A97353:457
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. p. 353. Nothing can oblige to a Divine faith but Divine authority, to which Councils can no more pretend for being General, than for being Provincial, and to which great Assemblies have no other title or pretence of promise than the private Congregations of the faithful, who though but two or three, shall be assisted by the Divine presence. But General Councils are so wholly of humane institution, that though by the dictate of right reason and natural wisdom they are to be convened, ⟨p. 104⟩*yet to make them a formal Judicatory, and to give them a Legislative power or a dominion and Magistracy in faith, there are so many conditions required both to their indiction and convention, to their constitution and integrity, to their conduct and proceeding, to their conclusion and determination, that men are not to this day agreed about any one of them; and therefore they cannot be a legal Judicatory obliging any but them that do consent, and so oblige themselves.
§. 30. p. 353. Nothing can oblige to a Divine faith but Divine authority, to which Councils can no more pretend for being General, than for being Provincial, and to which great Assemblies have no other title or pretence of promise than the private Congregations of the faithful, who though but two or three, shall be assisted by the Divine presence. But General Councils are so wholly of humane institution, that though by the dictate of right reason and natural wisdom they are to be convened, ⟨p. 104⟩*yet to make them a formal Judicatory, and to give them a Legislative power or a dominion and Magistracy in faith, there are so many conditions required both to their indiction and convention, to their constitution and integity, to their conduct and proceeding, to their conclusion and determination, that men are not to this day agreed about any one of them; and therefore they cannot be a legal Judicatory obliging any but them that do consent, and so oblige themselves.
- *That is, such as are called General, as many as can well meet.