Catholic Communion Defended Against Both Extremes, Letter – Publishers advertisement
To the unknown Author of a LETTER lately sent me.
SIR,
YOUR Letter contained, 1. Your friendly reprehensions of me, not only for my purpose to write against a MS. which you say was Dr. Owen's, but for many other things; and your enumeration of those faults of mine. 2. With a friendly motion, That I suspend my writing till we fairly debate the Cause, upon some larger Papers of the Doctor's on that Subject which you offered to send me.
I wrote you presently an Answer, but your Messenger never more called for it; by which I supposed that you changed your purpose: If yet you will send for it, I will send it you. The Breviate of it is this: 1. I do not feignedly, but from my heart, accept your manner of Reproof: It is honest and friendly; and I am truly thankful to you for it: Tho I am thought to be too plain and sharp, I can bear twice as much as I use. It's foolish pride that maketh us grudg at a friendly, tho sharp reprehension.
But your mis-information tells me the pitiful Case of most in the World: Your honest Reproofs are founded on abundance of untrue Conceits: There are about Twenty Untruths, through mistake, in matter of Fact, in your Letter: And how gross are many of them? As that I write not against Persecution, which I scarce over write a book that hath not much against it: and this book it self doth fully confute you: And that I oppose not, but encourage divers things; which I know not the man that hath said half so much against: And you carry it all along, as if I were your Accuser for not going to the publick Churches, when I am a meer Defendent against your Accusations, and plead the Cause of the Universal Church, as not deserving an Excommunication; and of many poor weak women, and young people, that would be drawn to renounce all Church-Worship in England, for fear of Idolatry, or a Curse from God.
If you that have his offered MS's, and say, This which I answer is Dr. O's; were the man that made this MS. which I answer, so common, I think you did him a great deal of wrong: Tho in his Printed Books, especially that of Prayer, and for Peace ▪ &c. he owns the ill Principle which I now confute, against all publick Worship by Liturgy, and against man's power to command any more than Christ hath done in the order and manner of Worship and Church-Government (which also is to be seen in his Preface, &c. of his Original of Churches, and his Vindicatian of the Nonconformists ▪ &c). Yet these Printed Books of his (especially his Original of Churches, &c.) have so much sound and excellent matter, and so many healing peaceable passages in them, as did hide this one great Mistake: so that I long purposely forbore all contradiction of him in it (tho I plainly answered his Arguments in my Cure of Church-divisions), for fear lest I should occasion a more common offensive or hurtful notice of them. But when that one Error which was thus buried in abundance of sound matter, was by some of you, not only culled out, and made common in MS. by it self, but even in a writing, in which he goeth yet further towards Non-Communion with all the Churches almost on Earth, than ever he did in his Printed Books; and this to affright all others into the same Non-Communion; you could not sure imagine, that no Christian had so much love to the Church, to Souls, to Catholick Communion, to Love and Concord, as not to let such a Writing do its worst, without any Antid…te and Answer. You could scarce have wrong'd the Doctor, or his Memory m…re: All his Enemies could not have done half so much against him, having no such matter to accuse him of, as you have unadvisedly given them. And if … also you will lay your own Fault on others that love the Truth, and Church, and Souls, and Peace, better than this Manuscript, or its Reputation, you will but run further into Error.
And can you possibly be ignorant how like you are to the other Extream, 1. While you excommunicate far more than they do, even almost all the Body of Christ, as to External Communion: 2. And are for silencing us as well as they: Why else may not I have leave to render a Reason of my Iudgment and Practice, to those that are offended at it? 3. And as they would deprive Congregations of sound Doctrine, Instruction and Worship, for the Cause of the Opinions of their Faction, would not you discharge almost whole Counties from all Church-worship, where Forms are used, and your way is not tolerated?
Had not the MS. been against all Forms of Liturgy, but only against the real or supposed faults of the English one; and had it been only against owning the faults, and not against Communion in necessary Duty, I had not troubled you, by my Defence.
II. I did much approve of your brotherly motion to debate the Case friendly, on the perusal of his larger Writings. And tho your Letter came to me a week after the Book was printed, the Bookseller said he had sold but two, and I purposed thankfully to accept your offer, and (tho to my cost) to have done my best to stop the rest, and recall those two: But not knowing you, nor how to send to you, I must suppose that you retract your Motions, your Messenger not calling for my answer, as we appointed.
Remember, I beseech you, that the Dr. writeth for mental Communion in Faith and Love, with all true Churches, tho he write against outward Local Communion with almost all: And I crave your perusal of the first and third parts of this Book, against the Resolver of three Cases, &c. And if you find that all the Cases, in which I vindicate Local Separation to be no Schism, be not enough, bethink you what the Scripture meaneth by reprehended Heresie, Schism, and Division; and whether there be any such Sins; and whether they that are so much for Scripture-sufficiency, as not to communicate with a Mode, Order or Form of Words, which it prescribeth not, should set so light by it, as not to fear its many sharp Condemnations of the foresaid sins, and its frequent and vehement Exhortations to Unity and Communion of Saints, and to receive one another, as Christ received us, to the Glory of God.
Lord pardon the faulty imperfections of our Services, which we must rather venture on, than a total Omission; and teach us to pardon one another.
April 7. 1684.
REader, I have not time to gather the Errata of the Press or Copy; only I intreat you to insert an omitted line, page 29. line 35. because the sence is altered by the omission: After [them] add [than those of the Opinion which he pleads for].
Books Sold by Tho. Parkhurst, at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside, near Mercers-Chappel.
1. MR. Baxter's Christian Directory, or Sum of Practical Divinity, and Cases of Conscience.
2 —Catholick Theology, Plain, Pure, and Peaceable.
3 —Which is the True Church, in Three Parts.
4 —Life of Faith in Three Parts.
5 —Answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock.
6 —History of Councels Enlarged and Defended.
7 —Catechising of Families, A Teacher of Housholders, how to Teach their Housholds; wherein the Creed, Ten Commandments, Lords Prayer, and Sacraments, are Expounded.
8 —Two Disputations of Original Sin.
Dr. Horton's 100. Select Sermons.
—Sermons on the 4th, 42d, 51st, 63d. Psalms.
Dr. Anthony Burges Sermons on 2 Cor. 3. Chap.
Dr. Donn's Sermons, Vol. 3.
A Discourse of Gods Providence, by Dr. Iohn Collings.
Morning Exercise against Popery.
Sermons on the Epistle to the Colossians, by Iohn Daille, Author of the Use of the Fathers.
A Discourse of the Covenant of Redemption.
End of the text · Richard Baxter, Catholic Communion Defended Against Both Extremes (1684)