Cain and Abel Malignity, Chapter 5 – Publishers advertisement
Chap. V. An humble Expostulation with the English Papists who by Information and Prosecution seek our ruine.
THough it be not Popery as such that I am here reasoning against, the course that many Papists take in seeking our destruction, giveth me cause of this humble expostulation: And I speak now of no other, but of them. I mean, 1. Those that write so hotly and ragingly to provoke Superiors to ruine us. 2. Those that make a trade of being delators against us for worshiping God as we do. 3. Those of them that break in upon us with greatest haughtiness and fury, to take away all our goods, and seek our imprisonment. 4. Those that seek to ruine us by those Laws which were made against themselves. 5. Those that would make Superiors believe that our Doctrine is more rebellious than theirs. To these I offer a few modest questions.
Qu. 1. There are some among you that profess great Spirituality and strictness in Religion: Serenus Cressy wrote to me (commending Baker's book which he published) that he forsook the Church of England because he found no Spiritual contemplation and devotion among us. Such as Nerius, Sales, Kempis, Gerson Borromaeus, Renti, &c. are really the chief honour of your Church. Much of that for which I am hated by the Enemies of serious godliness, I acknowledge to Gods praise, I was first chiefly awakened to by a book written by one whom Watson, and others of your party grievously accuse, I mean Parsons Book of Resolution corrected by Bunny. True Christianity and Godliness is the same thing in all that have it. Your Priest Mr. Hutchinson, alias Berry, writeth that the most of serious Godliness among Protestants is found among those called Puritans: So that I was fain to defend the Conformists against his charge: All this being so, is it the Spirit of God that engageth and enrageth you with the most destructive bitterness against those men whom you confess to be the most Religious, meerly because they are stiffest against your Church Government and way of worship? And do you not know that it tendeth more sensibly than disputes, to perswade the people whom you thus hate and prosecute, that your Religion is malignant, and enmity to real Godliness?
Qu. 2. Do you think it is prudent for you, as soon as ever you get up and before you dare openly own your name and cause, to begin with Malice, Rage and Cruelty, and that against the most religious (as you say?) Will not this perswade the people that all is true that is said of your intended cruelty, and make them fear you, as so many Leopards or Wolves? Will they not say, if the young Serpents can so easily sting, what will the old ones do? And if your infancy here begin with such destructive zeal, what will you do when you are at full growth?
Qu. 3. You cannot be ignorant what cause to accuse your Church with Cruelty and Blood, hath been given the world by your Church Laws and Practices: By the Council at the Laterane under Innocent 3d the Council for damning Henrician Hereticks, even Kings that claim Investiture of Bishops, and those that decree the burning of all that you call Hereticks: By the murder of so many thousand Albigenses, Waldenses, Bohemians, &c. By the Inquisitions more inhumane cruelties in Belgium and Spain, &c. By the Massacres in France, and the murder of Henry III. and IV. By Queen Maries flames; By the two hundred thousand murdered in Ireland: And there be many among you who disown all this, and say it is not from the principles of your Religion (when yet General Councils approved are your Religion it self.) This being copiously opened (as I said before by Henry Fowlis, Bishop Barlow, &c.) had it not been more prudent for you to have begun with Lenity and Love, to have drawn men to think that you are better minded, than to perswade them that you are of your rulers and forefathers mind, and mean to imitate them?
Qu. 4. Have you not observed that all parties have faln by forcing multitudes to be their enemies by seeking to destroy or hurt them? Most men love quietness, and will live in peace, if others will give them leave: But when they see that they must offend others, or not defend themselves, it sets all their wit and power on work against their intolerable enemies: There are few creatures in the world that have not some power and inclination to hurt others for their own defence. The Bee hath a Sting to defend her Hive and Honey. And do you not remember that your sufferings in England came most by Queen Maries flames, and the Spanish Invasion, and the many Treasons against Queen Elizabeth and by the Powder Plot? And how the French Massacre and Murders of Kings, and the horrid Inquisition set all our Parliaments against you? And how the Murder of 200000 in Ireland drove many thousands into the Parliaments Army that else would not have gone? And will you yet stir up all the Land to fear and hate you?
Qu. 5. Is it not both imprudent and unrighteous for you of all men to turn those Laws against us, which were made against you, and have so much slept, and little troubled you? You will by this call people to take notice of them, that did not before. For my own part, as I never hurt any of you, so I know not that any of the Ministers did, whose ruine you endeavour. We hear of none of your sufferings by any such. Indeed these late years many have died as for the Plot so much talkt of. But by whom did they die? Was it not by the accusation and witness of Papists? Were not Oats, Bedlow, Dugdale, Turbervile, Prance, Dangerfield, Ienison, Smith, alias Barry, the York-shire Witnesses, and the rest besides the Irish, all men of your selves, that came out of your own Bosoms? whether the men died justly or unjustly I leave to God; But sure it was men of your own selves that did it. And will you be revenged for this on such Protestants that medled not in it?
And you should remember that you and we have a Protestant King, who hath sworn all his Kingdom against all forreign jurisdiction, and all endeavour of any alteration of Government in Church or state, and so much abhors Popery that he hath made a law severely to punish all that shall but raise any suspicion that he is a Papist. And you must in reason take heed of dishonouring and defaming him, by defaming Protestants in general.
And sure since Queen Elizabeths days we have had no Kings whom you can justly accuse of cruelty towards you. No not King Iames when the Powder Plot had provoked him; if half be true that the Bishop of Ambrun saith of his conference with him, or that Rushworth and others say of the Oath of the King, Prince and Council for Toleration, you are disingenuous if you accuse them of cruelty or rigorous severity.
In you Philanax Anglicus (as formerly in the Image of both Churches) you make all called Protestants of sincerity, to be of Rebellious principles, and their Religion introduced by it; and yet profess that you honour the King, as if you would have men doubt whether he be a Protestant of sincerity, or else were as bad as you describe. Had the severe Laws been executed against you, especially for meer Religion, no one could wonder if you desired relief: But while you live quietly, and Words and Paper hurt you not (that I hear of) to begin with so much hurtfulness to them that medled not with you, will disserve your cause.
Qu. 6. And is it consistent with reasonable modesty to go about to make the World believe that the Protestant Doctrine is less loyal than yours? Do you think your Books are invisible, & all your practices forgotten: It is none of the business of this writing to accuse you herein, of any thing but falsly accusing others, and seeking to destroy us on such accusation. Though you may thus deceive the ignorant that know no more of you than what you tell them, that will but turn to your dishonour at last. Are not your foresaid Council Canons which are your Religion, visible? Have not the forecited writers truly cited them and multitudes of your Doctors which may better inform men? Are all the Wars of Italy, Germany, &c. against Princes and Emperors, for the Pope, forgotten? Was it not a Council of your Bishops that decreed that all the carcasses of those Bishops that were for the Henrician Heresy (that is, for the Emperors power of investing Bishops and his exemption from being excommunicated and deposed by the Pope) should be digged out of their Graves, and Burnt? Was it not a council that deposed Ludovicus Pius? How many more such acts have they done? And are not your most learned Doctors allowed to publish the justification of the Popes power to excommunicate & depose Kings if they deserve it (in his judgment?) Do not your politick Writers, Casuists and Divines ordinarily hold that the people give Kings, their power, and may take it away when they forfeit it, and that tyranny is such a forfeiture? And that the people should not suffer a Heretick to reign? And that subjects may be absolved from their Oaths of Allegiance, according to the foresaid Laterane and Greg. 7. Roman Councils? But too much is said of this by many, and the case is past a modest denial.
Even those Protestants that were in Arms for the Parliament, and restored the King, were so far from thinking that their Oaths of Allegiance may be dispensed with, that if I knew any thing of those men and times, it was principally the Conscience of two Oaths (the Oath of Allegeance, and the Oath called the Covenant) that by them overcame the opposition of the other Army, and brought home the King. It was this that engaged the Ministers of England against both Cromwel and a Common-wealth: and the Ministers were followed by most of the religious people of the land, which broke the adversaries strength: It was this that engaged the excluded members of the (then) long Parliament: It was this that engaged the City of London: It seems it was this that engaged Gen. Monk's Army, when they say in their address to him, (see it, in Englands Triumph for K. Charles the 2d p. 85.) [We hope to evince to his Majesty and all the world, that we and all those that have been engaged in the Parliaments cause, are his Majesties best and most real subjects; and that your Excellency and the Armies under your command, have complied with the obligations for which they were first raised, for the preservation of the true Protestant Religion, the Honour and Dignity of the King, the Priviledges of Parliament, the Liberty and Property of the Subjects, and the Fundamental Laws of the land.]
I am not justifying all that I recite; I doubt not but they were much mistaken. But if they had then been told that shortly all the Corporation Offices and Trusts in England shall be constituted by a personal Declaration of every one, that [There is no obligation on any person from the Oath called the Solemn Covenant] to restore the King, oppose Schism, or to any thing whatever, the effect would have been such, as makes me wonder that the Royalists (as then called) should be very eager to make all such declare, that all these Souldiers, Ministers, Parliament and Citizens that restored the King as bound to it by that Oath, were therein mistaken, and no such obligation thence was on them.
Qu. 7. I need not name to you the sorry fellows out of the Jails, where they lay for inhuman villanies that have been our zealous, ranting, tearing, prosecuters? And do you think such actors are an honour to your cause? If it be good, use good men in it.
Qu. 8. Why do you play your game under board, and behind the Curtain? If you are not ashamed of your cause, openly own it. Is falshood, lying and dissembling beseeming them that say they are of a Church out of which none can be saved? I remember when Terret, alias Iohnson, had seduced the eldest Daughter of the Countess of Balcarres (whom they stole away and made a Nun in France,) and she was after askt, why she did so long go to our Churches, join in family worship, read Protestant Books, and talk against the Papists, and deride them, after she was a Papist her self, she answered that they had leave to do all that as long as they did not openly Profess their Religion, and were not detected. But when once they were discovered and openly professed themselves Roman Catholicks, they must then suffer any thing rather than conform to us.
Gods cause needeth not such jugling and lying.
Qu. 9. Why do you not ingenuously plead your cause against us, so as may satisfy an understanding Conscience, before you seek our destruction? 1. Your arguings are commonly fitted only to cheat the ignorant by ambiguities, and confusion, and equivocal terms; Your queries or methods to the French sufferers, are only a formed cheat, by confounding, 1. Subjection to Governours, and Communion with neighbour Churches. 2. Communion with your Church in Christianity and Communion with its sins. 3. A Catholick Church informed only by the soveraignty of Christ, and a pretended universal Church informed by the soveraignty of Man (a Monarch or a Church-Parliament.) 4. The office of keeping, delivering and teaching men Gods Laws, and an absolute power to Judge of their sence, and to make more as a supplement to their defects, obliging all the world on pain of Excommunication and Death: And more such.
2. Any writings which undeniably open your frauds, you take no notice of, nor vouchsafe to answer upon the importunity of Mr. Iohnson, and divers others; I have lately written; 1. A reply to Iohnson. 2. A small book in answer to one of your Papers, to prove that we have a certainty of Christianity without Popery.
3. In answer to another, a small Book called, Full and Easy satisfaction which is the true Religion. None of them will you answer, nor those before written: But instead of a sober investigation of the truth, some of you raise odious slanders of my life, and threaten and seek my destruction. I never hurt any of you, as I said before, nor ever perswaded any to severity against you. I have long ago publickly proposed terms on which we might live together as neighbours in peace. But destruction and misery are in your way (that I have observed) and the way of peace you have not known.
There are three things which alienate common Christians from you more than all other disputes. 1. That you can go so openly against the plainest words of God (as in blotting out the Second Commandment, in notorious contradicting 1 Cor. 12. and Rom. 14, and 15. about the terms of Church Union and Communion; about Latin Prayers and Worship to the ignorant, denying the Cup to the Laity, denying sense in Transubstantiation).
2. That you befriend Ignorance so much, by the said Latin Worship, forbidding most to read the Scripture translated, and accuse Gods Spirit of writing obscurely, to cover this.
3. That your Religion liveth by cruelty and blood, and cannot stand without it: Which at least in prudence you should hide as long as you can; Or at least not design to make the ignorant and vicious Protestants, your Proselytes and Agents conjunctly to ruin those whom your Consciences know to be the most Consciencious and seriously religious.
By which already the flock of Christ do (under your Sheeps cloathings) so judge of you by your fruites, that if any man that is called a Protestant▪ Clergy-man, do but Write and Preach for cruelty and ruin towards serious Conscionable Christians, people by this very mark do presently suspect that he is either a Papist or so near them as that he is ready to pass over to them, whom he so assisteth in destructive work.
Qu. What must be the cure of Malignity?
Ans. When the heel of the holy seed is sufficiently bruised, the Serpents Head must be broken. 1. The War in Heaven which formerly cast down the Dragon, must break the supream Serpentine Head. II. Then his Heads military on Earth will be broken. I. The usurping universal Head called Ecclesiastical: II. The national Serpentine Heads. I. Exterior; Mahometan and Heathen. II. Interior; called falsly Christian: I. Serpentine Monarchs, that War against Christ. II. Serpentine Prelates and their Patrons, that fight against Christ as in his own name, and by his pretended commission.
And all this by Christ, and not by sinful means.
Reformation is begun à Minoritis at the lowest, for personal Salvation of the Elect: But a Majoritis, at the Heads for publick welfare: And God must raise Reforming Princes and Pastors to that end.
FINIS.
A Catalogue of Books Printed for, and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst, at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside, near Mercers Chapel.
Mr. Baxter's Catholick Theology. Folio. A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D. D. In two parts. Folio.
A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts, of Fifty on the Old Testament, and Fifty on the New. Folio.
Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms. Folio. Both by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horton D. D. late Minister of St. Hellens, London.
The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus, Physician to Henry the Second, Francis the Second, and Charles the Ninth, Kings of France, and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were. Folio.
Sixty one Sermons, Preached mostly on publick occasions, whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D. D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex. Folio.
The Saints Everlasting Rest, or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory. 4to.
The English Nonconformity, as under King Charles II. and King Iames II. Truly Stated and Argued, By Richard Baxter. 4to.
A Discourse concerning Liturgies. By the late Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. David Clarkson. 8vo.
A Discourse of the Saving Grace of God. By the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel. 8vo.
The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel; opened and applyed: Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-street, and partly at Stepney, on Ianuary 31. 1689. Being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery, by His then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange. Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof. By Matthew Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney. 4to.
The Life of Faith in every State. By Rich. Baxter. 4to.
Alderman Ashurst's Funeral Sermon. 4to.
A Key for Catholicks to open the Juglings of the Jesuits: The first part of answering all their common Sophisms: The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils. 4to.
Full and easy satisfaction, which is the true Religion: Transubstantiation shamed. 8vo.
Naked Popery: Answering Mr. Hutchinson. 4to.
FINIS.
End of the text · Richard Baxter, Cain and Abel Malignity (1689)