A27006:2098
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully published from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully publish'd from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1696
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.
§ 307. 4. Also they say, That we have Covenanted to endeavour a Reformation, and had begun it, and therefore shall be Covenant-breakers and Backsliders, if we yield to any thing which was to be reformed.
But here the more moderate have many Distinctions, between things unlawful and things only inconvenient, and between those that have opportunity to do better, and those that have not, and between seldom Communion, and most ordinary. And they say that things unlawful must not be done, whether we have covenanted against them, or not: But for things only inexpedient or evil by a superable Accident, they become our Duties, and no Covenant disobligeth us from our Duty: and that the Covenant never was intended to oblige us to prefer no Worship before that which is defective, but only to prefer that which is better before it: And that it may be a duty to Communicate sometime with a very faulty Church, in order to our Catholic Communion with the whole, so be it our ordinary particular Communion be in the purest Church and Order (caeteris paribus) that we can have.
But here the more moderate have many Distinctions, between things unlawful and things only inconvenient, and between those that have opportunity to do better, and those that have not, and between seldom Communion, and most ordinary. And they say that things unlawful must not be done, whether we have covenanted against them, or not: But for things only inexpedient or evil by a superable Accident, they become our Duties, and no Covenant disobligeth us from our Duty: and that the Covenant never was intended to oblige us to prefer no Worship before that which is defective, but only to prefer that which is better before it: And that it may be a duty to Communicate sometime with a very faulty Church, in order to our Catholick Communion with the whole, so be it our ordinary particular Communion be in the purest Church and Order (caeteris paribus) that we can have.