A26865:566
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 › Accusation 29
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.
4. After this in their debates with the Bishops at the Savoy, they undertook to prove the sinfulness of several things then imposed: And when Bishop Cousins, then in the Chair, gave them in a writing, desiring them to distinguish sins from inconveniences, and to debate only that which they accounted flat sin; they gave him in eight particulars, reserving liberty to add the rest; and one of them was, That it is sinful for a Minister of Christ to exclude or reject from the Churches Communion in the Sacrament, persons Godly, and otherwise duly qualified, merely because that (fearing it, though causelessly to be a sin) they dare not receive the Sacrament kneeling. This they earnestly desired to have begun with, and dispute at large, and offered to have then given in their arguments, and then to have proceeded to the other seven particulars.
4. After this in their debates with the Bishops at the Savoy, they undertook to prove the sinfulness of several things then imposed: And when Bishop Cousins, then in the Chair, gave them in a writing, desiring them to distinguish sins from inconveniences, and to debate only that which they accounted flat sin; they gave him in eight particulars, reserving liberty to add the rest; and one of them was, That it is sinful for a Minister of Christ to exclude or reject from the Churches Communion in the Sacrament, persons Godly, and otherwise duly qualified, meerly because that (fearing it, though causelesly to be a sin) they dare not receive the Sacrament kneeling. This they earnestly desired to have begun with, and dispute at large, and offered to have then given in their arguments, and then to have proceeded to the other seven particulars.
5. The Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical affairs, had a little before given them a relaxation or indulgence as to those things which they accounted the greatest sins; such as in the Declaration may yet be seen; especially the Subscription, that there is nothing in all the books there mentioned contrary to the word of God, &c. And it did not concern us, or become us, to talk at the the Savoy against the sinfulness of those particulars which his Majesty had in Clemency, and as a healer, so lately freed us from: But why were they in the Declaration suspended (as for our Concord), if they had not been judged to be unlawful by the dissenters, when we ever professed that in all lawful things we would obey?