A26897:134
Church concord
Church concord containing I. a dissuasive from unnecessary division and separation, and the real concord of the moderate independents with the Presbyterians, instanced in ten seeming differences, II. by Richard Baxter.Church concord containing I. a disswasive from unnecessary division and separation, and the real concord of the moderate independents with the Presbyterians, instanced in ten seeming differences, II. by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1691
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.
Let any Man read Mr. Norton, and such others, and he will allow me to conclude, that de lege in this point we are agreed, even in two words, that [A Credible Profession] is the Condition or Qualification requisite in the Adult.
Yea and we are agreed also what are the Qualifications that must make a profession Credible: Viz. that it be (or seem to us to be) tolerably Understanding, Deliberate, Free or Voluntary, Serious, and not Invalidate by contradictory words or practice, sufficiently proved. And for the matter of it, we are agreed, that it must be a profession of all the Essentials of Christianity, and that it must be a Consent to present and not only to a distant future holiness. Even as a promise to become a Husband or Wife to another a Month hence, is not Marriage, but a promise of Marriage.
We are agreed also that Extremes in the Execution of this Rule, must be cautiously avoided. As on one side, that we do not take that to be a profession that is none, and that we take not that for Credible that is Incredible; and that we take not that for Understood that is not tolerably understood, or that for deliberate, voluntary or serious that is not so, or appeareth not so: And that we be not careless when it may be done, in inquiring how Men have kept their Baptismal Covenant, and what their Lives are, before we Confirm them, or Approve them for the Communion of the Adult: And that we refuse not to hear what just exceptions can be brought against them: Lest we frustrate Church Order and Ordinances, and nullify Discipline, and pollute the Church. And on the other side we are (in the Doctrine) agreed, that Hypocrites will be in the Visible Church, and that we must not refuse those that have the least knowledge of the Essentials, though they are not able in the Congregation to express it, nor privately in any but broken and unhandsome words; and that withal make the most imperfect Credible Profession of Faith and Repentance, and Resolution for Obedience: And that we must not break the bruised Reed, nor reject the least of the Lambs of Christ, but receive them that are weak in the Faith, and not of our own Heads reject any persons Profession as Incredible, without sufficient Reasons for such a judgment of it.