A26865:188
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 › Objection 1
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.
5. And for the matter of fact, may a man that hath conversed among such people all his life-time, and been familiar with them daily, and that can hardly get a servant into his own house that is much better, or hardly in a years time get a servant to understand his Baptism, or a quarter of his Creed; or a Minister that hath ⟨p. 54⟩made it his work every week to discourse about these matters with all the families in his Parish, may such a man believe his own ears and eyes, or may be not? If not, he is capable of being a Papist, and believing Transubstantiation: If yea, the business is determined so far as his acquaintance reacheth.
6. And if the same man live in many Counties, and travel over most of the land, and find most places, as far as he can perceive, to be worse than the Parish which he had thus tried? and if all the painful Pastors that he talketh with, that ever tried it, and all the most judicious Christians of all Countries, tell him that their experience is the same; yea, if the great Divines of the Church have long made the same complaints in their Printed Sermons, may any of all these be believed or not?
7. If at this day the Divines that are angry with us for Preaching, do make almost as sad complaints even of the people that we Preach to our selves, or of the Puritans or Nonconformists: and if the most grave and reverend of the Conformable Divines do now in their Sermons to the people, describe them as aforesaid, and much worse; yet may we not believe that they have need of teaching?