I Have received that Letter of yours , whereby you inform me that Mr. Baxter hath lately written and printed something with such a reflexion upon me , that I am obliged to take notice of it .

I thank you for your care of my Reputation , which next to Conscience ought to be the dearest of all things to all men , especially to men of my Profession and Order , who the more they are vilified ( whether justly or unjustly ) the less good they will be able to doe , especially amongst those that have industriously been prepossessed with prejudice either against their Persons or their Functions . This was St. Paul's Case , when there were some that did what they could to make the Corinthians to undervalue his Person , that thereby they might discredit his Doctrine , and weaken his Authority , whom therefore he thinks he may without breach of Charity call False Apostles and Deceitfull Workers . Nay this was our Saviour's own Case , who , whilst he lived here upon the Earth , was ever and anon traduced and slandered by the Scribes and Pharisees , those proud Hypocrites , who were the greatest pretenders to Holiness , and yet the greatest Seducers of the people , and the grossest falsifiers of God's Word , that ever were in the world , untill these our times , which have brought forth a generation of men ( St. John Baptist would have called them a Generation of Vipers ) who in the Art of holy juggling and malicious slandring have out-done the Pharisees themselves and all that went before them ; witness their so often wresting and perverting the Scripture in their Sermons to stir up the people to Sedition , and their as often Libelling the King in their Prayers , in order to the making of his Subjects first to hate him , then to fight against him , and at last to take away his Crown and his Life from him . And is it any wonder that those that are such enemies to Kings , should not be friends to Bishops ? or that one ( who had done what he could to make the late King odious unto his People ) should doe what he can likewise to make the Pastour odious unto his Flock ? to his Flock , I say ; For it is the Bishop of Worcester , and not Mr. Baxter that is Pastour of Kidderminster , as well as of all other Parochial Churches in that Diocese ; neither did I or any other Bishop of Worcester , ever commit the Care of Souls in that , or any other Parish of that Diocese to Mr. Baxter , though by that Preface of his to those of Kidderminster , he would make the world believe , that they were his Flock , and not mine , and that therefore he hath the more reason to complain of my defamation of him ( as he calls it ) in that place and before that people : whereas the truth is that Mr. Baxter was never either Parson , Vicar , or Curate there or any where else in my Diocese ; for he never came in by the Door , that is , by any legal right or lawfull admission into that Sheepfold , but climbed up some other way , namely , by violence and intrusion , and therefore by Christ's own inference he was a Thief and a Robber ; and indeed he did Rob him that was then , and is now again the lawfull Vicar of that Church ; he Robbed him , I say , first of his Reputation amongst his Flock , and then of his means and maintenance , by taking away the Fleece as well as the Flock from him ; though ( as Mr. Baxter himself hath confessed to me ) He be a man of an unblameable life and conversation , though not of such parts ( said Mr. Baxter ) as are fit to qualifie him for the Cure of so great a Congregation ; which whether it were so or no , I am sure Mr. Baxter was not to be the Judge ; but in that Case the Bishop that was then living should and would have provided him a Coadjutor , as I have done since , and such an one , as I hope will feed that Flock with much more wholesome Doctrine than Mr. Baxter did , when he sowed the Seed of Schism and Sedition , and blew the Trumpet of Rebellion amongst them . For which cause I thought it my Duty ( as being their Pastour in Chief ) not onely to forbid Mr. Baxter to Preach there any more , which , by the way , he had done without my Licence ; but likewise to Preach there my self , and to doe what I could to undeceive that poor seduced and miserably deluded People ; which was not to be done , as long as they had the person of their Seducer in so great admiration ; and therefore by the example of St. Paul , who in order to the same end , did take the same course with Alexander the Copper-smith , with Demas , Philetus and Hymeneus ; as likewise by the example of Christ himself , who in order to the same end , did take the same course with the Scribes and Pharisees , I thought it necessary to let them know that one that was of great authority amongst them ( meaning indeed , though not naming Mr. Baxter ) was not the man they took him for ; that he had not dealt faithfully with them , nor preached the word of God sincerely to them , when he made them believe it was lawfull for them to take up Arms against the King , nor in suffering ( if not making ) them to scruple at those things as unlawfull , which he he himself confesses to be lawfull ; and afterwards making use of those scruples of theirs ( which he himself had infused into them , or not endeavoured to take from them ) as the onely argument why those things they did so scruple at should not be enjoin'd by lawfull Authority , though lawfull in themselves , because forsooth , the enjoining of things lawfull by lawfull Authority , if they may by Accident be the occasion of sin , is sinfull ; which assertion of his ( as I then said , and must still maintain ) is destructive of humane Society in taking away the Authority of Commanding and the Obligation of Obeying , together with the whole Legislative Power , Civil as well as Ecclesiastical , and Divine as well as Humane . And thus much ( as Mr. Baxter himself saith ) I told him before in mine own House , neither did he then deny the assertion , or endeavour to disprove what I inferr'd from it , by any of those distinctions or instances he now useth . And that this is true the Reverend Dr. Warmstry , now Dean of Worcester , will witness for me , whom I desired to be by whilst I conferr'd with Mr. Baxter , foreseeing what misreport a man of Mr. Baxter's principles and temper was like enough to make of what should pass betwixt us . And it was very well I did so ; for I find that the Presbyter as well as the Papist will serve themselves , as often as they are put to it , of their pioe fraudes , or holy artifices , of speaking more or less than the truth , as it makes more or less for their purpose or advantage ; as likewise of putting non causam pro causa , or a part and a less principal part of the cause for the whole cause . For who would not think that knows not Mr. Baxter , that when he tells his Disciples of Kidderminster , You now know my Crime , with reference to the aforesaid assertion , and to that onely , who would not think , I say , that either there was nothing else objected against him , or at least nothing of moment , or that could be any just and reasonable cause of my forbidding him to Preach in my Diocese ? especially when he adds that the Right Reverend Bishop gave him this as a reason for his forbidding him to Preach ; where if he means that the Bishop gave him this as the onely , or the principal reason , he speaks without truth , and against his Conscience ; for the first and principal reason the Bishop gave him for his forbidding him to Preach , was ( as he well knows , and as the Dean of Worcester will witness against him ) His Preaching before without Licence , having no Cure of his own to Preach to ; whereunto when he replied , I had promised to give him such a Licence as the Bishop of London had given him , viz. Quàm diu se bene gereret , & durante beneplacito , I rejoin'd , That it was true indeed , I had once promised to give him such a Licence , but withall , that it was as true , that first I had never promised to give him a Licence , if he took it before I gave it him ; and that for this presumption of his , I had now forbidden him to Preach any more . Secondly , That I knew more of him since than I did at that time ; for , first , I had been credibly informed , that he had abused the Bishop of London 's favour by preaching factiously , though not in the City , yet in the Diocese of London , and I named the place to him : Secondly , that since that promise of mine ( which cannot be supposed to be other than Conditional ) I my self had heard him , at a Conference in the Savoy , maintaining such a Position as was destructive to Legislative Power both in God and Man ( meaning the Assertion before spoken of , viz. That the enjoining of things lawfull by lawfull Authority , if they might by Accident be the cause of sin , was sinfull ) which Assertion of his with the horrible consequences of it , I told him then at Worcester , I had formerly told him of at the Savoy openly , and before all the Company that was at the Conference ; whereunto all that he replied at my second telling him at Worcester , was , that he had used some distinctions to salve that Assertion from those consequences ; but what those distinctions were he did not then mention , ( as Dr. Warmstry can witness ) though in this printed Address of his to his Friends of Kidderminster , he saith , he did tell the Bishop in what a limited and restrained sense he and his Brethren understood that Assertion ; which whether they did or no , will appear by and by , when we shall more nearly examine his printed Narrative as to that particular . In the mean time , though I said indeed that one that held and was likely to teach such Doctrines , was not to be suffered to Preach unto the People , yet this was not then alledged by me as the cause or crime for which I had forbidden him to Preach , ( for that , as I said before , was His presuming to Preach without a Licence ) but onely as a reason why I should have thought my self not obliged by the promise I had formerly made him , to give him a Licence , though he had not otherwise forfeited his claim to that promise by preaching without , or before he had it . Lastly , He might have remembred another reason I gave him why I could not have made good that promise , namely , those Principles of Treason and Rebellion publickly extant in his Books , which I had not taken notice of till after the making of that promise , and which till he should recant in as publick a manner , I thought my self obliged in Conscience not to suffer him to Preach in my Diocese ; whereunto his answer was , That whatsoever he had said or done in that kind , was pardoned by the Act of Indempnity : True , said I , so far as the King can pardon it , that is , in regard of its corporal punishment here in this world , but it is God that must pardon the guilt or obligation to punishment in the world to come , which he will not without repentance , and it is the Church that must pardon the scandal , which she cannot doe neither without an honourable amends made her by publick Confession and Recantation . I could tell Mr. Baxter in his ear likewise , that in excuse of his rebellious Principles formerly published , he said , That now the Parliament had declared where the Sovereign Power was , he should acknowledge it and submit to it , as if the King owed his Sovereignty to the Declaration of a Parliament , which is as false as rebellious , and as dangerous a Principle as any of his former : however by what hath been said , it appears that Mr. Baxter meant to impose upon his credulous Friends at Kidderminster , and upon his unwary Readers , by making them believe that was the onely cause for which the Bishop forbad him to Preach , which was neither the onely , nor the principal cause , why the Bishop did so , nor indeed , to speak properly , any cause of it at all ; for the onely proper cause for which the Bishop forbad him to Preach , was His preaching before without the Bishop 's Licence ; the other which he pretends , together with the third which he conceals , were properly and professedly the causes why the Bishop would not take off that Prohibition , or why he would not give him a Licence to Preach for the future , either at Kidderminster , or in any other place of his Diocese , untill he should publickly retract that Position which he had openly asserted at the Conference , and should publickly renounce likewise those seditious and rebellious Principles which are published in his Books . And this is the truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the truth of what passed betwixt me and Mr. Baxter at Worcester , before I preached at Kidderminster , where whether I defamed him , or he , by saying so , hath not grosly defamed me , will appear by that which follows ; wherein that I might neither be deceived my self , nor deceive others , I have not trusted to my own memory onely , as Mr. Baxter saith he doth to his , but I have consulted with Dr. Gunning and Dr. Pearson , two of the three that managed that Conference with Mr. Baxter and his Assistants , and have seen that Assertion in the same sense that I object it , and Mr. Baxter disclaims it , affirmed by Mr. Baxter himself under his own hand .

I found Mr. Baxter at the Savoy engaged in a Dispute , and I perceived that to keep himself off from that part of the Argument which would press near to the merits of the Cause , he had often affirmed in his Answers , That the Command of a most lawfull Act was sinfull ; if that Act commanded might prove to any one a sin per accidens . This Assertion I did then and there presently and openly lay to his charge ; and when he denied it ( as it was most frequent with him immediately to deny what he had before affirmed ) the answers which he had delivered written with his own hand were produced , and upon the reading of them , the justice of my charge was most apparent ; whereupon I urged him farther , that this Assertion of his was not onely false , but destructive of all Authority Humane and Divine , as not onely denying all power to the Church of making Canons Ecclesiastical for the better ordering and governing of the Church , but also taking away all Legislative Power from the King and Parliament , and even from God himself : I delivered at the same time my reason for what I said , which was briefly this , because there can be no Act so good of it self , but may prove per Accidens , or by Accident , a sin ; And therefore , if to command an Act which may prove per Accidens a sin , be a sin , then every Command must be a sin . And if to command be a sin , then certainly God can command nothing , because God cannot sin ; and by the same reason , Kings , Parliaments and Churches ought not to command any thing , because they ought not to sin .

Thus far I then charged Mr. Baxter , and to this Charge he gave then no satisfaction . Neither can I yet conceive it possible to give any satisfaction , but by one of these two ways , either by proving that the Assertion , with which I charged him was never his , or by shewing that the consequence I urged , is not good ; neither of which was he then able to doe : and by what he hath now been pleased to publish , it is more than probable that he can never perform either of them .

For in his bold , but weak Apology , he doth not so much as pretend to shew any Invalidity in my Inference , and for the Assertion with which I charged him , he denies it so poorly , and goes about to prove another instead of it so manifestly , that he may without any injury be interpreted to yield it . He saith indeed now , That he told us that his Assertion made not every Evil Accident to be such as made an Imposition unlawfull . But whether he ever said so before this time or no , it was then clearly proved that he did assert , That an Act for nothing else , but because it might be per Accidens a sin , could not be commanded without sin .

And now in his publick Appeal , he hath taken a strange way to wipe off all this , for he makes a very brief Narration , and most notoriously imperfect , and then says , You know my Crime , as if that were all that had been , or could be objected against him . Besides , in the relating of this short Narrative , he relies wholly upon his own memory ; not so much as endeavouring to satisfie himself , before he presumed to satisfie others . How his memory may be in other things I know not , in this if it hath been faithfull to him , he hath been very unfaithfull to others . He relates an Answer in what terms he pleaseth , and brings one Proposition , as made by his Opponents in what terms he thinks fit , and the Application of this answer to that Proposition he propoundeth as all his Crime ; whereas his Answer was far more largely given , and that to several Propositions in several Syllogisms , of which the Proposition which he relateth was but one , or rather none ; so that he hath most shamefully abused his Disciples at Kidderminster , with a short and partial Narrative of his Fact .

As for his Concurring with Learned Reverend Brethren ( which he would pretend to be part of his Crime ) and his invidious insinuation , That they are not forbidden to Preach for it , though he be , the reason is clear . He had often delivered this Assertion before the Company , his Brethren had not ; the words of the Answer were written with his hand , not with his Brethrens . His Brethren had several times declared themselves not to be of his Opinion ( as particularly when he affirmed That a man might live without any actual sin ) . And therefore we were so just as not to charge them with this Assertion ; especially considering they did shew themselves unwilling to enter upon this dispute , and seemed to like much better another way tending to an amicable and fair compliance , which was wholly frustrated by Mr. Baxter's furious eagerness to engage in a Disputation .

All his Discourse which followeth ( after his imperfect Narrative ) in justification of himself , is grounded first , upon a misreporting of his own Assertion ; secondly , upon the dissembling of the several Propositions , to which his Answer was so often applied ; thirdly , upon his pretending That he says more now , than that which had offended formerly ; which is most palpably false , and in all probability ( if he have any memory ) against his own Conscience . And this will presently appear by the vanity and impertinency of all those specious instances which he brings to mollifie his Assertion .