A97353:645
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.
15. Gods worship must be performed rationally, holily, according to Gods word in all things there determined, and decently, orderly, and to edification in all the undetermined circumstances.
16. Whether Sermons and Prayers shall be by prepared Forms of words, or from the Habits of understanding and affection presently uttered; whether read out of Notes or Books, or spoken without, is left to the prudent ⟨p. 142⟩determination of the Pastor, whose Office it is to word his own conceptions, according to mens various qualifications: in which none should contemn or judge another, nor avoid the Communion of those that do not as they do.
17. We must not give Divine worship or Honour to any Creature.
18. When Pastors do usurp Power over one another to command all about them to speak to men from God or to God for men, in no other words but what the usurpers shall write them down, and so make Ministers but Criers to read their prescripts or Proclamations, and also do prescribe to others the necessary use of unnecessary things, according to the Usurpers will, this is and hath been the Grand Engine of Church Divisions, by which the Churches have been torn in pieces for above a thousand years. And because every age doth bring forth men Proud enough to usurp, and few wise enough to learn by the Churches many hundred years experience, thereby the mischief proceedeth unremedied.