A26865:445
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 18
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.
3. If so large a Toleration as you talk of be so dangerous, and the Presbyterians are like to occasion it for their liberty, why will you not prevent so great a danger at so cheap a rate, as it might be ⟨p. 114⟩prevented at? Are you indeed against a Toleration of Heresy and Popery, and yet would you rather venture on the danger of it, than abate to Protestants a needless ceremony or subscription?
3. If so large a Toleration as you talk of be so dangerous, and the Presbyterians are like to occasion it for their liberty, why will you not prevent so great a danger at so cheap a rate, as it might be ⟨p. 114⟩prevented at? Are you indeed against a Toleration of Heresie and Popery, and yet would you rather venture on the danger of it, than abate to Protestants a needless ceremony or subscription?
4. I cannot tell whether you are indeed such strangers to the thoughts and talk of the people of England concerning your selves as you seem to be. If you are, I will not now tell you what they say of you. But they rejoice that they have a King so far from Popery, that he hath by a Law made it a heinous crime for any to vent any suspicions of his constancy (which through so many temptations he hath approved.)
And indeed it were a crime that deserved no small punishment, as imputing that to our Sovereign which is scarce to be thought of a rational man; even to give up most of his power and Kingdom to a foreign Usurper after his power is shaken off, and that without any cause. Princes that ever got loose from the Roman yoke, do not use to come under it again; at least, except as King John resigned his Crown, constrained by mere necessity. But Godfrey Goodman a Papist was the last Bishop of Gloucester; and I must profess that if I were a Papist and studied to help them to a Toleration, I would by writings, and by all my interest, endeavour to bring as many more of you as I could into a necessity of seeking Liberty or Toleration, that when the party that needed and sought it were considerable, and the cry for it were great, we might look for our part among the rest, and say, why not we as well as others?