A26906:933
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.
Yet I must here premise, that as I have done this part with greater brevity, so also with submissive tenderness and respect: And that I do not at all intend any of the Directions following, as a Magisterial Dictator to those in authority; nor any of the admonitions, as factious reflections upon superiors or inferiors; or as pleading for or against any party now among us.
To the reasons after given for tenderness to Religious dissenters, though too much inclined to separations, I shall here only add First, That the general weakness, even of the Pastors through most of the Churches upon earth, should make us rather pity the weakness of ⟨p. 312⟩the people, than angrily revile them: And to think of Christs words, Let him that is without sin cast the first stone. Alas, our preaching, our praying, our conference, our living, tell all the world too loudly that we are weak! How few are there that be not either ignorant, or injudicious, or imprudent, or dull and lifeless, or dry and barren, or of a stammering tongue, in our Ministerial work? And in so high a business, any one of these is a loathsome blemish. If we are put to defend our Religion, or any necessary part thereof, how weakly and injudiciously is it usually done? In a word, Our great divisions among our selves, with our censures and usage of one another, do tell•all the world not only that we are weak, but that too many of us account one another to be worse than weak, even intolerable, and unworthy of our sacred office. And shall we by our weakness and faultiness become the peoples scandal, and tempt them to undue separations; and when we have done be impatient with their weakness, while we overlook our own?
To the reasons after given for tenderness to Religious dissenters, though too much inclined to separations, I shall here only add First, That the general weakness, even of the Pastors through most of the Churches upon earth, should make us rather pity the weakness of ⟨p. 312⟩