PREF. I. To his Highness
PREF. I. To his Highness.
T o his Highness Richard Lord Protector of the Common-wealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, &c.
Sir, These Papers presume to tender you their service, because the Subject of them is such, as it most nearly concerneth both us and you that you be well acquainted with. The Roman Canons that batter the Unity, Catholicism and Purity of the Church of Christ, are mounted on the frame which I have here demolished. The swords, and pens, and tongues that you are now engaged against, and which you must expect from henceforth to assault you, are whetted and managed by the senseless, tyrannous, ungodly principles, which I have here Detected. As unreasonable as they appear to the unprejudiced, they are such as have animated the studies and diligent endeavors of thousands to captivate the Princes and Nations of the Earth to the Roman yoke. As vain as they appear to us that see them naked, they are such as have divided and distracted the Churches of Christ, and troubled and dethroned Princes, and laid them at the feet of the Roman Pope; They
have absolved subjects from their Oaths and other obligations to fidelity:
They have involved many a Nation in blood: O the streams of the blood of Saints that have been shed by these Roman Principles, in Savoy, France,
Bohemia, Poland, Germany, Ireland, England, and many other Lands! As easy a war as here I manage, it is against those adverse Principles that have armed Thousands and Millions against the innocent, or against their lawful
Sovereigns, whom God had bound them to obey: They have fastened knives in the breasts of the greatest Kings, as the lamentable case of Henry the third and fourth of France doth testify: They have in a few days time in Paris, and the adjoining parts of France, perfidiously butchered Nobles and other persons of eminency, and people of all sorts, to the number of near thirty thousand (as Thuanus reckoneth them, if not forty thousand, as Davilah.) The Doctrines which I here confound, have invaded England by a Spanish Armado, (whether by the Popes consent, and upon the account of Religion, I have after shown out of their own Writers:) they have prepared knives and poison for our Princes, which God did frustrate: they have laid
Gunpowder to blowup King and Parliament, and hellishly execute the fury of the deluded zealots in a moment, and then to have charged the Puritans with the fact: They have in a time of Peace, by a sudden insurrection, murdered so many thousands in Ireland in a few days or weeks, as posterity will scare believe. They are dreadful Practical's, and not mere speculations that we dispute against. I beseech you therefore that you receive not this as you would do a Scholastic or Philosophical Disputation about such things as seem not to concern you; but as you would interest yourself in a Disputation upon the Question, Whether you should be deposed or murdered as a Heretic? And whether we should be Tormented and burnt as Heretics? And whether the lives of all the Princes and People upon earth
whom the Pope judgeth Heretics, should be at his mercy? &c. so do in this cause. I speak not this to provoke you to deal bloodily with them, as they do with the servants of the Lord! I abhor the thoughts of imitating their cruelty!
It is only the Necessary Defense of your Life, and Dignity, and the Lives of all the Protestants that are under your Protection and Government, and the souls of men, that I desire. On what terms we stand with those men whose
Religion teacheth them to kill us if they can; and to venture their lives for it, is easy to understand.
When we have no security from them for our lives, but their disability to destroy us, we must disable them or die. I utter no melancholy dreams nor slanders: I have here shown it in the too plain and copious Decrees of the approved General Council at Lateran, that the deposing of Princes, and absolving their Subjects from their fidelity and giving their Dominions to others, not only for supposed Heresy, but for not exterminating such as deny Transubstantiation, &c. is an Article of their Faith; and no man can disown it, without disowning Popery in the Essentials. If once they will renounce the Decrees of General Councils approved by the Pope, we shall be soon agreed. Saith Costerus Enchirid. c. 1, p. 46. Quae sanc Decreta si veritatem, si obsignationem Spiritus Sancti, si praesentiam Christi spectes, idem habent pondus & momentum quod Sancta Dei Evangelia. They believe these Decrees to be as true as the Gospel. I need not therefore tell you that Bozius Hostiensis, and many more of them make the Pope to be the Lord of all the World: Or that Bellarmine and the stronger side do carry it, as [The common judgment of all Catholic Divines, (see what a rabble he heaps up De Pontif. Rom. li. 5, c. 1.) that the Pope, ratione spiritualis, habet saltem indirecte potestatem quandam, eamque summam in temporalibus.
Which c. 6, he saith, [is just such over Princes as the soul hath over the
body or sensitive appetite; and that thus he may change Kingdoms, and take them from one and give to another, as the chief Spiritual Prince, if it be but necessary to the safety of souls.] c. 78. He gives us his proof of this. And whether the Pope do take your Government to be for the good of souls, I need not tell you. It is the stupendous judgment of God on Christian Princes for their sins, that they have been so far blinded as to endure such a usurper so long, and have not before this blotted out his name from among the sons of men. [Non licet, &c. It is not lawful (saith Bellarmine ib. c. 7.) for Christians to Tolerate an Infidel, or Heretical King, if he endeavor to draw his Subjects to his Heresy or unbelief: but to judge whether a King do draw to Heresy or not, belongeth to the Pope, to whom the care of Religion is committed: therefore it belongs to the Pope to judge a King to be deposed, or not deposed.] You see here it is not Lawful for such Christians as the Papists to Tolerate you: which may help your judgment in the point of their
Toleration. Si Christiani (saith Bellar. ib.) olim non deposuerunt Neronem— Valentem Arianum & similes, id fuit quia deerant vires temporales
Christianis.] You have your Government and we our Lives, because the Papists are not strong enough. They tell you what to trust to. Saith Tollet
(one of the best of the Jesuits, li. 1, de Instruct. Sacerd. c. 13.) [They that were bound by the bond of fidelity or Oath, shall be freed from such a bond, if he fall into Excommunication: and during that, Debtors are absolved from the obligation of paying to the Creditor that debt that is contracted by words
—] These are no private ineffectual Opinions. Saith Pope Pius the 5th himself in his Bull against our Queen Elizabeth, [Volumus & mandamus,
We will and command that the Subjects take Arms against that Heretical and Excommunicate Queen.]
But their cruelty to men's souls, and the Church of Christ, doth yet much more declare their uncharitableness. It is a point of their Religion to believe, that no man can be saved but the Subjects of their Pope, as I have after proved, and is to be seen in many of their writings, (as Knot, and a late
Pamphlet called Questions for Resolution of Unlearned Protestants, &c.) and Bishop Morton hath recited the words of Lindanus, Valentia and Vasquez. (Apol. lib. 2, c. 1.) [defining is to be of Necessity to Salvation to be subject to the Roman Bishop.] And would not a man think that for such horrid doctrines, as damn the far greatest part of Christians in the world, they should produce at least some probable Arguments? But what they have to say, I have here faithfully detected. If we will dispute with them, or turn to them, the Scripture must be no further Judge then as their Church expoundeth it: The Judgment of the Ancient, yea or present Church, they utterly renounce; for the far greatest part is known to be against the Headship of their Pope; and therefore they must stand by for Heretics.
Tradition itself they dare not stand to, except themselves be Judges of it; for the greatest part of Christians profess that Tradition is against the Roman
Vice-christ. The internal sense and experience of Christians they gainsay; concluding all besides themselves to be void of charity or saving grace, which many a thousand holy souls do find within them, that never believed in the Pope. Yea when we are content to lay our lives on it, that we will show them the deceit of Popery, as certainly and plainly as Bread is known to be Bread when we see it, feel and taste it, and as Wine is known to be
Wine when we see and drink it; yet do they refuse even the judgment of sense, of all men's senses, even their own and others. So that we must renounce our honesty, our Knowledge of ourselves, our senses, our reason, the common experience and senses of all men, the Judgment and Tradition
of the far greatest part of the present Church or else by the judgment of the Papists we must all be damned.
Whether such opinions as these should by us be uncontradicted, or by you be suffered to be taught your Subjects, is easy to discern. If they had strength, they would little trouble us with Disputing. Nothing more common in their Writers scarce, then that the Sword or Fire is fitter for Heretics then Disputes. This is but their after-game. Though their Church must rule Princes, as the soul, ruleth the body, yet it must be by Secular
Power; excommunication doth but give fire: it is Lead and Iron that must do the execution. And when they are themselves disabled, it is their way to strike us by the hands and swords of one another. He that saw England,
Scotland and Ireland a while ago in blood; and now sees the lamentable case of so many Protestant Princes and Nations destroying one another, and thinks that Papists have no hand in contriving, counseling, instigating, or executing, is much a stranger to their Principles and Practices.
Observing therefore that of all the Sects that we are troubled with, there is none but the Papist that disputeth with us with flames and Gun-Powder, with Armies and Navies at their backs, having so many Princes, and so great revenues for their provision, I have judged it my duty to God and his
Church, 1. To Detect the vanity of their cause, that their shame may appear to all that are impartial; and to do my part of that necessary work for which Vell. Paterculus so much honored Cicero (Hist. lib. 2, c. 34.) Ne quorum arma viceramus, corum ingenio vinceremur] And 2. To present with greatest earnestness these following Requests to your Highness on the behalf of the cause and people of the Lord (wherein the Papists also shall see, that it is not their suffering, but only our Necessary Defense that we desire.)
1. We earnestly request that you will Resolvedly adhere to the cause of Truth and Holiness, and afford the Reformed Churches abroad the utmost of your help for their Concord and Defense, and never be tempted to own an Interest that crosseth the Interest of Christ. How many thousands are studiously contriving the extirpation of the Protestant Churches from the Earth? How many Princes are confederate against them? The more will be required of you for their aid. The serious endeavors of your Renowned
Father for the Protestants of Savoy, discovered to the world by Mr. Morland in his Letters, &c. hath won him more esteem in the hearts of many that fear the Lord, then all his victories in themselves considered. We pray that you may inherit a tender care of the cause of Christ.
2. We humbly request that you will faithfully adhere to those that fear the Lord in your Dominions. In your eyes let a vile person be contemned; but honor them that fear the Lord, Psal. 15:4. Know not the wicked; but let your eyes be upon the faithful of the Land, Psal. 101:4,6. Compassionate the weak and curable, Punish the uncurable; restrain the froward; but Love and cherish the servants of the Lord. They are under Christ the honor and the strength of the Commonwealth; It was a wise and happy King that professed that his Good should extend to the Saints on earth, and the excellent in whom was his delight, Psal. 16:2,3. This strengthening the vitals is one of the chief means to keep out Popery and all other dangerous diseases. We see few understanding Godly people receive the Roman infection, but the profane, licentious, ignorant or malignant that are prepared for it.
3. We earnestly request your utmost care, that we may be ruled by Godly, Faithful Magistrates under you: and that your Wisdom and Vigilancy may frustrate the subtlety of Masked Papists or Infidels that would creep into
places of Council, Command, or Justice, or any public office. If ever such as these should have a hand in your affairs, or be our Rulers, we know what we must expect. The Reasons of our jealousies of such men are, because we know that the design is agreeable to their principles and interests: and we know it is their usual course: and we find that such men swarm among us: we hear their words, we read their writings, we see their practices for Popery and Infidelity. The jealousies of many wise men in England are very great concerning the present designs of this Generation of men; and not without cause. We fear the Masked Papists and Infidels, more than the barefaced, or then any enemy. The men that we are jealous of, and over whom we desire you to be Vigilant, are these Hiders that purposely obscure and cover their Religion. He that willfully concealeth his Faith, alloweth me to suspect it to be naught: The chief of them are, 1. The Seekers that have not yet found a Church, a Ministry, Ordinances, or Scripture, nor some of them a Christ to believe in. 2. The Paracelsians, Behmenists, and other
Enthusiasts, that purposely hide themselves in self-devised, uncouth, cloudy terms, and pretend to visible familiarity with spirits. 3. The Vani, whom
God by wonders confounded in New England, but have here prevailed far in the dark. 4. The secret guides of the Quakers. 5. Those that make it their business to argue against the Religion of all others, but assert little of their own, endeavoring to bring all men to uncertainties, and loose them from the faith. 6. Those that are still vilifying or undermining the faithful Godly
Ministry. 7. Those that do secretly or openly plead the cause of Infidels:
(which are alas, too many: whether ex animo, or for promoting Popery, time will disclose:) that deride the Scriptures, and deny the Immortality of the Soul, the Resurrection of the body, or that there are any Devils, or is any
Hell. 8. The Libertines, that would have liberty for all that they can call
Religion, though against the certain Principles of Christianity; and that tell us the Magistrate hath nothing to do with men's Religion (of which anon.)
9. The Democratical Politicians, that are busy about the change of Government, and would bring all into confusion under pretense of the Peoples Liberty or Power, and would have the Major Part of the Subjects to be the Sovereign of the rest; that is, the worst, that are still the most; and the ignorant, that cannot Rule themselves; and the vicious, that are enemies and hinderers of piety; and the worldlings, that mind nothing but what is under their feet, and have no time to think of Heaven, they have so much to do on earth; and as Augustine saith, had rather there were one Star less in Heaven, then One Cow loss in their Pastures: these must be our Sovereigns. 10.
Those that under pretense of defending Prelacy, and of uniting us with Rome, do adhere to the course of Grotius and Sancta Clara, and Unchurch all the Reformed Churches, degrade all the Ministers that are not of their way, while they maintain the verity of the Church of Rome, and the validity of her Ordination, and would have the Pope to be the Principium Unitatis to all the Church, and the Western Parts to obey him as their Patriarch, yea and himself to be the Ruler of the whole, so he do it by the Laws of General
Councils, and deprive not inferior Bishops of their Privileges. These ten sorts of men we are Jealous of; and if ever you advance them into places of Command or Power, it will increase our jealousies. God knows, I have no personal grudge to any of them. But the Gospel and the souls of men, and the hopes of our posterity, are not so contemptible as to be given away as a bribe to purchase these men's good will, or to stop their mouths lest they should reproach us. As it is the common, but a poor redress, that after the Massacres of thousands, the surviving Protestants have still had from the Papists, viz. to disclaim the fact, or cast it upon some rash discontented men
(which will not make dead men alive again.) So will it be a poor relief to us, when these men are our Masters, and have deprived us of all that was dear to us in the world, that we escaped their ill language while the work was doing.
4. We also humbly beseech you, that you will go on with the purging, and encouraging of the Ministry: Casting out the Ignorant and Ungodly; and countenancing those that are Able, and Faithful. They deny their ease, and dignity and the riches of the world (which other employments would afford) to encounter with Satan and the worlds corruptions, for the happiness of souls! And therefore the more oppose them and revile them, and unthankfully requite them, the more are you obliged for the sake of Christ, and men's salvation, to assist them. All their enemies contending to surpass the Devil in impudency, accuse them of Covetousness, Idleness and Ambition, as if these were the things that they seek after in the world. If our practice seconding our profession, be not enough to confute these calumnies of malignant men, let this be added to confute them, that we make it our earnest request to your Highness, that all such Ambitious, Idle, Covetous, or otherwise scandalous Ministers may be cast out. You have Commissioners in every County for this work: Require them to do it faithfully: If we desired this much against our Reproachers, they would say we persecuted them: We desire you therefore but to turn this persecution against ourselves.
We also desire you, that you will not advance us to Temporal Honors, or Dignities, or Power; nor make us Lord Bishops, nor to abound with the riches of this world: These things agree not with our calling: We only desire food, and raiment, and necessaries to furnish us for our work, and express some charity to the needy that daily expect it from us; and we crave of you that we may be no richer. We also desire you, never to put the sword into
our hands, nor enable us to execute any of our private passions upon any, nor yet to touch men's Bodies or Estates; but only to manage the word and Keys of the Kingdom of Christ upon men's Consciences, and Guide his
Church according to our office, and let it prevail as God shall bless it. This is all the advancement we desire. We have doubly renounced all the world, as Christians, and as Ministers of Christ; we have given up ourselves to a difficult flesh-displeasing work: we crave no more of you but so far to countenance us as Christ commandeth you, and the good of our people's souls requires. And God will be judge between us and our malicious reproachers, whether these requests are Covetous, Ambitious, or Unreasonable.
5. We also humbly crave your aid, for the procuring and maintaining a Union and Concord among all the Pastors and Churches in your Dominion.
All that fear God are Agreed in the main: and they have a special Love to one another; and these are good preparatives to their fuller reconcilement. I know that there is no such distance in their principles, but that they may in blessed Concord carry on the work of God: Our poor people need this, that are offended at our smallest distances: All our strength united is too little to bear down the oppositions of Hell and Earth that we must daily encounter in our work. Your help may do much to procure our Concord, of which I shall presume to say more to you in another address.
6. Lastly we beseech you that Toleration may be limited by Execution as well as by Law; And therefore that as the Approved Ministers must have an Instrument of Approbation, and must be responsible before the Commissioners of ejection, for anything that forfeiteth it; so the Tolerated may be tried according to your Laws of Toleration, and may have an Instrument for their Toleration, before they have Liberty publicly to
propagate their Opinions to others: and that they may be as responsible before the Commissioners for ejection as we. And that publicly nor privately Papists, nor Infidels, nor any that deny the essentials of the faith may not be suffered to seduce the people. If any think that this is desired by us, because we fear the power of truth, or would deprive them of any just freedom of debate, I provoke them solidly to answer what is here said in the following Dispute; and we dissuade not your Highness if you were in any doubt (which we do not imagine) of the truth of the Christian or Reformed
Doctrine, to invite us to an equal Disputation, and try whether we shall not open the shame of Infidelity and Popery (the two great evils that threaten this land) at any time. But if you are resolved of the wickedness of both these ways, we have reason to expect that you suffer not the poison to be administered to your people. Give not leave to every seducer to do his worst to damn men's souls; When you will not tolerate every Traitor to draw your
Armies or people into Rebellion; nor to every wicked man to solicit others to whoredom, murder, theft or deceit. And verily if men have leave to preach against the Scripture, Churches, Ministry, Ordinances, yea and against the life to come under the name of Seekers, Quakers or such other
Sects, we had far rather that they had leave to pull off their vizor, and do it openly in the name of Papists. For as Papists they will disown abundance of the abominations, which as Seekers, &c. they propagate on design: And as plain dealing in Religion is better than juggling, so we had rather that open quiet Papists were tolerated, then these juggling deceivers. They that pretend to know the Jesuits and Friars, do profess that they are more common in Princes Councils and Families, and in the houses, if not the closets of Noble men, Commanders, and persons of public trust or service, then we that live and mean simply do imagine. And who would have
thought that had not know it, that they had so insinuated into the several sects among us, and that they were so industrious in their work, as the Newcastle Scottish Jew was, to be circumcised or become Jew, and then rebaptized, &c. and all to deceive?
Judge I beseech you by these three Reasons, how far their seduction is to be tolerated. 1. That they preach Treason against Princes and States, I have shown undeniably, is part, and a principal part of their Religion.
2. Their doctrine corrupteth almost all Morality: What need we fuller clearer proof, then the Jansenian hath given us in his Mystery of Jesuitism?
And much more may be added. Morton hath long ago produced enough to tell us what to expect from such men: Apolog. Part. 1, l. 2, c. 13. As from Tollet himself l. 4, de instruct. sacerd. c. 9. [Quantum ad intentionem dilectionis, non tenemur sub praecepto Deum plus omnibus diligere]
Stapleton l. 6, de justif. c. 10, and Valent. l. de Votis c. 3. [Hoc praeceptum diligendi Deum ex tota mente, doctrinale est, non obligatorium] See here, a precept, and the greatest precept, even to Love God above all, is not Obligatory? A strange precept! And p. 322, he reciteth the words of Tollet, ibid. l. 4, c. 21, and 22, teaching Equivocation upon oath before a Magistrate, and so maintaining perjury. And p. 327, he citeth the same
Author maintaining that Murder, and Blasphemy in a passion and not deliberate, is no mortal sin, unless in one that is used to Blaspheme. And p.
329, how Bellarm. Costerus, Valentia maintain that Fornication in a Priest is better, or a smaller sin then to marry. The like he shows of their doctrine of Theft, False witness, &c. p. 332,333, &c. This from him.
3. But above all their other mischiefs, the Propagating of Infidelity by them is the greatest: Which they do in two ways. 1. Under the Vizard of Infidels and Seekers they plead against Scripture and Christianity, in design
to loosen men from all Religion, and persuade them that they must needs be Infidels or Papists: Veron and his followers have given them full Directions to manage this design. And while (with debauched Consciences) they thus persuade men to be Infidels in jest, they have made abundance such in good sadness: so that upon my knowledge there are many such swarm among us, that sometime seemed pious persons, that plead against Christianity itself.
2. And no wonder, when some of the leading Papists do seem to be Christians in jest, and Infidels in good sadness themselves. I shall instance now but in their Champion, Tho. White, who in his Euclid. Metaphys.
Stoech. K. pr. 16, maintaineth that in a manner, or almost all incorporated souls shall be saved by the world as the Instrument, or else the world were substantially evil, and the souls that fail of Blessedness, non sint sufficientes ad partem considerabilem totius multitudinis constituendam. He that believeth this, cannot believe Christ, nor well persuade men to believe in Christ. This happy news to the Pagans and Mohammedans, might somewhat affright the Christians being the fewest, lest they should be that inconsiderable number, but that he that talks of the damnation of so few, its like by his Arguments believeth it of none. The same he asserts in his
Treatise of the middle state of souls, Rat. 5, p. 41. And Rat. 10, he disputeth against Vindictive Justice as a thing not becoming God: and p. 88, denieth that sinners injure God, forsooth because he suffereth it willingly. p. 95
(Translat.) he saith that souls are exempt from all such pains as may be caused by any outward agent: And p. 111. That God Governeth not the world as a Monarch, but as an Engineer; And p. 134, he saith [the punishment of sin whether external or internal, is nothing else but the increase and exaggeration of sins in those who are perverse, and the decrease and diminution of them in those who amend] And p. 90, that [the
defect of God's honor occasioned by Peter, was not supplied and repaired by any other] and so not by Christ. And p. 146. [that God's aim is always the utmost good of every creature] And he oft enough tells us that God attaineth all his will. And is this man a Papist? Or are Papists in good sadness, that tell the world that none but the subjects of the Pope can be saved? And yet now the number that perish will be inconsiderable; and God aimeth at the utmost Good of every creature. Sure he thinks that all the Toads must be made men: and all men made Angels; and every star must be made a Sun! I shall pass by the Books that are written against the Creation, and against Scripture, and against Hell, &c. which swarm among us; only advising your Highness to take heed that you venture not upon any worldly motives, to stand guilty before the living God of allowing or tolerating such
Books to be published, and such doctrines as these to be preached to your People, to the everlasting undoing of their precious souls.
If you ask who it is that presumeth thus to be your Monitor? It is one that serveth so great a Master that he thinks it no unwarrantable presumption, in such a case to be faithfully plain with the greatest Prince. It is one that stands so near Eternity, where Lazarus shall wear the Crown, that unfaithful man-pleasing would be to him a double crime: it is one that rejoiceth in the present happiness of England, and earnestly wisheth that it were but as well with the rest of the world; and that honoreth all the providences of God by which we have been brought to what we are; but dare not own all the actions of men that have been the Instruments, as he hath thought meet to manifest in this writing, and leave upon record. And he is one that concurring in the Common Hopes of greater Blessings yet to these Nations under your Government, and observing your Acceptance of the frequent
Addresses that from all parts of the Land are made unto you, was
encouraged to do what you daily allow your Preachers to do, and to concur with the rest, in the tenders (and some performance) of his service; and particularly the County of Wilts who have Petitioned you for the Sum of what I have here expressed; and whose Petitions I desire may be written upon your heart. That the Lord will make you a healer and preserver of his
Churches here at home, and a successful helper to his Churches abroad, is the earnest prayer of, Your Highnesses faithful Subject, Richard Baxter.