A26897:339
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.
10. As the Keys of the Church are committed by Christ to the Pastors, for intromission, Guidance and Sentential Excommunication, that is, for the Government of the Church; so the People must not usurp any part of their office: They are not obliged to try the Faith or Holiness of such as are to be Baptized, or such as are to be received into their Public Communion; but may rest in the Pastors Judgment, whose office it is to try them: supposing still ⟨p. 65⟩that they have their due remedy, in case of corrupting or destructive Male▪administration. And that their needful assistance in their Places should be used.
10. As the Keys of the Church are committed by Christ to the Pastors, for intromission, Guidance and Sentential Excommunication, that is, for the Government of the Church; so the People must not usurp any part of their office: They are not obliged to try the Faith or Holiness of such as are to be Baptized, or such as are to be received into their Publick Communion; but may rest in the Pastors Judgment, whose office it is to try them: supposing still ⟨p. 65⟩that they have their due remedy, in case of corrupting or destructive Male▪administration. And that their needful assistance in their Places should be used.
11. If any Member of the Church do live in any Heresy or other great Sin, contrary to his Covenant with God, those who are acquainted with it, must admonish him and seek to bring him to Repentance, in the order appointed by Christ; And if he repent not, they must tell the Church; And if being duly admonished by the Pastors, he yet repent not, the Pastors as the Church Guides, must pronounce him unfit for the Communion of the Church, and require him to forbear it, and the people to avoid him; which the people must obey. Yet so, as that if the people have sufficient cause to doubt whether a censure be not contrary to the Word of God, they may enquire into the cause; And if they find it contrary indeed, they must not execute that Sentence, by any of those private Acts of alienation, which are in their own Power: And they may seek due reparation of the public breach.