A27054:817
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.
§. 46. Penalties must not be equal, as offences are not equal: As the Approved are not ejected for every fault, so the Tolerated are not to be silenced for every fault. A profane swearer payeth twelve pence an oath: And some faults of preachers are not worse: But some are so great at first, and others by the addition of impenitency and incorrigibleness, as that they forfeit their Toleration.
§. 46. Penalties must not be equal, as offences are not equal: As the Approved are not ejected for every fault, so the Tolerated are not to be silenced for every fault. A prophane swearer payeth twelve pence an oath: And some faults of preachers are not worse: But some are so great at first, and others by the addition of impenitencie and incorrigibleness, as that they forfeit their Toleration.
§. 47. Those are to be accounted Intolerable who do more hurt than good, and whose silencing and suppression will do more good than harm. All men are faulty and do some harm: And few are so bad as to do no good: But that which prevaileth, must prevail in the judgement of the Magistrate. And yet when the suppression of a hurtful person will do by accident much more hurt to the Church or Commonwealth than the doth (as it may fall out) he is not to be so hurtfully suppressed.
§. 48. Those therefore are intolerable in the Ministry, 1. who through ignorance or disability are utterly insufficient for the necessary acts of the office; and so will mar and disgrace the work appointed them, and make Religious exercises scorned.
§. 48. Those therefore are intolerable in the Ministry, 1. who through ignorance or disability are utterly insufficient for the necessary acts of the office; and so will marr and disgrace the work appointed them, and make Religious exercises scorned.