A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian EcclesiasticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
I know there are some, that with too bloody and calamitous success,
have in most ages given other kind of directions for the extirpation
of error, heresy, and schism, than I have here given:[173] but God
hath still caused the most wise, and holy, and charitable, and
experienced christians to bear their testimony against them. And he
hath ever caused their way of cruelty to turn to their own shame: and
though (like treasons and robberies) it seem for the time present to
serve their turn, it is bitterness in the end, and leaveth a stinking
memorial of their names and actions to posterity. And the treatises of
reconcilers, (such as our Halls, Ushers, Bergius, Burroughs, and many
other,) by the delectable savour of unity and charity, are sweet and
acceptable to prudent and peaceable persons, though usually
unsuccessful with the violent that needed them.
Besides the forecited witness of Sir Francis Bacon, &c. I will here
add one of the most ancient, and one or two of this age, whom the
contrary-minded do mention with the greatest honour. Justin Martyr,
Dial. cum Tryph. doth at large give his judgment, that a judaizing
christian, who thinketh it best to be circumcised and keep the law of
Moses, be suffered in his opinion and practice, and admitted to the
communion and privileges of the church, and loved as one that may be
saved in that way, so be it he do not make it his business to persuade
others to his way, and teach it as necessary to salvation or
communion; for such he doth condemn.
King James by the pen of Is. Casaubon telleth Cardinal du Perron, that
"His Majesty thinketh, that for concord there is no nearer way, than
diligently to separate things necessary from the unnecessary, and to
bestow all our labour that we may agree in the things necessary, and
that in things unnecessary there may be place given for christian
liberty. The king calleth these things simply necessary, which either
the word of God expressly commandeth to be believed or done, or which
the ancient church did gather from the word of God by necessary
consequence.----"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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