A26886:171
Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending…
Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending them against several sorts of opponents, especially against the second assault of that pious, reverend and dear brother Mr. Thomas Blake / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1658
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.
Object. They will say these words indeed, but in the mean time they will scorn at godliness, or disclaim it by their lives.
Answ. Those that do so, must be dealt with in Christs way as Church-members, till either they hear the Church, or be rejected for their impenitency; but you must not dare upon this account to unchurch whole Parishes, nor ordinarily any one Person that hath not been dealt with in the order that Christ hath appointed.
To conclude this Disputation: I find that the two things before mentioned, are great occasions of the proneness of many godly people to schism.
The one is, because they do not understand that Christ hath so contrived in it the Gospel, that every man shall be either the Introducter of himself by Profession, or the Excluder of himself by the rejection of Christianity. And so that all Church admissions or rejections shall be but the consequents of his own choice that the chief comfort, or the blame may be upon himself: And this is partly from the admirable freedom and extensiveness of Gospel Grace, which the sons of Grace should glorify and rejoice in, and not murmur at, and dishonour; and partly from the wise dispensations of our Legislator, that he may deal with men on clear grounds in their absolution, or condemnation, before all the world.