The cure of church-divisions, or, Directions for weak Christians to keep them from being…

DIRECT. XII.

Well study the gracious Nature and Office of Jesus Christ, and his great readiness to receive those that come to him, though weak in faith; and his backwardness to refuse such Comers; that so you may desire a Church-discipline that is suitable to the Nature and Office of Christ, and to the design and tenor of the Gospel.

Well study the gracious Nature and Office of Iesus Christ, and his great readiness to receive those that come to him, though weak in faith; and his backwardness to refuse such Commers; that so you may desire a Church-discipline that is suitable to the Nature and Office of Christ, and to the design and tenor of the Gospel.

Christs outward Discipline is agreeable to his inward. As those that come to him by faith, ⟨p. 102⟩he will in no wise cast out or reject; so those that come to him by profession of faith, he would not have his Ministers in any wise reject. And coming to Christ when he was personally on earth, did signify the following of him in present, as well as believing in him: Just so far as men will come, so far they shall be received by Christ? If they will come but towards him, he will not put them back. If they will come but to his visible Church, by a dead profession, he would not have his Ministers repulse them. The outward privileges of the visible Church which they come to, they shall possess. If they will come over to the Church of the regenerate, they shall be saved. But where ever they stop it shall be their own doing. Many came to Christ when he was on earth, whom he never repulsed, though he was marvelled at and grudged at for entertaining them. Some came so far as to own his Name, and did Miracles by it, that yet did not follow him: whom the Apostles would have hindered, but Christ reproved them,