Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…

§ 55. For my own part I freely confess, that I was not judicious enough in Politics and Law to decide this Controversy which so many Lawyers and Wise men differed in. And I freely confess, that being astonished at the Irish Massacre, and persuaded fully both of the Parliaments good endeavours for Reformation, and of their real danger, my Judgment of the main Cause much swayed my Judgment in the Matter of the Wars: and the Arguments à fine, & à natureâ, & necessitate, which common Wits are capable of discerning, did too far incline my Judgment in the Cause of the War, before I well understood the Arguments from our particular Laws: And the Consideration of the Quality of the Parties that sided for each Cause, in the Countries, did greatly work with me, and more than it should have done: And I verily thought, that if that which a Judge in Court saith sententially is Law, must go for Law to the Subject, as to the Decision of that Cause, though the King send his Broad Seal against it, then that which the Parliament saith is Law, is Law to the Subjects (about the Dangers of the Common-wealth) whatever it be in it self; and that if the King's Broad-Seal cannot prevail against the Judge, much less against their Judgment.

§ 55. For my own part I freely confess, that I was not judicious enough in Politicks and Law to decide this Controversie which so many Lawyers and Wise men differed in. And I freely confess, that being astonished at the Irish Massacre, and perswaded fully both of the Parliaments good endeavours for Reformation, and of their real danger, my Judgment of the main Cause much swayed my Judgment in the Matter of the Wars: and the Arguments à fine, & à natureâ, & necessitate, which common Wits are capable of discerning, did too far incline my Judgment in the Cause of the War, before I well understood the Arguments from our particular Laws: And the Consideration of the Quality of the Parties that sided for each Cause, in the Countries, did greatly work with me, and more than it should have done: And I verily thought, that if that which a Judge in Court saith sententially is Law, must go for Law to the Subject, as to the Decision of that Cause, though the King send his Broad Seal against it, then that which the Parliament saith is Law, is Law to the Subjects (about the Dangers of the Common-wealth) whatever it be in it self; and that if the King's Broad-Seal cannot prevail against the Judge, much less against their Judgment.