A26871:55
Cain and Abel malignity that is, enmity to serious godliness, that is, to an…
Cain and Abel malignity that is, enmity to serious godliness, that is, to an holy and heavenly state of heart and life : lamented, described, detected, and unanswerably [sic] proved to be the devilish nature, and the militia of the devil against God and Christ and the church and kingdoms, and the surest sign of a state of damnation / by Richard Baxter, or, Gildas Salvianus ...Cain and Abel malignity that is, enmity to serious godliness, that is, to an holy and heavenly state of heart and life : lamented, described, detected, and unananswerably [sic] proved to be the devilish nature, and the militia of the devil against God and Christ and the church and kingdoms, and the surest sign of a state of damnation / by Richard Baxter, or, Gildas Salvianus ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1689
Chapter 1: A Lamentation for the case of the Deluded, Malignant, Militant World.
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.
If any would come down to confine these universal Laws only to Things Indifferent, alas, must the world be confounded and divided about things indifferent? Are not things indifferent variable as Countries and Ages are? And must the world have one Sovereignty to make Laws for them? Cannot we have Life, Liberty, Peace and Love without things indifferent? Or without agreeing in ⟨p. 29⟩them. Are there any two in the whole world, that are not ignorant, and that differ not about many greater matters than things indifferent? Doth he know himself, or know what a man is, that thinks all tolerated Christians must be so Skilled in all things indifferent, which men may impose, as to know them to be such? When it is so hard to teach the people things necessary, few and plain? Alas, Lord, why must the Churches be left in such hands?
If any would come down to confine these universal Laws only to Things Indifferent, alas, must the world be confounded and divided about things indifferent? Are not things indifferent variable as Countreys and Ages are? And must the world have one Soveraignty to make Laws for them? Cannot we have Life, Liberty, Peace and Love without things indifferent? Or without agreeing in ⟨p. 29⟩them. Are there any two in the whole world, that are not ignorant, and that differ not about many greater matters than things indifferent? Doth he know himself, or know what a man is, that thinks all tolerated Christians must be so Skill'd in all things indifferent, which men may impose, as to know them to be such? When it is so hard to teach the people things necessary, few and plain? Alas, Lord, why must the Churches be left in such hands?
§ 9. But some have found out another remedy for our divisions; and that is, That only the Bishops shall be engaged to a Foreign Jurisdiction, or profess the necessity of obeying them, (under the name of a General Council, and in the intervals, of a College of the Bishops of the whole world, as one Aristocracy;) And that this shall not be imposed on any Lay-Communicants, but their Consciences shall be left at liberty; Nor at the first on the inferior Clergy, till they are prepared to receive it: But only that the People obey the Priests and Prelates, and the Priests obey the Prelates and all their Governing Officers, and the Prelates only profess obedience to the Praetorian Court called, The Catholic Church. Bishop Gunnings Chaplain tells us that the Laity are not required in order to Communion to declare for General Councils. Whether they use the like Moderation in France, Spain, Germany, I