A27006:551
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully published from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully publish'd from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1696
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.
§ 98. If you ask what did the Ministers all this while; I answer, they Preached and Prayed against Disloyalty: They drew up a Writing to the Lord General, declaring their Abhorrence of all Violence against the Person of the King, and urging him and his Army to take heed of such an unlawful Act: They present it to the General when they saw the King in Danger: But Pride prevailed against their Counsels.
§ 98. If you ask what did the Ministers all this while; I answer, they Preach'd and Pray'd against Disloyalty: They drew up a Writing to the Lord General, declaring their Abhorrence of all Violence against the Person of the King, and urging him and his Army to take heed of such an unlawful Act: They present it to the General when they saw the King in Danger: But Pride prevailed against their Counsels.
§ 99. The King being thus taken out of the way,1 Cromwell takes on him to be for a Commonwealth (but all in order to the Security of the good People) till he had removed the other Impediments which were yet to be removed: so that the Rump presently drew up a Form of Engagement, to be put upon all Men, viz. [I do promise to be True and Faithful to the Commonwealth as it is now established without a King or House of Lords.] So we must take the Rump for an established Commonwealth, and promise Fidelity to them. This the Sectarian Party swallowed easily, and so did the King's old Cavaliers, so far as I was acquainted with them, or could hear of them (not heartily, no doubt, but they were very few of them sick of the Disease called tenderness of Conscience, or Scrupulosity: But the Presbyterians, and the moderate Episcopal Men refused it, (and I believe so did the Prelatical Divines of the King's Party for the most part; though the Gentlemen had greater Necessities.) Without this Engagement no Man must have the Benefit of suing another at Law (which kept Men a little from Contention, and would have marred the Lawyers trade); nor must they have any Masterships in the Universities, nor travel above so many Miles from their Houses, and more such Penalties, which I remember not (so short Lived a Commonwealth deserved no long Remembrance): Mr. Vines and Dr. Rainbow, and many more were hereupon put out of their Headships in the Universities, and Mr. Sidrach Simpson, and Mr. Jo. Sadler, and such others put in; yea, such a Man as Mr. Dell, the Chaplain of the Army, who, I think, neither understood himself, nor was understood by others any farther than to be one, who took Reason, Sound Doctrine, Order and Concord to be the intolerable Maladies of Church and State, because they were the greatest Strangers to his Mind. But poor Dr. Edward Reignolds had the hardest Measure; for when he refused to take the Engagement, his Place was forfeited; and afterwards they drew him to take it, in hopes to keep his Place, (which was no less than the Deanery of Christ's-Church) and then turned him out of all, and offered his Place to Mr. Jos. Caryll; but he refusing it, it was conferred on Dr. Owen, to whom it was continued from year to year.