A27058:494
The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended…
The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended vindicator of the primitive church, but indeed of the tympanite & tyranny of some prelates many hundred years after Christ, with a detection of the false history of Edward Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland ... and a preface abbreviating much of Ludolphus's History of Habassta : written to show their dangerous error, who think that a general council, or college of bishops, is a supreme governor of all the Christian world ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; to which is added by another hand, a defence of a book, entitled, No evidence for diocesan churches ...The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended vindicator of the primitive church, but indeed of the tympanite & tyranny of some prelates many hundred years after Christ, with a detection of the false history of Edward Lord Bishop of Corke and Rosse in Ireland ... and a preface abbreviating much of Ludolphus's History of Habassta : written to shew their dangerous errour, who think that a general council, or colledge of bishops, is a supream governour of all the Christian world ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; to which is added by another hand, a defence of a book, entituled, No evidence for diocesan churches ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1682
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.
§ 2. Dr. Burnet is a man whom I much value and honour, and pleadeth much for peace and moderation, and therefore much the more amiable to me: I thank him for his reproof of me to my face; but because he goeth on to vend it as just behind my back, where I cannot answer him, I must do it here. He saith that [I began and that with unchristian, provoking language against the Conformists in my first Plea for peace, which caused all the succeeding heats.]
Ans. 1. I have to him and oft in print appealed to humanity and common sense whether one that was seventeen years silent, & communicated in the Parish Churches, and under scorns, and ejection, imprisonment & mulcts did peaceably continue Communion with them without reply or self defence, and never wrote against them, till they had long called out to him to give them an account of the reasons of his Nonconformity, and then durst not provoke them by a dispute, but barely named the matters which we judge unlawful, professing not to be the Accuser of Conformists, but only to answer the Call of Parliament-men, Bishops, and others that urged us, and threatened us if we would not tell them what we stuck at; and made this the Justification of their prosecution of many hundred men: I say, whether such a ⟨p. 74⟩man had a Call to speak? When the King Licensed us, I had before briefly defended our Preaching as Licensed: But being thus summoned by our Prosecutors and Superiors, I told them what we judged unlawful; and was this a beginning of the Flame? Was Seventeen years Poverty, Prohibition and Prosecution, and all this Importunity, no provocation or call to speak? Did this begin? If he were in the House of Correction, and were beaten but Seventeen years, or Seven years, to confess the Cause for which he suffered, and at last confessed it, and one should say, This was the beginning of the strife, Would he take this for a good Historian? And if he had written History, would this report advance the credit of it?
Ans. 1. I have to him and oft in print appealed to humanity and common sence whether one that was seventeen years silent, & communicated in the Parish Churches, and under scorns, and ejection, imprisonment & mulcts did peaceably continue Communion with them without reply or self defence, and never wrote against them, till they had long called out to him to give them an account of the reasons of his Nonconformity, and then durst not provoke them by a dispute, but barely named the matters which we judge unlawful, professing not to be the Accuser of Conformists, but only to answer the Call of Parliament-men, Bishops, and others that urged us, and threatned us if we would not tell them what we stuck at; and made this the Justification of their prosecution of many hundred men: I say, whether such a