A27006:2163
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.
§ 345. 7. And hereby it greatly dishonoureth Christianity it self; and when the Church is as full of Vices as the Mahometan Societies are, or the Heathen, it is a public persuading the World that our Religion is as false or bad as theirs.
§ 345. 7. And hereby it greatly dishonoureth Christianity it self; and when the Church is as full of Vices as the Mahomiran Societies are, or the Heathen, it is a publick perswading the World that our Religion is as false or bad as theirs.
§ 346. 8. And hereby God himself and our blessed Redeemer are greatly dishonoured in the World: As his Saints are his honour, so when the Communion of Atheists and Profane Persons, and Oppressors and Deceivers, and Fornicators and Drunkards, is called by us, The Communion of Saints, it tendeth to make the Church a Scorn, and to the great dishonour of the Head of such a Body, and the Author of the Christian Faith.
§ 346. 8. And hereby God himself and our blessed Redeemer are greatly dishonoured in the World: As his Saints are his honour, so when the Communion of Atheists and Prophane Persons, and Oppressors and Deceivers, and Fornicators and Drunkards, is called by us, The Communion of Saints, it tendeth to make the Church a Scorn, and to the great dishonour of the Head of such a Body, and the Author of the Christian Faith.
§ 347. 9. And it lamentably conduceth to the hardening of the Heathens and Infidels of the World, and hindering their Conversion to the Christian Faith: It would make a Believer's heart to bleed (if any thing in all the World will do it) to think that five parts in six of the World are still Heathens, Mahometans and Infidels, and that the wicked Lives of Christians (with Poperies, Ignorance and Divisions) is the great Impediment to their Conversion! To read and hear Travellers and Merchants tell, that the Banians and other Heathens in Indostan, Cambaia, and many other Lands, and the Mahometans adjoining to the Greeks, and the Abassines, &c. do commonly fly from Christianity, as the Separatists among us do from Prelacy, and say, God will not save us if we be Christians; for Christians are Drunkards, and proud, and Deceivers, &c. And that the Mahometans, and many Heathens have more, both of Devotion and Honesty, than the common fort of Christians have that live among them! O wretched Christians! that are not content to damn themselves, but thus lay stumbling blocks before the World! It were better for these men that they had never been born! But if all these notorious ones were disowned by the Churches, it would quit our Profession much from the dishonour, and show poor Infidels that our Religion is good, though their Lives be bad.