A26906:986
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.
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. 1 Joh. 4. 16. And that the Love of God, doth ever work towards his image in man: 1 Joh. 4. 7, 11, 12, 20. And that all men as men have some of his Image in their Nature, as they are Intellectual, Free Agents exalted above the brutes. Gen. 9 6. And therefore we must Love men as men, and Love Saints as Saints; That it is Love to God and man, which is the true state of Holiness, and the New creature, and which Christ came to recover lapsed man to, and which the Holy Ghost is sent to work, and all the means of grace are intended and fitted for, and must be used for, or they are misused. In a word, that FAITH WORKING BY LOVE; or LOVE and THE WORKS OF LOVE KINDLED BY THE SPIRIT BY FAITH IN CHRIST; is the sum of all the Christian Religion. Gal. 5. 6, 13, 22. 1 Tim. 1. 5.