unlawful and not to be communicated with A Classical Church as such is not to be communicated with An University as such is not to be communicated with Therefore such or such a particular Church as such is not to be communicated with which is a part of that Kingdom that Classis that University E. B. a Christian is a member of a Society which is not to be owned Ergo E. B. a Christian as such is not to be owned What more apparent than that the consequent should be but this Therefore such a Church should not be owned as it is a Part of such a Kingdom Classis Vniversity c. which is all accidental to the Church So that here is a double Equivocation and more than four terms 1. As such speaketh as I said one essence in the Antecedent and another in the Consequent 2. The word Communicating speaketh several things in the Antecedent and in the Consequent For to Communicate with a Diocesane Church is not to Assemble with it in publick Worship For a Diocess in our sense cannot so assemble but it is to own the Diocesane Relation and Prelats But to Communicate with a particular Church in a Parish is to have personal Communion in the Worship of the Assembly So that this is your Argument if put in plain words If it be unlawful to Communicate with a Diocesane Church as such by owning the Diocesanes and the relation to them then it is unlawful to communicate with a true particular Church in a Parish or bounded Parochially in the Assembly Worship as it is such a particular Church which is part of that Diocesane Church But c. Answ Yes It may be unlawful to communicate with it as a Part and that by Diocesane Communion but not as a true Church of Christians by assembly communion Or thus It is unlawful e. g. to have communion with the Army of Maximus Cromwel c. as such But many Christians are parts of the Army of Maximus Cromwel c. Therefore it is unlawful to have communion with those Christians Because there is the same reason of the parts as of the whole Ans 1. Christians are not parts of the Army as Christians but as those Souldiers 2. It is unlawful to have Military Communion with them as parts of that Army but not to have Christian Communion with them as Christians May not even the simple now easily see if you will not by what ignorant erroneous reasons you zealously labour to deceive the people of God to divide the Churches Sect. 39. E. B. 2. A Parish Minister is in that station and office but a servant of the Diocesane Bishop and therefore rightly called a Curate and if we may not own as you grant the Bishop I think it will necessarily follow that his substitute and curate hath no reason to expect any respect from us R. B. The same fallacy is so palpable that a small measure of reason may discern it 1. It is false that he is in that Office But a Servant The truth is the Law maketh him not a servant at all but only an Ecclesiastical Subject But if you had said He is but a subject it had not been true if But be exclusive of his other Pastoral Relation For he is by the Law the Priest the Teacher the Rector of that Parish Church in subordination to the Bishop 2. But whatever he be by the Law of the Land or by the Bishops will the faithful Ministers in Parish Churches are by Christs own Commission the true Pastors of the flocks having all things essential to that Relation 3. But deceive not your Reader by intimating that I speak of a Parochial Minister as Parochial not quâ but qui For Parish Bounds are but Accidents of the Churches It is Christian Churches as such though Parochial or so bounded that I speak of A Christian Pastor with his Christian flock e. g. Mr. Gataker Mr. Marshall Dr. Stoughtion Dr. Seaman Mr. Sedgwicke Dr. Gouge and such like do constitute a true Christian Church though in Parish bounds And as such Pastours they are the Ministers of Christ and not servants to Diocesanes And their subordination to Diocesans by the Law is but accidental to their Pastoral office How many volumes of the old Non-conformists give you this Answer And if you have read them why would you dissemble it and give no Reply to it If you never read them is it modesty to despise them Sect. 40. E. B. p. 11. If Persecutors are not to be communicated with nor such as have consented to our silencing which you also allow though I could wish you had proved it better than by the obscure disputable example of Martin then I think very few if any of the Parish-Ministers but must even upon that account also be separated from since either by open consent or else by an Vndoing and Pernicious silence they have all made themselves guilty of that grievous sin There being but little difference in the sight of God between the persecuting Brethren our selves and by not sharply reproving it seeming to approve of it in others R. B. 1. Your repeated mistake of my allowing that which I only meddle not with but exclude from the question or oppose not I pass by 2. Every one that is by remote consequence guilty of our silencing doth not consent to it Otherwise You and I and all the silenced Ministers in England do consent to it For he is blindly impenitent that will deny that we are any way guilty of it 3. You do but cover one open sin with another even separation with uncharitable slander of many hundred godly Conformable Ministers whom you accuse of this consent I know scarce any one of my acquaintance whom I take for a faithful diligent Pastor and whom I perswade men to hear but they are grieved at the heart for the silencing of so many and such I hear some complain of it privately and some lament it publickly and earnestly pray that God would restore them But I never heard one of them own it 4. I plead not for Vndoing Pernicious silence I think too many are deeply guilty by it My testimony in this case is visible among the Writings whose number you prove me proud by But if you make this a proof of the duty of separation you will make mad work of it For 1. You know not mens opportunities to speak And where there is no opportunity there it s no duty 2. You know not who hath spoken their dissent plainly and who not It may he some have done it in the Convocation It may be some have done it privately and some publickly already in due season And we are not to expect an account from them of all that they say 3. To whom is it that you would have all the Countrey Ministers speak against our silencing To those that did it they have no access and they are out of hearing And must they
strictly upon a quarter of what you have writ you could not be guilty of so strange forgetfulness For in your Premonition to the Saints Rest you have these very words Many think that by Flesh is meant only Indwelling sin when alas it is the sensitive appetite that it chargeth us to subdue For which you quote Rom. 8. 3 4 5 c. R. B. You begin comfortably with a promise to Conclude but you proceed sadly 1. Is not the inference as strong against many words in your Preaching as in mine and other mens writings that in many words there cannot want much sin 2. You proclaim the aggravation of your sin when you speak for meditating strictly on what we write Can you heap up untruths in Book after Book and commit all these Crimes even when you have strictly meditated what you write Do you sin so studyedly and deliberately and yet will you not Repent 3. Reader if ever thou wilt pitty a poor self-conceited troubler of the Church pitty this poor man who here openly tells thee that either he understands not common sense or else takes no heed what he saith but bringeth a new untruth to justifie a former even into the open light and triumpheth in his act He telleth you the charge which he undertaketh to prove viz. that I have written that by Flesh is only meant the sensitive appetite He now undertaketh to prove that I said so in the Premon to the Saints Rest which is another Vntruth because I said Many think that by Flesh the Scripture meaneth only our Indwelling sin when alas it is the inordinate sensitive appetite which it chargeth us to subdue Here he first leaveth out several words especially the word inordinate because he read not the later Editions And yet he put in the word only which the Printer in the last Editions hath left out and which openly sheweth the falshood of his charge Is it all one to say that by Flesh is meant not only Indwelling sin and to say It is not meant at all Do you think he took any heed of the word only when he wrote it My business not in the Premonition as he mis-reports but in the Epistle was to prove the sinfulness of flesh-pleasing and that when the Scripture bids us subdue the flesh and make no provision for it c. It doth not only mean subdue the habits of Indwelling sin in the understanding and will and make no Provision for them but also that we must prevent actual sin by subduing the sensitive appetite unto reason and ruling it by faith and that even Original and habitual sin it self consisteth partly in the Inordinateness of that Appetite And here I implyed this proof from the Notation of the Name q. d. If the sin to be subdued be called Flesh then the Fleshly appetite is not wholly to be excluded For there is some reason why sin is called Flesh rather than Spirit And what can the reason be but that 1. The sensitive appetite it self is Inordinate and so part of the seat of sin and 2. The understanding and will are enslaved to the sense or flesh and are vitiated with a sinful inclination to serve the flesh or sense it self And therefore he that readeth in Scripture such passages as require us to subdue the flesh he must not deceive himself by thinking that it is only Indwelling sin that is in the superiour faculties that is meant by flesh and that the sensitive appetite is not here meant at all When as 1. Original sin it self is partly in the sensitive appetite And 2. Actual sin is to be resisted by subduing the sensitive appetite to reason and bringing the body into subjection as well as Indwelling sin to be extirpated And if the Name of Flesh be put upon Indwelling sin from the Fleshly interest and Inordinate appetite then surely this it self is not wholly to be excluded as no part of the sense of the word Flesh in Scripture And when my words plainly express this sense with what face could this man not only put other words upon me which were none of my own but also another sense and a sense clean contrary to the words And this to justifie a former falshood And this after that in divers Writings I have fully and plainly disputed of Original sin as it is the corruption of the superiour faculties and in divers Books about Conversion shewed the necessity of the cleansing and renewing of those faculties And here the word only was before his eyes a confutation of his calumny Sect. 62. E. B. And indeed Sir that I may confess a secret to you this very passage of yours I looked on as so conceited and singular and many years agoe it gave me so great offence that I threw away your Book upon it and never would read it over as not thinking it possible that one who erred in the very entrance in so plain a truth was able to instruct me in any thing that was worth my knowing R. B. 1. The Book was written about twenty one or twenty two years agoe and you are a Young man yet You surely begun very early to be past possibility of being taught any thing by such as I. Is this only to declare your humility or that you speak evil of the Books which you never read and that you are the fittest man to be the accuser of them 2. It may be there was some early antipathy between our judgements For I will confess such another secret to you That about twelve years ago a Latine small discourse came to my hand as famed to be yours against the Species of Monarchical Government and the arguments against Monarchy in it seemed to me such poor injudicious slender stuff that though I did not as you cast away the Book till I came to the end it was one occasion of my writing the twenty Arguments against Democrasie which I put into the Book which I have revoked my Polit. Aph. 3. Do you not tell the world how fit a Champion you are for any truth or reformation who when you read not only indwelling sin expound it not at all Indwelling sin and then glory that you cast away the Book as that which could not possibly teach you And are you not by this time an excellent Scholar and a very wise man if you did so by all your other Books Sect. 63. E. B. p. 26. I am much confirmed in that judgement of your Book since a person yet living and one worthy of credit accuainted me that when the learned and judicious Mr. Herle had read that cryed-up Book of yours he told him It had been happy for the Church of God if your friends had never sent you to School Mr. Cawdry had the same opinion of it And another person as knowing in the Mysterie of Godliness as either of them told a friend of mine that notwithstanding the noise about you you would end in flesh and blood R. B. 1. A worthy
rightly what I have written than the Books themselves I leave them to judge and do as they are and as such men lead them And how far Tradition or History or Humane aide and Testimony is necessary to our Reception of the Scripture I have long agoe opened at large in the Preface to the second Part of my Saints Rest and shewed you that Dr. Whitaker Chemnitius Davenant Rob. Baronius and other Protestants usually say the same that I do and that otherwise by casting away such subordinate means Proud-ignorance and pievish wrangling will cut the throat of faith it self and undermine the Church of God Reader I will conclude also with an Admonition as my Accuser doth As thou lovest Christianity Scripture and thy soul take heed of those Ignorant destroying-defenders of the Scripture who would tell the Infidel world that they may continue Infidels till we can prove that the Scripture alone by its own light without humane Testimony History or Tradition will bring it self to all mens hands without mans bringing it and will translate it self without mans translating it or in the original tongues will make all English men and all that cannot read at all to understand it or being translated will tell you sufficiently which is the true translation and where the Translater failed or will tell you among many hundred divers Readings which is the right and which Copy is the truest and which particular text is uncorrupted or rightly translated For instance whether it should be in Luke 17. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Matth. 24. 18. and Beza saith In uno exemplari apud Theophilactum Scriptum est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est Cadaver sicut etiam in nonnullis codicibus testatur selegisse Erasmus Videturque haec lectio magis accomodata c. Hundreds of such may be named And believe not these men till they can name you one man that ever knew before some man told him by the Book alone whether Esther and the Canticles were Canonical and the Book of Wisdom and Pauls Epistle to the Laodioaeans Apocryphal and knew what was the sense of the Original Text and what Copies and Readings and Translations were true and what false Yea or that knew these particular Books were the same that the Apostles wrote without alteration till some one told it them Would not that man reduce the Church into less than one single person who would have no man believe the Scripture nor take it for Gods word till he can do it without any help of man or humane History or Testimony or Tradition But of this I put him twenty Questions before It shall now suffice to tell you this much of the plain truth that such furious false Teachers as shall take the foresaid course may not utterly subvert your faith The Scripture and Christian Religion taken together as one frame or Body hath that in it self which may prove that frame and all the essential parts of our Religion to be of God And the true proof of the Divine Authority of the Scripture is by the evidence of the spirit not a new Revelation of the spirit But by a double Impression of Gods own Image made by the Holy Ghost one upon the Scripture it self The other by the Scripture in its continued efficacy on Belivers souls And both these Images are the Impresses of the Trinity of Divine Principles even of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God which are unimitably done in both This is the true proof that Scripture is the word of God But this proof excludeth not but supposeth the Ministry and Testimony of man as a subservient help and means even to bring it to us to translate it to teach us how to know both the sense and verity of it and to testifie which is the true Canon Copies Reading Translation c. And they are ignorant subverting deceivers and destroyers of your souls who would separate the Word the Spirit and the Ministry which Christ hath conjoyned as necessary together for your faith and that would cast out subservient helps as unnecessary under pretence of the sufficiency of the Scripture As if Printing it were needless because Scripture is sufficient of it self And the fore-said self-evidencing Light is not sufficient without humane help and Testimony to make you know every Canonical Book from the Apocryphal nor to know the truest Copies in the Original nor the rightest readings nor this or that particular verse to be uncorrupted nor the translation to be true nor this or that to be the true meaning of the Greek or Hebrew word nor that the Minister readeth truly to the unlearned that cannot try it by his own skill nor read himself And he that would make the contrary supposition to be the foundation of your faith would destroy your faith the Church and you Postscript REader since the Writing of this two things have faln out which make it a more displeasing work to me than it was before And I am sorry that Mr. Bagshaw made it necessary The one is that as the current report saith he is again in Prison for Refusing the Oath of Allegiance And I naturally abhorre to trample upon a suffering person which hath caused me to say so little against the Armies and Sectarian miscarriages since their dissolution and dejection in comparison of what I did before in the time of their prosperity The other is The Printing of the Life of Mr. Vavasor Powel which hath so many good things in it that I fear lest the mention of his false Prophecies extorted by Mr. Bagshaw who first published also his name as the Author of them should abate their exemplary use But yet I must give this notice to forreigners and posterity that they must not judge either of the JUDGEMENT or the SUFFERINGS of the Non-conformists by these mens It is not for refusing the Oath of Allegiance that they are silenced and suffer as they do nor do they consent to the words which conclude the life of Mr. Powel That since such a time he hath learnt that we must pray for our present Rulers as sinners but not as Magistrates No man can truly say that such Doctrines as these have been proved against any considerable part of the Ministers that are now cast out or that they were deposed and silenced for such things seeing they commonly take the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy And how far the ejected Ministers of Scotland are from the Principles of Separation Mr. Browne a Learned Scottish Divine hath shewed in the Preface of a Learned Treatise Newly Published in Latine against Wolzogius and Velthusius even while he saith most against receding from a Reformation overthrowing the Tenents maintained by our two or three English Brownes which formerly were called Brownisme Though the same mans numerous reasonings against the derivation of the Magistrates Office from the Power of the Mediator I waite
after admonition and discovery of offenders will not use her authority in casting them out doth partake of their sins and becomes as guilty as they and therein as unworthy of communion I cite Gods word as my Rule of speaking and yours as that which I may suppose sheweth what you expect to hear All that I now desire of you is to bring your self to some impartiality in reviewing the two Libells which you have written And if you cannot yet condescend to hear the judgement of some understanding impartial persons who have seriously perused your writings and mine And hate not repentance and set not your self against it and justifie not all the Crimes false Doctrines and eighty untruths which your two Libells do contain And beg of God more Judgement Humility Meekness Considerateness and tenderness of Conscience And abuse no longer the souls of weak Christians with such false Doctrine which you defend no better than I have done I rest A desirer of your Repentance and Sobriety Richard Baxter M. 4. Jun. d. 9. 1671. A second Admonition to Mr. Edward Bagshaw written in some hope of curing his IMPENITENCE or at least of saving some of those in London Northamptonshire and other Counties whom he hath laboured to pervert by FALSE DOCTRINE and FALSE-REPORTS which tend to destroy 1. The Soundness of their Judgements by dangerous Error 2. Their Christian Love and Unity by Love-killing Principles and Divisions 3. And their Christian Practice by sinful Censures of and Separations from the far greatest part of the Vniversal Visible Church of Christ and Communion of Saints and the publick Worship of God and consequently to the destruction of their own souls and of the Churches To Mr. Edward Bagshaw HAving told you in my first Admonition p. 145. that if you write any more at the rates you did I should give you the last word as not intending to confute you c. I found my self in a streight when I read your second about my duty Though you trampled admonition under your feet and turn again and all to rend me I ought not to take you for a Swine or Dog and give you up as wholly hopeless till there is no remedy being under the command Lev. 19. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour and not suffer sin upon him And Charity forbiddeth me to desert all those souls whom you endeavour to seduce by denying them necessary information and silently to suffer them to live in all the sins in which you would ensnare them And yet I have been chidden by so many for answering your last Writing as containing such palpable scurrility impertinency and error that I am afraid of wasting my time which I might better employ and preferring a lesser matter before a greater And I expect you should charge me as a breaker of my promise But of that you have your self discharged me it being conditional If you write at the rates you did c. and but the expression of my Intentions which I may well alter when your alteration calleth for it For though you neither express Repentance nor Amend the faults of which I did admonish you yet you here attempt such a Plea for separation as you did not in your former writing where you seemed to expect that your bare assertions should be believed but now you pretend to more argumentation which therefore I shall take into consideration But still I perceive the unavoidable streights into which you cast me in the performance If I mention your Error and Sin you will think that I make you odious and trample upon your honour and cause your persecution and strengthen your adversaries And if I silence them all I shall leave you under sin which is worse than persecution and I shall neglect the souls of others and I shall betray the honour of Religion as if its followers were but such as you and as if our Cause were guilty of all the Error and sin which you maintain And if you are to be believed if I do not reprove you I shall but little differ from you For you say of another case pag. 11 12. There being but little difference in the sight of God c. And what should I do with you when you cast me into such a streight Why this I take to be my duty 1. Impartially first to consider of all the evil which you charge upon my self that I may not be guilty of the sin of the times which I am constrained to lament in others that is An obstinate Enmity to Repentance nor yet unthankfully neglect any help that God shall any way vouchsafe me for the discovery of my sin 2. And then so to acquaint you with your errors and miscarriages as may tend 1. To your repentance 2. And to other mens preservation 3. And to vindicate Religion and the faithful afflicted Servants of Christ against the unjust accusation of those who would make the world believe that your Case is theirs and that their principles and practices are such as yours 4. And in all to preserve that just esteem and love which I owe you as one that I think yet upright in the main I love your zeal for that which you take to be the Truth I greatly love your Fortitude of mind and undaumedness under sufferings as such and being so much above the fear of man And I think it a thousand pitties that you have not 1. A better Cause 2. A humbler mind and better acquaintance with your self 3. A sounder and clearer judgement 4. More universal Charity 5. More sense of the mischiefs of sinful divisions 6. And especially more Sobriety and Caution and less temeâ—â—ty and heedlesness of what you read and what you write and more tenderness of Conscience to avoid untruths 7. And more impartiality to see that evil in your self and those of your opinion which you can aggravate in those by whom you suffer and 8. Lastly That you have not less Enmity to Repentance and that you take an invitation to Repentance to be a malicious reproach and will not understand why God recordeth his servants sins nor will consider how much better it is that the reproach of sin do fall upon us than upon our Religion or the Church of God and that we our selves confess our sins than that our adversaries upbraid us with Impenitent justifying them And while you are so notoriously wanting in all these things the greater noise your sufferings make the more injurious you will be to the Truth and to your brethren and the greater hardning to others And Satan will not only use you to the corrupting of well-meaning peoples minds and to the suppression of Truth and Love and Concord but also to the reproach of suffering it self And while you cry out of persecution you will prove a notable cause of all our defamations and afflictions and a great temptation to the actors to justifie what they do And now
on these terms I shall consider of your words and help you better to understand your self Sect. 1. E. B. It will be a favour if I look on you as one that desireth not any such expressions of familiarity as to be called Brother Reply You may suppress your own Charity but not mine you may call me what you please but I will call you what I think my duty requireth me to do As Optatus initio tells the Donatist My warrant is ubi supra Lev. 19. 17. 1 Cor. 5. 11. If any man that is called a Brother be a Railer And 2 Thess 3. 14 15. If any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a Brother But it is the Spirit or tendency of your Doctrine and principles to renounce fraternity with all of Christs Church that are not liker to your self than I am Pag. 2. You tell me that I shew how much I am for a middle way neither hot nor cold for a luke warm and neutral indifferency Reply I take your warming in good part I daily beg of God that the decays of my natural spirits and fervour by frigid age and weakness may not abate the true fervour of my soul much less any abatement of the estimation of holy Truth the search of which hath been the unwearied business the almost uninterrupted pleasure of my life And specially that my love to God and Heaven and Holiness may not decay which alas was wofully cold and little at the best But I confess to you that I am for a middle way between fury and stupidity pride and baseness superstition and profaness the love of Anarchy and Tyranny and many such like pernicious extreams And you remember me of the folly of my youthful ignorance in which I presently suspected any man of tepidity and carnal indifferency who wrote for reconciliation of Contenders and for a middle Conciliatory way such as about Arminianism Pet. Molinaeus Vsher Vossius Davenant Hall Preston Fenner Crocius Martinius Camero c. and so in other points O Lord forgive the sins of my ignorant unexperienced age Sect. 2. E B. I hope you are not to learn that every untruth is a lye R. E. I suppose your citation of John 1. 62. 2. 21. is mis-printed for 1 John 1. 6. 2 21. The first of which saith If we say that we have no fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth The other saith that No lie is of the truth But do either of these say that every untruth is a lie Is it not enough to hold 1. That every designed untruth which is positively voluntary is a lie 2. And that every rash and carelesly uttered untruth which is privatively voluntary that is where the will omitteth its Office is a lie Sure brother these many will be heavy enough upon you you need not contend by false doctrine for any more And supposing that you are not to learn how singular you are in this assertion is it any sign of your humility to think that so few Divines before you who so little avoid it did know what a Lie is If I had called you a wise a calm a sober and charitable man when I had no evidence of the contrary how can you prove that this had been a lie You tell us anon that Prophets Nathan Samuel and good men have been mistaken And did those Prophets lie You deny not that your Brother Powel was mistaken And yet you would not have it said that he lied Let this go therefore for your first false doctrine when you say that every untruth is a lie Sect. 3. E. B p. 2. You are not afraid to dethrone the Scripture from being a perfect Rule Par. 1. p. 99. 100 101. R. B. Though all untruth be not a lye I cannot say that this is none I have no such word or sense I maintain the Scripture to be a perfect Rule so far as it is a Rule But so far as it is no Rule it is no perfect Rule I do there maintain that it is not a particular Rule for a Watchmaker a Carpenter a Physicion a Mathematician a Musicion c. to do their work by nor what Metre or Tune to sing a Psalm in and such like but only a General Rule for these And because you charge this on me as my error if I can understand you this is your second false doctrine implyed that Scripture is a particular Rule for the things which I there exclude And a third false doctrine implyed that if it were not so it were not a perfect Rule For your words have no sense which I can discern if this be not the sense of them Whosoever denyeth the Scripture to be a particular Rule for the things instanced by R. B. p. 99 100 101. doth dethrone the Scripture from being a perfect Rule But so doth R. B. Ergo your Major includeth the two fore-mentioned false doctrines Sect. 4. E. B. The whole design of your Book was to make your Brethren that have not your latitude and cannot reach the subtilty of your distinctions odiâ—us c. R. B. Here is a former falshood justified and doubled or increased 1. It is false that this was any design of my Book 2. But that it was the whole design what man of Sobriety that ever read it could imagine 3. Yea and that these brethren that I designed to make odious were such as have not my latitude and cannot reach the subtilty of my distinctions Sect. 5. E. B. Many hundreds of sober impartial and unbyassed persons have carefully read your Book as well as my self and they all make the same judgement of it R. B. I will not number this with your bare falshoods Whether many hundreds have told you their judgement of it who have read it I know not But contradictories cannot be true on both parts It is a slander therefore of so many hundred such persons which you utter For if they were indeed sober impartial unbyassed persons and carefully read the Book it is scarce or not at all possible but indeed a contradiction that they should judge it the whole design to make my brethren odious that cannot reach the subtilty of my distinctions Sect. 6. E. B. p. 3. You call separation a crying sin nay the crying sin and you scruple not to insinuate that all the judgements which in this Nation we do either feel or fear were to be charged on separation as the principal procuring cause R. B. Here is your third falshood in matter of fact There is not a word in the places nor any where else in all my Writings if I know what I have written that chargeth all this on separation as the principal procuring cause But the contrary in the comparison is oft and plainly asserted and greater
resolute disclaiming any Activeness in that War did so much stagger me R. B. This is yet more than the former Alas have you cast off all heed what you say and all common modesty in your reports Where did I ever deny any Activeness I argued thus He that never medled with the War till long after it was raised that never shot struck or hurt any man that never was Officer or Common-Soldier that never took Commission to be Chaplain of the Garrison where two years of the War I did continue but preached a Lecture to them without any Commission that never went into the Field Army till after Naisby Fight and then went thither by the solemn Advice of an Assembly of Divines many yet living twice assembled and that upon an open profession to the Committee that my Reason and Business was in the apprehension of our Common danger from the Army to discharge my own Conscience in disswading as many of the Souldiers as I could from overturning the Government of the State and Church which I was fully satisfied they intended and that spent his time among them under their displeasure in such work I say that he that did thus was not so guilty of stirring up and fomenting the War as were those that first raised it and those that were Generals Commanders or Souldiers and as those that preached for it to the Parliament or as those that went on in the many following Wars to the end And is there any thing in all this that saith I was no way Active in it My Activity was principally in the City of Coventry which never saw an Enemy while I was there And it was in telling my opinion to others and twice going out with their Souldiers to the Siege of neighbour Garrisons The rest I intimated to you before And this is it that I meant in the words of the Book which you recite I askt you whether the Parliament nor the chief Speakers in it nor the Earl of Essex nor Cromwell did no more with more to that purpose which you give no answer to but defend your falshood with the addition of more such falshoods as if your design in writing were practically to tell men to what boldness in sinning mans vitiated nature will proceed if it be not seasonably restrained Yea as if you had quite forgotten what you were to prove you say Sect. 11. E. B. p. 4. Nor do I delight to expose you to the scorn of your enemies and to the pitty of your friends but I cannot help it R. B. Reader because I have met with so strange a Judge I freely appeal to thee if thou be but sober who it is that by this mans Writings is here exposed to scorn and pitty Whether I that so fully disproved his Calumny that I was as guilty of stirring up and fomenting the War as any whatsoever as that he hath not a word of sense to say in confirmation of it or he that with such strange audaciousness addeth such falshoods as have not one syllable in all my Writings to countenance them and taketh up another charge against me that I boldly and resolutely disclaim any Activity c. Did he trust that his Readers would so far believe him as rather to venture upon the scorn and pity which he would move them to than once to examine my Book whether I wrote such a word or not I confess too many of his own Spirit are like to do so and to believe what such a man as this reporteth and think that he cannot be so impudent as thus insultingly to say that I say thus and thus when I never wrote or spake such a word But what if he attain this end and be believed Will it add to his innocence or felicity to have his many hundreds live in the sin of lying and calumny and have no excuse for it but Mr. E. B. confidently wrote it It s a wonder that corrupted nature should be so eager to have companions in sin when it doth but tend to its own confusion Sect. 12. E. B. p. 4. You will not be beholding to an Act of Indempnity but stand upon your Innocency R. B. These are two more gross falshoods in matter of fact 1. I am and wil be beholden to the Act of Indempnity and write all this as under the protection of that Act. 2. I did not I do not stand upon my Innocency nor speak a word of such importance Sect. 13. E. B. Nothing but your hopes that all is forgotten as well as pardoned which is past could ever embolden you to so peremptory denyal R. B. This is another gross falshood 1. It is spoken of my heart which he knoweth not 2. It is twice contradicted by his own Pen. 1. He even now said that I will not be beholden to an Act of Indempnity and yet now he makes the hope of Pardon received to embolden me 2. He rebuketh me for the less seasonable Retractation of that which now he saith not only that I hoped it was forgotten but that nothing but that hope could embolden me c. Why did I Retract that which I thought forgotten Could I think that Book forgotten which remaineth visible which so many Books accuse me of and one which he mentioneth and wrote against himself and which so many have publickly preached against both formerly and of late Could I think that part of my life forgotten which all in the City of Coventry who thirty years ago were at years of discretion may remember Sect. 14. E. B. p. 4. You ask me many malicious and ensnaring questions R. B. That 's another Falshood They were not malicious And another crime to take him for malicious who calleth sinners to necessary repentance in a time of Judgements with words of love Sect. 15. E. B. In your Writings you do highly approve of that which was the worst part of the change the setting up of Cromwell to he Protector R. B. This also is notoriously false as my Writings which have no such word and as those that I converst with know Indeed Oliver Cromwells first Troop did under their Officers hands invite me to be their Pastor which I refused as dissenting from the way into which I saw them entring and not willing to leave my peaceable habitation at Coventry where I had the society of very many worthy Ministers and leisure for my Studies and was out of the heats of War And after he expostulated with me himself for refusing his desires But the very first hour that I went to his Army which was after Naseby fight he having notice of my words and intentions from a friend of his of the Coventry Committee I was entertained by the jeers of his most intimate friends as one that came forsooth to Reclaim the Army and save the Kingdom c. And in a year and halfs time while I stayed among them he would never once speak to me nor was I ever at
nature very laudable 5. And I mentioned this not as a praise of him but as a Conviction of the Rebellious Army who thought they might take down all Government to set up themselves whom they could easilier believe to be good and godly than any others And whereas they pretended that it was for ungodliness that they pulled down their Superiours I shewed them that if they could not believe that the King was godly nor the Parliament godly nor the Minor part of the Parliament called the Rump godly nor their Little Mock-Parliament godly yet they should not have so accused Cromwell whom they cryed up and set him up themselves and magnified so highly as they did 6. And I meant this Commendation of some of his actions as comparative only and better than theirs that pulled down that which themselves set up 7. And yet I thank you for calling me to review those words and do hereby declare that I do take them to be unmeet as spoken to the Army that then had greatly provoked me to grief and that I unfeignedly Repent of them that you may see I love not Impenitence in my self any more than in you And I wish that they had not been written being so lyable to ill effects and it being unmeet too much to praise even the good that a Usurper doth lest it take off the odium of his Usurpation Sect. 18. E. B. Sir could you say all this of him then and do you think your partial friends can justifie you now when you compare him to the Tyrant Maximus and make him in effect to be nothing else but a Murderous and a bloody Vsurper R. B. Here is two Falshoods one expressed and the other implyed 1. That expressed is that I make him in effect to be nothing else but a Murderous c. when I never denyed any thing that was good in him but have publickly and in Print warned our Lawful Governours that they tempt not the people to dislike them by undoing any good which he did 2. The implyed falshood that I speak worse of him now than I did heretofore Whereas the truth is that I spake in the time of his own Usurpation I am confident twenty times against him for once that I have spoken since his death Not that I changed my opinion of him but that it is so cross to humane nature to insult over even malefactors in their sufferings especially when we suffer with them though by them and when their adversaries need no instigation that I have not been able to judge it my duty to speak of that very evil which I and others suffer by But have been hardly put to it these eleven years between the thoughts of open disowning those sins of self-exalting Vsurpers that have confounded us and a lothness to encrease the sufferings of those that are underfoot And this last prevailing I have greatly by it displeased my Superiours And yet lest I should harden men in impenitency having gently mentioned these Crimes it displeaseth such as are most obliged to repent And how strangely doth this man despise his Readers while he again maketh it such a thing in me to compare Cromwell to Maximus whom still he loadeth with odious Titles When in my first Book I told him p. 374. that Maximus by the Bishops was accounted a very religious Christian and pretended that the Souldiers in England made him Emperour against his will and took part with the Orthodox and greatly honoured the Bishops and promoted Religion and got a great deal of love and honour And in my Defence I told him that Maximus is by Historians made so good a man of himself that I more feared lest many would have made me a praiser of Cromwell by the comparison And I cited p. 142. the words of Sulpitius Severus of him Vir omni vitae merito praedicandus si ei diadema non legitime tumultuante milite impositum repudiare vel armis civilibus abstinere licuisset c. And the words of Beda Eccles Hist l. 1. c. 9. Maximus vir strenuus probus atque Augusto dignus nisi contra fidem per tyrannidem emersisset c. Invitus propemodum ab exercitis creatus Imperator c. But all this is not worthy the observation of this temerarious man who still puts this among my unbecoming usage of Cromwell when if he had weighed what I wrote I should have rather expected that he would have accused me again for overpraising him Sect. 19. E. B. As for your flattery to his Son which I also charged you with and you with a strange but not to your self unusual boldness do deny c. R. B. I gave a full answer to this which no reply is given to As if you were resolved to say what your list and hear nothing that is said against it As I told you that I never saw him nor ever had to do with him save that when I saw him take part against the turbulent sort of men I took it to be seasonable by that Dedication to perswade him to do good and not hurt So I told you that your words of Dedicating a flattering Book to him in common sense do distinguish between the Book and the Dedication Whether the Dedication were flattery I left to the Reader of it to judge and neither affirmed nor denyed it But only affirmed that there is not one syllable of his Son in all the Books but only in the Dedications Yet this man goeth on and falsly chargeth me to deny that which I denyed not and reciteth my words in the Dedication to prove that the Book as distinct from the Dedication was flattery Sect. 20. E. B. Deny if you can the consequence that it became not you to blame the effects who gave such rise and encouragement to the Cause I mean unless you repent of the Cause which it is evident you have not yet done And if I may not be believed in this opinion of you I doubt not but the Bishop of Worcester will who for this very thing did formerly accuse you of rebellion From which charge he that defended you then leaveth you to acquit your self now as well as you can R. B. 1. Your I mean unless you repent were none of your former words When you say one thing you think to solve and avoid the charge of falshood by saying that you Meant another 2. What you say is evident must needs be a Calumny in you 1. Because you have no Evidence of the Negative being about my heart which is to you unknown 2. Because your self did before twit me with Retraction c. 3. And did you believe your self that the Bishop of Worcesters words so many years ago are a proof that I repent not now 4. And are you yet insensible of your own partiality that then you blamed that in the Bishop which now you can freely do your self Let your followers mark what Spirit you are of if you
he know that it is the Truest Copy that falleth into his hands and that all that differ from that are false Do not corrupt Copies come to other mens hands Why then might they not do so to his 10. How can he judge of the various Readings of all the rest of the Copies which he never saw 11. If a Translation will serve him to judge of the various readings in the Original are they not in the Translation fore-judged of to his hand 12. Is any man Infallible in Translating Is there a promise of Infallibility to them 13. Do not the Translations differ 14. How shall men know which Translation is truest when none is perfect 15. Must he see all Translations that shall judge or will one serve as aforesaid And how shall he judge of those he seeth not 16. Is it by Inspiration from Heaven such as the Prophets had that the true Reading must be known or to ordinary at least sanctified Reason by evidence in the Text it self If the former none but Prophets can know it If the later you can prove it to a Rational or sanctified man from some intrinsick evidence For instance suppose a man never saw but two Printed English Bibles and was never told which is right by others and in one is Printed Heb. 12. 2. he despised the same viz. the Cross and in the other he despised the shame for so two of them do differ how shall he prove which Printer erred 17. Do all the Men and Women that are Godly actually know the true and uncorrupt copies and readings by the Book it self without mans testimony Or what is the name of that one Man or Woman in the World that you know who without ever hearing it from man could tell all the true readings from the false or could tell that the Canticles or Ecclesiastes or the Book of Jonas were Canonical and that the Book of Baruck Wisdom and Pauls Epistle to the Laodiceans and Clemens to the Corinthians were not Do you know his name that ever knew this by Reading the Bible only without being ever told it by any If not and if it be sine quâ non to mens receiving of the Bible it self that some one brings it to their hands judge how wisely and fairly you deal with poor souls to talk at such a confident and yet confused rate And 18. Let me ask you one question more Is it necessary to Salvation that men be able to read Hath God promised it to all or most that shall be saved Faith cometh by hearing as the most ordinary way of old And he that will Preach the Gospel to most Nations under Heaven must Convert more than can read or but a few And if you Preach the Gospel to a Congregation that cannot read do you recite all the various readings in the Hebrew and Greek to them If not can they judge of that they never heard If you do are they ever the wiser as to know of themselves which of them is the right 19. But if you say that you suppose not only Grace but great Learning and Study to discern these things how cometh it to pass that the most Learned Studious and Godly men do still so much differ about the various Readings as Lud. Capellus Vsher Heinsius Bootius De Dieu and others And how come the Churches in the Ages next the Apostles to leave out so many Books of the Canon as many of them did while others received them And Luther Althamar and others to set no more by James's Epistle than they did And so many Godly men long and yet to receive much of the Apocrypha 20. How durst you that speak so hardly of the Jesuits honour them so much as to make your silly ones believe that their doctrine in this is no worse than mine when in so many Books I have left that at large which may confute you And you wisely ask me to tell you whether I will take the Jesuits into my Communion because they hold the same with the Arminians with whom I will communicate so they hold the same with all Christians that there is a God and a Christ and the Scripture true But it is not for this that I renounce their Communion but for some things else Will you communicate with none that holdeth any thing yea any errour which the Jesuits hold Or did you dream that the Arminians hold all that the Jesuits hold Or did you dream that the Arminians hold all that the Jesuits hold Sir I am ashamed to spend time-upon such triflings Sect. 59. E. B. The former Non-conformists thought there was no possibility of salvation for a Papist But you tell us that you affect not the honour of this Orthodoxness R. B. It is confutation enough of such an accuser to recite the words which he accuseth which are Vnless you do as Mr. Perkins doth to make it good be so charitable to all the millions else among them as not to call them Papists except they practically hold the most pernicious opinions of their Councils and Divines I confess I affect none of the honour of that Orthodoxness which consisteth in sentencing Millions and Kingdoms to Hell whom I am unacquainted with So that I distinguish of Papists properly so called who practically hold all the Popish errours and Nominal Papists that call themselves such or are called so by others who know not or practically hold not the pernicious part of their errours These latter I refused to undertake to judge to Hell and consequently to damn all in France Spain Italy Germany c. who are called Papists And if this accuser be more valiant and dare damn them all I do not wonder that he dare damn me for not damning them For he that can eat and digest an Oxe will never stick at one crumme more But he should not be also so cruel to the Reader as to put him to read my words twice over because he dismembers them to make them seem to have some loathed sense Sect. 60. E. B. p. 19. The former Non-formists said The filth of nature cannot be sufficiently spoken of But you c. R. B. 1. When you tell us in what common Confession of theirs they say so I shall try whether you say any truer than in the rest 2. Reader I answered him on this point before by no less than twenty instances proving that Nature may be too ill spoken of And he saith nothing to any of them but sings over his old song again Is not this a fine man to dispute with Sect. 61. E. B. I shall conclude with mentioning one thing more I affirmed that by Flesh you had told us war only meant the sensitive appetite This you reply is an untruth and a meer fiction for you never said so Sir you had need have a good memory for you have writ many Books in which as containing many words there cannot want much sin and vanity And indeed had you meditated