A27014:119
Sacrilegious desertion of the holy ministry rebuked, and tolerated preaching of the gospel vindicated,…Sacrilegious desertion of the holy ministery rebuked, and tolerated preaching of the gospel vindicated,…
Sacrilegious desertion of the holy ministry rebuked, and tolerated preaching of the gospel vindicated, against the reasonings of a confident questionist, in a book called Toleration not abused; with counsel to the nonconformists, and petition to the pious conformists / by one that is consecrated to the sacred ministry, and is resolved not to be a deserter of it ...Sacrilegious desertion of the holy ministery rebuked, and tolerated preaching of the gospel vindicated, against the reasonings of a confident questionist, in a book called Toleration not abused; with counsil to the nonconformists, and petition to the pious conformists / by one that is consecrated to the sacred ministry, and is resolved not to be a deserter of it ...
London : s.n., 1672
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.
Sect. 4. He addeth [Consider I beseech you, how like to Independent-Ape• your new Congregations will make you look, &c.]
Answ. That is to say, Come Nonconformists, if you will not be beaten from your Masters work, we will try whether we can scoff and scorn you out of it; if that will not do, we will pretend Christs Name and Authority as forbidding you. For as Christ, Matth. 4. so you must encounter a three-fold temptation. But we take pleasure in infirmities, and can bear to be made as the off-scouring of all things, remembering who was clothed in Purple, and then mocked as being like a King. If you will take my Spoon and Knife from me, and then say that I eat like an Ape or a Beast, I will not be so prated and fooled out of my meat. If with Diogenes I had cast away my Dish to use my bare hands, or forsaken my House to live in a Tub, I had deserved your derision; but if you take my house & all my goods from me, you shall not mock me out of my poor Tub also; We would avoid all appearance of evil; But only in things indifferent, we will not ⟨p. 54⟩cease Christianity preaching or praying, when you can make it by your Artifice appear like evil: Let's hear the instances.
Answ. That is to say, Come Nonconformists, if you will not be beaten from your Masters work, we will try whether we can scoff and scorn you out of it; if that will not do, we will pretend Christs Name and Authority as forbiding you. For as Christ,