Baxter - BX5202 B29 1689

( X94) thingcàll'd indifferent, deferveth not Excommunication or De: ftruCtion. i 7. Is not the Fear of God the beginning ofWifdons ? And doth not this contain a Fear of finning ? And is not this corn- mendable, and to be cherifhed ?. Is not God above man, and firft to be obeyed, and molt feared? Hathman any Power but what God hathgivenhim, and hathGod given any againft him- felf,or his own Laws,or for deftruftion ofhis Fear ? IfConfcience towards God be once driven away, is any man tobe trufted ? Will not the unconfcionable doany thing for worldly Intercity? 18. Is it not an unmanly fort of impudence in them, that many years perfwade the world, that thofe fame"men make Schifms, by forbearing only fuch things as theyconfefs to be no fin, who have twenty years ago Protefted, that nothing but fin- ning is refufed by them, and did then give in a Catalogue of fe= veral fins which they undertook to prove fuch ? And fhould thofe fame men that have read, or may do The Ding's Gracious Declaration about Lcclefiaflical Affairs, 166o. and the London Minifters printed Thankf-giving for it , and the many late Books, in which we have told men what it is which we dare not conform to ; I fay, fhould thefe (till take on them, that they cannot know it, and call out íäl1, [What is it that youflickat? And what is it that wouldfatisfyyou ? 3 Yea, thofe that cannot bear that we fhould tell them. ßi9Do you think that theKing who then pall that Declara- tion (inwhich the Non-Conformifts who fought it with thank- fulnefs acquiefc't, as in terms ofhappy Concord) and the Houle ofCommons who gave him thanks, or the Bifhops and Clergy who after rejeaed it, and procured the new At of Uniformity and fuchother,did take theway tohave :United. Proteftants, and tohave prevented our prefent fad diviliions ? Hath not Dr. Burnet in his Hiftory of the Regale fully proved that the choiceof Bifhops and Paftors for many hundred years was in the People and the Clergy : And do you think in your Confciences, that ifa good Gentleman build and endow a Church, all men mutt ever after truft the Paftoral conduct of their Souls with fuchPrieftsonly as his Pofterity, or any man that will buy the Advowfon (hall prefent ? Will not Drunkards, Fornicators, malignanthaters of HolyLife choofemen as fit for their turn as will be admitted ? And do you think inyour Cora- fciences

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