A26906:985
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.
In all your public Doctrine and private Conference, inculcate still the necessary conjunction of Holiness and Peace; and of the Love of God and Man; And make them understand that Love is their very Holiness, and the sum of their Religion; the end of Faith, the heart of Sanctification, and the fulfilling of the Law: And that as Love to God uniteth us to Him, so Love to man, must unite us to one another; And that all Doctrine or practice is against God and against Christ and against the great work of the Spirit, and is enmity to the Church and to mankind, which is against Love a•d Unity. Press these things on them all the year, that your hearers may be bred up and nourished with these principles from their youth.
In all your publick Doctrine and private Conference, inculcate still the necessary conjunction of Holiness and Peace; and of the Love of God and Man; And make them understand that Love is their very Holiness, and the sum of their Religion; the end of Faith, the heart of Sanctification, and the fulfilling of the Law: And that as Love to God uniteth us to Him, so Love to man, must unite us to one another; And that all Doctrine or practice is against God and against Christ and against the great work of the Spirit, and is enmity to the Church and to mankind, which is against Love a•d Unity. Press these things on them all the year, that your hearers may be bred up and nourished with these principles from their youth.
IF ever the Church be recovered of its wounds, it must be by the peaceable Dispositions of the Pastors and people. And if ever men come to a peaceable Disposition, it must be by peaceable Doctrine and principles: And if ever men come to peaceable Principles, it must be by the full and frequent explication of the nature, pre-eminence, necessity and power of Love: That they may heat of it so much, and so long, till Love be made their ⟨p. 334⟩Religion, and become as the very Natural Heat and Constitution of their souls. And if ever men be generally brought to this, it must be by daily sucking it from those breasts which nourish them in the infancy and youth of their Religion, and by learning it betimes as the sum of Godliness and Christianity. And if ever they come to this, the Aged experienced ripe and mellow sort of Ministers and private Christians, must instil it into Scholars and into the younger sort of Ministers, that they may have nothing so common in their ears and in their studies, as Uniting-Love: That they may be taught to know that God is Love, and tha he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God, and God in him.