A26901:124
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.
25. You little know what a pernicious design the Devil hath upon you, in persuading you to desire and endeavour to pull down the Interest of Christ and Religion, which is upheld in the Parish Churches of the Land; and to think that it is best to bring them as low in reality or reputation as you can, and to contract the Religious Interest all into private meetings: By which means, 1. The privacy shall keep it under obloquy, suspicion, and contempt: 2. And shall level the sound with all the rotten Sects in their reputation: 3. And shall leave them no security in Law for their continuance an hour: 4. And shall keep them still under the censures, discountenance ⟨p. 32⟩and dangers of the Law. 5. And young rash intemperate spirits among your selves, will be continual endangerers of your liberties. 6. Or a malicious enemy may at any time put on the visor of a friend, and come among you and act a furious part, to make you odious and overthrow you: 7. And few of the young, the ignorant or licentious sorts will be your Auditors; And how will the work of Repentance then be carried on by you? The most will go to the public Churches, when you have done the most against it you can. 8. And when the present generation of Non-conformists are dead, do you think it likely that so many will survive them of their mind, as are sufficient without the public assemblies to keep up the Christian and Protestant Religion in the Land? You are ignorant if you think it probable. I know that God can do what he will; But his Promise is the measuring object of our faith: And I think he hath promised no such thing. And I have long feared lest twenty years wilful contentions, wantonness, &c. will not be punished with a short rebuke. If you know how great a number was silenced in King James his time, and yet that in 1640 there were not found near half so many Non conformable Ministers as are Counties in England, you may think it is possible it may be so again. And would you have but one Minister in a County or two, to keep up all the Interest of Religion? I am not without hope that God will make men so wise as to unite us, before such a day: But of that we have no certainty. 9. Yea, could you wish at this day that the Christian and Protestant Religion were kept up by none but the unconformable Ministers in private?
25. You little know what a pernicious design the Devil hath upon you, in perswading you to desire and endeavour to pull down the Interest of Christ and Religion, which is upheld in the Parish Churches of the Land; and to think that it is best to bring them as low in reality or reputation as you can, and to contract the Religious Interest all into private meetings: By which means, 1. The privacy shall keep it under obloquy, suspicion, and contempt: 2. And shall level the sound with all the rotten Sects in their reputation: 3. And shall leave them no security in Law for their continuance an hour: 4. And shall keep them still under the censures, discountenance