A26909:130
The dangerous schismatic clearly detected and fully confuted for the saving of a distracted…The dangerous schismatick clearly detected and fully confuted for the saving of a distracted…
The dangerous schismatic clearly detected and fully confuted for the saving of a distracted nation from that which would destroy Christian love and unity : occasioned by a resolver of three cases about church-communion / by Richard Baxter ...The dangerous schismatick clearly detected and fully confuted for the saving of a distracted nation from that which would destroy Christian love and unity : occasioned by a resolver of three cases about church-communion / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for Thomas Parkhurst, 1683
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.
A. 1. And yet before he denied that Communion lay essentially in this Exercise, but only in Union: Yea and Nay is his Custom. 2. Some few Christians (as those that live where such Communion cannot be had without sin, &c.) are not bound to it; therefore it is not true that it is Essential to Universal Church-membership. And I think sickness endeth not the essentials, that disableth men.
A. 1. And yet before he denyed that Communion lay essentially in this Exercise, but only in Vnion: Yea and Nay is his Custom. 2. Some few Christians (as those that live where such Communion cannot be had without sin, &c.) are not bound to it; therefore it is not true that it is Essential to Universal Church-membership. And I think sickness endeth not the essentials, that disableth men.
3. Note Reader, that by this mans Doctrine we are all unchristened and damned if we do not gather into disallowed Churches, if we be unjustly cast out of the allowed ones: For all must be Church members that will be Christians, and an unjust Excommunication cannot disoblige us from Christianity, nor bind us to consent to be damned. Now read the 5th 6th 7th 8th, &c. Canons of the Church of England, which ipso facto Excommunicate all that affirm any thing in their Liturgy, Articles, Ceremonies or Government ⟨p. 19⟩sinful, and answer Spalatensis arguments against Excommunicating ipso facto, and prove all this just, and you may prove what you will just. But you see where he layeth the Controversy: If any be Excommunicated without sufficient cause, or by Lay Civilians to whom God never gave that power, or by such Bishops or Pastors as have no just Authority for want of a true call or Consent; or if any unlawful thing be made necessary to Communion, all such persons must by his own confessions hold Church-communion whether these imposers will or not; for all Christians are bound to be of some Church.
3. Note Reader, that by this mans Doctrine we are all unchristened and damned if we do not gather into disallowed Churches, if we be unjustly cast out of the allowed ones: For all must be Church members that will be Christians, and an unjust Excommunication cannot disoblige us from Christianity, nor bind us to consent to be damned. Now read the 5th 6th 7th 8th, &c. Canons of the Church of England, which ipso facto Excommunicate all that affirm any thing in their Liturgy, Articles, Ceremonies or Government