A26897:246
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.
4. For order sake, let Parishes be the ordinary bounds of Churches; not so as if all in the Parish, are therefore of the Church, but so as that ordinarily we take none out of others Parishes. Let us not do it without just cause, nor do it when it will tend more to public hurt, than any persons good can compensate. If you could prove Parishes no Churches, yet they that Preach to them for their Conversion, caeteris paribus, are fittest to be their Guides, when they are converted. Tell us if you can, wherever you found one instance in Scripture or the Primitive times, of one Soul that forsook the Church that was Congregated in the City of his Habitation, and was a Member of any other Church, in a place where he dwelt not; Except the Heretics that Jude saith did [separate themselves, being sensual, having not the spirit] whose manner it was to forsake the Assemblies, Heb. 10. 25. Cohabitation is requisite to the Ends of Churches, even the exercise of Communion, and the offices of Members one towards another. How can we watch over men that live out of our reach? How know we what their conversation is?
4. For order sake, let Parishes be the ordinary bounds of Churches; not so as if all in the Parish, are therefore of the Church, but so as that ordinarily we take none out of others Parishes. Let us not do it without just cause, nor do it when it will tend more to publick hurt, than any persons good can compensate. If you could prove Parishes no Churches, yet they that Preach to them for their Conversion, caeteris paribus, are fittest to be their Guides, when they are converted. Tell us if you can, wherever you found one instance in Scripture or the Primitive times, of one Soul that forsook the Church that was Congregated in the City of his Habitation, and was a Member of any other Church, in a place where he dwelt not; Except the Hereticks that Iude saith did [separate themselves, being sensual, having not the spirit] whose manner it was to forsake the Assemblies, Heb. 10. 25. Cohabitation is requisite to the Ends of Churches, even the exercise of Communion, and the offices of Members one towards another. How can we watch over men that live out of our reach? How know we what their conversation is?