A97353:308
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.
I. About the first our straight is great: If we make not known our principles, we shall be suspected for concealing them; And any mistake which any one of us was guilty of, even in our unexperienced youth, though corrected and rejected, will be charged still on him, and on others that never owned it; And shameless false accusers will defame us, as holding that which never came into our thoughts. And if we publish our judgements, how easily and certainly will ignorance and ill-will take occasion to calumniate, and draw blood from the truest soundest words? But we will do what we judge to be our duty, and leave it to God to stop the mouth of all ⟨p. 51⟩iniquity, and will stay till malice and falsehood be silenced by the Father of lights.
1. We hold that though it be very useful to the Ministers of the Gospel to study Politics, yet is to not necessary that they be able to decide political controversies; much less that they equal Lawyers in the knowledge of the Laws; and therefore that they should not without necessity, be forward to meddle in such matters, much less to take on them to condemn the most of the Lawyers of the world, as if we were wiser in the matters of their profession than they: And least of all should we swear against their common sentiments, or that they are all deceived, and that we are wiser than all they. Though yet we should know so much, as is requisite to our due understanding of the matter of our duty and our doctrine, which we must teach.
1. We hold that though it be very useful to the Ministers of the Gospel to study Politicks, yet is to not necessary that they be able to decide political controversies; much less that they equall Lawyers in the knowledge of the Laws; and therefore that they should not without necessity, be forward to meddle in such matters, much less to take on them to condemn the most of the Lawyers of the world, as if we were wiser in the matters of their profession than they: And least of all should we swear against their common sentiments, or that they are all deceived, and that we are wiser than all they. Though yet we should know so much, as is requisite to our due understanding of the matter of our duty and our doctrine, which we must teach.