A26892:5649
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
§. 89. It is a turbulent fan•ie and disquieting error of some people to think, that their presence 1in the Assembly and continuance with the Church doth make them guilty of the personal faults of those they join with: If so, who would ever join with any Assembly in the World? Quest. But what if they be gross and scandalous sinners that are members of the Church? Answ. If you be wanting in your duty to reform it, it is your sin: But if bare presence made their sins to be ours, it would also make all the sins of the Assembly ours: But no word of God doth intimate any such thing. Paul never told the Churches of Galatia and Corinth so, that had so many defiled members. Quest. But what if they are sins committed in the open Assembly, even by the Minister himself in his praying, preaching and other administrations? and what if all this be imposed on him by a Law, and so I am certain before hand, that I must join with that which is unwarrantable in Gods Worship? Answ. The next Direction containeth those distinctions that are necessary to the answer of this.
§. 89. It is a turbulent fan•ie and disquieting errour of some people to think, that their presence 1in the Assembly and continuance with the Church doth make them guilty of the personal faults of those they joyn with: If so, who would ever joyn with any Assembly in the World? Quest. But what if they be gross and scandalous sinners that are members of the Church? Answ. If you be wanting in your duty to reform it, it is your sin: But if bare presence made their sins to be ours, it would also make all the sins of the Assembly ours: But no word of God doth intimate any such thing. Paul never told the Churches of Galatia and Corinth so, that had so many defiled members. Quest. But what if they are sins committed in the open Assembly, even by the Minister himself in his praying, preaching and other administrations? and what if all this be imposed on him by a Law, and so I am certain before hand, that I must joyn with that which is unwarrantable in Gods Worship? Answ. The next Direction containeth those distinctions that are necessary to the answer of this.
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