A26865:635
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
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.
Ans. Is this the Justice of Sacred Clergy-men? 1. Do they lay us with Rogues in the common Gaols for preaching the Gospel when they forbid us, and then envy us that charity there relieveth us, and that any are more merciful than themselves? Do these men believingly preach Matth. 25. I was hungry, and ye fed me—I was in prison, and ye visited me? &c. 2. How knoweth this man what Mr. Calamy received? Is it likely that he knoweth what he saith to be true? which none of us know, that better knew Mr. Calamy than he. 3. If our friends are so liberal, sure they are a better sort of people than the Conformists, if those Preachers say true who tell the world what a wretched case their Clergy would be in, if their maintenance depended on the will and charity of the people. But to make them no better than they are, one of us that writeth this, can say by experience how like this report is to be false: for when he lay (for the ordinary cause) many times three days in the Common Gaol, he was never offered a groat by any, but one Country Knight, one Lady, and one Citizen (and a by offer from one that he had reason to refuse) nor received a farthing from any but these three, which did but defray his Prison and Law charges, but not by many pounds his Losses by that prosecution.
Ans. Is this the Justice of Sacred Clergy-men? 1. Do they lay us with Rogues in the common Gaols for preaching the Gospel when they forbid us, and then envy us that charity there relieveth us, and that any are more merciful than themselves? Do these men believingly preach Matth. 25. I was hungry, and ye fed me—I was in prison, and ye visited me? &c. 2. How knoweth this man what Mr. Calamy received? Is it likely that he knoweth what he saith to be true? which none of us know, that better knew Mr. Calamy than he. 3. If our friends are so liberal, sure they are a better sort of people than the Conformists, if those Preachers say true who tell the world what a wretched case their Clergy would be in, if their maintenance depended on the will and charity of the people. But to make them no better than they are, one of us that writeth this, can say by experience how like this report is to be false: for when he lay (for the ordinary cause) many times three days in the Common Gaol, he was never offered a groat by any, but one Countrey Knight, one Lady, and one Citizen (and a by offer from one that he had reason to refuse) nor received a farthing from any but these three, which did but defray his Prison and Law charges, but not by many pounds his Losses by that prosecution.