A26912:26
A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and…
A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and concord of Christians and are delivered in a book called The cure of church-divisions ... / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1671
Preface: THE PREFACE TO THOSE READERS Who are of the Excepters mind, and are offended at my Book…
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.
1. Did I ever persuade you to think well of the faults of other men, while I persuaded you to love their persons? (unless you call the Communion a fault of which we are to speak anon) Did I ever seek to abate your dislike of the sins which you most speak against? Either malignity, cruelty, persecution, or any other.
1. Did I ever perswade you to think well of the faults of other men, while I perswaded you to love their persons? (unless you call the Communion a fault of which we are to speak anon) Did I ever seek to abate your dislike of the sins which you most speak against? Either malignity, cruelty, persecution, or any other.
2. The thing which I persuaded men to in that book, was Communion with all Christians, (but differently as they differ in degrees of purity.) That ⟨p. 6⟩which I motioned and pleaded for, I summed up in the latter end, with the contrary extremes; which you may there read in five propositions, 1. To adhere to the primitive simplicity, and make nothing necessary to our Concord and Communion which is not so. 2. To love your neighbours as your selves, and receive those to Communion whom Christ receiveth, and that hold the foresaid necessary things, be they Episcopal, Presbyterian, Independents, Anabaptists, Calvinists, Arminians, Lutherans, &c. so they be not proved heretical or wicked. Peruse the rest. When you come to your selves you will confess that this was no unreasonable nor unchristian motion? Which of all these Parties is it that you are angry with me for persuading you to Communion with? Must every one of the Parties renounce Communion with all the rest? O how unlike is this doctrine to that of the Holy Ghost? 1 Cor. 1. 10. & 3. 1, 2, 3. Rom. 14. & 15. &c. If not every one, which of them is it? Is any one of all these Parties, the whole Church of God? who dare say so? Why should I refuse Communion with any one of these, while I scruple not Communion with all the rest. Or if it must be but with one sort, how shall I know which of them it must be?