A27066:26
Mr. Baxter's vindication of the Church of England in her rites and ceremonies, discipline,…
Mr. Baxter's vindication of the Church of England in her rites and ceremonies, discipline, and church-orders as faithfully taken out of his own writings, without either false citation, or fraudulent alteration : to which is prefixed his epistle to the non-conformists, being a just and true abstract of his book entitled, A defence of the principles of love.Mr. Baxter's vindication of the Church of England in her rites and ceremonies, discipline, and church-orders as faithfully taken out of his own writings, without either false citation, or fraudulent alteration : to which is prefixed his epistle to the non-conformists, being a just and true abstract of his book entituled, A defence of the principles of love.
London: printed for Walter Kettilby, 1682
Letter: Mr. BAXTER's EPISTLE TO THE Non-Conformists, Being a just and true Abstract of his Defe…
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.
1Three ways especially will Popery grow out of our divisions:
- 1Part 1. p. 52. The manner how Popery will grow out of our divisions.
1. By the odium and scorn of our disagreements, inconsistency and multiplied Sects; they will persuade people, that we must either come for unity to them, or else all run mad, and crumble into dust and individuals. Thousands have been drawn into Popery and confirmed in it already by this Argument, and I am persuaded that all the Arguments in Bellarmine, and all other Books that ever were written, have not done so much to make Papists in England, as the multitude of Sects among us: Yea some Professors of religious strictness, of great esteem for godliness, have turned Papists themselves when they were giddy and weary with turnings, and when they had run from Sect to Sect and found no consistency in any: And,
2. Who knows not how fair a Game the Papists have to play by the means of our divisions. Methinks I hear them hissing on each Party, and saying to one side, Lay more upon them, and bate them nothing, and to the other, Stand it out, and yield to nothing. And who is so blind then, as not to see their double game and hopes (viz.) that either our divisions and ⟨p. 11⟩alterations will carry men to such distances and practices, as shall make us accounted seditious, rebellious, and dangerous to the public Peace; and so they (i.e. Papists) pass for better Subjects than we; or else that when so many Parties under sufferings are constrained to beg for Liberty, the Papists may not be shut out alone, but have toleration with the rest. And shall they use our hands to do their work? We have already unspeakably served them in this.