A26911:118
The defence of the nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of the matter…
The defence of the nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of the matter of their nonconformity against Mr. J. Cheney's answer called The conforming nonconformist, and The nonconforming conformist : to which is added the second part in answer to Mr. Cheney's Five undertakings / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Benjamin Alsop, 1680
A DEFENCE OF THE NON-CONFORMIST'S Plea for Peace, AGAINST Mr. J. CH… › Chapter 16
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. Alas, how little know you what the Conformity is which you defend? 1. Are not all Ministers to subscribe to Administer the Sacraments in no other Form than the Liturgy? Canon 36. 2. Doth not the Liturgy make the God-Fathers Office necessary? and a great part of the Baptismal Office is the Ministers Speech to them and their Answer, and the Charge laid on them. Can you say all these words if no Sponsor be there? Or can you have such Answers? 3. Doth not the Church Command that no Parent be God-Father to his own Child, and no Questions or Answers be used but the words of the Liturgy? 4. And did you ever know a Child Baptized without any Sponsor? You rightly call your self The Non-conforming Conformist; for you plead for it and against it, in the same Lines? Your contradiction meeteth through all your Book.
§ 9. You add, [If it be lawful to violate a Divine Command to save the life of a Beast (the Sabbath) sure it is lawful to violate a Humane Rule, or Order, rather than cast Infants out of the Church, and deny them Christian Baptism.] Ans. It is so: And therefore it is unlawful to Consent ⟨p. 31⟩to that which I must not do, and to Covenant to use that which I must not use. If I must not obey it, I must not Covenant to obey it.
But perhaps you mean that the Law-makers intended, that in such cases the Ministers have leave to violate it, and admit Men to the Communion that will not have God-Fathers, for God intended such liberty in his Law.