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A26912 A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and concord of Christians and are delivered in a book called The cure of church-divisions ... / by Richard Baxter ... Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1671 (1671) Wing B1239; ESTC R263 150,048 304

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you avoid what you injuriously impute to others when you cry out What could Parker c. have spoken more reproachfully c. Sure you thought I had spoken against fervent preaching it self or else you would not have talk'd as you do Here also after some mention of my Pride and Folly you adde two more gross Untruths 1. That what I spake of individual persons without respect to any party Conformists non-Conformists or Separatists and instanced in many of my own acquaintance some of which now Conform yea are zealous Conformists who were the ferventest loudest Preachers that ever I knew in all my life If I will not tell you who they are alas man did you never know such you must think it concerns all that are at this day engaged in a Gospel separation Answ. Had you said We will think so it might have been true But 1. I had made no mention at all of separation in the whole Direction nor intended any more than I expressed But only meant to direct people to avoid that error in the choice of Teachers which prepareth them for any seduction and division 2. I had largely spoken there for affectionate Preaching 3. I am not acquainted with very many such as in England have been known by the name of Separatists that go no further But those few that I do know I take to be colder duller Preachers than those that are called Presbyterians byfar for the most part of them so far was I from meaning them But Quakers and Fifth-Monarchy men and some Anabaptists I know and many revilers of the Ministry I have known in Armies and Countreys that were just such as I describe 2. It is an untruth that you had no pretence of Reason for that I can think of that I have left off the Lords work and instead of helping it forwards with you am weakening your hands and disgracing the builders If you mean that I preach not in the Pulpit no more do you If you mean that I have not a separated Church I never had one on your principles at least If you mean that I preach not in London 1. I cannot if I would 2. I never had any Pastoral Charge nor place in London but preach'd one year up and down for others and another year took but a voluntary Lecture 3. London I was forced eight years ago to forsake for my health and life 4. Gods work is not only in London 5. I have no call thither nor any people related to me as a Pastor there 6. There are very many worthy men there that want both employment and maintenance whom I will not injure Are not all these reasons enough But if you think otherwise 7. Are not all the Preachers in England forsakers of Gods work that preach not in London 8. I think you preached not for many years when you lay so long in prison Did you then forsake Gods work But I must confess Brother I have alwaies been too slothful and unprofitable a servant and still am Yet I can say that I know no other employment that I have and that I spend no more time in other things than necessities of life require I play away none and I idle away but little and preaching were it oftner is a small part of my work and that will be proved to be the Lords work which you think is against him as all have done that ever I wrote against almost And I love you much the better for being zealous for that which you do but think is the Lords work But I am past doubt that it will prove at last that such doctrines passions and practices as yours will be the weakeners and hinderers of the builders EXCEPT XXVI Answered p. 16. I intreat the Reader to peruse my words which you except against so angrily and I am assured he will find them useful to him in the great Question Who shall be Iudge And to help him out of his perplexities 1. It is a notorious untruth that you say It is altogether a new way of deciding Controversies to affirm Dictator like in all points of belief or practice which are of necessity to Salvation you must ever keep company with the Universal Church Be it right or wrong who knoweth not that knoweth what was held of old that it is the way that Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Hierome Augustine Optatus and abundance more have largely written for And which Vincentius Lirinensis wrote his book for Quod semper ubique ab omnibus c. 2. Note Reader that he leaveth out that I said here no man must be Iudge no not the universal Church but only that they are our associates and that here every Christian maketh the Articles of his Faith his own and upon no mans authority c. But I maintain that it is no Article of absolute necessity to Salvation that hath been unknown to the Universal Church till now for then it were no Church But saith our brother who shall tell us what is the Universal Church And where shall we find it Answ. Are these Questions now to be answered by me Did you never before hear it done by others The Universal Church is the Universality of Christians It is to be found militant on this habitable earth Did you not know this But you ask How comes the Scripture not to be mentioned Answ. Because it was not seasonable or pertinent I was not defining the Church If I had it was definable without the naming of the Scripture at least before the Scripture was written And whence think you did I mean men should make the doctrine of Faith their own past controversie but by the Scripture Good brother till you have written more books for the authority of Scriptures than I have done or preach'd more for it own not such disingenuous intimations 2. You say that what he addes is much more conceited and singular In matters of high and difficult speculation the judgement of one man of extraordinary understanding and clearness is to be preferred before both the Rulers and the Major Vote Answ. It is another Untruth that this is singular My very words are almost verbatim in Mr. Pemble Vind. Grat. elsewhere cited Why do the Scotists so far follow Scotus and the Nominals Ockbam and the Dominicans Aquinas c. if this were a singular opinion Do not all the Peripateticks say the same of Aristotle in Philosophy And the Atomists of Epicurus Democritus and Lucretius and the Cartesians of their Master Doth not Dr. Twisse say the like of Bradwardine and of Piscator And do not many besides Rutherford think the same of him Do not the Ramists say so of Ramus Do not the Protestants say so of Calvin as to all that went before him Nay is it not almost the common opinion of all Learned men And a thing beyond dispute Did ever any man put such points of high speculation to the Major vote Alas brother that you should
not int●ressed in their discipline or is no stated member is not only lawful but for the ends sake is a duty when our never communicating with them is scandalous and offensive to our Rulers and tendeth to make people think that we hold that to be unlawful which we do not and when our actual Communion is apt and needful to shew our judgement and to cherish love and Christian Concord On which account as I would statedly communicate with the Greek Church if I were among them and had no better and would sometimes communicate with them in their Prayers and Sacraments if I did but pass through the Countrey as a stranger or if I could have better even so would I do with a Parish Church if as faulty as you can justly charge it with the foresaid limitations or with a Church of Anabaptists or Independents if they did not use their meetings to destroy either Piety or Love This is my judgement This is the summ of all that I plead for as to Communion If the Excepter deny not this he talketh not at all to me If any that have passionately reviled my Book and me do say We thought you had gone further and pleaded for more I answer them that we should not speak untruths and revile things before we understand them and then come off with I thought you had said more It is this with other Love-killing distempers that I strive to Cure And again I tell you that it is 1. Ignorance 2. Pride or overvaluing our own understandings 3. And Uncharitableness generated of these two which is the Cause of our CRUELTIES and our unlawful SEPARATIONS and which breed and feed our threatning Divisions among the parties on both extreams And it s the death of these three that must be our Cure CAP. 3. Some Objections or Questions about Separation answered AS to that party who think Anabaptists and Independents unfit for their communion I am not now dealing with them and therefore am not to answer their Objections Only on the by I shall here mind them 1. That it is not such as the old German Anabaptists who denyed Magistracy to Christians c. that I speak of But such as only deny Infant Baptism And that many of them are truly Godly sober men and therefore capable of communion And that the ancient Churches left it to men liberty at what time they would have their Children baptized 2. That many Independents are downright against Separation Mr. Iacob hath notably written against it Therefore those that are but meer Independents refuse not communion with the Parish Churches And why should you refuse communion with them 3. That many that separate secundum quid or pro tempore from some part of Worship only and for a season yet separate not simply from the Churches as no Churches nor would do all as they do in othe● circumstances For instance when they come not to the publick Assemblies yet they will not refuse you if you will come to theirs Go to their meetings and see if they so far separate as to forbid you Nor perhaps to their Sacraments if you will submit to their way as you expect they should do by yours Now seeing we are all agreed that the Magistrate doth not make Ministers Churches or Sacraments but only encourage protect and rule them I desire you but to be so impartial as to consider that 1. You count not your selves Separatists because you never go to one of their Meetings in their houses or other places Why then should you call them Separatists only for not coming to yours 2. But if they are guilty of Separation for holding either that your Churches and Ministry are Null or that Communion with you is unlawful by Gods Law enquire how far you also are Separatists if you say the same without proof by any others Though their lawfulness by the Law of the Land I justifie not no nor the regularity of their Church Assemblies 4. And I would here note how partial most men are They that think an Independent or Anabaptist yea or a Presbyterian intolerable at home in their several Churches yet if they would but come to their communion they would receive them as tolerable members And they that think it unlawful to hold communion with the Prelatists and give the reason partly from their unfitness yet would receive them in many Churches if they did but change their Opinions and desire communion with them in their way But it is those that judge Parish communion where there are godly Ministers unlawful that I am here to speak to And their principal doubts are such as many good and sober persons need an answer to QUEST I. Quest. 1. DOth not the second Commandment and Gods oft expressed jealousie in the matters of his Worship make it a sin to communicate in the ●●turgi● Answ 1. The meaning of the second Commandment mistaken by many is directly to forbid Corporal or Interpretative Idolatry and worshipping God by Images as if he were like ● Creature And scandalousl● symbolizing with the Idolaters or Worshippers of false Gods by doing that which in outward appearance is the Worshipping of a false God though the mind be pretended to be kept free Now the Worshipping of the true God in the words of the Liturgie hath none of this nor will any but a sinful C●nsurer think that it is the worshipping of a false God Nor is every use of the same places words or other things indifferent a symbolizing with Idolatry But the saying those words or the using those Acts or Ceremonies by which their false Religion in specie is notified as by a tessera or badge to the world Or using the Symbols of their Religion as differing from the true Even as the use of Baptism and the Lords Supper the Creed and the constant use of our church-Church-Worship are the Symbols of the Christian Religion So their Sacraments Incense Sacrificings and Worshipping Conventions were the Symbols of Worshipping false Gods which therefore Christians may not use But they that say that all false Worship of the true God is Idolatry add to Gods word and teach doctrines which are but the forgeries of their own brain Though more than Idolatry be forbidden by Consequence in the second Commandment that proveth it not to be Idolatry because it s there so forbidden 2. I have after distinguished of false Worship and told you that if by false you mean forbidden or not commanded or sinful we all worship God falsly in the Manner every day and in some part of the matter very oft Our disorders confusion tautologies unfit expressions are all forbidden and so false worship And if God prohibit any disorder which is in the Liturgie he prohibits the same in extemporate prayers in which some good Christians are as failing as the Liturgie And as the words of the Liturgie are not commanded in the Scripture so neither are the words of our extemporate or studied Sermons or Prayers 3.