A26975:522
Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied…
Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied to England / written by Richard Baxter for promoting peace ... and for the fuller explication of the Treaty for Concord in 1660 and 1661, and of the Kings gracious declaration about ecclesiastical affairs ... and for further explication of his treatise of episcopacy ...
London: printed by T. Snowden for Thomas Parkhurst, 1691
Chapter 15: The Case of Toleration of Dissenters from the Common Laws and Customs of a National Chu…
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.
§ 18. Obj. But such Toleration will multiply Separatists, and weaken the Church: They will be still reproaching it.
Ans. Persecution will not make them of your mind, but do more mischief, and you will not know where to stop, till Cruelty have made you odious to Humanity. And it will not make them fear you more than God: And if it did, that's but a sad Conversion.
2. Your excelling them in Piety, and worth and works, will do more than s•o• to silence Reproachers.
3. If the sober Godly Conformists and Dissenting Ministers were once united, then sober understanding Laity would follow them; and so strengthen them, that the Tolerated, though pious and zealous in their way, would dwindle away in a little time as full experience hath proved in this Land. It would not be the Many that would choose a Life of unmaintained poverty, and censure: Their worth, labour, reputation, […] the Magistrates countenance would make the united so strong, that the rest (though loved and tolerated) would wither away.