A27035:417
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. 9. He adds, [And one or other of these he thinks must, if not all the parochial Churches in England fall under.] Answ. I read these words of the Dr. to a Papist, [To speak mildly, this is a gross untruth.] Therefore I hope it were no Rage for me to have said the like. How doth he prove it? Nay in the place cited by him I not only profest the contrary, but gave the Reason, p. 65. [Because I judge of their Office by Gods Word, and not by the Rule which deprives them of an essential Part.] And 1. He citeth my confession that those that I hear preach well (and therefore are not uncapable men.) 2. That their Ordination hath all essentially necessary, and all the worthy men that I know have the communicants of the Parishes consent, though not Election, and therefore are called, 3. And many of them (as he) thinks they have all essential to the Office and disown it not, though I think others deny it them, where there is the truth of what he saith.
Sect. 10. p. 120. Because my practice disproveth him, he finds out a Subtlety, that I join not with the Parish Churches as true Churches, but only as Chapels or Oratories—he accounts not our parochial Churches as true Churches, nor doth communicate with them as such—a Subtlety beyond the reach of the old Brownists. Answ. Deliberately to print such untruths seems tolerable in him, but to say they are such would seem passion in me, and what other answer are they capable of?—What I expressly say of the three forementioned excepted sorts, he feigneth me to say of all or most of the ⟨p. 81⟩Parish Churches; and yet dare not deny the truth of any one of the Exceptions. 1. Do not all those men take the Parishes for no proper political Churches, but only for Parts of the Diocesan Church, such as we call Curates Chapels, who say that a Bishop is a constitutive Part of a true political Church and entereth the Definition, and that it's no Church that hath no Bishop, and that Diocesan Churches are the lowest political. And do I need to tell him how considerable these men are among them. 2. Doth he himself take any one of these for a true political Church? When I was young, divers Laymen by turns were our public Reading Teachers: Among the rest one was after proved to counterfeit Orders. This mans acts were no nullities to us that knew it not: but when we knew of such must we take them for true Pastors, and it for a true Church?