A26897:55
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.
§ 13. Is not your Liberty to be governed only as consenting Volunteers enough for you, unless being many Masters you receive the greater condemnation, Jam. 3. 1. I would you would read the Third Chapter of James, and the Fourth to the Ephesians, and the Second to the Philippians, on your Knees, begging of God to cause the Scales to fall from your Eyes, and to give you his Eye salve, that you may see that you are poor, and miserable, and blind and naked: When the greatest Millenaries say, This is spoken of the new Jerusalem in another World in Paradise, do not repine that I apply it to you.
§ 14. And that you may not be proud of your Church Liberty it self (not to be forced to Sacraments and Communion, Let me tell you, what it is. It is a Liberty to be sinful, disorderly and unhappy, resulting from that Necessity which God in Nature and Scripture hath founded, in that he will make no one happy without his voluntary consent: If you will you may renounce your Baptism, and your Children's Church-Membership, and your own: you may after a first and second Admonition Excommunicate and condemn your selves, and renounce Communion with the Universal Church, and with Christ himself; you have liberty to forsake the Assemblies and Communion of the Church, and the help and conduct of true Pastors: you have liberty to forsake God, and to ⟨image 6⟩be damned: O woeful liberty! God will not pardon, or save you against your wills: And Kings and Bishops should not force you to take a sealed Pardon, or any of the Children's peculiar part without your voluntary consent. As much as you blindly cry down Freewill, I think you deny not, but men have a will free and able to Sin, and to choose Destruction, till Grace cure that freedom. And verily I think to such ignorant proud Dividers as you, it is but such a freedom to choose your own Teachers, where Christian Magistrates have more Wisdom to choose for you: Not much more than for Boys to choose their own Schoolmasters or Tutors, or Servants in a Great mans Family-Church, yea or Sons, to choose their Pastor. Your most desirable Liberty is to have wiser Governors and Choosers, and to have Wit, Humility and Grace to obey them. (But yet to be the discerning Judges of your Duty, and to do nothing against God's Law).