at they durst go no further, but saved all the rest.
The soldiers, doubtless, contrived this from the aversion natural to
Englishmen of killing an enemy in cold blood; and because they foresaw
that there would be Tit for Tat.
Ib. p. 59.
It is easy to see from Baxter's own account, that his party ruined their
own cause and that of the kingdom by their tenets concerning the right
and duty of the civil magistrate to use the sword against such as were
not of the same religion with themselves.
Ib. p. 62.
They seem not to me to have answered satisfactorily to the main
argument fetched from the Apostle's own government, with which Saravia
had inclined me to some Episcopacy before: though miracles and
infallibility were Apostolical temporary privileges, yet Church
government is an ordinary thing to be continued. And therefore as the
Apostles had successors as they were preachers, I see not but that
they must have successors as Church governors.
Was not Peter's sentence against Ananias an act of Church government?
Therefore though Church government is an ordinary thing in some form or
other, it does not follow that one particular form is an ordinary thing.
For the time being the Apostles, as heads of the Church, did what they
thought best; but whatever was binding on the Church universal and in
all times they delivered as commands from Christ. Now no other command
was delivered but that all things should conduce to order and
edification.
Ib. p. 66.
And therefore how they could refuse to receive the King, till he
consented to take the Covenant, I know not, unless the taking of the
Covenant had been a condition on which he was to receive his crown by
the laws or fundamental constitutions of the kingdom, which none
pretendeth. Nor know I by what power they can add anything to the
Coronation Oath or Covenant, which by his ancestors was to be taken,
without his own consent.
And pray, how and by whom were the Coronation Oaths first imposed? The
Scottish nation in 1650 had the same right to make a bargain with the
claimant of their throne as their ancestors had. It is strange that
Baxter should not have seen that his objections would apply to our
'Magna Charta'. So he talks of the "fundamental constitutions," just as
if these had been aboriginal or rather 'sans' origin, and not as indeed
they were extorted and bargained for by the people. But throughout it is
plain that Baxter repe
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