A27006:997
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.
§ 17. Besides the Hinderances which are contained in Mens Principles, I found three others which were exceeding Powerful: One is in Mens Company and another in their seeming Interests, and the chiefest of all in the Disposition and Quality of their Minds.
§ 18. 1. Some that were most conversant with sober, peaceable, experienced Men, and were under the Care of peaceable Ministers, I found very much inclined to Charity and Peace. But multitudes of them conversed most with ignorant, proud, unexperienced, Passionate, Uncharitable Persons; who made it a part of their Zeal and Ingenuity to break a Jest in Reproach and Scorn of them that differed from them; and who were ordinarily Backbiters, and bold unrighteous Censurers of others, before they well understood them, or ever heard them give a Reason of their Judgments or Practices, or speak for themselves. And the hearing and conversing with such Persons as these doth powerfully dispose Men to the same Disease, and to sin impenitently after their Example. Especially when Men are incorporated into a Sect or uncharitable Party, and have captivated themselves to a human Servitude in Religion, and given up themselves to the Will of Men, the Stream will bear down the plainest Evidence, and carry them to the foulest Errors.
§ 19. 2. And as it is carnal Interest that ruleth the carnal World, so I found that 1. Among Selfish Men, there were as many Interests and Ends, as Persons; and every one had an Interest of his own which governed him, and set him at a very great Enmity to the most necessary means of Peace. 2. And that ever Man that had once given up himself to a Party, and drowned himself in a Faction, did make the Interest of that Faction or Party to be his own: And the Interest of Christianity, Catholicism and Charity, is contrary to the Interest of Sects, as such. And it is the Nature of a Sectary, that he preferreth the Interest of his Opinion, Sect or Party, before the Interest of Christianity, Catholicism and Charity, and will sacrifice the latter to the Service of the former.