A27054:202
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.
1. As there is a great similitude between incoherent sands or drops of rain, so is there between ungodly men: They are very like in their privations and ungodliness: but this is no Unity at all. But the faithful are not only Like, but United, as many drops in one Ocean, or as many Candles united in one flame, or many Sun-beams in one Sun and air. 2. All these sands, or dust or dead bodies, quarrel not among themselves, because they are unactive beings, whose nature is to lye still; while parents and children and brethren may have many fallings out: And yet there is that Unity in Parents and Children, inclining them to the Loving Communion of each other, which is not in the sand or dust or dead.
1. As there is a great similitude between incoherent sands or drops of rain, so is there between ungodly men: They are very like in their privations and ungodliness: but this is no Vnity at all. But the faithful are not only Like, but Vnited, as many drops in one Ocean, or as many Candles united in one flame, or many Sun-beams in one Sun and aire. 2. All these sands, or dust or dead bodies, quarrel not among themselves, because they are unactive beings, whose nature is to lye still; while parents and children and brethren may have many fallings out: And yet there is that Vnity in Parents and Children, inclining them to the Loving Communion of each other, which is not in the sand or dust or dead.
And so wicked men in some cases have not those vital principles which are necessary to an active quarrel, and yet may have far less Union than the Godly in their scandalous discord. Swine and Dogs will not strive or fight for Gold or Lands or Lordships, as men do; nor Asses for the food or delicates of men; nor yet for our ornaments or gay clothes: Brutes never contend for preeminence in Learning, nor fall out in argumentation as men do; Because their faculties are as dead to all these things: And that which moveth not, doth not strive: so wicked men strive not who shall please God best, or who shall be soundest in the faith, or the greatest enemy to sin, which is the commonest contention of good men, (while some of them mistake some ⟨p. 52⟩