A26975:6
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
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.
THE EPISTLE TO THE READER.
Reader,
THIS short Discourse cometh not from the expectation of pleasing any of the Extremes, the Tyrannical or the Confounders. And therefore in a Time and Country where those that escape Extremes are few, it must expect but the private approbation of those few. But those few and their Cause, are so considerable, as that if God mean not to forsake the Land, they may yet become the Agents and stamina of a happy concordant Reformation. Of which in the appearance of Second Causes, there is yet no great prospect, nor like to be, unless God cause the Supreme Power, by Wisdom and Righteousness, or by ⟨image 3⟩their own constraining Interest and Necessity, to drive the Worldly Unpeaceable Sort, to obey Healing Precepts for their own Advantage, contrary to their Temptations and Inclinations. If such a day come when I am dead, these Principles will be of use. They are not lately taken up by me, as you may see in my Five Disputations of Church Government, &c. in my Treatise of Episcopacy, Nonconformity stated, &c. and in our frustrated Treaty for Concord 1660, 1661.
THIS short Discourse cometh not from the expectation of pleasing any of the Extremes, the Tyrannical or the Confounders. And therefore in a Time and Countrey where those that escape Extremes are few, it must expect but the private approbation of those few. But those few and their Cause, are so considerable, as that if God mean not to forsake the Land, they may yet become the Agents and stamina of a happy concordant Reformation. Of which in the appearance of Second Causes, there is yet no great prospect, nor like to be, unless God cause the Supreme Power, by Wisdom and Righteousness, or by