"A wise man feareth and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth and is confident." PROV. xiv. 16.

"But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his subtlety; so your

minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ." 2 Cor. xi. 3. "The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than

men. Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? We speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world." 1 Cor. i. 25. 20; ii. 6.

"Study to shew thyself approved to God; a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of Truth. But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness." 2 TIM. ii. 15, 16.

"Cum ista quæruntur, et ea sicut potest quisque conjectat, non inutiliter exercentur ingenia, si adhibeatur disceptantia moderata, et absit error opinantium se scire quod nesciunt. Quid enim opus est ut hæc et hujusmodi affirmentur, vel negentur, vel definiantur cum discrimine, quando sine crimine nesciantur?" AUGUST. ENCHIRID. Cap. 59. (De Corporibus Angelorum.)

TO THE

RIGHT WORSHIPFUL

SIR HENRY ASHHURST;

AND THE

LADY DIANA HIS WIFE.

SIR,

YOUR name is not prefixed to this Treatise, either as accusing you of the sin herein detected, or as praising you for those virtues which good men are more pleased to possess and exercise, than to have proclaimed, though they be as light that is hardly hid: but it is to vent and exercise that gratitude which loveth not the concealment of such friendship and kindness, as you and your Lady eminently, and your Relatives and her's, the children of the Lord Paget, have long obliged me by; and it is to posterity that I record your kindness, more than for this age, to which it hath publicly notified itself, during my public accusations, reproaches, sentences, imprisonments, and before and since: who knoweth you that knoweth not hereof? And it is to renew the record of that love and honour which I owed to your deceased father formerly, though too slenderly recorded, to be the heir and imitator of whose faith, piety, charity, patience, humility, meekness, impartiality, sincerity and perseverance, is as great an honour and blessing as I can wish you, next to the conformity to our highest Pattern. And though he was averse to worldly pomp and grandeur, and desired that his children should not affect it, yet God that will honour those that honour him, hath advanced his children, I believe partly for his sake: but I entreat you all (and some other of my friends whom God hath raised as a blessing to their pious and charitable parents and themselves) to watch carefully lest the deceitful world and flesh do turn such blessings into golden fetters, and to be sure to use them as they would find at last on their account.

And as you are a Member of the present House of Commons, I think the subject of this Treatise is not unnecessary

to your consideration and daily care: that when proof, and notorious and sad experience telleth us what distractions have befallen Church and State, by men's self-conceited, erroneous rushing upon sin and falsehood, as if it were certainly good and true, and how little posterity feareth and avoideth this confounding vice, though history tell us that it hath been the deluge that in all ages hath drowned the peace and welfare of the world; you may be wary, and try before you venture, in doubtful cases; especially where the sacred and civil interest of this and many other lands, doth probably lie on the determination. Do you think all that ventured upon the actions and changes, that have tossed up and down both churches and kingdoms, by divisions, persecutions and wars, had not done better to suspend their judgments, till they could have more certainly determined? Who should proceed more cautiously than bishops? And where rather than in councils? And in what rather than about faith and public government and order? And had bishops and councils torn the church, and empires, and kingdoms, as they have done by aspiring after superiority, and by contentious writings, and condemning each other, and by contradictory and erroneous, and persecuting canons; or by raising wars and deposing princes, ever since four, five, or six hundred years after Christ, if not sooner, if they had known their ignorance, and suspended in such dangerous cases till they were sure?

I know you are none of them who dare pretend to a certain knowledge, that all those oaths, declarations, covenants, practices imposed by laws and canons on ministers and people in this land, in the Act of Uniformity, the Corporation Act, the Vestry Act, the Militia Act, the Five Mile Act of Banishment, &c. are so good and lawful, as will justify the execution of them, and the silencing, ejecting, ruining, and judging to lie from six months to six in the common jails till they die, two thousand as faithful ministers of Christ as any nation hath under heaven, unless they forbear to preach the Gospel to which they are vowed, or venture their souls on that which they fear to be sins so great as they are loath to name: when Christ will sentence them to everlasting punishment, who did not visit, feed, clothe him in the least of them whom he calls his brethren. Before men silence conditionally the whole ministry of such a kingdom, and actually two thousand such, while the wounding,

dividing consequents may be so easily foreseen, and before men deliberately and resolutely continue and keep up such battering engines on pretence of Uniformity and obedience to men, and before they venture to own this to that Lord who hath made other terms of Church Unity and Peace, it nearly concerneth them to think, and think on it a thousand times: A suspended judgment is here safer than prefidence and confident rage.

་

And also they that desire an abolition of Episcopacy, should a thousand times bethink them first what true and primitive Episcopacy is, and whether the Episcopi Gregis,' or eorum Præsides,' or true Evangelists, or Apostolical General Bishops, disarmed and duly chosen, be any injury to the church? And whether the Jews had not been a national Christian church under the Twelve Apostles and Seventy, if they had not rejected Him that would have gathered them as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings.

They that cannot deny that Christ settled a superior rank of ministers, appointing them besides their extraordinaries, the work of gathering and overseeing many churches, promising therein to be with them to the end of the world, and that only Matthias must make up the national number of such, though Justus had been with Christ as well as he, must be the provers that this rank and imparity was reversed by him that did institute it, if they affirm it and not without proof charge Christ with seeming levity and mutability, as settling a form of Ministry and Government, which he would have continue but one age; much less must they impose such an unproved affirmation as the terms of Church Concord.

Woe, woe, woe! how effectually hath Satan almost undone the Christian world, by getting in naughty ministers and magistrates, where he could not utterly extirpate Christianity by arms! thereby making rulers and preachers the captains of the malignant enemies of seriousness in that religion which they profess and preach themselves; and if in such hypocrisy they convert a soul, they hate him as an enemy for believing them; and thereby tempt religious men to mistake the crime of the naughty preacher, as the fault of the office, and to oppose the office for the person's sake; and so Ministry and Christianity are despised by too many.

The shutting of their church doors, and condemning to scorn and beggary, and gaols, those that were as wise and faithful as themselves (unless fearing heinous sin made them worse,) should have been by the persecutors long and deeply thought on, twenty eight years ago; and ever since, by them that believe that Christ will judge them. And so should all doctrines and practices that tend to unwarrantable separations and divisions by others. Things of this moment should not be ventured on, nor Papists made both lords and executioners by our distracted combats with each other, and the miserable nation and undone church left to no better a remedy than a 'non putaremus;' and to hear the worldly tyrants, and the tempted sufferers accusing each other, and disputing when the house is burnt, who was in the fault.

I think he was most faulty that could most easily have helped it, and would not: but if great and rich men will be the strength of the factious, as they have most to lose, they may be the greatest losers.

All this hath been said, to tell you how nearly the doctrine of this book, for necessary doubting and a humble understanding, and for Christian love, and against pretended knowledge and rash judging, doth concern the duty and safety of this Nation, Church and State.

My late book of the "English Nonconformity" fully evinceth this, and more; but blinding prejudice, worldliness and faction, give leave to few of the guilty to read it.

I rest your much obliged Servant,

July 31, 1689.

RICHARD BAXTER.