A76157:587
Confirmation and restoration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of…Confirmation and restauration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of…
Confirmation and restoration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of the corruptions and divisions of the churches: submissively, but earnestly tendered to the consideration of the sovereign powers, magistrates, ministers, and people, that they may awake, and be up and doing in the execution of so much, as appeareth to be necessary as they are true to Christ, his Church and Gospel, and to their own and others souls, and to the peace and welfare of the nations; and as they will answer the neglect to Christ, at their peril. / By Richard Baxter, an unworthy minister of Christ, that longeth to see the healing of the churches.Confirmation and restauration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of the corruptions and divisions of the churches: submissively, but earnestly tendered to the consideration of the soveraigne powers, magistrates, ministers, and people, that they may awake, and be up and doing in the execution of so much, as appeareth to be necessary as they are true to Christ, his Church and Gospel, and to their own and others souls, and to the peace and wellfare of the nations; and as they will answer the neglect to Christ, at their peril. / By Richard Baxter, an unworthy minister of Christ, that longeth to see the healing of the churches.
London: printed by A.M. for Nevil Simmons book-seller, 1658
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.
Object. Wickedness it self doth not put a man out of the Visible Church. For a man is said to be cut off, but either de jure, or de facto;Meritoriously, or Effectually: the former is improperly called cutting off, being but the Desert of it: therefore if those baptized in Infancy, prove afterward wicked, they are not thereby cut off.
Answ. 1. Such persons as we have in question, lose their Right and title by a Cessation, for want of that personal Condition, which the Covenant made Necessary to its continuance. So that we need not prove any other cutting off. 2. If he be but Meritoriously cut off, it is the Churches duty to do it Sententially and Executively; it being of indispensable obligation, to give to all their due. 3. It's granted that Heresy cuts off: But how doth Heresy cut off any otherwise then Meritoriously? If therefore Wickedness do as much as Heresy, then thus far ⟨image 190⟩they are equal. 4. Either Wickedness signifieth some actual crime like Davids or Peters, when the Church knoweth not whether it be joined with Habitual Impenitence, or else it signifieth Habitual stated wickedness with impenitency. The first sort requireth but an Exclusion from Actual Church-Communion, (called suspension by some) as it is but Actual sin, that deserveth it. The second sort must have an Exclusion from their State and Church-relation, as it is a State of Impenitency, that deserveth it. The first sort of Excommunication, leaveth a man in the Church, quoad Statum & Relationem, but out of it quoad actum & usum: The The second sort leaves him out of it, both in State and Act. Not that the Excommunication puts him out of the Church, as Invisible: For that he did first himself meritoriously, and so efficiently; even by the efficiency of his demerits; as the Law of Christ did it, by its Obligatory efficiency: But when he hath put himself out of the Church invisible, and plainly declared this to the Church by his impenitent courses, the Church further declareth it by their Sentence, and puts him out of the Church Visible executively, when he had before, put out himself meritoriously. 5. As I said before, the persons wickedness ⟨image 191⟩