parliament vote That no more Addresses be made from them to the King nor any Letters or Message received from him And That it should be Treason for any person to receive Letters from the King or deliver any to him without leave from both Houses And were not these the King 's most Loyal Subjects Or what Body or Party of Men have in Mr. Baxter's sence more sound or loyal Principles of Government and Obedience How often and how deeply this incomparable King was wounded at the heart by those barbarous Declarations of the Parliament and Presbyterian Incendiaries as if he were a witless worthless faithless Person not to be trusted in his most Solemn Protestations against his Intentions for Tyranny and Popery is beyond any Man's expressions but his own These had often murdered him in his Honour and Reputation before his last Execution Nor could his last Speech silence those malicious Blasphemies he was no sooner dead but he was executed in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as much as lay in the power of his Adversaries rob'd of that immortal Jewel more worth than his Crown though no Man was so qualified for such pious and excellent Meditations as himself Those two Disputes about Episcopacy against Henderson and a Junto of Presbyterians at Newport of which his greatest Enemies could not deny him to be the genuine Author sufficiently shew his great Abilities both for Learning and Acurateness of Stile of which Debates the Bishop of Worcester says that his Majesty understood the Constitution of our Church as well as any Bishop in it and defended it with as clear and strong Reasons whereof that Learned Bishop made great use against Mr. Baxter's opposition of Episcopacy p. 271 280. of his History of Separation Yet from the beginning of the War to the end of the Life of that best of Kings and I may add to the end of Mr. Baxter's Life no one hath endeavoured to defame him more and render him odious to Posterity than Mr. Baxter by charging him with granting Commissions to those Irish Papists that massacred Two hundred thousand Protestants of which more hereafter Though Mr. Baxter was disabled to combate any longer with the Sword yet is he resolved to do it with the Pen which he dips not in Gall and Vinegar but in the very Poyson of Asps to keep open the Wounds of the expiring Church To which end he endeavours to draw his Neighbour-Ministers into an Association and procures the Worcestershire Agreement the design of which you may see in Mr. Baxter's Gildas Salvianus which was intended as a Humiliation Sermon to those that would enter into the Association not that they should humble themselves but the Clergy that yet adhered to the King For one effect of it was the promoting a Petition That notoriously insufficient and scandalous persons and as such Mr. Baxter represented the Loyal Clergy though as himself observes in the same Book the Synod of Dort called them Stupor Mundi the Astonishment of the World by reason of their Eminency should not be permitted to meddle with the Mysteries of Christ especially the Sacraments Upon which Petition as Mr. Baxter hath been told there issued that rigid Proclamation for Silencing all sequestred Ministers and forbidding them not only the Exercise of their Ministry but of keeping any Schools c. A design as witless as it was wicked for Mr. Baxter notes in the Preface to that Book That it had been put to a Vote in Parliament to take away both Ministry and Maintenance which was carried in the Negative by two Voices only yet like another Sampson he is pulling down the Pillars of that House whose Ruines would bury himself and all his Order A little taste of his Malice at that season must needs distaste the impartial Reader One sort that will be offended at me says he are some of the Divines of the Prelatical way as indeed they all justly might for reproaching not as by hear-say but from sight and feeling first the Silencing of most godly able men the Persecution even
him their Almoner He tells us That this did begin and end at home to help the silenced Ministers and the Poor Such Poor probably as frequented their Conventicles for these are every where the Objects of the Presbyterian Charity though none boast more that they are Men of Catholick and Universal Charity But it was particularly designed to increase the number of such as followed them for their Loaves Had any Man the opportunity to inspect the Subscriptions of the several Bishops Deans and Chapters and other Dignitaries of the Church as also of both the Universities towards the Relief of the Refugees he may find not only a bountiful Supply for the present but Provision made for their future Subsistance as Brethren and professed Members of the same Church with us who want not the countenance or incouragement of the Conforming Clergy to this day My great Age and Infirmities being now within one year as old as Mr. Baxter was at the time of his death do enforce me to omit many other Remarks of Pride Hypocrisie and Contradictions which he that runs may read in this and other Writings of our Author which I leave to the Observation of such as better knew the Man and his Communication and shall make only this one Reflection more on his partiality in censuring the Conformists and Non-conformists of all sorts and degrees And first the Reader may see his hyperbolical Commendations of his Non-conforming Brethren from p. 90. to p. 99. of his Life where he gives the Character of such of the Eighteen hundred silenced Ministers as were his Neighbours not speaking by hearsay but personal acquaintance which were between Forty and Fifty besides many whom he had forgotten and about Forty London Ministers with Fifteen Independants and others of several parts that were Fellow-sufferers with himself All which if they deserved the Titles which he gives them he might have Canonized them as Saints in Heaven on better grounds than he hath done by Brooks Pym and White in his Saints Everlasting Rest. As to the Lay-Brethren of the Separation he gives the preheminence to those of his own Flock at Kidderminster And p. 85. part 1. he says Some of the poor Men did competently understand the Body of Divinity and were able to judge in difficult Controversies and so able in Prayer that few Ministers did match them in order and fulness in apt Expressions and holy Oratory with fervency And of Six hundred Communicants which Mr. Baxter had there he says there were not above Twelve of whom he had not good hopes of their Sincerity And this he imputes to his own Labours For before I came thither there was about one Family in a Street that worshipped God and called on his Name but before I came away there was not past one Family in the side of a Street that did not so p. 88 89. And he adds this reason of their proficiency That being Weavers they could set a Book before them standing in their Looms and edifie one another by reading or talking Of such Trades-men and Freeholders he says that they are the strength of Religion and Civility in the Land though such made up the Mob which begun and continued our Wars and destroyed our Religion by dividing it into innumerable Sects and Factions So that Mr. Edwards observed in his Gangreena that in the space of four years after that Episcopacy was laid aside there were more Heresies started in this Land than had been known in the Universal Church from the foundation thereof As to his Censures of such as lived in Conformity to the established Religion he is as impartial as Death condemning them all as a prophane and persecuting Generation in a Book called Cain and Abel How he hath branded the best of our Kings and the Clergy hath been already shewn How he Censures the Parliament and their Laws which he calls the tearing Engines that woried Two thousand Ministers casting them out of their Possessions into Poverty and Prisons to starve and pine away and for imposing such Oaths Subscriptions and Declarations as any Man that feared God could not comply with is such a Common Place that I wonder it was no more taken notice of After this Censure of the Parliament Mr. Baxter speaks of the Nobility and Gentry in general p. 134. where he saith I more than ever lament the unhappiness of the Nobility and Gentry and great Ones of the World who live in such temptations to Sensuality Curiosity and Wasting of Time about a multitude of little things whose Lives â—…re too often a Transcript of the Sins of Sodom Pride Fulness of Bread and abundance of Idleness and want of Compassion to the Poor And p. 89. That Gentlemen and Beggars and Servile Tenants are the strength of Iniquity in the Land though it was not very civil to put the Beggar on the Gentleman yet it was much worse to joyn them in the Bonds of Iniquity and make the Comparison between them and the Trades-men so odious that these are reputed the strength of Religion and Civility but the Gentry and their Tenants and Beggars the strength of Iniquity And he instanceth in Sir R. Clare and Sir John Packington who much hindred his Success in gathering Proselytes in Kidderminster He gives this Character of Sir R. Clare p. 94. part 1. That he was an old Man of great Courtship and Civility very temperate as to Diet Apparel and Sports seldom swore any louder than by his troth one that shewed him much personal reverence and respect beyond his deserts and conversed with love and familiarity One that sent his Family to be Catechised and personally Instructed which swayed with the worst among that People to do the like But being ruled by Dr. Hammond he liked not of Mr. Baxter's Preciseness and Extemporary Prayer and abstained from the Sacrament which Mr. Baxter delivered to such as sate or stood at the receiving it which gave offence to Sir R. Clare whereby he says Sir R.C. did more to hinder his Success than a multitude of others could have done And on such an account all the Conforming Gentry are the strength of Iniquity And although the Poverty of Mr. Baxter's People whereof the Master-workmen lived but little beter than their Journey-men from hand to mouth p. 94. was a help to his Success the Poor receiving the glad tidings of the Gospel and being usually rich in faith Yet for those that frequent the Churches and Common Prayer they are coupled with the Gentry as the strengtheners of Iniquity whereas the Laws have provided such a Competency for their Maintenance as may keep them from beggary which the Law alloweth not but in truth the multitude of Beggars in occasioned and increased by those many Families that depend upon the Trade of Weaving who living but from hand to mouth are forced on the decay of Trade for a few Weeks to beg for their Subsistance or to do worse of which such places as abound with Men of that
Tumults as forced him to leave his Palace for fear of losing his Life Those that seiz'd his Towns Forts Magazines and Ships to maintain the War against him Those that animated Armies with whom he was often present in Person till they forced him to fly to the Scots Those that sold and bought him as a Prisoner of War and voted no more Addresses to him but left him to such as at last barbarously murdered him Mr. Baxter Was it they that petitioned and protested against it Answ The King was dethron'd long before any Presbyterians petitioned or protested against putting him to death then indeed when it was too late the Ministers of London plead for him in these words That the woful Miscarriages of the King himself which we cannot but acknowledge to be very many and great in his Government have cost the three Kingdoms so dear and cast him down from his Excellency into a horrid pit of Misery beyond Example this is as one Paraphraseth it We affirm and testifie that besides those of his evil Counsellors the King 's Personal Crimes and fundamental Errors in Government too many and great to be mentioned have cost England Scotland and Ireland so dear that all the bloodshed devastations and rapine might be charged on him and for these he is justly cast down from his Throne into so horrid a Pit of Misery as to fall under a Sentence of Condemnation This is such a Petition and Plea for the King as those that are made for Peace which are Arguments for Separation and Discord Mr. Love a great Presbyterian in his Vxbridge Sermon laid a Foundation of this in that Maxim Melius pereat unus quam unitas But Mr. Baxter exceeds all in representing him as the Head of the Grotian Religion which he says were arrant Papists This is such a Slander as his barbarous Judges were ashamed to charge him with Mr. Baxter Was it not an Episcopal Parliament forty or one hundred to one that began the War against the King Answ They were indeed Episcopal Men and Conformists for the most part at their first meeting but there was a Juncto among them that soon prevailed to silence and banish the Loyal Members and then openly declared War against the King and ruin to the Bishops Mr. Baxter was one of those Episcopal conforming Men but what he did hath been related and he well knew of what Perswasion the five Members were and those whom he Canonizeth as Saints in his Everlasting Rest These had sometime been zealous Conformists and the King 's most Loyal Subjects but did they continue such The Bishops that began the Reformation had been Popish but when they renounced the Pope's Supremacy and Romish Doctrines and setled the Church on a new Foundation for Doctrine and Worship no sober Man can say that the Reformation was either begun or carried on by Popish Bishops The Case is the same Those that began our war had been most of them Episcopal Men and Conformists but when they imprison'd and sequestred the Bishops threw off the Liturgy and entred into a Covenant against King and Church they were neither Episcopal Men nor Conformists Of this sort were the Generals Admirals and other Officers by Land and Sea Mr. Baxter Whether the Archbishop of York was not the Parliaments Major-General Answ Not at the beginning of the War certainly nor ever that I heard but from Mr. Baxter that he had such a Commission from them That Archbishop was with K. Charles at Oxford and well receiv'd by him nor did he ever appear in any Hostile Actions till 6 years after the beginning of the War and the reason of that was to vindicate a particular right of his own and not on account of the war against the King as hath been proved in that Bishop's Life Mr. Baxter Whether the Episcopal Gentry and Ministry did not take the Engagement more than the Presbyterians Answ I pray Mr. Baxter remember what you were to prove viz. who began the War and and is this which was done after the King's death if it had been true an Argument to prove that they began the War I have read in several of your Books such a Relation of the beginning of our War which will remain after you are gone That the War was begun by Episcopal Men such as were of Archbishop Whitgift's mind That the great Commanders in War by Sea and Land were Conformists and I suppose I have said enough to disprove it Let me therefore remind you of a foregoing passage in your Letter viz. That it is a part of Satan's work to perswade the World that no History hath any certainty of Truth that so Sacred History may be disadvantaged and now let the impartial Reader judge whether Lucian or Mr. Baxter be the truest Historian I confess you have ingaged me in an unpleasing Work but in may not be unprofitable if what I shall add be duly considered Let the Troubles at Frankfort be read over and the groundless Contests and Animosities of some Presbyterians against such as adhered to the Doctrine and Worship of the Church of England while both Parties were in Exile and what you your self have observed of their behaviour after they returned home especially of Knox Goodman and others how they flew in the face of Authority and incessantly woried Q. Elizabeth during her Reign No sooner were they called home but some of them were so intemperate impatient and unpeaceable that some of them turned to flat Separation and flew in the Faces of the Prelates with reviling c. p. 150. of Gildas Salvianus And if the History of the Factious for Presbytery during the Reign of King James and especially of King Charles I. be impartially read you will find this odious Comparison incomparably out-done This is proper to them to overthrow whatsoever Estate they are admitted to says Bertius in Orbis Breviario And this is the reason why Grotius was so condemned for a Papist because in his Book de Antichristo he wrote so much truth against these Men Circumferamus oculos per omnem historiam quod unquam seculum vidit tot subditorum in Principes bella sub religionis titulo horum concitatores ubique reperiuntur Ministri Evangelici ut quidam se vocant quod genus hominum in quae pericula etiam nunc Optimos Civitatis Amsteladomensis Magistratus conjecerit videat si cui libet de Presbyterorum in reges andacia librum Jacobi Britanniarum Regis cui nomen Donum Regium videbit eum ut erat magni Judicij ea praedixisse quae nunc cum dolore horrore perspicimus King James spake by Experience and first he tells the Reader in his Preface These rash heady Preachers think it their honour to contend with Kings and perturbe whole Kingdoms And in p. 41 42. Take heed my Son to such Puritans very Pests in the Church and Commonweal whom no Deserts can oblige neither Oaths or Promises bind breathing nothing but Sedition and Calumnies aspiring without measure railing without reason and making their own imaginations without any warrant of the Word the square of their Conscience I protest before the great God and since I am here as upon my Testament it is no place for me to lye in that ye shall never find with any Highland or Border Thieves greater ingratitude and more lyes and vile perjuries than with these Phanatick Spirits And suffer not the Principles of them to brook your Land if you like to sit at rest except you would keep them for trying your patience as Socrates did an evil Wife He told his Parliament in his Speech March 19. 1603. The third which I call a Sect rather than Religion is the Puritan and Novelist who do not differ so much from us in points of Religion as in their confused Forms of Polity and Parity being ever discontented with the present Government and impatient to suffer any Superiority which maketh their Sect unable to be suffered in any well-governed Commonwealth And now you may research your voluminous Baronius and Binius and collect the Maxims and Practices of the Jesuits who are not much elder than the Presbyterians and if I do not match them in both from the Authors before-named all which will not make up above one Volume of your twenty and relate only the History of about six or sevenscore years for yours of about sixteen hundred I shall need to add only your own Theses concerning Government and what I said will still appear to be true That such horrid things as have been done by that Generation have not been out-done by any other since Judas betrayed his Master By these Relations Mr. Baxter may be inform'd That something hath befal'n the Church that for shame and mischievous effects hath exceeded the Persidiousness Contention Schism and Pride of Bishops POSTSCRIPT WHereas near half of Mr. Baxter's Life is filled up with repeated Cavils and frivolous objections against our Episcopacy and Conformity to the Liturgy and Discipline of the Church which have been fully answered by many Worthies of our Church to the satisfaction of imprejudiced Readers yet because nothing will satisfie his Admirers but what is Mr. Baxter's own sence I have collected such Answers as Mr. Baxter himself hath given to his own Objections and printed them in a little Treatise called Mr. Baxter's last Legacy to all sober Dissenters which I doubt not may give them satisfaction if they deserve that Title FINIS
that time was abused and employed to very ill uses yet with Mr. Baxter Oliver is as David and his Son Richard as Solomon Mr. Baxter's Key for Catholicks was dedicated to Richard Cromwel where he gives this Character of himself One that rejoyceth in the present happiness of England and wisheth earnestly that it were but as well with the rest of the World and that honoureth all the Providences of God by which we have been brought to what we are One that concurs in the common hopes to these Nations under your Government And in another Epistle before his Five Disputations of Church-Government when all Religions were tolerated except that of the Church of England to prevent the toleration of that he says If you give Liberty to all that is called Religion you will soon be judged of no Religion and loved accordingly How Mr. Baxter and his Party behaved themselves during the Imprisonment of the King and while he was in the hands of his Murderers they are not willing to discover Mr. Baxter for his part says That he proved in the times of Usurpation that the Presbyterians detested it that the London Ministers printed their Abhorrence of it to the World Preface to Second Plea As for the London-Ministers I read that about 59 of them in number pleaded for the King in these words That the woful Miscarriages of the King himself which we cannot but acknowledge to be very many and great in his Government have cost the three Kingdoms so dear and cast him down from his Excellency into a horrid Pit of Misery beyond example This Plea for the King is like their late Pleas for Peace i.e. Justifications of Schism and Sedition for in it they say enough to excuse the Regicides We cannot but acknowledge i.e. we affirm and bear witness that the woful Miscarriages of the King himself not of his evil Counsellors only but his personal Crimes and fundamental Errours in Government too many and great to be here mentioned have cost the three Kingdoms so dear as that all the Bloodshed and Rapine and Devastations that have been made in England Scotland and Ireland might be charged on him and for these he is justly cast down from his Excellency into so horrid a pit of Misery beyond example i.e. Though the like were never done in the World he is justly fallen under a Sentence of Condemnation As to Mr. Baxter's particular abhorrence of that barbarous Fact and his proving that the Presbyterians detested it I suppose the place he refers to is his Key for Catholicks p. 321 c. he says in p. 323. That the Case of Murdering our King differs very much from the Powder Plot or Papists murdering of Kings and teaching that it is lawful for a private hand to do it A War and a treacherous Murder are not all one nor is a part of the Soveraign Power all one with a private hand p. 324. I have read what John Goodwin and Milton have written in Vindication of that horrid Murder and do believe that Mr. Baxter hath out-done them both Let the Reader seriously peruse that part of his Writings which he quotes to prove the contrary from p. 323. to p. 326. and I believe he will be of the same opinion for the design of it is to prove that p. 323. If the Body of a Commonwealth or those that have part in the Legislative Power and so in the Supremacy should unwillingly be engaged in a War with the Prince and after many years Blood and Desolations judiciously take away his Life as guilty of all this Blood and not to be trusted any more with Government and all this they do not as private Men but as the remaining Soveraign Power and say they do according to Laws undoubtedly the Case differs very much from Papists murdering of Kings I speak not this by way of Justification saith Mr. Baxter p. 325. whether they were in the right or wrong I am not the Judge but surely it was the Judgment of the Parliament upon the Division between the King and them the Power was in them to defend themselves and the Commonwealth and suppress all Subjects that were in Arms against them and that those that did resist them did resist the Higher Powers set over them by God and therefore were guilty of the Damnation of Resisters And this they assured the People was a Truth And so hath Mr. Baxter done too in his Political Aphorisms more at large but expresly enough in this place where under the name of Grotius p. 324. he asserts That the Legislative Power being divided between the Prince and Senate the Prince invading the Senates Right may justly be resisted and lose his Right And this was well understood by all that engaged in the War against the King from the beginning that in case they Conquered the King he was no more to be trusted with the Government For if it were known before-hand saith Mr. Baxter that if they should purchase a Victory by their Blood when they have done all they must be all governed by him whom they have conquered and lye at his mercy they would hardly ever have an Army to defend them So that the King was never more to be trusted i.e. either with Government or Life As for Mr. Love Mr. Baxter in the cited Preface intimates that he was Beheaded for his Loyalty which I think he sufficiently demonstrated in these two passages Not to take notice here of his barbarous insulting over that truly great Prelate when he was brought to the Block waving his Handkerchief and crying out Art thou come little Will c. the one in his Sermon at Vxbridge It was the Lord that troubled Achan and cut him off because he troubled Israel O that in this our State Physicians would resemble God to cut off those from the Land that have distempered it and he tells us plainly whom he means Melius pereat unus quam unitas Men that lye under the guilt of much Innocent Blood are not fit persons to be at peace with till all the guilt of Blood be expiated and avenged either by the Sword of the Law or by the Law of the Sword else the Peace can never be safe or just The other passage was in his Speech Sect. 14. of his Trial where speaking of his opposing the Tyranny of a King he says I did it is true in my place and calling oppose the Forces of the late King and where he alive again and should I live longer the Cause being as then it was I should oppose him longer That is he had lived and would die a Rebel An hundred Instances of such fatal Reflections on that excellent Prince have been noted in the Sermons and other Writings of Men of Mr. Baxter's Perswasion and yet to shew that he dares do any thing to justifie his Party he makes a bold Challenge to those whom he calls their Accusers to shew if they can what Body or Party of Men on Earth