A26965:126
The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things…
The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood written to reconcile and pacify such as by mistaking them hinder love and concord / by Richard Baxter.The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood written to reconcile and pacifie such as by mistaking them hinder love and concord / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Benj. Alsop, 1679
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.
And so doth the judgment and practice of Christ's Church, for many hundred years; which is so fully proved by Blondell, de jure plebis, and confessed by the Papists themselves, and so express in all antiquity, that we need not add the proof. Therefore no power may change this Law of Nature, and of Christ; nor can they by any Law, Mandate, Choice, Ordination, Institution, Imposition, or other act, make any man a real Pastor to that People that consent not to the relation. Nor are they any true particular Churches, where Pastor and People do not consent. No more than the relation of Husband and Wife, Master and Servant, Tutor and Scholars, can be without consent.
XXII. Christ and his Spirit have commanded his Ministers to preach the Word, to be instant in season and out of season; to reprove, rebuke and exhort, 2 Tim. 4. 1, 2. And having put their hand to Christ's Plough, not to look back; and none hath power to alter this Law of Christ, or to suspend it. His Ministers by his Authority preached against the will of Princes for above three hundred years; and since then against the wills of erroneous Princes who professed Christianity.
XXIII. If Church-History be not to be believed, the pleas thence used for Prelacy must cease: If it be to be believed, God hath wrought miracles to justify those that would not cease Preaching, when Princes, yea Christian-Princes, have forbidden them: And the Church hath ⟨p. 27⟩honoured their fidelity herein: The case of Athanasius, Basil, Meletius, and abundance more, evince the later: And for the former, we will now instance but in the case of the Bishops of Africa, whose tongues were cut out by the King's command; and they spake freely by miracle after they were cut out; as is testified by Aeneas Gaze, and by Victor Uticensis, who saw and spake with, and heard the persons when this miracle was wrought upon them; and by Procopius.