A27050:70
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort…
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiors, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiours, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 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.
But now I dare be no longer silent for the Reasons given Apol. ch. 1. which I will stay the R••der b•ie•y to sum up. 1. I find that experience it self doth not Teach some men, but Harden them.
But now I dare be no longer silent for the Reasons given Apol. ch. 1. which I will •tay the R••der b•ie•y to sum up. 1. I find that experience it self doth not Teach some men, but Harden them.
2. I perceive that those that are now convinced by experience, and wish they had taken another course, and rather have united the Ministry, than silenced them, are not able to undo what they have done, nor to amend what is done amiss, much less to retrieve all the doleful consequents; but the matter is gone out of their hands and beyond their power.
3. I see that while we wait, the Devil's work goeth on, by the silence and by the Divisions of the Ministers: Popery greatly increaseth; Quakers multiply; Atheism and Infidelity▪ go ba•e▪ faced among those that are accounted men of reputation: Malice, and bitter hatred of each other, with common backbitings, censurings and slanders, instead of sweet Love and Concord, do notoriously increase. Thousands are every day committing these sins, to the increase of their guilt, and the hastening of Gods judgments on the Land: The sufferers call the Prelates persecutors, and wolves in sheeps clothings, who are known by their fruits, their teeth and laws. The Prelatists still say that the Nonconformists are unreasonable, discontented, peevish, factious, unpeaceable, unruly schismatics; that will rather see all confounded than they will yield to things indifferent. And shall we still stand by, and silently see this work go on?