A26982:552
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.
Ans. 1. Must we not refuse Perjury, for fear of your supposition that we accuse you? We professed not to accuse you, but to prove that it would be Perjury in us.
2. But if you are guilty, is not that more to be feared by you, than our saying why we dare not imitate you?
§ 106. Accus. LXXXVIII. He addeth, [And which is—Mendacium magnum, that about Six Thousand Persons that had gone the other way, did declare their Assent and Consent to a Book which they never saw.]
Ans. Oh, what a mortal Wound do this sort of Men give to the Credit of all History of the proud, factious, worldly part of the Clergy! when this Man dare call this a Lye, in the same Land and Age in which, 1. It is known that there are near Ten Thousand Parish-Churches, besides Hundreds of Chapels and Curacies, and Chaplains. 2. The Land knoweth that these were in possession, 1662. 3. The Land knoweth that the Generality of them that were in 1659. conformed to the Directory; or else the Prelatists belie the Usurpers, that, they say, turned out all that did not. 4. The Land knoweth (or at least it is here commonly known) that the new altered Liturgy came not out of the Press, till about Bartholomew Even. 5. The Land knoweth that all were, by the Law, to be turned out, that declared not Assent and Consent to all things contained in, and prescribed by that Book, by Bartholomew Day. 6. The World knoweth, that all over England, the Books could not be sent down and seen in a Day. 7. The Conformists confess the Matter of fact, save to a few in London, that could go to the Press. 8. The Land knoweth, that it was but about Two Thousand that conformed not: Must there not be then far more than Six Thousand that declared Assent, &c. to the Book that they saw not?