A97353:130
The second part of The nonconformists plea for peace being an account of their…
The second part of The nonconformists plea for peace being an account of their principles about civil and ecclesiastical authority and obedience ... : mostly written many years past, and now published to save our lives and the kingdoms peace, from the false and bloody plotters ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Hancock, 1680
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.
30. Both natural and supernatural Laws or Revelations are to make man wise and good: and so are said to be written and put into his heart, when they have these effects. But if the effects themselves were all Gods Law, then, 1. God had as many Laws as persons in the world; 2. And his Law in the same person changed, as his knowledge and goodness changed; 3. And those that can but keep themselves ignorant and bad enough, shall therefore not be bad or have no sin because they have no Law.
31. There is no actual knowledge born in man (unless possibly an unexpressible consciousness of our own being); but only a Disposition in the Intellective faculty to know some things presently, and easily, and some things hardly and by slow degrees.
32. What ever the understanding can know at last with the most diligent search, it had naturally some power to know from its Original. For nothing doth that which it cannot do (mediately or immediately): therefore the noble nature of the soul is better gathered from the attainments of some, than the baseness of it from the Ignorance of others, that excite not their natural faculties.
33. Gods Law of Nature bindeth mankind (ordinarily) to live in Governed societies, and hath not left it free to them to do otherwise. Parental Authority is conjunct with our first being, and natural necessity obligeth to the rest.