Cain and Abel Malignity, Title page – To the reader
Cain and Abel MALIGNITY, That is Enmity to Serious Godliness, That is, To an Holy and Heavenly State of Heart and Life: Lamented, Described, Detected, and unananswerably proved, to be the Devilish Nature, and the Militia of the Devil against God, and Christ, and the Church and Kingdoms, and the surest sign of a state of damnation.
By Richard Baxter, or Gildas Salvianus, Who earnestly beseecheth all Enemies, Scorners, Opposers and Persecutors of serious Obedience to God, not to refuse so small a matter as the Reading this short undeniable Evidence, to save their Souls, while yet there is hope, from so damnable a state of Sin and Diabolism. Especially Magistrates and Clergy-men, who are Sacrilegious and Blasphemous, if in the name of Christ's Ministers, they turn those Sacred Offices against him.
LONDON, Printed for Tho Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns, at the lower end of Cheapside, near Mercers Chapel. 1689.
READER,
THIS reprehensive Lamentation of English Malignity, or hatred, and scorn, and persecution of serious Godliness, by them who profess to believe in God, and to be Christians, was written in prison (but without any provoking sense of my suffering) in Anno 1685. or 1686. And by one that was not wholly ignorant, how much of the Papists counsel and power, was causal in our change since the return of K. Ch. 2. 1660. And therefore it grateth so much upon the Papists, though they were professed Protestants who were the open Agents.
It was written by one who can remember, at least since 1627. that the serious practice of Godliness was the common scorn of the vulgar rabble; and he that did but read the Scripture, and Books of Piety, and pray in his family, and catechize Children or Servants, or hear a Sermon at the next Parish Church from a Godly Conformist, when he had none at home; yea that did but seriously talk of Christ or Scripture, or the Life to come, or preparation for Death and Iudgment, went under the name of a Puritane, which was a reproach in the mouth of drunkards, swearers, fornicators, and all the sensual, worldly sort, both high and low. And that Conformable Ministers (yea and Gentlemen) that were but seriously Religious, no more scap't this scorn than Nonconformists (who were then so few, that they were in most places unknown.) He sadly remembreth how greatly this malignant rabble triumphed in the Bishops Visitation Articles, and in the Preaching and Talk of many Priests, who sharpened their Sermons with Invectives against Puritans as dangerous Hypocrites, though they had not a Nonconformist within many miles. He heard the Godly Conformable Ministers lament, that the Bishops and Ecclesiastical Courts by their jealousie and heat against the Nonconformable Puritans, became the strength and encouragement of this malignant vitious rabble; and that the young worldly Ministers took it for the way to preferment, to Preach against Puritans, while they treated the multitude of Prophane prayerless families that had no savour of serious Religion, as their good and peaceable Flocks. He lived to see the Godly Learned Conformists, so grieved for this, that they long'd for a Reformation; and many Conformists (as Bishop Robert Abbot, Bishop Downame, & divers others published their Reproof and Lamentation for it: And good Robert Bolton (in his Directions for walking with God) thinks that since Malice entred into the heart of man, there was never a word tossed with more Malice in the mouths of drunkards and prophane men, than the word [Puritan.] Hundreds and thousands of these wicked scorners of Religion, were either admitted (or driven) to the Sacrament, or lived quietly in great Parishes while they despised it, while these poor Puritans were strictly hunted after! And if they fasted and prayed with a dying or sick friend, without getting a License for it from the Bishop, the Church-warden must enter them into their Inquisition, or be forsworn.
These Puritans having the greatest averseness to Popery, in some things were too suspicious of all that they thought smell'd of it: And when they heard that in Ireland the Papists had most barbarously murdered the Protestants (two hundred thousand) and that they boasted that they rose by the King's Commission, and threatned to invade England, and that the English Papists were against the Parliament; this made them think that the Protestant Religion was not safe, but in the Parliaments part and care: Upon which the next year when our odious Civil War began, many of them went into the Parliaments Armies: But the generality would fain have lived quietly at home, but the debauched rabble and their Patrons would not suffer them: But they turned the name Puritan into [Roundhead] and [Down with the Roundheads,] was the common Cry. I have my self by the Cry been in present danger, in passing through a City where no man knew me, because I wore not long Hair. If their Neighbours did but pray, and sing a Psalm in their houses, the rabble would (like the Sodomites at the door of Lot) set up a Cry against them in the streets, and say, [Down with the Roundheads] the Rebels, a Gowry, a Conspiracy, &c.] Even where I lived they assembled with weapons, and sought my life, and knockt down (mortally by the issue) even strangers in the streets that medled not with them, because they were accounted friends to the Puritans. By this means the Parliaments Garrisons and Armies were fill'd with Religious men, that were forced to flie from their houses by the malignant, ignorant drunkards, to save their lives: And this, even this was the ruine of K. Charles, and his Army, and of the persecuting Bishops and Clergy. Necessity made thousands to be Souldiers that could not live at home: And most were moved by an Argument, that was not cogent, still saying, [We cannot believe that God would suffer the generality of the most Religious to chuse the wrong side, and the generality of the Papists and ignorant drunkards and malignants to be in the right.]
O what shame and pity is it that the Antipuritan Clergy no better remembred from 1660. till now, by what means they fell; and that they no more understood, nor yet understand, what a torrent of sin, of danger, and of shame, is come upon them, by their strengthning themselves by sheltring (to say no worse) the sensual irreligious malignant rabble (Rich and Poor) that they may tread down the Puritans, that by their own doings are brought into a dislike of them. Will God ever bless a prophane rabble (or Gentry) to be the honour and strength of the Church, against the Religious that desire a Reformation?
It is not their new foolish names and scorns, (as Whigs, Trimmers, Presbyterians, &c.) that will prove that it is not serious Piety that they hate: As long as the most filthy wicked livers are the Enemies and Accusers, and in their own Party and Companions, the vilest debauchery passeth for sufferable, and a small disgrace, and thousands of such live at ease, when preaching the Gospel, and praying without their Fetters or Book, must cost men ruine, and imprisonment, and scorn. And Sulpitius Severus his sharp Invective against Ithacius, Idacius, and the rest of the Bishops in their Synod was, that in prosecuting the Priscillian Gnosticks, they brought the matter to that pass, that if Godly men did but fast, and pray, and read Scripture, the Bishops made them suspected as Priscillianists (even St. Martin himself.) Woe to them that turn the sacred Offices of Magistracy and Ministry against God that did ordain them, to be used as in his name, and in some representation of himself, sacrilegiously blaspheming him as an Enemy to himself. Shall the Throne of Iniquity have fellowship with God, that frameth mischief by a Law, to make sin common and allowed?
By this the Reader may see that there is a double History needful to the full understanding of this Book; and of the nature and causes of Malignity; that is, 1. The History of Adam's fall, and the great depravation of humane nature thence arising; and the true meaning of the Enmity thence put between the Womans and the Serpents seed, exemplified in the two first Brothers born into the world; as also in Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob; and frequently mentioned by Christ and his Apostles.
2. The History of the advantages that Malignity hath got in England since the Reformation; and especially since the return of Charles the second. This must contain the sad differences begun at Frankford in Q. Marys days; the errours and extreams of both the differing Parties; the by assing determinations of Q. Elizabeth; the difference between the first Bishops that had been exiles, and their Successors; the Presbyterians provocations by over-opposing Episcopacy, and the Bishops design to root them out; and the making of the Canons to that end: The rise of a new sort of Bishops, begun in Laud, Neile, Howson, Corbet and Buckeridge, with Mountague, and their growth under Buckingham against the old Churchmen: The design of a Coalition with Rome, and the French and English attempts thereto: The interruption of this design by the first Long Parliament, and the Wars: The Scots forcing the Parliament (that in their straits asked their help) to take their Covenant: The imposing that Covenant on the whole Ministry, and making it a dividing Engine on pretence of Unity▪ The Parliaments casting out (with a multitude of flagitious Ministers) some Doctors, for being against them, for the King, contrary to the desires of Peace-makers: The Presbyterians under Monk restoring King Charles the second: The return and preferment of his Doctors, and their revengeful resolutions: Their design to get all Church-power and Preferment, and Academick Rule into the hands of them that most hated Puritans, or would endeavour their extirpation, and would educate Youth in bitter prejudice and hatred of them: The vulgar hatred of serious Godliness in Conformists and Nonconformists, under the name of Puritans: The power that a few returned Doctors had with the King and Chancellor in the dispose of Preferments, and thereby to over-rule the Parliament, and to procure the Acts of Uniformity, Corporation Oaths, Vestry and Militia Oaths, and the Acts for Banishments, Confinements, Imprisonments, Fining, Ejecting, Silencing and Ruining such whose Consciences pleaded Gods Law and Authority against any of their Oaths, Impositions, and silencing Prohibitions to preach the Gospel: The great difference in the Wars (I meddle not with the Cause) between the Adherents and Souldiers of the K. (Ch. I.) and the Parliaments in point of Piety and Sobriety: The Animosity and implacable heat, by which the before Conquered, and now Ruling Party, proceeded towards the ruine of those that they took for Enemies to the Cause Civil or Ecclesiastick, which they had owned: The unhappiness of the then present Ministry, that being young then, had never medled with Wars, that they must equally suffer as Enemies, for fearing the Imposed Oaths, Subscriptions, Covenants and Practices: The rejoycing of the common sort of the luxurious, drunkards, whoremongers and Infidels, that they had got so many of the Religious into contempt, and scorn, and ruine: The woful increase of Whoredom, Luxury, and Impiety and Sadducism hereupon: The great numbers of Religious people, who before hoped for Peace and a pious Prelacy, that fell hereupon into an hatred of Prelacy, and a great disesteem of the Conforming Ministry; and so our Divisions are grown to a fixed factious Enmity; and malice and worldly interest will hear no motions or petitions for Peace; and yet madly plead all for Love and Peace, while they implacably fight against them, and accuse those as the Enemies of Peace, who beg Peace of them, and cannot obtain it.
This is the sum of the doleful History which this Book presupposeth: But should I write it, the rage would be increased. The foregoing Narrative is as much as is fit for this brief Discourse, which, if you will, you may style Acris correptio, with Gildas; or Planctus Ecclesiae, with Alv. Pelag. Or the Groans of the Church, with a late Conformable Divine. It hath been cast by four years, at first because it would not be endured, and after in a vain hope that our Church Reformation would make such a complaint less necessary. But now I perceive the Devil will be the Devil, and Mankind will be born blind, sensual and malignant, till there be a new Heaven and Earth in which dwelleth Righteousness. Come Lord Iesus.
August 24. (1689.) The fatal Day of Silencing in England in 1662.