Answer to Dodwell and Sherlock, Chapter 5 · Letter 3
For the Worthy and much Honoured Mr. Henry Dodwell, at Trinity Colledg near Dublin in Ireland.
Worthy Sir,
I Thankfully received yours of 28 Pages, from the hand of Mr. Teate. That I may not be again guilty of such hastiness in writing as you take notice of, I premise this to acquaint you, That your warning, with my backwardness to such work, and the multitude of Employments in which I am pre-engaged, shall keep me a while from that error, and you from the trouble. And if I take not your concluding counsel to avoid both timerity and partiality in this Cause, I shall notoriously contradict mine own interest. I have studied the point as diligently as I could, almost thirty years longer than you have lived in the world, (if the bearer of yours give me a true account of your age.) And yet I truly think it very possible that one of such admirable parts and diligence as your self, (evident in your great reading and accurate stile) may know much more in half that time. But if I can know my own thoughts, I have studied with a desire whatever it cost me, to know the truth. I dare not say, (Impartially) altogether. For I have flesh and blood, and who can choose but have a little partiality for that way which all his worldly interest pleadeth for? Could I have proved Conformity lawful (not to have contained a Covenant against the Church-form, Church-offices, and Church-discipline of Christs Institutions, and for upholding that Church Usurpation and Tyranny which began and still continueth the Divisions of the Christian World; nor the deliberate Ministerial owning of the Perjury of many thousands, &c.) I need not have undergone the common scorn and hatred that I have born, nor to have been deprived of all Ministerial maintenance, and silenced for eleven years of that part of my life, which should have been most serviceable (to add no more); my Reputation with those on the other extreme, I did voluntarily cast away, by opposing them (when I could as easily have kept it as most I know) lest it should be any snare or tempting interest to me. I assure you,This was written long ago. That I have not wanted bread, is a thing that I owe to thanks to any party for, either Prelatists, Presbyterians or Independents, &c. I confess I have read what the Antiprelatists say, such as Beza, Gerson, Bucer, Didoclav. Parker, Bains, Iacob Blondel, Salmasius, &c. But I have more diligently studied, since I was twenty years of age, the chiefest on the other side, Saravia, Bilson, Downham, Hooker, Burges, Covel, Bridg, Bancroft, VVhitgift, Spalatensis, and since Petavius, Hammond, and multitudes more. And I have now, as you desired, read over all yours, that I might see the end, before I past my judgment on the beginning. But our apprehensions are various, as our preconceptions are; I find that we are all forestalled, and readiest to learn of our selves, who are not always the happiest Teachers of our selves. What we have first laid in, is usually made the standard of all that followeth; and all must be reduced into a due Conformity and subserviency to our former sentiments. You have shewed great learning, ingenuity and piety, and in a very fluent stile expressed what was in your mind; and made me remember what one answereth him that said, Hooker was yet unanswered, viz. Reduce what you would have answered, to Argument, and it will soon be done. I find, that it had been much better to have said nothing, than to have begun in such a manner of dispute, in which the further we go, the less we understand one another, and make each other molestation, instead of edification: For plainly I find, that (though much may be learned out of so rare a discourse as you have vouchsafed me, yet) it doth very little at all to any dispatch of our pres…nt controversie, but might easily deceive me by avocation, if I would forget what it is that I dispute about: For I perceive, 1. That we agree not in our sense of the terms which we make use of: And from thence you infer some great and dangerous errors in my judgment. 2. We agree least of all in common and obvious matters of fact, which are before our eyes, and the things of which I have had almost an Ages experience. 3. I find, that a very great part, if not the far greatest of all your discourse, is written upon a mis-understanding of my Words and judgment. And if one were to publish such kind of Writings, how tiresome would it be to the Reader, should I set down a particular account of all your passages that are besides the question, and all that proceed from such misunderstanding? I speak not by way of blaming you; for we are not competent Judges of other mens actions, till we know the Reasons of them: that may be laudable, which crosseth our desires. Perhaps you had Reasons to pass by the chief part of my explications of my sense, and of the matter of fact, and say nothing to them: And perhaps you had Reasons when I had told you our Country-distribution of Acts of Government, into Legislative, and Judicial, and Executive, to make use still of the Equivocal word Decretory, and to understand by it (as you saw cause) only the Legislative power, and to leave out the Iudicial, which was all that I controverted: It may be you had Reason, when I talk of a single, or Parochial Church, to say, I supposed in it but a single Pastor: You are not accountable to me for such errors, be they never so causless in my opinion. It may be you had Reason to write against the old Nonconformists that are in another world; and to think, that for the Names sake it concerned us: and to plead, that Conformity to all the present Covenants, and Oaths, and Subscriptions, is necessary, because you could wish the Discipline more Regular, as if we were to Subscribe to what is in your wishes. It may be you had Reason to suppose the Parish-Priests to have the Government of the People, even the power of the Church-Keys (and yet sometimes to unsay it again), without answering my Proof to the contrary, when I take it for the chief supposition that causeth my Nonconformity: And to prove copiously, that a Bishop may govern a Diocess when he hath a Governor under him in every Parish, without answering my Proofs, that he hath no such under him, but hath, quantum in se, half degraded the Presbyters. And when I said, that Discipline is not possible under such Diocesans as are with us, you might have Reason that I know not of, to leave out, as are with us, and to prove it possible with other Diocesans that have governing Presbyters under them. Perhaps you had Reason to confound the Convincing, Perswasive, Declarative Power of a Iudg, with that of a private man, and thence to raise the supposition which you raise. Perhaps you know some Medium between corporal force, and Mulcts, proper to the Magistrate, and Authoritative perswasion, and prevailing on the Conscience by the Reverence of Gods Laws, though I know none: And you were not bound to teach me what you know. Perhaps you had Reason to think that I may Subscribe, That no man in Three Kingdoms that hath Vowed it, is bound to endeavour to alter our Church-Government by Lay-Chancellors, because you defend it not, but wish it altered: And it may be you have Reasons unknown to me, that none but Irregular endeavours are there disclaimed, and that our Lawgivers spake universally, and would be interpreted particularly, with many such like. But abscondita & quae supra nos, nihil ad nos—What I may not pretend to understand, I will not presume to censure, but only say, That I am uncapable of being informed by them. This I am satisfied of, that my Schismatical Principles take into Church-Communion such as you, and those that are in knowledg below, not only you, but me, even the weakest true Christians But upon your Catholick terms, no man of my measure of knowledg must be tolerated to be a Preacher, or a Christian in Church-Communion, nor live at least out of Goal, or some such penalty. And if one at Muscovy can get a Courtier to make him a Bishop, he and such other are the Church (which why you still put it in the feminine Gender when it consisteth of Masculine Court-Bishops, I know not.) And if he command us to do that which we account the most inhumane perjury, if he think it to be but the renunciation of an unlawful Oath, as I understand you, we are Schismaticks if we obey him not. Whether in cases of commanded blasphemy, and all other crimes, we must accordingly renounce our understandings, I know not. Though there be somewhat of Irony in all this, there is nothing but what is consistent with the high estimation of your extraordinary worth. And I must say, that our different Educations, I doubt not, is a great cause of our different sentiments. Had I never been a Pastor, nor lived out of a Colledg, (and had met with such a taking Orator) I might have thought as you do. And had you converst with as many Country-people as I have done, and such, I think you would have thought as I do. My great deceiver is Sense and Experience. I am inclined to look near me, in judging of present matters of fact: As if our Controversie were, Whether one Schoolmaster can govern a thousand Schools without any but Monitors under him, and Teachers that have no Government. And your way is from old Histories, to prove that some body did so 1400 years ago, or a thousand, in some places of the world, if stories deceive us not; and therefore it may be so now. Though none of those excellent men do it, who are put into the places of the silenced Schismatical Ministers, nor none of the excellent Bishops that are over us, who are so good that one of them no doubt would do it, were it possible. But seriously I take it for a great mercy of God, that honest Christians of little learning have that experience in the Practicals of Religion, which the studied accurate plausible Orations of contradictors cannot overcome, though they are not so well skill'd at the same weapons as to answer them. Sir, pardon and accept this short and thankful acknowledgment, that I have received your Learned Tractate, till I take the leisure (if I so long live) to return you an answer suitable to your discourse and expectations. I rest,
Aug. 5. 1673. Your Servant, RICH. BAXTER.
Mr. Dodwell desiring me not to make haste in answering him, I sent him only this, intending more; but want of time, and the quality of the task, (being put but to answer a multitude of words) delayed it till he came to London, and then I thought we might talk it out, which we oft tried to little purpose. His great proof of large Churches, of many Altars, from the only two that swelled first, Rome and Alexandria, are so fully answered in this annexed Letter which worthy Mr. Clerkson wrote to me, that I think he needs no other answer; since published by me: As is a f…ll discourse on the Subject, by Mr. Clerkson himself, against Dr. St…llingfleet.