A26892:8059
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.
Part 4 › Chapter 3: Directions for Subjects concerning their duty to their Rulers.
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.
But in cases common to both, in which the Pastors Office is more nearly and fully concerned than the Magistrates, the case is more difficult: As at what hour the Church shall assemble: What part of Scripture shall be read; What Text the Minister shall preach on: How long Prayer, or Sermon, ⟨p. 22⟩or other Church-exercises shall be? What Prayers the Minister shall use? In what method he shall preach? and what doctrine he shall deliver, and the people hear? with many such like: These do most nearly belong to the Pastoral Office, to judge of as well as to execute: But yet in some cases the Magistrate may interpose his authority? And herein, 1. If the one party do determine clearly to the necessary preservation of Religion, and the other to the ruin of it, the disparity of consequents makeeth a great disparity in the case: For here God himself hath predetermined, who commandeth that all be done to edification. As for instance, If a Christian Magistrate ordain that no assembly shall consist of above forty or an hundred persons, when there are so many Preachers and places of meeting that it is no detriment to mens souls, and especially when the danger of infection or other evil warranteth it, then I would obey that command of the Magistrate, though the Pastors of the Church were against it, and commanded fuller meetings. But if a Julian should command the same thing, on purpose to wear out the Christian Religion, and when it tendeth to the ruin of mens souls, (as1 when Preachers are so few, that either more must meet together, or most must be untaught, and excluded from Gods Worship, (here I would rather obey the Pastors that command the contrary, because they do but deliver the command of God, who determineth consequentially of the necessary means, when he determineth of the •nd But if the consequents of the Magistrates and the Pastors commands should be equally indifferent, and neither of them discernably Good or Bad, the difficulty then would be at the highest, and such as I shall not here presume to determine.
But in cases common to both, in which the Pastors Office is more nearly and fully concerned than the Magistrates, the case is more difficult: As at what hour the Church shall assemble: What part of Scripture shall be read; What Text the Minister shall preach on: How long Prayer, or Sermon, ⟨p. 22⟩