A26906:778
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.
The sum of all that I say to you is this: It is but one and the same sin in the Persecutor and the Divider or Separatist, which causeth the one to smite their brethren, and the other to excommunicate them: the one to cast them into prisons as Schismatics, and the other to cast them out of the Church as profane: the one to account them intolerable in the land, and the o•her to account them intolerable in the Church: the one to say. Away with them they are contumacious; and the other to say, Away with them they are ungodly. The inward thoughts of both is the same, that those whom they smite or separate from, are bad and unlovely and unfit for any better usage. When Love which thinketh no evil till it is necessitated, and believeth all things which are at all credible, and hopeth all things which are not ⟨p. 262⟩desperate, and covereth sins instead of condemning without proof, would equally cure them both.
The sum of all that I say to you is this: It is but one and the same sin in the Persecutor and the Divider or Separatist, which causeth the one to smite their brethren, and the other to excommunicate them: the one to cast them into prisons as Schismaticks, and the other to cast them out of the Church as prophane: the one to account them intollerable in the land, and the o•her to account them intollerable in the Church: the one to say. Away with them they are contumacious; and the other to say, Away with them they are ungodly. The inward thoughts of both is the same, that those whom they smite or separate from, are bad and unlovely and unfit for any better usage. When Love which thinketh no evil till it is necessitated, and believeth all things which are at all credible, and hopeth all things which are not ⟨p. 262⟩desperate, and covereth sins instead of condemning without proof, would equally cure them both.
And let me yet conclude with this double protestation against the carping slanderer who useth to falsify mens words. First, That I intend not in all this any flattery of the ungodly, or making them better than they are, or forbearing plain reproof or Church-discipline, nor any unlawful communion with the wicked, nor countenancing them in any of their sins, nor neglecting to call them to repentance.