Richard Baxter's penitent confession and his necessary vindication in answer to a book called…

And why began he it not in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, who more overtopped Parliaments than King James did? I perceive by this Man, that none must pass for Conformable and Episcopal, that are not of Sibthorp and Mainwaring's Mind, and renounce not Parliamentary Privileges, and give not up Property and Liberty to the mere will of the King called Prerogative. And so all our Parliaments till the Dividing and Tearing Long one, were not of the Church of England: And what then was that Church? Was it a Christian Kingdom, and yet was the Kingdom Representative no part of it? Are none but Leeches, Sangutsugi's, Men of Blood, (that must have all lye and die in Goals among Rogues, that will not Swear, and Subscribe, and Declare and Covenant, and Practise, all that they impose) of the Church of England? What a Reproach is this to such a Church?

And why began he it not in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, who more overtopt Parliaments than King James did? I perceive by this Man, that none must pass for Conformable and Episcopal, that are not of Sibthorp and Mainwaring's Mind, and renounce not Parliamentary Priviledges, and give not up Property and Liberty to the meer will of the King called Prerogative. And so all our Parliaments till the Dividing and Tearing Long one, were not of the Church of England: And what then was that Church? Was it a Christian Kingdom, and yet was the Kingdom Representative no part of it? Are none but Leeches, Sangutsugi's, Men of Blood, (that must have all lye and die in Goals among Rogues, that will not Swear, and Subscribe, and Declare and Covenant, and Practise, all that they impose) of the Church of England? What a Reproach is this to such a Church?

If I must Repent that I take not all the old Parliaments, and all the Bishops in Queen Elizabeths days to be no Church Protestants; if I must Repent for taking Jewel, Bishop Bilson, Ri. Hooker, and his Friend Sir Edwin Sandyes for Church Protestants, and Repent for believing all Rushworth's Collections, all Whitlock's Memoirs, all Sir Simon Dues, and Dr. Fuller's Church History, and the Volumes of M. S. Parliament Speeches, if I must take this King and Parliament, and all the Bishops and Clergy that Conform to them, to be no Protestants of the Church of England, because they have made a Law declaring it to be the Rights and Liberties of the people, to be governed by Law, and not by Arbitrary Prerogative, and have asserted what the old Parliaments claimed, I must then heinously dishonour the Church of England, and Repent that I am a Man.