Answer to Dodwell and Sherlock, Chapter 5 · Letter 5
To Mr. Dodwell, Nov. 15th 1680.
SIR,
YOurs of Oct. 16th I received, Nov. 11th, which intimateth the Second Edition of your Letters, which I hear not of; your last Letter to me, signifying your purpose to publish your long Letter from Ireland to me, caused me to Print an old Treatise of Episcopacy, which I had cast by, and now send you as an answer to that Letter. I thank you for your admonition, and desire of my repentance: It shall make me, if I can, search yet more diligently; but I find no probability of being able; the like lamentations of my sin, and wrong to the Church, I have long had from Papists, Antinomians, Anabaptists, and Separatists, and some Quakers, and Seekers; and I despair of satisfying them; nor can I be of all their minds: and I find here but one Argument to draw me to yours, (viz) my taking the Oath of Canonical obedience. And 1. You know not that I took it: Many Ordained men did not. To tell you the truth, I entered so rawly, that though I well remember my Subscription, I remember not that I took that Oath: I remember I took it not for my Ordination, but at the same time taking a License for a School, some Oath the Register suddenly thrust on me, and I remember not what it was (which was, and is my sin). 2. If I took it, surely I never intended to bind my self to any but my true Ordinary. And when he is dead and the very Order for near Twenty years publickly (though culpably) put down, and none existent where I lived, I never saw it proved, that I am sworn to all that after are set up over others, by the King, without the Clergies, or Peoples choice, or consent, contrary to the Judgment of the Church for One thousand years, and that without, and against my own consent: And that he that sweareth obedience to his present Ordinary, is thereby sworn, though he never dream't of it to all that ever shall succeed him, what changes soever be made, and though judging them Usurpers, I renounce them. If it be said, that I virtually consent by the Convocation; I deny it, nor did the City of London consent; for they had not one chosen Clerk there. They chose Mr. Calamy and me, and we were both refused by the Bishop, and only the Dignitaries of the City admitted. What if I had sworn obedience in 1639. to the Presbytery in Scotland, or 1649. in England; and after they are put down, and I find them to be an unlawful power, and they are restored again, doth my first Oath bind me to the latter stock against my consent? 3. The English Ecclesiastical Law-Books, which I have read, do tell me, that the Chancellor, Official, Commissary, Archdeacons, and every Iudex Ordinarius is my Ordinary (whatever you say against it): And some Bishops themselves have judged the Lay-Chancellors Judgment, by the use of the Keys, to be a great sin. Quest. Whether then an ignorant Oath to obey such Usurpers, repented of, do bind to obey them still? What if in France I had sworn obedience to their Bishops, and after see that it was an unlawful Oath, quod materiam, am I bound by it till death? 4. I swore to obey them but in licitis & honestis. And I do not know that ever I therein disobeyed those that I sware to; no, nor the latter reduced stock: Either I have proved the degenerate sort, described in this Treatise, to be a heinously sinful depravation of the Church, and its Government, and an injury against Christ, by deposing his Church Form, Discipline, and Officers, or not: if not, evince it, and I will thank you; if yea, to comply with such sin, or in any calling to forbear detecting it by writing, is an Omission which is not licitum vel honestum. An unlawful Oath against a thing indifferent, will not bind me, if the King do but command that indifferent thing; much less will an ignorant Oath to obey Church-Usurpers, and corrupters, oblige me against Christs commands. Nor do I think it licitum vel honestum, to renounce my Ministry, sacrilegiously, and perfidiously break my Ordination-Vow to God, and forbear Preaching Christs Gospel to needy souls, because they forbid me.
In a word, Sir, I unfeignedly thank you for your desire to save me from dying in sin. I have great reason to make it my greatest care. Constant pain and languor, call to me, neither to dissemble, nor delay: When I cannot know my own heart so well as you do, I may come to believe you, that it is unruly Pride. Till then I am past doubt, that could any abasement, any labour, any cost, help me to know that you are in the right, and I in the wrong, I would most joyfully undertake it: But such warnings as your's awaken my Conscience, so that I dare not die in the guilt of active, or omissive compliance with those men, 1. Whose degenerate state I confidently judg to be the dangerous Malady of the Church, and destructive to a right Church-state, Church-Officers and Government. 2. Whose Canons of Government are such as they are. 3. Who have since I had any understanding, done that against serious godliness in England which they did, and these (near) Twenty years, done what they have done, procuring the silencing, and outward ruin of about Two thousand such Ministers of Christ, as I know to have been the most pious, faithful, and successful in true Ministerial work, of any that ever I could know; and such as I am fully perswaded no Nation under Heaven have Two thousand better. And yours, or other mens accusations, or contrary judgment, cannot make me ignorant of this, which experience, and great acquaintance have told me. 4. And Church-History, which tells me what such have done in former Ages, increase my fear of dying in the guilt of participating of their sin. I know of no other Motives that I have. The sum of my request to you is; That instead of telling me what the Pope, or any Usurper may say, that I should be humble and obedient, you will but tell me what means I should use, which I have omitted, to get my judgment informed, if I err, and to become of your mind, and as wise as you. I again intreat you to tell me the way, and I shall give you most hearty thanks. Did I not know your judgment and mine to be so distant, as puts me out of hope of attaining my end, I would have sent you Nine or Ten Proposals, for the meer reducing of the Parish Churches to their necessary state, without altering any thing of the Diocesans power or grandure, save only their power of the Sword, which yet as they are Magistrates we submit to. That your former Letters brought me not to your judgment, you may see, by the book which I send you, cometh not to pass by hasty judging, nor without that which seemeth Reason to me after my long and best consideration. I am fully assured, not byassed hereto by worldly interest, which hath long lain on the other side. Accept this Account from
Nov. 15. 1680. Your unfeigned, though dissenting Friend, Ri. Baxter.