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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27014	Sacrilegious desertion of the holy ministery rebuked, and tolerated preaching of the gospel vindicated, against the reasonings of a confident questionist, in a book called Toleration not abused; with counsil to the nonconformists, and petition to the pious conformists / by one that is consecrated to the sacred ministry, and is resolved not to be a deserter of it ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1672 (1672)	Wing B1380; ESTC R5946	61,174	146

Answ 1. Such confidence upon such insignificant reasonings is a great dishonour to the wit and humility of the Author He that no better knoweth their judgments can tell you what all the light of the Presbyterian conscience is 2. He can prove that our Ministery is needless sinful c. because he can call the exercise of it separation As if the paucity of ignorant and ungodly Souls and the sufficient number ability zeal and diligence of the Conformists made us and our Labours needless indeed Alas what thoughts have these men of souls of sin of holiness of repentance and of their own sufficiency and labours But Sir who made you a fitter Judge of the need of souls than themselves and all others Next perswade us that Tutors are needless because all in England are born learned I have much ado to get servants in my own Family that have tolerable knowledge and piety And can our Conformists alone sufficiently teach many hundred Families and prove that other mens help is needless Try first whether you can perswade men that you alone are sufficient to teach all the Children in your Parishes to speak and to dress them and feed them and that all other persons help is needless Get them to fast all till you seed them your selves and make them believe they need no other meat We that have conferred with all the people of our Parishes when we were permitted found that multitudes were almost as ignorant as Heathens And yet our excellent successours that do no such thing as to any two of them that ever I knew or heard of but see their faces in the Church can prove all our Teaching needless to these poor ignorant souls Is this humility and Ministerial fidelity It s sin in us to preach and duty to the Conformists I am glad they take it yet for a duty to any 3. But is it not as easie for us to say That you have needlesly and sinfully and scandalously taken our places I mean as to the Church-Relation not as to the Temples and Tythes and drawn some of the people to separation from those that were before true Churches We say not so but put not your selves on the hard task of disproving it if you are wise 4. But our necessity Sir hath visible Causes 1. God and our own consent at our Ordination made our necessity of exercising our Ministry We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ nor that it was our choice But God hath laid this necessity on us and wo be unto us if we preach not the Gospel as we have opportunity 2. The Bishops to some of us and senior Pastors to others by Ministerial Investiture imposed this necessity on us 3. The great necessity of multitudes of fouls which nothing but gross ignorance de facto Infidelity or Impudency can deny concurreth to cause this necessity 4. The Law imposeth a necessity on us not to preach among you in the Temples If then God say Preach and the Law say Preach not in the Temples we may conclude we must preach out of the Temples if we have but as much wit as King James's Hounds had that at a double way if they find the Hare hath not gone one way will take it for granted he is gone the other Here is then but two makers of our necessity the Imposer and the Restrainer Reproach neither of them if you will take our council Sect. 10. He addeth In vain do you think to help your selves and to satisfie the World by pleading the moderation of your Principles and that you do believe our Parochial Congregations are true Churches which the other Sectaries deny For besides that many of the Independents acknowledge the same this is the great aggravation of your Schism For why then do you seperate from us Ans 1. We are glad that you confess the Independents themselves are so moderato towards you 2. We perswade none to separate from you 3. Do you silence us and depose us from the Ministry and forbid Baptism and the Lords Supper to all that have not as wide a swallow as your selves and then ask Why separate you from us 4. Do you draw Churches to your selves out of our true Churches that were before you and then charge your act on us 5. Why come not you to the private Churches among you that have all this while been kept up e. g. In London why may not Dr. Manton Dr. Annesley Dr. Jacomb and abundance of such as fairly charge those that go only to the Temples for separating from them They say They are as true Chuches as you If their not hearing you is separation why is not your not hearing of them so Big words when men are got into the Saddle make not their Cause good 6. But it seemeth that acknowledging you true Churches will not satisfie you without what actual hearing you But doth not every Chappel and every neighbor Parish then and all the World besides your Auditory sinfully separate from you Some men can triumph in such reasonings for themselves as would make another sick to read them CHAP. VII Of the inconvenience from our Brethrens sence of Toleration Sect. 1. HIs next Section pag. 21 c. is as meer delusion as any of the rest First he argueth from the Presbyterians being always against a Toleration Reader all sober Divines that ever I met with use here to distinguish between Tolerable and Intolerable things and persons and to conclude that the Tolerable must be Tolerated and the other not though they all agree not how much is Tolerable Now what doth this man but talk confusedly as if they had been against all Toleration Look up man without blushing and tell the World Whether ever the Presbyterians maintained it a sin to Tolerate Presbyterians Alas for those poor people that cannot try sence from nonsence with what stuff will such men carry them away If you talk of the Toleration of any that are Intolerable what have we to do with it any more than you Sect. 2. Any more than you did I say Sir vilifie not the wits of those Clergy men that chiefly contributed to our so as to imagine that they did not know what they did and foresee this day Honour their understandings more than to take them for so ignorant especially being lowdly foretold it as not to foreknow 1. What number and sort of men would be laid by 2. How the people would judge of them and their Cause 3. How both they and the people would go through their sufferings 4. How wise sensible and merciful His Majesty would be when he saw all this stir and dissatisfaction of his people 5. And that the preaching of silenced Ministers in private would encourage all other Sects 6. And when ever the door was opened for their Liberty all others would endeavour to thrust in with them Who then I pray you hath done more for Toleration you or we Sect. 3. But his next hath no bounds and

you set not up wholly for your selves that speak so 3. And they will worship God with the Sect of the Diocesan Prelatists in the parish-Parish-Churches also as far as will stand with the due exercise of their proper Ministery But will not promise you to give over Preaching to become your constant Auditors or Disciples Sect. 6. You understand neither the Men that you talk of nor their Cause they take not the Independents Assemblies to be the Tents of Enemies they leave terms of Enmity among Brethren to those that have enmity in their hearts Nor do they tamely deliver up the Cause The most Nonconformable Ministers of my acquaintance whose judgment I ever asked of that matter do seem to think as I my self do that the Episcopal Pretbyterians Independents and Erastians have each of them some Truth and Good which above the rest they do defend and each of them some special mistake where they err above the rest And if we could know it we would take the Best from among them all and leave the worst And not maintain Church-quarrels under pretense that we must not flie to the Enemy and give up the Cause Sect. 7. O the confidence of this Adviser in his own understanding that dare say That he is sure that the Presbyterians have no reason to engage in a way of publick Worship contradistinct to our Parochial Congregations 1. That is contradistinct which is not opposite or adverse but either co-ordinate as one Parish to another or subordinate as a Chappel 2. And what man Is a Vow and Dedication to Preach the Gospel no reason to Preach it elsewhere when its forbidden us in your Assemblies Is the alienation of Consecrated persons no Sacriledge Is the notorious need of many hundred thousand Souls no reason Is the exercising of a Worship and Discipline more agreeable to Gods Word than yours we are ready to give you the proof when we have leave no reason Is the relieving of many godly Christians who are cast out of your communion because they dare not Conform no reason Had we had leave to have conted the silly reasonings of Mr. Fulwood and some such other Pamphleteers produced against the Nonconformists we had long ago shewed you cause to repress such self esteem which dare say I am sure they bave no reason Sect. 8. And this man that is sure they have no reason for it could instance in no greater than the Objection that It will seem an undervaluing their liberty and ingratitude to the King 1. We have no reason to be ungrateful to the King nor to undervalue our Liberty 2. But did that move the London Ministers and others to Preach all this while before the Declaration 3. When you have proved that Greater Hurt than Good will follow our Preaching and Ministry and when you have proved that though all the Papists in England do use the liberty of the Toleration in the Declaration yet the Nonconformists must not but silently leave our sufficient Conformists to do all the work against Ignorance Infidelity Popery and Sensuality themselves I say when you have proved this well you may again bless the people with our silence and perswade us to silence our selves when you cannot do it otherwise Sect. 9. But he saith p. 6. Their ingenuity and gratitude to God and the King will be better expressed by their Conformity and Loyal obedience to the known Laws than by the use of the Liberty permitted to the contrary Answ He knoweth that we must not give him our Reasons against Conformity He cannot but know that many that Conform nor in all the matters of Subscriptions Declarations Oathes Discipline c. not medling with other mens Consciences do think it would be in them a composition of such hainous crimes as they do forbear to name them for fear of seeming to be accusers of others and to be unpeaceable And if he think that such toys as Mr. Fulwoods Mr. Stilemans and Mr. Hinkleys c. should satisfie them he thinks contemptibly of their understandings And he that by such poor temptations as those will yield to what their Consciences fear can scarce tell what he may not yield to before he dieth Let him procure us leave but to publish ours Reasons against Conformity and then let him tell us that we were better Conform when he hath answered them It 's easie to talk when none must confute him and to brave it against one whose tongue is tyed Sect. 10. His next Supposition is that the matter of this Liberty is evil I am glad it is not evil for the Conformists to Preach and Worship God lest it would have been lawful to none at all We are glad that Christ is Preached even by them that do it contentiously in envy and strife to add to our Afflictions and Bonds But we will not our selves give over Preaching Praying nor the rest of the Christian Religion because such men can call it evil He that saith our Preaching is evil may tempt men to think that the Gospel which we Preach is evil or that Infidelity Atheism Sensuality and Wickedness which we Preach against is good or harmless Is it good in you and evil in us to Preach the same Gospel If you turn to them that Calumniate us of Preaching Errour or Sedition the Law is open our Writings and Doctrine are easily tryed If we say evil bear witness of the evil If not take heed of calling it evil Isa 5. 20. CHAP. IV. Whether to gather themselves into distinct and separate Congregations is unlawful in the judgment of the Presbyterians themselves Sect. 1. THe proving the Affirmative is his work pag. 7 c. But the Presbyterians do not love confusion nor to dispute such blindly-stated Questions They distinguish 1. Between bare Local distinction and separation and that which is eminently called Separation in England and denominated from the Separatists which is separating from the Parish-Churches Ministry Worship as being no true Churches Ministry and Worship or at least such as no Christians may lawfully Communicate with in Doctrine Prayer and Sacraments when they can have no better In the former sense as is said one Parish-Church is separate from another And if there be any difference in their Forms or Modes of Worship so was there between Basil at Caesarea and the Church at Neocesarea and between Rome and Millane and between almost all the Catholick Bishops for many hundred years And so now one Parish-Minister prayeth freely in the Pulpit after Sermon and before another by a Form a third biddeth prayer before and a fourth prayeth not afterward at all And yet these are not separated Churches any otherwise than Locally and in such Modal differences 2. They distinguish between a Parish-Church that imposeth nothing on the Ministers or People that God forbiddeth and one that doth 3. And between a Parish-Church that is Reformable in that which notoriously needeth Reformation and one that solemnly Covenanteth against Reformation 4. They distinguish

upon him the form of a Servant and yet this way got a name above every name As sure as you live contending for honour is one of the readiest ways to loose it and giving it to others and contemning it your selves is one of the surest ways to get it It is its motto Quod sequitur fugio quod fugit ipse sequor Self-esteem and Pride is odious in all but in a Minister of Christ more odious than in any man but never so odious as when it riseth to such malignity as to envy or hinder the work of God because another more esteemed doth it It is a sin that I am readyer to tremble to think of than further to reprove And remember what work it hath made in the Churches of Christ already Read but what Eusebius Socrates Sozomen Evagrius Nicephorus c. say of the fewds of the old Bishops Read but the Acts of the Councils at Ephes 1 2. of Chalcedon at Ariminum at Sirmium at Nice 2d c. and if horrour and shame do not overwhelm you to think what Christian Bishops did and that so early in the face of the Heathens you are not men Read but how Nazianzene was used at Constantinople by a Synod of Orthodox Bishops when he had overcome the Arrians Read the Controversies between Basil and Anthymius and others Read the doleful story of Theophilus Alexandrinus and the Egyptian Monks and of the same Theophilus his manner of dealing against the Origenists and of his double Letters and Present which he sent by Ifidore a Priest to the Emperour and Maximus to be given to him that got the better Read the odious story of the said Theophilus and Epiphanius his proceedings against Chrysostome and his ejection by a Councel of Bishops Read the proceedings of Ithacius and Idacius and their Synods in Sulp. Severus There is no end of instances Read but the destruction of the many hundred Brittish Monks at Bangor and the great suspicions that Augustine caused it Look but on the face of the Greek and Latine Churches to this day from the begining and cause of their divisions And see what the Lutherans have done oft times against the Calvinists in Saxony and other parts of Germany as in Gasp Peucers sufferings for one And see what the Roman Papacy and Clergy have done in the world by Lordly Pride and selfishness And lastly See what hath bin done by it in this Land and at last learn by experience and judge of Church-mens Pride by the effects Brethren what harm will it do to you if a Non-Conformist preach by you if many follow him If some prefer him before you Do not others prefer you before him What if his followers think Conformity to be sin Do not you and yours think so of our Non-Conformity It is not your selves that you preach for but the peoples Souls And why may not Christs Gospel profit them from another as well as from you Nature teacheth men to relish their own food and partly to feel what doth them good Clemens Alexand Strom. 1. giveth it as the reason why the Church then not now left it to every Communicant at the Sacrament to Take their own part Because man having free will shall be the chooser or refuser of his own good If they choose a worse Teacher than you it is not you but they that are the loosers If they choose a better you have your end if you are Christians If you preach not so well as another you are not fit to be Ministers of Christ if you be not glad that another doth better and is a blessing to the Flock If you preach better it s two to one but goodness will have an insuparable attraction Or if mistake make them more capable of good from another than from you should you not desire that they might have it Will you say It is their partial humour I have heard many Ministers say so that had reason to have said It is my unskilfulness or dulness But suppose it be so A Physician will let his patient take his Medicine from one mans hand if he refuse it from another The Father will not let the Infant famish if he will take no meat from him but from the Mother If the people had no faults or weaknesses what need were there of you or other Ministers I am as apt to speak sharply against the humours and weakness of Religious people as most that are not envious and malignant But I must give them this Testimony that though many of them cannot well judge of judiciousness in their Teachers yet most of them love a serious Preacher and a Godly Liver And few of them distast either Prelates or Conformists if they preach seriously and live Holily But when in all the Countreys they see such Preachers and Livers chosen out for silencing all the world cannot keep them from disliking such Bishops as shall do thus I am most confident for those of my old acquaintance that if they had seen Bishops after their long disacquaintance with them to have Preached and Prayed in a sound and serious Holy manner and set themselves to promote the labours of Godly Preachers and to encourage piety in the people and repress iniquity they would generally have loved and honoured them without respect to Presbytery or Independency It is Godliness that Godly people care for But since I and abundance about us were ejected and since many of themselves have bin laid in Goals it is no more in my power to make them love such Bishops than to make them love the Goal it self Yea further Brethren what if the Non-Conformable Minister do give the Sacrament to some as you do to others What if they think their way best as you think yours What if they call themselves a Church and exercise Discipline which without need I would not have them do What harm will this do to you or others If it do them harm let them thank themselves But to you it can do none unless the unchristian sin of pride and envy cause it or unless by reproaches and contentiousness they hinder the success of your labours which is another thing I confess I have ever bin jealous of such Arbitrary Churches where there is room for all in one Church lest they should turn Anti-Churches and Theatres of emulation and contention which I charge all conscionable persons to abhor But all this may be avoided at cheaper rates than silencing so many laborious Ministers or excommunicating all the people that are Non-conformists III. Joyn lovingly with your Brethren as Servants of one Lord to promote one work Look not strange at them if they desire your friendship Yea if any of them prove censorious and pievish if you are the more patient condescending and forward to love and unity and to further the peoples good I shall take you for better men than them And so will all that judge by the fruits of the Spirit Try this way instead of wrath and I