A27054:188
The true and only way of concord of all the Christian churches the desirableness…
The true and only way of concord of all the Christian churches the desirableness of it, and the detection of false dividing terms / opened by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Hancock, 1680
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.
CHAP. IV.
The UNITY of the Spirit in the welfare of the Church.
The VNITY of the Spirit in the welfare of the Church.
II. AS the UNITY of the Spirit is the personal welfare of every Christian, so is it the common interest of the Church, and of all Christian Societies, Kingdoms, Cities, Schools and Families: And that in all these respects.
I. UNITY is the very life of the Church (and of all Societies as such). The word LIFE is sometime taken for the LIVING PRINCIPLE or FORM, and so the SOUL is the LIFE of a Man, and the SPIRIT as dwelling and working in us, is the Moral or holy-spiritual ⟨p. 46⟩LIFE of the soul, and of the Church as mystical: And sometime LIFE is taken for the UNION of the said vital principle with the Organical Body, or matter duly united in it self: And so the UNION of soul and body is the Life of a man; and the Union of the Political Head and Body is the Life of political Societies: And so the Union of Christ and the Church is the Life of the Church; And the Union of the members among themselves, is (as the union of the parts of the organical body) the necessary Dispositio materiae, without which it cannot have Union with the Head; or the effect of Union with the Vital principle, and so the Union which is essential to the Church. As that is no Body whose parts are not united among themselves, nor no Living Body which is not united to the soul (and in it self); so that is no Church or no Society which is not United in it self; and no Christian Society or Church which is not united unto Christ.