A26906:556
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.
Moreover Prayer is the duty of every one, and specially of the heads of families: And therefore every true Christian hath gifts procured by Christ, for so much as is his duty. And he is bound to use his gifts. And yet those gifts are so low in many, that I fear not to call that man effectively an enemy to families, souls and prayer, who forbiddeth all such, to use such forms of prayer as are composed by the gifts of others.
The famousest Divines in the Church of God, even Luther, Zwinglius, Melanchthon, Calvin, Perkins, Sibbs, and abundance of Nonconformists of greatest name in England, did ordinarily use a form of prayer of their own, before their Sermons in the Pulpit, and some of them in their families too. Now these men did it not through idleness or through temporizing, but because some of them found it best for the people, to have oft the same words: and some of them found such a weakness of memory, that they judged it the best improvement of their own gifts. Now besides the first composure of these prayers, (which perhaps was done 20 years before) none of these men did use their own gifts, any mo•e than if they had used a form composed by another. For the memory & utterance is the same of both.
The famousest Divines in the Church of God, even Luther, Zwinglius, Melancthon, Calvin, Perkins, Sibbs, and abundance of Nonconformists of greatest name in England, did ordinarily use a form of prayer of their own, before their Sermons in the Pulpit, and some of them in their families too. Now these men did it not through idleness or through temporizing, but because some of them found it best for the people, to have oft the same words: and some of them found such a weakness of memory, that they judged it the best improvement of their own gifts. Now besides the first composure of these prayers, (which perhaps was done 20 years before) none of these men did use their own gifts, any mo•e than if they had used a form composed by another. For the memory & utterance is the same of both.