A26911:157
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 18
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.
§ 3. And God's Prohibition, Deut. 12. of adding or diminishing, is not washed away so easily as your words would make Men believe. You say, It reacheth to the whole Duty of Man, and Government of the Church, &c. Ans. There be some things in the Duty of Man and Church-Matters, that God hath left to Man: To do those is no addition to God's Laws: But to do the like work that God by his Law hath done, which he never left to Man, seemeth to me the Addition there forbidden: e.g. If Men had made another Tabernacle, another Ark of the Covenant, another holy Vestment for Aaron, another Sacrament like Circumcision, or the Passover; he that so reproved their worshipping in the High Places, would have reproved these.
§ 3. And God's Prohibition, Deut. 12. of adding or diminishing, is not washt away so easily as your words would make Men believe. You say, It reacheth to the whole Duty of Man, and Government of the Church, &c. Ans. There be some things in the Duty of Man and Church-Matters, that God hath left to Man: To do those is no addition to God's Laws: But to do the like work that God by his Law hath done, which he never left to Man, seemeth to me the Addition there forbidden: e.g. If Men had made another Tabernacle, another Ark of the Covenant, another holy Vestment for Aaron, another Sacrament like Circumcision, or the Passeover; he that so reproved their worshiping in the High Places, would have reproved these.
§ 4. But the sum of your defence is ad Hominem to my self, for granting the lawfulness of humane private professing Signs, and of the Cross as such: It's strange to me, that you that are so judicious, can discern no more difference between, 1. Private and public Church-actions. And, 2. Between a bare professing Sign in genere, and a Sacramental Covenanting-dedicating Symbolical Sign in specie.
§ 4. But the sum of your defence is ad Hominem to my self, for granting the lawfulness of humane private professing Signs, and of the Cross as such: It's strange to me, that you that are so judicious, can discern no more difference between, 1. Private and publick Church-actions. And, 2. Between a bare professing Sign in genere, and a Sacramental Covenanting-dedicating Symbolical Sign in specie.