A26911:215
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 20
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.
2. Nay, could all our importunity with the Bishops, have prevailed but for a Power in the Parish Minister, (for Pastor they would not have been called) to suspend his own Act, and not give, or deny the Sacrament against his knowledge and ⟨p. 60⟩Conscience, I should not have said much against Diocesans, nor any reasonable Appeals to them. But I will tell you what I take our Case to be, after my long enquiry.
2. Nay, could all our importunity with the Bishops, have prevailed but for a Power in the Parish Minister, (for Pastor they would not have been called) to suspend his own Act, and not give, or deny the Sacrament against his knowledg and ⟨p. 60⟩Conscience, I should not have said much against Diocesans, nor any reasonable Appeals to them. But I will tell you what I take our Case to be, after my long enquiry.
I. The great Parishes that have many score thousand Souls, are such as the Priest (or Incumbent, I may call him) knoweth not one of a multitude of his Parishioners. (And Bishop Taylor of Repentance Pref. saith, A man cannot take charge of, or answer for the Souls that he knoweth not.) And though fame say, That in such a Parish there are multitudes of Atheists, Infidels, Hobbists, Brutists, Socinians, Drunkards, Whoremongers, Perjured, &c. while they are almost all strangers to the Minister, he can deny the Sacrament to none of them pro tempore. And how can the Incumbent know in such Parishes what they are?
II. If he know a man to be a Papist, if he be a Church-Papist, or have a dispensation, he cannot on that account deny him the Sacrament. Yea, Dr. Heylin in the Life of Arch-Bishop Laud, maketh it his commendable design to have drawn the Papists into our Churches, (as they were, say some others, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign; and this, say they, is to be a Queen Elizabeth Protestant, to be one that will communicate with the Papists in our Liturgy.) But many good Ministers dare not give the Sacrament to a Papist, till he repent and renounce the Papal Universal Government, and their grossest corruptions.