A97353:818
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.
13. That Pastor who preferreth this ungodly sort before the faithful now described, and that gathereth together all the weak expressions of the later, to make them ridiculous to the former; or (if with no such intent) doth proclaim them persons of a foolish Religion, because they cannot talk so wisely as they ought about religion, and this at a time and in a manner, as is likest to harden the sensual in the opinion that their case is the better, and that learning and labouring to be seriously religious, is but a foolish fanciful thing; I say, that Pastor is— Let his conscience hereafter tell him what.
14. When there is no known way, (but by the Schools, or by a Miracle) for the world of the vulgar to come to the higher form of wisdom but by the lover; nor to come to Heaven but by such weak beginnings; And when Grace as well as Nature beginneth with infant unutterable desires and groans, Rom. 8. 26. and with an Abba father, Gal. 4. 6. (which our heart-searching father understandeth, Rom. 8. 27.) And when all Christs Disciples must enter first as little children into the lowest form (Matth. 18. 3. & 28. 19, 20.) And when the Apostles own followers were dull of hearing, and after long teaching (which should have made them fit to be Teachers) ⟨p. 191⟩had need still to learn the principles, and to be fed with children's milk, Heb. 5. 11, 12, &c. And few ever get above the lower rank, which all first enter; I say whenas all this is so, and certainly so, to make these lower Christians a scorn, as being of a foolish religion, and to discourage them, and disgrace their rank unnecessarily, is to endeavour to drive all serious Religion out of the world, and to keep men from salvation, and to brandish their flaming swords at the entrance of Paradise, to keep men from the tree of life—But for the Schoolmaster himself to deride the lower form which with patience and condescension he is obliged by office and salary to teach; This is beyond a strangers crime.