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

Ans. What doth the Man mean by rendering this odious? If he mean that all this was well done; and that, as in Armies, he hath most Honour that killeth most; so in their Church, he is the best Man that ⟨p. 69⟩doth most against serious Piety; this is to profess themselves the Devil's Militia. But if he mean that I mis-report the matter of fact, and this was not so, he may as well persuade us that we lived not then in England, or that we knew not our Neighbours, or that Men spake not English. Can we choose but know that which every Corner in all the Land did speak? Doth he say a word to confute all this? And it was a meritorious work to silence and imprison with Rogues all that obeyed not their ungodly Canons; but it must go for a heinous Crime to feel their Malice, or blame their Cruelty.

Ans. What doth the Man mean by rendering this odious? If he mean that all this was well done; and that, as in Armies, he hath most Honour that killeth most; so in their Church, he is the best Man that ⟨p. 69⟩doth most against serious Piety; this is to profess themselves the Devil's Militia. But if he mean that I mis-report the matter of fact, and this was not so, he may as well persuade us that we lived not then in England, or that we knew not our Neighbours, or that Men spake not English. Can we chuse but know that which every Corner in all the Land did speak? Doth he say a word to confute all this? And it was a meritorious work to silence and imprison with Rogues all that obeyed not their ungodly Canons; but it must go for a heinous Crime to feel their Malice, or blame their Cruelty.

§ 79. Accus. LXII. Pag 66, &c. He accuseth me, as accusing King Charles the First of too much favouring the Grotian design of Union with the Papists. But, 1. Doth he say a word so much as to deny his Letter to the Pope, to venture Crown and all for Union? 2. Or to deny his sworn Articles for Toleration, mentioned in Rushworth's Collections, and others? 3. Or to deny the Papists Murders in Ireland, and their power in the King's Armies in England? 4. Or that he set up such Bishops as Laud, Bromhall, and others? But if accusing these Men be my Crime, (when I would have saved England from them,) Reader, peruse but a full Treatise, which I have long ago written, and hope to get speedily printed, with the very words of Laud, Bromhall, Gunning, Saywell, Thorndike, Heylin, Pierce, Parker, Sparrow, Beveridge, &c. for our Subjection to a Foreign Jurisdiction, (which the Kingdom is sworn against,) and then judge whether I accuse them wrongfully. Must we be brought under Aristocratical Popery, or French Church-Government, merely by saying It is not Popery? And must the Land so tamely be perjured and enslaved?