A26892:8448
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.
3. And grant yet that some Churches cannot admit such scrupulous persons to her communion as dare not join in every punctilio, circumstance or mode; It doth not follow that those persons must therefore be excommunicated, or forbidden to worship God among themselves without that which they scruple: or to join in or with a Congregation which imposeth no such things upon them. Persecution will unavoidably come in, upon such domineering narrow terms as those. The man is a Christian still, though he scruple one of our modes or ceremonies, and is capable of Catholic Communion: And if private and little inconveniences shall be thought a sufficient cause, to forbid all such the public worshipping of God, on pretence that in one Nation, there must not be variety of modes, this is a dividing principle, and not Catholic, and plungeth men into the guilt of persecution. It was not so in the Churches of the Roman Empire: In the days of Basil his Church, and that at Neocaesarea differed: and ordinarily several Bishops used several forms of prayer and worship in their several Churches, without offence: And further,
3. And grant yet that some Churches cannot admit such scrupulous persons to her communion as dare not joyn in every punctillio, circumstance or mode; It doth not follow that those persons must therefore be excommunicated, or forbidden to worship God among themselves without that which they scruple: or to joyn in or with a Congregation which imposeth no such things upon them. Persecution will unavoidably come in, upon such domineering narrow terms as those. The man is a Christian still, though he scruple one of our modes or ceremonies, and is capable of Catholick Communion: And if private and little inconveniencies shall be thought a sufficient cause, to forbid all such the publick worshipping of God, on pretence that in one Nation, there must not be variety of modes, this is a dividing principle, and not Catholick, and plungeth men into the guilt of persecution. It was not so in the Churches of the Roman Empire: In the dayes of Basil his Church, and that at Neocaesarea differed: and ordinarily several Bishops used several forms of prayer and worship in their several Churches, without offence: And further,
§. 37. Direct. 16. Different faults must have different penalties: And excommunication or forbidding