A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian EcclesiasticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
There are several errors that I am here warning you to avoid: 1. The
error of them that rather incline to the judgment of the ungodly
multitude, who never knew what it was to worship God in spirit and
truth. Consider the great disadvantages of these men to judge aright
in such a case. (1.) They must judge them without that teaching of the
Spirit, by which things spiritual are to be discerned, 1 Cor. ii. 13,
15. He that is blind in sin must judge of the mysteries of godliness.
(2.) They must judge quite contrary to their natures and inclinations,
or against the diseased habits of their wills: and if you call a
drunkard to judge of the evil of drunkenness, or a whoremonger to
judge of the evil of fornication, or a covetous, or a proud, or a
passionate man to judge of their several sins, how partial will they
be! And so will an ungodly man be in judging of the duties of
godliness. You set him to judge of that which he hateth. 3. You set
him to judge of that which he is unacquainted with: it is like he
never thoroughly studied it; but it is certain he never seriously
tried it, nor hath the experience of those, that have long made it a
great part of the business of their lives. And would you not sooner
take a man's judgment in physic, that hath made it the study and
practice of his life, than a sick man's that speaketh against that
which he never studied or practised, merely because his own stomach is
against it? Or will you not sooner take the judgment of an ancient
pilot about navigation, than one's that was never at sea? The
difference is as great in this present case.
2. And I speak this also to warn you of another error, that you prefer
not the judgment of a sect or party, or some few godly people, against
the common sense of the generality of the faithful; for the Spirit of
God is likelier to have forsaken a small part of godly people, than
the generality, in such particular opinions, which even good men may
be forsaken in: or if it be in greater things, it is more unreasonable
and more uncharitable for me to suspect that most that seem godly are
hypocrites and forsaken of God, than that a party or some few are so.
_Direct._ IV. Yet do not absolutely give up yourselves to the judgment
of any in the worshipping of God, but only use the advice of men in a
due subordination to the will of God, and the teaching of Jesus
Christ. Otherwise you will set man in the place of God, and will
reject Christ in his prophetical office, as much as using co-ordinate
mediators is a rejecting him in his priestly office. None must be
called master, but in subordination to Christ, because he is our
Master, Matt. xxiii. 8-10.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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