A97353:662
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.
31. All coactive Church Government belongeth to the King and Magistrates who are the Keepers of the Churches peace, and need not a Church-Office of Prelates to do their work, and take the honour of it to themselves.
32. The foresaid Usurpations of Proud Pastors over the Consciences of others, out of their own Churches, with their turning the ancient practical Christianity into contentions for speculations and notions of their own, proceeding at last to a Tyranny over Kings and Magistrates themselves, yea even to impose Oaths on men to obey them, and never to reform them, or endeavour any alteration of these evils, hath been the corruption, confusion and calamity of the Christian world, which too many Princes of the world have endured, and some in blind devotion and some for selfish ends promoted.
33. The weakness of the people, even the zealous sort, sometimes taking up some little unjustifiable conceits and singularities, and sometimes too passionately renouncing bad Pastors, and sometimes falling into scandalous actions or shameful divisions among themselves, hath been the increase of the Papal Kingdom, and the great and prevailings pretence for Church Tyranny: And some otherwise sober men have been tempted to think that the peoples giddiness and unruliness is such, that there is no other way to peace.