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A26906 The cure of church-divisions, or, Directions for weak Christians to keep them from being dividers or troublers of the church with some directions to the pastors how to deal with such Christians / by Richard Baxter. Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1670 (1670) Wing B1234; ESTC R1684 258,570 520

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be denied or neglected HEaven-work and Heart-work are the chiefest parts of Christian duty Christ often giveth us his summaries of the Law and inculeateth his great Command Iob. 13. 35. Matth. 22. 37 38 39. Luk. 10. 27. And so doth the Apostle Rom. 13. 10. 1 Pet. 1. 22. 1 Iohn 3. 11 14 23. 4 7 11 12 20. 2 Ioh. 5. And the fruits of the spirit are manifest Gal. 5. 22 23. Iames saith that pure Religion and undefiled before God even the father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in adversity and to keep our selves unspotted of the world Jam. 1. 27. Paul saith 1 Tim. 1. 5. The end of the Commandement is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned And then addeth From which some having swarved have turned aside to vain janglings In a word The effectual belief of pardon and eternal Glory given through Christ and the Love of God and man with the denial of our selves and fleshly desires and contempt of all things in the world which are competitors with God and our salvation with a humble patient enduring of all which must be suffered for these ends is the nature and sum of the Christian Religion Do nothing therefore as a duty which is a hinderance to any of this Contentious preachings and factious sidings which weaken Love are not of God The servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men 2 Tim. 2. 24. When you come into a family and find that their Religion consisteth in promoting some odd opinion and pleading for a party and vilifying others be sure that this is a Religious way of serving the devil being contrary to the great and certain duties of a godly li●e When you fall into company which sti●leth all talk of Heaven and all Heart-searching and Heart-humbling conference by pleading 〈◊〉 this or that opinion be sure that it is but one way of enmity to Holiness though not so gross as scorning and persecuting it That which I said before of Truth is applyable to this of Duty It is one of the most important things in the world for the resolving of a thousand cases of conscience and the directing of a Christian life to know which Duties are the Greater and which are the lesser and so which is to be preferred in competition For that which is a duty at another time is a sin when it is done instead of a greater as Christ hath resolved in the case of the Sabbath If Good must be loved as Good then the Greatest Good must be most loved and sought Sacrifice instead of mercy is a sin Our gift must be left at the altar while we go to be reconciled to our brother Math. ● Never hearken to those men who would set up their controverted duties or any positives and lesser things against the duties of nature it self or the great substantial parts of godliness DIRECT XL. Labour for a sound judgement to know good from evil left you trouble your selves and others by mistakes And till you gr●w so judicious forsake not the guidance of a judicious Teacher nor the company of the agreeing generality of the Godly ALmost all our contentions and divisions are caused by the ignorance and injudiciousness of Christians especially the most self-conceited They are for the most as children that yet need to be taught the very principles of the divine Oracles and to be fed with milk when they think themselves fit to be teachers of others Heb. 5. 11 12. And therefore as children they are tossed to and fro and caried about with every wind of doctrine Eph. 4. 14. And when they have many years together been crying up an opinion and vilifying dissenters at last they turn to some other opinion and confess that they did all this upon mistake And was it not a pitiful life that they lived that while and a pitiful zeal which did set them on and a pitiful kind of worship which they thus offered to God Alas to hear a man pray and preach up Antinomianism one year and Arminianism the next and Socinianism the next To hear a man make Separation and Anabaptistry a great part of his business to men in preaching and to God in prayer for seven and seven years together and at last confess that all this was his errour and his sin Or if he confess it not it is so much the worse Is it not sad that ignorance and hasty rashness should so much injure the Church and mens souls that so many well meaning people should put evil for good and good for evil darkness for light and light for darkness Isa. 5. 20. But because there is no hope that most should be judicious there is no other remedy for such but this of Christs prescript which I have here set down First Happy is he that chooseth a judicious faithful Guide and learneth of him till his own understanding be better illuminated And that escapeth the conduct of ignorant erroneous self-seeking proud dividing Teachers Secondly Continue in the Communion of the generality of agreeing Christians The generality of the godly are more unlikely to be forsaken of Christ than a few odd self-conceited singular professours This is the way of peace to your selves and to the Church of Christ. DIRECT XLI Let not the bare Fervour of a Preacher or the Lowdness of his voice or affectionate manner of utterance draw you too far to admire or follow him without a proportionable degree of solid understanding and judiciousness IT is pity that any wise and judicious Minister should want that fervour and seriousness of speech which the weight of so great a business doth require And it is greater pity that any serious affectionate Minister should be ignorant and injudicious And it is yet greater pity that in any good men too much of their fervour should be meerly affected and seem to be what it is not or at least be raised by a selfish desire to advance our selves in the hearers thoughts and to exercise our parts upon their affections But it is most pitiful that the Church hath any hypocrites who have no other but such affected dissembled fervency And it is not the least pity that so many good people especially youths and women should be so weak as to value an affectionate tone of speech above a judicious opening of the Gospel I confess there is something in an affectionate expression which will move the wisest And as light and judgement tend to generate judgement so heat of affection tendeth to beget affection And I never loved a senseless delivery of matters of eternal consequence As if we were asleep our selves or would make the hearers to be so Or would have them think by our cold expressions that we believe not our selves when we set forth the great inestimable things of the life to come But yet it grieveth my very soul to think what pitiful raw and ignorant kind of preaching is crowded