A26865:576
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.
But our difference is not in Government and Ceremony only, but in Doctrines of Grand importance in Morality: For he saith, pag. 66. For unless it▪ (the Covenant) be lawful in every particular respect, no body can be obliged by it. O dreadful Doctrine, to come from a Doctor of a Christian Church! That a Covenant and Vow to God can oblige no body, unless it be lawful in every respect: If so, Protestants that hold that imperfect man hath no sinless work, and so no Vow or Covenant is in all respects lawful, must hold that they are bound by no vow or covenant. If this be so, every erroneous man, or every knave, that hath the ignorance or craft to drop in any one unlawful thing into his Covenants and Vows, is obliged by none of them at all. How easily then may a Papist, or an Atheist shake off all Oaths of Allegiance or Supremacy, by adding one unlawful Particle? It's true, that if some one clause in a Vow were so essential to all the rest as to be their sense; if that were unlawful to be kept, all were so: And as to the denomination of the frame, […] ⟨p. 150⟩[…] ⟨p. 151⟩[…] ⟨p. 152⟩[…] ⟨p. 153⟩⟨p. 154⟩as consisting of several parts, it may be called a bad or unlawful Oath, if part were so▪ because bonum est ex causis integris, and the sense is; but that it is unlawful quoad hoc, or secundum quid. But as to obligation (though the Actus imponentis, and the Actus jurantis be unlawful; yet if the materia juramenti have ten parts, and one only be sin, that doth not nullify the obligation to the rest: No nor though nine parts of it were sin, their neighbourhood nullifieth not the obligation to the tenth.
But our difference is not in Government and Ceremony only, but in Doctrines of Grand importance in Morality: For he saith, pag. 66. For unless it▪ (the Covenant) be lawful in every particular respect, no body can be obliged by it. O dreadful Doctrine, to come from a Doctor of a Christian Church! That a Covenant and Vow to God can oblige no body, unless it be lawful in every respect: If so, Protestants that hold that imperfect man hath no sinless work, and so no Vow or Covenant is in all respects lawful, must hold that they are bound by no vow or covenant. If this be so, every erroneous man, or every knave, that hath the ignorance or craft to drop in any one unlawful thing into his Covenants and Vows, is obliged by none of them at all. How easily then may a Papist, or an Atheist shake off all Oaths of Allegiance or Supremacy, by adding one unlawful Particle? It's true, that if some one clause in a Vow were so essential to all the rest as to be their sense; if that were unlawful to be kept, all were so: And as to the denomination of the frame,