Part M. Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter. your Impositions obeyed would be our fin, and heinous fin : We arepal doubt that your Anfwers to them are frivolous. You dare not allow us to bring all into the Light, and to Print our Cafe and Reafons, that the World may Judge of them : We that pay fo dear for our Diffent, are as likely to be llnbiaffed as you that have theWealth andHonours of the World! And were it not liker to be moved by our Reputation with the poorer fort, than you by yourReputa- tion with the Great and Honourable, if not the molt. And if yet we be mifta- ken, fo is all the World in as great a Matter, as molt things now inQuelion. You call them Indifferent : We think them not fo : And yet /hall: Protelant Religion be ruin'd in all theWorld , rather than you Ihould not have your will in our obedience to you , in ever y prefcribed Word Ceremony , Covenant or Oath, after all this ? " Strict. And at Ours indeed of theChurch- party, if we require what cannot " be confented to without fin. ] Anf. Ex ore tuo What you required of old we debated 166o, and you never gave us an Anfwer towhat we largelyoffered you, in Confutation of your Defence : And how thendid youthink we fhould know we Erred? Not by what you keptferret in your thoughts. And, as to the New Conformity we never had leave to give our Reafons againft it, by Word or Writing. Grant us but that leave, and if we do not openly prove, that to Conform would beour fin, and very heinous fin ( not medling with any Men'sConfcience but our own ) call us Schifmaticks, and go on to ufe us as you have done. Which, I fay, as to mÿ fel who offer to afIume that tiering , as the penaltyof my Error, if I err; but not to julifie you, if itwere fo, who are no more allowed by Chril to that all that err out of the Church; than to An-church every perfon in the World. "Strict. But at theirs that refute to come in to us, if they may, without fin, fubmit to all that theiracknowledged Superiours require of them. Anf. Which they are molt confident they cannot do : And ifQuoad Materi- am, they Ihould miftake, I think yet St. Paul miftook not, inPaying, He that doubteth is rondennted if be eat, becaufe be eateth not in Faith And him that is weak in the Faith receive, &c. And therefore 1would deny your Confequence com- paratively : There are various degrees of Guilt : If you made a Canon, that all the prefent Conformty fhould take the Pope, the Univerfal Church, or Ihould own the Church of Rome; the Council of Trent, and the reft, as far as Grotive did ; or Ihould fubfcribe that the Septuagint is to be preferred before the Hebrew Text ; Or if it were but theft, andnot theft of all thevarious Readings are the right ; or that there is not a word faulty in our Old Tranflation(or New) or in any Book that ever the Convocationapprovedof (as wellas the Liturgy, err.) If all this Ihould prove lawful(as it never will) and they Ihould turn Nonconfor- mils to your Canon,and hereupon they fhould all be filenced, and Popery there- upon come in , Who were guilty of all this ? They, with that degree of guilt, which all Men have, in that they are imperfeft o Or you, with that more heinous Guilt, which is incomparably greater. If you Paid, All Minifters.fhall be Silen- ced,-and People Excommunicated that have anyError and Sin ; Their Error and Sin is fome Culpable Caufe of the Confegnent ruin of the Church ; but nothing in comparifon of Yours, who are the GrandCaute. -" Strict. Andfor this,ifthey refufe toftand to the Judgmentof ForeignChurches, " I refer them to Mr. Baxter, one of the molt Eminent Divines of their own par- " ty, who, in the ad. Chapter of the lath ofhis 5 Difputations, having enumerated "theControverted Ceremonies (viz. the Surplice, Kneeling at the Lord's Sup- "per, theRails, and the Crofs inBaptifm) though he finds fault with the im- "pofing of them ( which the Governouts are to anfwer for) yet, that they may " be obeyed without fin ( which are all that Subjefts are concerned in) he con- "eludes of all, but the Crofs in Baptifm only ; which he would not have except- "ed- neither, if it were ufed (as we fay it is) as a Teaching, or a Profeffing Sign only ; and not as a Sacramental, as he milaketh it to be : for wedo not ufe it as a means to confer Grace, which is the formalis ratio of a Sacramental- Sign;. but to lignifie, and put us in mind of Grace only. The like he con- S f ff " clod. 137
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