A26901:122
The church told of Mr. Ed. Bagshaw's scandals and warned of the dangerous snares…
The church told of Mr. Ed. Bagshaw's scandals and warned of the dangerous snares of Satan now laid for them in his love-killing principles with a farther proof that it is our common duty to keep up the interest of the Christian religion and Protestant cause in the parish churches, and not to imprison them by a confinement to tolerated meetings alone / by Richard Baxter ...
London : s.n., 1672
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.
23. And all this will tend to disable the Ministers of Christ, both conformable and non-conformable, from doing any good, and winning any souls to true repentance. When the Conformable Preachers should do good, the people will be taught by you to shun them, or despise them as Idolaters: When the Non-conformists should do any good, they will be taught by your practice and other ⟨p. 31⟩mens calumny, to turn away from them, as such as afore described. And then how much hath Satan gained? I know another sort of men are at least as deeply guilty of all these consequents, as you: But that is no excuse of yours. And though it must be that offence come, yet woe to them by whom it cometh.
23. And all this will tend to disable the Ministers of Christ, both conformable and non-conformable, from doing any good, and winning any souls to true repentance. When the Conformable Preachers should do good, the people will be taught by you to shun them, or despise them as Idolaters: When the Non-conformists should do any good, they will be taught by your practice and other ⟨p. 31⟩mens calumny, to turn away from them, as such as afore described. And then how much hath Satan gained? I know another sort of men are at least as deeply guilty of all these consequents, as you: But that is no excuse of yours. And though it must be that offence come, yet wo to them by whom it cometh.
24. And indeed it would be a heinous aggravation of your sin, if you should defy Gods Providence, and the large and lamentable experience of the mischiefs of Love-killing dividing-principles and ways. This spirit and way was of old blasted in England and Holland; It troubled New-England; It injured the Non conformists, and put them to write many books against it (more than the Conformists did.) The books of Mr. Perry (Martin Mar-Prelate) full of jeers and scorn, were unsavoury to all sober men; and his death the more dishonourable. Scotland kept them out thence by Discipline. In our late Wars, Martin-Mar-priest (Overton, as was thought, with Prince, Lilburn, &c.) quite exceeded Martin-Mar-Prelate, and the Ministers were more scorned than ever were the Bishops: Seekers, Quakers, and Ranters, have all been generated (for the most part) by the foresaid Separating Principles and Spirit. I will tell you no more now, what effects it then had on the Churches and Kingdom, nor what it hath brought on themselves and us. But reason should tell it you; and I will tell you, that now, even now, to run violently further into the same fire which first burnt up so much of our Concord, peace, and glory, and turned us into ashes, and then burnt up the men that kindled it, and is not quenched to this day, nor like to be in haste; I say to blow this fire still, and run into it, and back-bite even Non-conformable Ministers themselves, that would but dissuade you, and desire you to quench it, will be an obdurateness so like to Pharaoh's, as may be a doleful prognostic to the guilty, if not to all the Land.