A97353:532
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.
The truth is (as Mr. Peter Ster[…] unhappily sound) it is hard avoiding this frame of Doctrine, for the Predeterminants who hold that the Volitions and actions of all men are predetermined by Gods necessitating unresistible promotion as the first cause of nature and motion, and that in all their modes and circumstances; and that the will can have no power to do any thing, more or less, than it is thus predetermined to do, and that moral good and evil are caused as necessarily by God as Light and Darkness are: Were these mens Physical conceits as certain, as all the principles of Religion, natural and revealed, which they totally overthrow, they might stagger many: But not when sick and proud mens dreams are set against mans common Light, right and interest.
THe truth is (as Mr. Peter Ster〈…〉 unhappily sound) it is hard avoiding this frame of Doctrine, for the Predeterminants who hold that the Volitions and actions of all men are predetermined by Gods necessitating unresistible promotion as the first cause of nature and motion, and that in all their modes and circumstances; and that the will can have no power to do any thing, more or less, than it is thus predetermined to do, and that moral good and evil are caused as necessarily by God as Light and Darkness are: Were these mens Physical conceits as certain, as all the principles of Religion, natural and revealed, which they totally overthrow, they might stagger many: But not when sick and proud mens dreams are set against mans common Light, right and interest.
IN all this the Reader must still remember, 1. that I recite other mens Political-principles, only that the accusers of my own and such others may compare them together, and see which they judge more rational and loyal; and what parties they can find in all the world, whose principles of Government they will rest in, when ours are condemned.