A26880:1253
Catholic communion defended against both extremes, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…Catholick communion defended against both extreams, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…
Catholic communion defended against both extremes, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ... / by Richard Baxter ...Catholick communion defended against both extreams, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ... / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1684
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.
Tho all believers must be holy, and avoid all known wilful Sin, they must not avoid one another, or their Communion in good, because of adherent faults or imperfections; for Christ, who is most holy, receiveth Persons and Worship that is faulty, (and false, if all faultiness be falseness) else none of us should be received. There is greatest goodness where the•• is greatest Love and Unity of Spirit maintained in the bond of Peace. O call not to God to deny you Mercy, by being unmerciful, nor to cast you all out, by casting off one another. O Separate not from all Christs Church on Earth, lest you separate from him, or displease him? God hath bid you pray, but not told you whether it shall be oft in the same Words, or in other, with a Book, or without a Book: Make not superstitiously a Religion, by pretending that God hath determined such Circumstances: O do not Preach and Write down Love, and Communion •f Saint•, on pretence that your little Modes and Ways are only go•d, and theirs Idolatrous or Intolerable; and do not slander and excommunicate all, or alm•st all Christs Body, and then wrong G•d by fathering this upon him. You pray [Thy will be done on Earth, as it is done in Heaven]. Why here is no S••ife, […] Animosity, Sects or Factions▪ n•r Separating from, or Excommunicating on another. Learn of Christ, and know what Spirit ye are of, and separate from none further than they separate from Christ; and receive all hat• […] receiveth. While •ou blame canonical Dividers, and unjust […], do not you renounce Communion wi•h […] m•re than they […] of too na•r•w […] •rinciple•, and in the time of Temptation, I did n•t foresee to what […] Conusion and Dissolution, and Hatred, and Ruin, dividing […] did tend, but the […] in […]