A26982:31
Richard Baxter's penitent confession and his necessary vindication in answer to a book called…
Richard Baxter's penitent confession and his necessary vindication in answer to a book called The second part of the mischiefs of separation, written by an unnamed author with a preface to Mr. Cantianus D. Minimis, in answer to his letter which extorted this publication.
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1691
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
THE PREFACE TO Mr. Cantianus D Minimis Salutem.
SIR,
§ 1. I unfeignedly thank you for your Invitation to Repentance. O pray for me that neither Ignorance, nor Prepossession and Prejudice, keep me in Impenitency, so near my Death▪ I daily wait for my last day on Earth, and it is dreadful to die in the guilt of Impenitence: But who knoweth all his secret faults? I hope God will accept my willingness to know them, and openly to confess them what Party or Person soever be displeased with it.
Upon your Letter I began to practise it, and finding the Book which you refer me to, begin with my Childhood and Youth in his Accusations, I thought my Answer must follow him, and begin there also. But showing it to a Friend more prudent than my self, he disliked it, that I should tell the World of my Childish sins, when it is Schism and Rebellion that are my Charge by the Accuser. And I have oft heard, bis pueri senes, as if such passages were the effects of aged weakness, which better remembereth the passages of Youth, than of later years. I suspect that this is true: And yet a dying Man is afraid of such prudence as would stifle penitent Confession, when I am so loudly called to it by you and the Accuser: I will therefore satisfy Him, and You, and such other, and my Conscience, though I bear the derision of prudent dislikers: It wrongeth no Man; and to be accounted weak and simple I can easily bear.