Part 4 › Chapter 11: Special Directions to escape the guilt of persecuting. Determining also the case about…, A Christian Directory by Richard Baxter (1673) | AskReformation

Skip to content

:8467p. 77

§. 54. Direct. 32. The Pastors must not be impatient under the abuses which they receive from weak ¹or distempered brethren. We must excel others in patience and meekness and forbearance, as much as we do in knowledge and in other graces. If the Nurse or Mother will take every word or action of the child, as if it were the injury of an enemy, there will be no preservation of the family in peace! If children cry, or fight, or chide, or make any foul or troublesome work, the mother will not therefore turn them out of doors, or use them like strangers, but remember that it is her place and duty to bear with that weakness which she cannot cure. The proud impatience of the Pastors hath frequently brought them into the guilt of persecution, to the alienating of the peoples hearts, and the distraction and division of the Churches: when poor distempered persons are offended with them, and it may be revile them, and call them seducers, or antichristian, or superstitious, or what their pride and passion shall suggest; or if some weak ones raise up some erroneous opinions; alas many Pastors have no more wit or grace or pity, than presently to be rough with them and revile them again, and seek to right themselves by ways of force, and club down every error and contention; when they should overcome them by evidence of truth, and by meekness, patience and love. (Though there be place also for severity, with turbulent, implacable, impenitent heretics).

§. 54. Direct. 32. The Pastors must not be impatient under the abuses which they receive from weak ¹or distempered brethren. We must excell others in patience and meekness and forbearance, as much as we do in knowledge and in other graces. If the Nurse or Mother will take every word or action of the child, as if it were the injury of an enemy, there will be no preservation of the family in peace! If children cry, or fight, or chide, or make any fowle or troublesome work, the mother will not therefore turn them out of doors, or use them like strangers, but remember that it is her place and duty to bear with that weakness which she cannot cure. The proud impatience of the Pastors hath frequently brought them into the guilt of persecution, to the alienating of the peoples hearts, and the distraction and division of the Churches: when poor distempered persons are offended with them, and it may be revile them, and call them seducers, or antichristian, or superstitious, or what their pride and passion shall suggest; or if some weak ones raise up some erroneous opinions; alas many Pastors have no more wit or grace or pity, than presently to be rough with them and revile them again, and seek to right themselves by wayes of force, and club down every errour and contention; when they should overcome them by evidence of truth, and by meekness, patience and love. (Though there be place also for severity, with turbulent, implacable, impenitent hereticks).

1Direct. 32.

:8470p. 77–78

§. 57. Direct. 35. You may go further in restraining than in constraining: in forbidding men to ⟨p. 78⟩¹preach against approved doctrines or practices of the Church, than in forcing them to preach for them, or to subscribe or speak their approbation or assent: If they be not points or practices of great necessity, a man may be sit for the Ministry and Church-communion, who meddleth not with them, but Preacheth the wholesome truths of the Gospel, and lets them alone. And, because no duty is at all times a duty, a sober mans judgement will allow him to be silent at many an error, when he dare not subscribe to or approve the least. But if here any proud and cruel Pastors, shall come in with their less•• selfish incommodities, and say, If they do not approve of what we say and do, they will secretly foment a faction against us; I should answer them, that as good men will foment no faction, so if such Proud impatient turbulent men, will endure none that subscribe not to all their opinions, or differ from them in a circumstance or a Ceremony, they shall raise a greater faction (if they'll call it so) against themselves, and make the people look on them as tyrants and not as Pastors, and they shall see in the end, when they have bought their wit by dear experience, that they have but torn the Church in pieces, by preventing divisions by carnal means, and that they have lost themselves by being over zealous for themselves; and that DOCTRINE and LOVE are the instruments of a wise Shepherd, that loveth the flock, and understands his work.

§. 57. Direct. 35. You may go further in restraining than in constraining: in forbidding men to ⟨p. 78⟩¹preach against approved doctrines or practices of the Church, than in forcing them to preach for them, or to subscribe or speak their approbation or assent: If they be not points or practices of great necessity, a man may be sit for the Ministry and Church-communion, who meddleth not with them, but Preacheth the wholsome truths of the Gospel, and lets them alone. And, because no duty is at all times a duty, a sober mans judgement will allow him to be silent at many an errour, when he dare not subscribe to or approve the least. But if here any proud and cruel Pastors, shall come in with their less•• selfish incommodities, and say, If they do not approve of what we say and do, they will secretly foment a faction against us; I should answer them, that as good men will foment no faction, so if such Proud impatient turbulent men, will endure none that subscribe not to all their opinions, or differ from them in a circumstance or a Ceremony, they shall raise a greater faction (if they'l call it so) against themselves, and make the people look on them as tyrants and not as Pastors, and they shall see in the end, when they have bought their wit by dear experience, that they have but torn the Church in pieces, by preventing divisions by carnal means, and that they have lost themselves by being over zealous for themselves; and that DOCTRINE and LOVE are the instruments of a wise Shepheard, that loveth the flock, and understands his work.

1Direct. 35.

:8471p. 78

§. 58. Direct. 36. Distinguish between, the making of new Laws or articles of belief, and the punishing ¹of men for the Laws already made; And think not that we must have new Laws or Canons, every time the old ones are broken: or that any Law can be made which can keep it self from being broken. Perverseness in this error hath brought the Church to the misery which it endureth. God hath made an Universal Law sufficient for the Universal Church, in matters of faith and holy practice; leaving it to men to determine of necessary circumstances which were unfit for an universal Law: And if the sufficiency of Gods Law, were acknowledged in mens practices, the Churches would have had more peace: But when particular Countries have their particular Volumes of Articles, Confessions, Liturgies, and I know not what else to be subscribed to, and none must Preach that will not say or write or swear, [that he believeth all this to be true and good, and nothing in it to be against the Word of God] this Engine wracks the limbs of the Churches all to pieces: And then whats the pretence for this epidemical calamity? Why no better than this [Every Heretic will subscribe to the Scriptures, and take it in his own sense]: And what followeth? Must we needs therefore have new Laws which Heretics will not subscribe to, or which they cannot break? It is the Commendation of Gods Law, as fit to be the means of Unity, that all are so easily agreed to it in terms, and therefore would agree in the sense if they understood it. But they will not do so by the Laws of men: All or many Heretics in the primitive times, would profess assent to the Churches Creed; no doubt in a corrupt and private sense: But the Churches did not therefore make new Creeds; till above 300 years after Christ, they began to put in some particular words to obviate Heretics, which Hilary complained of as the Cause of all their divisions! And what if Heretics will subscribe to all you bid them, and take it in their own corrupted sense? Must you therefore be still making new Laws and Articles, till you meet with some which they cannot mis-understand, or dare not thus abuse? What if men will mis-interpret and break the Laws of the Land? Must they be made new till none can mis-expound or violate them? Sure there is a wiser way than this!

§. 58. Direct. 36. Distinguish between, the making of new Laws or articles of belief, and the punishing ¹of men for the Laws already made; And think not that we must have new Laws or Canons, every time the old ones are broken: or that any Law can be made which can keep it self from being broken. Perversness in this errour hath brought the Church to the misery which it endureth. God hath made an Universal Law sufficient for the Universal Church, in matters of faith and holy practice; leaving it to men to determine of necessary circumstances which were unfit for an universal Law: And if the sufficiency of Gods Law, were acknowledged in mens practices, the Churches would have had more peace: But when particular Countreys have their particular Volumes of Articles, Consessions, Liturgies, and I know not what else to be subscribed to, and none must Preach that will not say or write or swear, [that he believeth all this to be true and good, and nothing in it to be against the Word of God] this Engine wracks the limbs of the Churches all to pieces: And then whats the pretense for this epidemical calamity? Why no better than this [Every Heretick will subscribe to the Scriptures, and take it in his own sense]: And what followeth? Must we needs therefore have new Laws which Hereticks will not subscribe to, or which they cannot break? It is the Commendation of Gods Law, as fit to be the means of Unity, that all are so easily agreed to it in terms, and therefore would agree in the sense if they understood it. But they will not do so by the Laws of men: All or many Hereticks in the primitive times, would profess assent to the Churches Creed; no doubt in a corrupt and private sense: But the Churches did not therefore make new Creeds; till above 300 years after Christ, they began to put in some particular words to obviate Hereticks, which Hilary complained of as the Cause of all their divisions! And what if Hereticks will subscribe to all you bid them, and take it in their own corrupted sense? Must you therefore be still making new Laws and Articles, till you meet with some which they cannot mis-understand, or dare not thus abuse? What if men will mis-interpret and break the Laws of the Land? Must they be made new till none can mis-expound or violate them? Sure there is a wiser way than this!

1Direct. 36.

:8474p. 78

§. 60. Direct. 38. Neither unlimited Liberty in matters of Religion must be allowed, nor unnecessary ¹force and rigour used, but Tolerable differences and parties must be tolerated, and intolerable ones by the wisest means supperest: And to this end, by the Counsel of the most prudent peaceable Divines, the Tolerable and the Intolerable must be statedly distinguished! And those that are only Tolerated must be under a Law for their Toleration, prescribing them their terms of good behaviour; and those that are Approved, must moreover have the Countenance and Maintenance of the Magistrate: And if this were done, 1. The advantage of the said Encouragement from Governors: 2. With the regulation of the the toleration, and the Magistrates careful Government of the Tolerated, would prevent both persecution, and most of the divisions and calamities of the Church. Thus did the ancient Christian Emperors and Bishops: (And was their experience nothing?) The Novatians (as good and Orthodox men) were allowed their own Churches and Bishops even in Constantinople, at the Emperors nose. Especially if it be made the work of some Justices, 1. To judge of persons to be tolerated, and grant them Patents, 2. And to over-rule them and punish them when they deserve it; No other way would avoid so many inconveniences.

§. 60. Direct. 38. Neither unlimited Liberty in matters of Religion must be allowed, nor unnecessary ¹force and rigour used, but Tolerable differences and parties must be tolerated, and intolerable ones by the wisest means supprest: And to this end, by the Counsel of the most prudent peaceable Divines, the Tollerable and the Intollerable must be statedly distinguished! And those that are only Tolerated must be under a Law for their Toleration, prescribing them their terms of good behaviour; and those that are Approved, must moreover have the Countenance and Maintenance of the Magistrate: And if this were done, 1. The advantage of the said Encouragement from Governours: 2. With the regulation of the the toleration, and the Magistrates careful Government of the Tolerated, would prevent both persecution, and most of the divisions and calamities of the Church. Thus did the ancient Christian Emperours and Bishops: (And was their experience nothing?) The Novatians (as good and Orthodox men) were allowed their own Churches and Bishops even in Constantinople, at the Emperours nose. Especially if it be made the work of some Justices, 1. To judge of persons to be tolerated, and grant them Patents, 2. And to over-rule them and punish them when they deserve it; No other way would avoid so many inconveniences.

1Direct. 38.

:8476p. 79

§. 62. As for those Libertines that under the name of Liberty of Conscience do plead for a liberty of such vicious practices, and in order thereto would prove that the Magistrate hath nothing to do in matters of Religion, I have Preached and wrote so much against them, whilst that Error reigned, and I find it so unseasonable, now the constitution of things looks another way, that I will not weary my self and the Reader with so unnecessary a task as to confute them. Only I shall say, that Rom. 13. telleth us that Rulers are a terror to them that do evil: and that Heretics and turbulent firebrands do evil: therefore Rulers should be a terror to them: And that if all things are to be done to the Glory of God, and his interest is to be set highest in the World, then Magistrates and Government are for the same end: And if no action which we do is of so base a nature, as ultimately to be terminated in the concernments of the flesh, much less is Government so vile a thing, when Rulers are in Scripture called Gods, as being the Officers of God.

§. 62. As for those Libertines that under the name of Liberty of Conscience do plead for a liberty of such vitious practices, and in order thereto would prove that the Magistrate hath nothing to do in matters of Religion, I have Preached and wrote so much against them, whilest that Errour raigned, and I find it so unseasonable, now the constitution of things looks another way, that I will not weary my self and the Reader with so unnecessary a task as to confute them. Only I shall say, that Rom. 13. telleth us that Rulers are a terrour to them that do evil: and that Hereticks and turbulent firebrands do evil: therefore Rulers should be a terrour to them: And that if all things are to be done to the Glory of God, and his interest is to be set highest in the World, then Magistrates and Government are for the same end: And if no action which we do is of so base a nature, as ultimately to be terminated in the concernments of the flesh, much less is Government so vile a thing, when Rulers are in Scripture called Gods, as being the Officers of God.