A26865:189
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.
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?
If all this, and all that is said be nothing with you, we have nothing to say. But if it be, we are agreed, or at least you yield the cause to us, that know these things.
A man of fourscore years old in the Town where I was Teacher, being asked what God the Father was, said, He was a good man in Heaven. And being asked what God the Son was? said, He was the Sun, and pointed to the Sun that shined. And being asked what the Holy Ghost was? said, the Moon. A wise and worthy neighbour-Minister told me, That the oldest man that ever he knew, judged about six score (having fled thither in his youth from another Country for some crimes, and the old men of the Parish never knew him but an old grey-headed man) being in sound understanding before his death, and being asked by this Minister, Whither he thought to go when he died? answered, To the Church-yard I believe they will carry me. And when he was asked what he thought would become of his soul? he answered to this purpose, as not knowing whether he had any soul or not; but if he had, whether it would go to the Moon, or what would become of it, it was not for him to know.