PArt 1.II: Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter. I c.mld fad on Earth That he might eafïly know Reputation could not be the thing which made them fuffer fo much Affli&ion; becaufe t. many ofthem were young men, not pre -engaged in point of Reputation to any fide. z. He knew that we loft, by our Nonconformity that Worldly Honour, which we were as capableof as he and others : We did not fo vilifie the King Parliament, Lords, Bithops, Knights, and Gentry, who were molt against us, as to think it a piece of Worldly Honour to be vilified by them, and called Rogues, and feat to the common Goals amongRogues, and branded to the World, as we are in the Oxford Aft of Confinement, and banilhed five Miles from Cities and Corporations : Our Confciences would not allow us to fay, that he, and fuch as he who were Clergy-Lords, and Parliament- Baronsdid conform out of Pride or Love of Reputation ; and which was the filter to a reafonable Conjefture?: That he Ihould be moved by Pride who chufeth the way of worldly Wealth and Domination, and Honour, giving Laws to his Brethren , and vilifying them, and trampling on them at his Pleafure, as on a company of contemned, (corn- ed Wretches; or they that chofe the way of this Contempt and Scorn with Poverty and Corporal Disirefs ? Whole honour is it that fuch Men Peek ? Yon account their Followers the refufe of the World as you do them. And if they themfelves think better of them yet they will know that they are moftly of the meaner fort, and that poor Men have little to fpare for others ; and weare not fo fordidly difingenious as not to be fenfible that to be beholden to poor Men that want themfelves, for our daily Bread, is not the work of Pride, but putteth our Rurality to it to the utmoft. It's foolith Pride, which chufeth the hatred and fcorn of the Great Men of the World, inftead of Dig- nities and Honour, and chufeth to fuller Scorn and Imprifoment among poor Men, to whom we mull be beholden for a beggerly Sufenance. And as for the Plentyand fullnefs which they upbraidus with, it telleth us that there is nothing fo immodelt and unreafonable whichfame MensMalice will not fay. Do theynot know into what Poverty London is brought by the late Fire, and want ofTradee AndwhatComplaintsdo fillall the Land ? Andhow clofe-handed almost allMen are that are themfelves in want ? And Minifters are not fo impudent as to turn Beggers without Shame? I had but a few days before had Letters of a worthy Minifter, who, with his Wife and fix Children, had many Years had feldom o- ther food than brown,Rye Bread and Water, and was then turned out of his Honte, and had none to go to : And of another that was fain to fpin for his living : Andabundance I know that have Families, and nothing, or next to nothing of their own, and live in exceeding want upon the poor Drops of Charity which they Itoop to receive from a few mean People. And if there be here and therea rich man that is Charitable, he bath fo many to relieve, that each one can have btu a fmallMare. Indeed, about a dofen or twenty Ministers about London, who Ruck to the People in the devouring Plague, or in other times of Diftrefs, and feared no Sufferings, have fo many People adhering to them, as keep them from Beggery, or great want ; and you judge of all the reti by thefe, when almost all the refs through England, who have not fomethingof their own to live upon, do fuffer fo much as their Scorners will fcarcebelieve. It is no eafie thing to have the Landlord call for Rent, and theBaker, the Brew- er, the Butcher, the Taylor, the Draper, the Shooemaker, and many others call for Money, and Wife andChildren call for Meat and Drink, and Cloaths, and a Minifter to have no Anfwer for them, but I have none. And the Eìlhap had the lefs modelty in flooding confidently to my Face of his certain, ty of our lofing nothing by our Non-conformity, when he himfelf knew that I was offered a Bilhoprick in 166o. and he got not his Bifhoprick, (for all his extraordinary way of Merit) till about t671,or í67z: and I had not a Groat of the Ecciefiaftical Maintenance line the King came in ; nor, to my belt re- membrance, ever received morethen the fonr Pound even now mentioned as a Salary for Preaching thefe Eleven Years; nor any way for Preaching the Sum of eight Pound in all thofe Years : Yea, on thisoccafion, I will not think is vain to fay, that all that I remember that ever I received as gifts of Bounty from a- . ny whofoever fince I was filenced (till after An. 1672.) amountnot in the whole to 20 1. betides ten Pound per Annum which Í received from SerjeantFountain till he died, and when I was in P,ifon, twenty pieces from Sir foirn Bernard, ten from the Countefs of Exeter, and five from Alderman Bard, and no more, which O000 jolt 1 0
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