A27035:409
A second true defence of the mere nonconformists against the untrue accusations, reasonings, and…A second true defence of the meer nonconformists against the untrue accusations, reasonings, and…
A second true defence of the mere nonconformists against the untrue accusations, reasonings, and history of Dr. Edward Stillingfleet ... clearly proving that it is (not sin but) duty 1. not wilfully to commit the many sins of conformity, 2. not sacrilegiously to forsake the preaching of the Gospel, 3. not to cease public worshipping of God, 4. to use needful pastoral helps for salvation ... / written by Richard Baxter ... ; with some notes on Mr. Joseph Glanviles Zealous and impartial Protestant, and Dr. L. Moulins character.A second true defence of the meer nonconformists against the untrue accusations, reasonings, and history of Dr. Edward Stillingfleet ... clearly proving that it is (not sin but) duty 1. not wilfully to commit the many sins of conformity, 2. not sacrilegiously to forsake the preaching of the Gospel, 3. not to cease publick worshipping of God, 4. to use needful pastoral helps for salvation ... / written by Richard Baxter ... ; with some notes on Mr. Joseph Glanviles Zealous and impartial Protestant, and Dr. L. Moulins character.
London: printed for Nevil Simons, 1681
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. 2. To his Questions Pag. 3. [Were we not Baptized into this Church, and do you not Renounce Membership? This is scarce a civility. I answer, 1. This Church! which Church do you mean? I was not Baptized into St. Giles's nor St. Andrew's Parish Church, but into one above an hundred miles off, and yet my removal made me no culpable Separatist. Or doth he mean, This Diocesan Church? No; I was Baptized in the Diocese of Lichfield. Doth he mean This National Church; as it is supposed a political body constituted of the Ecclesiastical Governing and Governed ⟨p. 78⟩Parts, he saith there is no such Church of England; but that It inferreth Popery to assert such. But if he equivocate here, and mean not by a Church as in the rest, but either a christian Kingdom, or an agreeing Association of many Churches, I am still a fixed member of such a Kingdom, and of such an Association in all things necessary to Churches and Christian Communion. 2. But Baptism as such entered me only into the Universal Church; much less did it fix me in any other. I was Baptized where I was to stay but a little while. And this phrase of [being Baptized into our Church,] is to me of ill sound or intimation. Bellarmine saith that all that are baptized are interpretatively thereby engaged to the Pope: I was baptized in a Parish, and in a Diocese and in a Christian Kingdom; but not so into them, as to be obliged to continue under that Priest or Bishop or in that Kingdom. And my Baptism I hope did not oblige me to every Canon, Ceremony, Form, or Sin of the associated Churches in England, abusively by him called one Church. 3. And unhappily it is not mere Independency that he is still pleading for, but some extremes which the moderate Independents disclaim, viz. That a member of their Churches is so tied to them, that they may not remove to another without their consent. And am I so tied? to what, to Parochial, or to the Diocesan, or to the association of English Churches. If it had been to the Species, I would fain know whether their things called by them Indifferents specify them.
Sect. 2. To his Questions Pag. 3. [Were we not Baptized into this Church, and do you not Renounce Membership? This is scarce a civility. I answer, 1. This Church! which Church do you mean? I was not Baptized into St. Giles's nor St. Andrew's Parish Church, but into one above an hundred miles off, and yet my removal made me no culpable Separatist. Or doth he mean, This Diocesan Church? No; I was Baptized in the Diocess of Lichfield. Doth he mean This National Church; as it is supposed a political body constituted of the Ecclesiastical Governing and Governed