A26917:527
Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace…
Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace with motives opening the lamentable effects of their weaknesses and distempers / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1669
Title page typeset from the transcription.
THE CHARACTER OF 1 A Sound Confirmed Christian, 2 And of the Weak C… › The Characters.
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 any called Christians shall be seditious, or rebellious, or as the Papists believe, that the Clergy are from under the Jurisdiction of Kings, and that the Pope hath power to excommunicate Princes, and absolve their subjects from their allegiance, and give their dominions to others, (as it is decreed in the General Council at the Lateran under Innocent the third, Can. 3.) Is all this long of Christ, who hath paid tribute to Caesar, and hath commanded that every soul be subject to the higher Powers, and not resist, and this for conscience sake, Rom. 13 1, 2, 3. and hath bid his ⟨p. 176⟩Disciples rather to turn the other cheek, than to seek revenge, Luk. 6.29. and hath told them that they that use the sword (of rebellion, or revenge, or cruelty) shall perish by the sword, Joh. 18.11. If any Christians will under pretence of Religion, set up a cruel Inquisition, or kill men to convert them, or become self-lovers, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to Parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false-accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, &c. Is this long of him that hath forbid all this? 2 Tim. 3.2, 3, 4, 5. If for their own domination, lust or covetousness, men called Christians, will be worse than Heathens and Wolves to one another, is this long of him that hath made it his sheep-mark by which we must be known to all men to be his Disciples, that we love one another? Joh. 13.35. and hath told them, that if they bite and devour one another, they shall be devoured one of another? Gal. 5.15. and hath blessed the merciful, as those that shall find mercy, Mat. 5.7. and hath told men that what they do to his little ones, shall be taken as if it were done to himself,