A26906:461
The cure of church-divisions, or, Directions for weak Christians to keep them from being…
The cure of church-divisions, or, Directions for weak Christians to keep them from being dividers or troublers of the church with some directions to the pastors how to deal with such Christians / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Symmons, 1670
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.
It is to let the Reader know, that man is not God, nor his judgement to be rested in, nor his favour to be over-valued. To call to you, O cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils; whose heart is deceitful and desperately wicked! For wherein is he to be accounted of! Look up to God, and take him for your God indeed: Rest in his Love, and be satisfied in his approbation▪ ⟨p. 149⟩Despise not man, nor lay any stumbling blocks before them; but as to your own interest in their esteems (farther than Gods service and their benefit requireth it) account it but a shadow, and a thing of nought: And say of it as Paul, With me it is a very small thing, to be judged of you or of mans day (or judgement) For I have one that judgeth me even the Lord. 1 Cor. 4. 3.
It is GOD (Christians) it is GOD, it is only GOD, whose infallibility, justification, and unspotted truth and goodness, you must make your rest. It is Heaven, it is Heaven, it is only Heaven, where perfect truth, and impartial righteousness, and the full vindication of all the just, and the fruition of perfect Love and Concord, is to be expected: and where malice, and lies, and discord, and the father of them, are totally and finally shut out.
As you would not be used as Hypocrites by God, and deprived of the true Reward of faith, O seek not after the hypocrite's reward! What is the applause of mortal man! Can you not bear the censure of such a shadow? How then would you suffer martyrdom for Christ? Over-value not the esteem of High or Low, of the Great or of the Godly, of the many or of the few. Gods approbation is sufficient to be your reward. See that you be Godly, and then be more indifferent though you are thought ungodly. See that you be loyal, and peaceable, and then you may bear it, if you be called the contrary. Abhor all unwarrantable divisions, and then you may bear to be reputed schismatics. Study you to be good, and not to be accounted good.