A26865:164
An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II.…
An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II. an answer to the accusations urged as reasons for the silencing of about 2000 by Bishop Morley ..., III. reasons proving it the duty and interest of the bishops and conformists to endeavour earnestly their restoration : with a postscript upon oral debates with Mr. H. Dodwell, against his reasons for their silence ... : written in 1668 and 1669, for the most of it, and now published as an addition to the defence against Dr. Stillingfleet, and as an account to the silencers of the reasons of our practice / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst and D. Newman, 1681
AN APOLOGY FOR THE SILENCED MINISTERS, Especially for their not cea… › Part 4
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.
IV. OUR Fourth main Reason why we dare not cease our Ministry, is, Because we shall sin against Nature it self, even the great and radical Law of Love, and shall be guilty of murdering mens souls. And because Magistrates cannot dispense with the great and necessary Laws of Nature, we put them all into one for brevity.
1. If we were Lay men, yet charity would naturally oblige us, to do our best to save mens souls, in a way that doth not greater hurt▪ Deny this, and you deny the master-points of natural obligation, and are unfit to dispute about things indifferent. And the judgment of the ancient Church, (as the case of Origen and other Teachers and Catechists at Alexandria, as well as that of Frumentius and Edesius do witness) is flat against you▪ and so is the common judgment of Divines, both Protestants and Papists, who use to cite these instances to prove that in some case Lay-men may be public Teachers. But if they might not in Churches (lest they seem usurpers) yet in other places they may do it, when necessity requireth it, and so they exceed not their abilities in their undertakings.
1. If we were Lay men, yet charity would naturally oblige us, to do our best to save mens souls, in a way that doth not greater hurt▪ Deny this, and you deny the master-points of natural obligation, and are unfit to dispute about things indifferent. And the judgment of the ancient Church, (as the case of Origen and other Teachers and Catechists at Alexandria, as well as that of Frumentius and Edesius do witness) is flat against you▪ and so is the common judgment of Divines, both Protestants and Papists, who use to cite these instances to prove that in some case Lay-men may be publick Teachers. But if they might not in Churches (lest they seem usurpers) yet in other places they may do it, when necessity requireth it, and so they exceed not their abilities in their undertakings.