A26911:305
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 26
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. Your third saith, The Book must rather (if either) be a part of the Act, because it is subjoined. Would you by this rate of Argument convince us? Is the Book part of the Preface, or Contents, or Index, if these go first? Is the House part of the Porch, or the Porch part of the House? ⟨p. 87⟩Is the Body part of the Head? or the Kingdom part of the King? or the Family part of the Porter?
But you say, It is absurd to say that the thing to which the Appendix is annexed, is part of the Appendix. It is so; therefore say not so your self. But is not the Appendix part of the Book? And doth the Acts, being placed first, make it no Appendix? And were it put in the end, were it not the same thing?
§ 3. Your Fourth is no better, viz. [The Old Act of Uniformity is a declared part of the Contents, and bound up with the Book; and if this be part, we must subscribe contradictions, to use two Common-Prayer-Books.
Ans. Is that old Act, the old Book? Is subscribing to that Act, subscribing to the old Book? Why obtrude you on us such things unproved? 2. Do you not know that the New Act not only confirmeth the Old, but also altereth the sense of it, and tells you that henceforth it shall be understood, as meaning this New Book? And as Bishop Taylor truly tells you, Laws are not the Laws of the dead, but of the living, who therefore give them what sense they please. And yet shall so sober a man tell us, That subscribing the Old Act, is subscribing the Old Book? I begin to be weary answering such reasonings as these.