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A26865:767

An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II.…

Name: An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II.…
Author: Richard Baxter

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.

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If you go this violent imposing way to work, whether you can see it or not, men that stand out of the dust can see, that there are but these ways to scape your punishment and censures: 1. Either to be so perfect in understanding, as to know in all things, what is lawful, and what not: And that is an impossible way, because the generality of subjects will never possibly be brought to that perfection: Nay if they were, it would be the way to their certain suffering and ruin. For it is most certain that you your selves have not attained this perfection, and therefore are still fallible; and when you your selves take any one sin for a thing indifferent, if the subjects know it to be sin, they must fall under the punishment of your imposing Domination. 2. Or else they must be men that believe nothing to be sin (which is the case of all that believe there is no God), and so dare do any thing to save their flesh: And this way will make all the world conformable to you, that are under your power. 3. Or else they must be such as believe that nothing is sin which you or their Rulers shall command them (As all do, who believe that you are Gods, or above God, and consequently indeed that there is no God); Or that believe that God hath made men absolute Rulers of the peoples ⟨p. 223⟩Souls, and put Heaven and Hell into their power. Can you imagine how very many others should ever be exact Conformists to your imposing wills universally. If a few individuals should chance to be in all points of your judgments, indeed (which must be a rare case) it cannot be expected to be so with many, much less with all.

If you go this violent imposing way to work, whether you can see it or not, men that stand out of the dust can see, that there are but these ways to scape your punishment and censures: 1. Either to be so perfect in understanding, as to know in all things, what is lawful, and what not: And that is an impossible way, because the generality of subjects will never possibly be brought to that perfection: Nay if they were, it would be the way to their certain suffering and ruine. For it is most certain that you your selves have not attained this perfection, and therefore are still fallible; and when you your selves take any one sin for a thing indifferent, if the subjects know it to be sin, they must fall under the punishment of your imposing Domination. 2. Or else they must be men that believe nothing to be sin (which is the case of all that believe there is no God), and so dare do any thing to save their flesh: And this way will make all the world conformable to you, that are under your power. 3. Or else they must be such as believe that nothing is sin which you or their Rulers shall command them (As all do, who believe that you are Gods, or above God, and consequently indeed that there is no God); Or that believe that God hath made men absolute Rulers of the peoples ⟨p. 223⟩Souls, and put Heaven and Hell into their power. Can you imagine how very many others should ever be exact Conformists to your imposing wills universally. If a few individuals should chance to be in all points of your judgments, indeed (which must be a rare case) it cannot be expected to be so with many, much less with all.

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And if your interest should lead you to debauch the people, and take away all fear of sinning, by forcing them on that which is so feared, you would find your own interest crossed at last: For it is the godly or the superstitious people that must long keep up your reverence and honour: We see by daily experience, that the Atheists and Infidels, and professedly impious ones, deride you behind your backs, and come very seldom to the public Assemblies. Your Assemblies are more made up of such as dislike your proceedings, than of these that are brought beyond all fear of sin or punishment.

And if your interest should lead you to debauch the people, and take away all fear of sinning, by forcing them on that which is so feared, you would find your own interest cross'd at last: For it is the godly or the superstitious people that must long keep up your reverence and honour: We see by daily experience, that the Atheists and Infidels, and professedly impious ones, deride you behind your backs, and come very seldom to the publick Assemblies. Your Assemblies are more made up of such as dislike your proceedings, than of these that are brought beyond all fear of sin or punishment.

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12. The Preachers whom you silence would do you less hurt in their permitted public Ministry, than they do now, or will do when you have done your worst.

12. The Preachers whom you silence would do you less hurt in their permitted publick Ministry, than they do now, or will do when you have done your worst.

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In public, 1. Your friends and multitudes of several sorts will be their hearers, and witness against them for every word that they say amiss. But in secret they may take more liberty to oppose your way, if they affect so doing. 2. Your kindness, and their own and the Churches interest, will more oblige them to forbear you when they have public liberty, than when you prosecute them as foes. 3. And the very Assemblies of men separated by expulsion and violence, doth seem to invite all the people to a sense of the cause thereof, which a liberty of such meetings without danger and unkindness would not do. 4. And if you keep them from Assemblies, they will make the deeper impressions on the people, in the families and secret converse which they use. 5. Or if you banish, imprison, or hang them, their sufferings will do far more against you, than all their preaching. I am assured that it is you that advance the reputation of many Nonconformists, and arm them thereby against your selves. The truth is, though they are commonly the most hearty, serious, feeling Preachers, yet some of them are weaker as to the congruity of expression, than the Debate▪maker, or the young Politician. But when the people see them true to their consciences, they value them much more than ⟨p. 224⟩they would have done if you had let them alone. Whether you like it or not, so it is, and so it will be. Therefore it is you that fight against your selves.

In publick, 1. Your friends and multitudes of several sorts will be their hearers, and witness against them for every word that they say amiss. But in secret they may take more liberty to oppose your way, if they affect so doing. 2. Your kindness, and their own and the Churches interest, will more oblige them to forbear you when they have publick liberty, than when you prosecute them as foes. 3. And the very Assemblies of men separated by expulsion and violence, doth seem to invite all the people to a sense of the cause thereof, which a liberty of such meetings without danger and unkindness would not do. 4. And if you keep them from Assemblies, they will make the deeper impressions on the people, in the families and secret converse which they use. 5. Or if you banish, imprison, or hang them, their sufferings will do far more against you, than all their preaching. I am assured that it is you that advance the reputation of many Nonconformists, and arm them thereby against your selves. The truth is, though they are commonly the most hearty, serious, feeling Preachers, yet some of them are weaker as to the congruity of expression, than the Debatemaker, or the young Politician. But when the people see them true to their consciences, they value them much more than

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13. You take the way to make your Church an unknown thing. None are to be reckoned for Christians and Church-members, but voluntary professors of it. Coacti non est consensus. And as Protestants tell the Papists, They may know who come within their Temples, but they never know who are members of their Church, because they know not who professeth voluntary consent, and who doth it involuntary by mere constraint. And so it may be said of others that go their way.

13. You take the way to make your Church an unknown thing. None are to be reckoned for Christians and Church-members, but voluntary professors of it. Coacti non est consensus. And as Protestants tell the Papists, They may know who come within their Temples, but they never know who are members of their Church, because they know not who professeth voluntary consent, and who doth it involuntary by meer constraint. And so it may be said of others that go their way.

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14. By the course fore-described, you will have a Church so corrupted, as will be a continual temptation to the most religious sort to distaste it, if not to separate from it. When men that fear sin are the suffering side; and fearlessness of sin, and a conscience that can do any thing, is full security from all those penalties, it is easy to foresee what sort of people you will make your friends, (who will do you more harm than good) and what sort will be more and more alienated from you. And then the zealous sort of Ministers and people will from age to age be the sharp reprehenders of your vices. And then that will increase your enmity against them! And what will this come to at last?

14. By the course fore-described, you will have a Church so corrupted, as will be a continual temptation to the most religious sort to distaste it, if not to separate from it. When men that fear sin are the suffering side; and fearlesness of sin, and a conscience that can do any thing, is full security from all those penalties, it is easie to foresee what sort of people you will make your friends, (who will do you more harm than good) and what sort will be more and more alienated from you. And then the zealous sort of Ministers and people will from age to age be the sharp reprehenders of your vices. And then that will encrease your enmity against them! And what will this come to at last?

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I will give you but two instances now to calm you. Gildas our ancient Britain, hath so characterized the British Clergy, even in those elder and less tempted times, that he doubteth not to call them Wolves and not Pastors; and plainly to profess, that he that took them for Ministers or Pastors, was not eximius. Christianus, one of the more excellent sort of Christians. What could a Separatist have said more of you? And yet you can praise Gildas (for it is not in your power to eclipse his glory) and not endure the same words from any one that is near you. The other is that oft mentioned instance of St. Martin, who would not come to their Synods, nor communicate at all with Ithacius, Idacius, and the rest of the Prelates of the Synods and Country about him, though of the very same belief, because by their cruel ungodly prosecution of the Priscillian Heretics, they had taught the world the way of violence in matters of Religion, and had made the strictest Religious people every where brought under the malignant suspicion ⟨p. 225⟩of being Priscillianists: so that having but once for the saving of a condemned mans life, communicated with the Bishops (being a Bishop himself) at the persuasion of the Emperor Maximus, he was, as he professeth, sharply rebuked for it by an Angel in a Vision, and would communicate with them no more. And what worse do the Separatists do by you, as to communion? And yet Sulpit. Severus tells you by what abundance of Miracles Martins credibility was confirmed.

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Hear a little of the story from your own Hooker, with his application, judg you to whom, I deny not but that our Antagonists in these controversies may per adventure have met with some, not unlike to Ithacius, who mightily bending himself by all means against the Heresy of Priscillian, (the hatred of which one evil was all the virtue he had) became so wise in the end, that every man careful of virtuous conversations, studious of Scripture, and given to any abstinence in diet, was set down in his Character for suspected Priscillianists: For whom it should be expedient to approve their soundness of faith, by a more licentious and loose behaviour: such Proctors and Patrons the truth may spare. Can you endure these words of Hooker? (too short a scrap of that notable history) and can you mark them, and learn by them to know your party, and to foresee the end, and perceive what service such do the Church? Nonconformists think that this is too like our present case.

Hear a little of the story from your own Hooker, with his application, judg you to whom, I deny not but that our Antagonists in these controversies may per adventure have met with some, not unlike to Ithacius, who mightily bending himself by all means against the Heresie of Priscillian, (the hatred of which one evil was all the virtue he had) became so wise in the end, that every man careful of virtuous conversations, studious of Scripture, and given to any abstinence in diet, was set down in his Character for suspected Priscillianists: For whom it should be expedient to approve their soundness of faith, by a more licentious and loose behaviour: such Proctors and Patrons the truth may spare. Can you endure these words of Hooker? (too short a scrap of that notable history) and can you mark them, and learn by them to know your party, and to foresee the end, and perceive what service such do the Church? Nonconformists think that this is too like our present case.

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15. Sword-severities, as coming from the instigations of the Clergy, do abundance more harm, than if they came from the Magistrate alone. Experience telleth us, that they have ever made the Clergy much more odious than the Magistrate: Because the Sword is the Magistrates weapon: And if he err in using it, it doth the less abate mens respect to his person, because it is but the misdoing of his proper work: Or if he drive men into hard thoughts of his person, it hath not much influence on the honour of Religion. But Ministers have nothing to do with the Sword: Their office is exercised by Gods Word alone, and that is the only weapon with which they are to strike offenders. And their office being only to govern by Light and Love, the people cannot bear that from them which they do from Magistrates: It seemeth a monstrous and horrible usurpation to them. And if the Clergy will play the hypocrites, as the Papists do, and say, We do not meddle with the Sword, but only deliver them up to the Secular ⟨p. 226⟩power to be punished, when they tell the Secular power that it is their duty, and drive them on to it, with the threats of Excommunication or Damnation: this will never reconcile the people to their cruelties. Of all beasts, they love not sheep that have bloody teeth and fangs; nor of all birds, a Dove, that liveth like the Hawks, on flesh.

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And when the Clergy are once made hateful to them, I have told you that the scandal tendeth to make them think hardly of their doctrine, and at least to run into some contrary extreme, if not to dislike Religion it self. I have seldom observed any extreme in Heretics or Schismatics, which was not notably caused by the Clergies contrary extreme. Antinomianism rose among us from our obscure Preaching of Evangelical Grace, and insisting too much on tears and terrors. Arminianism rose from mens profane abuse of the Doctrine of Election, saying, If I am elected, I shall be saved, whatever I do; and when God will give me grace, I shall have it; and till then, it is not in him that willeth or runneth. The Quakers arose from the pride and vanity of Religious people, from which they fled into the sordid extreme. And Separatists have almost always risen from the ignorance, ungodliness, the shameful disabilities, idle negligence, pride, covetousness, or cruelty of the Clergy. This is true, as the experience of all ages telleth us. The insufficient and naughty Clergy make Separatists. At this day the superstitious think they can scarce go too far from men that they account so ungodly, malignant and cruel: And the ungodly, and infidel, and cruel sort of men, do think they can scarce go too far from the superstitious. If you would read and learn of such reprovers, as Gildas, and Salvian, and Nazianzen, and Hilary, and Alvarus Pelagius Planct. Eccles. and Acontius, and such like, you need not have so many thousands flying from your Churches, as from an house on fire, or infected with the Plague; nor reporting your Crimes, as the Parliament-Centuries, or the Gloucester-Cobbler, or your groaning Ichabod have done.

And when the Clergy are once made hateful to them, I have told you that the scandal tendeth to make them think hardly of their doctrine, and at least to run into some contrary extream, if not to dislike Religion it self. I have seldom observed any extream in Hereticks or Schismaticks, which was not notably caused by the Clergies contrary extream. Antinomianism rose among us from our obscure Preaching of Evangelical Grace, and insisting too much on tears and terrors. Arminianism rose from mens prophane abuse of the Doctrine of Election, saying, If I am elected, I shall be saved, whatever I do; and when God will give me grace, I shall have it; and till then, it is not in him that willeth or runneth. The Quakers arose from the pride and vanity of Religious people, from which they fled into the fordid extream. And Separatists have almost always risen from the ignorance, ungodliness, the shameful disabilities, idle negligence, pride, covetousness, or cruelty of the Clergy. This is true, as the experience of all ages telleth us. The insufficient and naughty Clergy make Separatists. At this day the superstitious think they can scarce go too far from men that they account so ungodly, malignant and cruel: And the ungodly, and infidel, and cruel sort of men, do think they can scarce go too far from the superstitious. If you would read and learn of such reprovers, as Gildas, and Salvian, and Nazianzen, and Hilary, and Alvarus Pelagius Planct. Eccles. and Acontius, and such like, you need not have so many thousands flying from your Churches, as from an house on fire, or infected with the Plague; nor reporting your Crimes, as the Parliament-Centuries, or the Gloucester-Cobler, or your groaning Icabod have done.

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16. You should rather help to cure the prejudice that the world hath against the Clergy, as envious, selfish, and cruel, than increase it. The World already thinketh that the Clergy are so covetous, proud and envious, that they can endure no man that standeth in their light; but like the great dog that hath got the ⟨p. 227⟩carrion, snarl at every little dog that looketh at them, suspecting they come to take some from him: It is their common opinion, that the Clergy are the incendiaries and troublers of the world; And that the worst Princes left to themselves, are not half so cruel against the faithful Preachers and Practisers of Christianity, as the proud and covetous Clergy are. It is therefore your duty not to confirm the world in this opinion, by seeming as envious and cruel as others have been; but to cure it by love, and tenderness, and self-denial.

16. You should rather help to cure the prejudice that the world hath against the Clergy, as envious, selfish, and cruel, than encrease it. The World already thinketh that the Clergy are so covetous, proud and envious, that they can endure no man that standeth in their light; but like the great dog that hath got the ⟨p. 227⟩carrion, snarl at every little dog that looketh at them, suspecting they come to take some from him: It is their common opinion, that the Clergy are the incendiaries and troublers of the world; And that the worst Princes left to themselves, are not half so cruel against the faithful Preachers and Practisers of Christianity, as the proud and covetous Clergy are. It is therefore your duty not to confirm the world in this opinion, by seeming as envious and cruel as others have been; but to cure it by love, and tenderness, and self-denial.

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17. Have you ever considered and regarded, whether the Apostles ever took your course? You say your selves, that they had power to give men over to the Devil for Corporal punishment: And yet when did they ever do so▪by any but desperate Infidels, (as Elymas) or desperate Heretics, that denied fundamentals, as Alexander, Hymenaeus and Philetus? Or whom did they so much as threaten Church-sharpness to, else, unless it were such a proud domineering Bishop as Diotrephes, who would neither receive some brethren, nor permit others to do it, but cast them out of the Church, prating with malicious words against the Apostle. Paul blamed Mark, but did not silence him. He fell out with Barnabas to a parting, but did not hinder him from preaching the Gospel. He blameth Demas for forsaking him, and loving the world, and many more for forsaking him, when he appeared before Nero, and elsewhere, They all mind their own things, and not the things that are Jesus Christs: And yet he silenced none of them that preached the same Gospel which he did: He met with some Preachers so bad, that they Preached Christ of envy and strife, of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to his bonds: What then? Notwithstanding every way, whether in contention or in truth, Christ was preached, and he therein rejoiced, and resolved to rejoice, and not to silence them, Phil. 1. 15, 16, 17, 18. Some indeed that preached the Law, and, as it were, another Gospel, he saith must have their mouths stopped; but none that preached the same Gospel; nor they, by the Sword, but by the convincing Word. He that wrote as he did, Rom. 14. 15. was far from silencing Preachers for not using Ceremonies, or things called indifferent, or for not taking an Oath of obedience to himself. And will you prove wiser and better than the Apostles at the last?

17. Have you ever considered and regarded, whether the Apostles ever took your course? You say your selves, that they had power to give men over to the Devil for Corporal punishment: And yet when did they ever do so▪by any but desperate Infidels, (as Elymas) or desperate Hereticks, that denied fundamentals, as Alexander, Hymenaeus and Philetus? Or whom did they so much as threaten Church-sharpness to, else, unless it were such a proud domineering Bishop as Diotrephes, who would neither receive some brethren, nor permit others to do it, but cast them out of the Church, prating with malicious words against the Apostle. Paul blamed Mark, but did not silence him. He fell out with Barnabas to a parting, but did not hinder him from preaching the Gospel. He blameth Demas for forsaking him, and loving the world, and many more for forsaking him, when he appeared before Nero, and elsewhere, They all mind their own things, and not the things that are Jesus Christs: And yet he silenced none of them that preached the same Gospel which he did: He met with some Preachers so bad, that they Preached Christ of envy and strife, of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to his bonds: What then? Notwithstanding every way, whether in contention or in truth, Christ was preached, and he therein rejoyced, and resolved to rejoyce, and not to silence them,

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18. Methinks (as I said before) even selfishness should make you have some regard to your surviving names! Think not that your party shall be the Masters of fame: Think but on all history, whether those that suffered in their times, as the Martyrs, and such Bishops as Athanasius, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, &c. have not left a sweeter name to the Church, than those by whom they suffered! Whether the name of the Nonconformists, John Rogers, and his followers, and Bradford, Sanders, Glover, Hooper, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, &c. be not sweeter now than Gardiner's and Boners? And think on the nature of your cause and ours: When you have done your worst against Christs faithful Ministers, and sought to justify it by calling them Schismatics, posterity will enquire into the Merits of the Cause, and the Evidence of their words and yours: and their Writings at least will some of them survive when you have done your worst. And do you think that they who read such Works, as Amesius, Hildershams, Hierons, Baynes, Balls, &c. of old, and as Gatakers, Vines, Anthony Burgesses, Allen's, &c. of late, will believe that they were Schismatics, or unworthy to preach repentance and faith in Christ? I have written so much against Schism my self, as that I defy malignity it self, to make posterity believe me a Schismatic. When they peruse the Declarations, Subscriptions, Oaths, and actions which we refuse, and weigh our reasons, they will judge otherwise than interest, and partiality, and malice will do at the present. The next Sulpitius will describe us liker Martin than you, and the Fanatics like the Priscillianists, and too many of your selves like Ithacius and Idacius, and their Synods of Bishops; which you may easily foresee when your Hooker himself in his Preface doth it by some Conformists already.

18. Methinks (as I said before) even selfishness should make you have some regard to your surviving names! Think not that your party shall be the Masters of fame: Think but on all history, whether those that suffered in their times, as the Martyrs, and such Bishops as Athanasius, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, &c. have not left a sweeter name to the Church, than those by whom they suffered! Whether the name of the Nonconformists, John Rogers, and his followers, and Bradford, Sanders, Glover, Hooper, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, &c. be not sweeter now than Gardiners and Bonners? And think on the nature of your cause and ours: When you have done your worst against Christs faithful Ministers, and sought to justifie it by calling them Schismaticks, posterity will enquire into the Merits of the Cause, and the Evidence of their words and yours: and their Writings at least will some of them survive when you have done your worst. And do you think that they who read such Works, as Amesius, Hildershams, Hierons, Baynes, Balls, &c. of old, and as Gatakers, Vines, Anthony Burgesses, Allens, &c. of late, will believe that they were Schismaticks, or unworthy to preach repentance and faith in Christ? I have written so much against Schism my self, as that I defie malignity it self, to make posterity believe me a Schismatick. When they peruse the Declarations, Subscriptions, Oaths, and actions which we refuse, and weigh our reasons, they will judge otherwise than interest, and partiality, and malice will do at the present. The next Sulpitius will describe us liker Martin than you, and the Fanaticks like the Priscillianists, and too many of your selves like Ithacius and Idacius, and their Synods of Bishops; which you may easily foresee when your Hooker himself in his Preface doth it by some Conformists already.

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19. You take so notorious a way to tempt the people to their present suspicions of your over-much kindness to Popery, as that charity to them obligeth you to help to cure them of that uncharitable suspicion of you. And, I confess, if I would have liberty for any one sect my self, I would counsel and persuade men to take away the liberty of Religion from as great, and worthy, and considerable a part of the Ministers and People as I could, that the cry for changes and liberty might be so great, that others may be let in with them, as if it were to gratify them. But it is our comfort that we have a King and Parliament, whose averseness to ⟨p. 229⟩Popery, and their Law against all such surmises, doth put them out of the peoples suspicions! And I think you should do no less, but more than any others, to avert all unjust suspicions from your selves.

19. You take so notorious a way to tempt the people to their present suspicions of your over-much kindness to Popery, as that charity to them obligeth you to help to cure them of that uncharitable suspicion of you. And, I confess, if I would have liberty for any one sect my self, I would counsel and perswade men to take away the liberty of Religion from as great, and worthy, and considerable a part of the Ministers and People as I could, that the cry for changes and liberty might be so great, that others may be let in with them, as if it were to gratifie them. But it is our comfort that we have a King and Parliament, whose aversness to ⟨p. 229⟩Popery, and their Law against all such surmises, doth put them out of the peoples suspicions! And I think you should do no less, but more than any others, to avert all unjust suspicions from your selves.

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20. Is it possible that any partiality, interest or passion can make you think, either that the people of England need not as much Teaching, and Exhortation, and Ministerial help, to bring them to Repentance and Salvation, as all the qualified Ministers in the Land together are able to afford them? or that God may not bless the labours of such men as Burges, Allen, Norman, and hundreds more that now are silenced, to the conversion of many hundred or thousand sinners, unto Repentance and a holy life? And if you cannot, or dare not deny this, have you considered whether your reasons for silencing them be so weighty, as will countervail the salvation of so many Souls, and will comfort and excuse you at the bar of God? And whether then you can justify your selves by saying, Lord, though so many Souls persisted in sin, and are damned, that might have been saved by the Ministry of these learned, grave and godly Preachers; yet the good which we obtained by their silencing, and all their other sufferings, was greater than so many mens salvation would have amounted to.

20. Is it possible that any partiality, interest or passion can make you think, either that the people of England need not as much Teaching, and Exhortation, and Ministerial help, to bring them to Repentance and Salvation, as all the qualified Ministers in the Land together are able to afford them? or that God may not bless the labours of such men as Burges, Allen, Norman, and hundreds more that now are silenced, to the conversion of many hundred or thousand sinners, unto Repentance and a holy life? And if you cannot, or dare not deny this, have you considered whether your reasons for silencing them be so weighty, as will countervail the salvation of so many Souls, and will comfort and excuse you at the bar of God? And whether then you can justifie your selves by saying, Lord, though so many Souls persisted in sin, and are damned, that might have been saved by the Ministry of these learned, grave and godly Preachers; yet the good which we obtained by their silencing, and all their other sufferings, was greater than so many mens salvation would have amounted to.

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And if deliberately you will venture on such a cause your selves, what would you wish the silenced Ministers to do? You say it is our duty to forbear preaching when we are forbidden. But what if it prove otherwise, and that we must be judged as sacrilegious for alienating consecrated persons from Gods work? and as guilty of the blood of all those souls that have perished by our silence and neglect? What say you? Will you undertake to justify us, and answer for us, and bear all the divine displeasure your selves which shall fall upon us for our obeying your silencing commands? Are you willing to run all that danger for us? But why do I ask you such a question, when your undertaking would but show your greater obdurateness, and neither save us nor your selves?

And if deliberately you will venture on such a cause your selves, what would you wish the silenced Ministers to do? You say it is our duty to forbear preaching when we are forbidden. But what if it prove otherwise, and that we must be judged as sacrilegious for alienating consecrated persons from Gods work? and as guilty of the blood of all those souls that have perished by our silence and neglect? What say you? Will you undertake to justifie us, and answer for us, and bear all the divine displeasure your selves which shall fall upon us for our obeying your silencing commands? Are you willing to run all that danger for us? But why do I ask you such a question, when your undertaking would but shew your greater obdurateness, and neither save us nor your selves?

Reformers309

Puritans1,782

Westminster Assembly24

Evangelicals36