A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian PoliticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
_Mem._ VII. Remember that the people that are seriously religious,
that love, and worship, and obey the Lord, with all their heart, are
the best of your subjects, and the honour of your dominions: see
therefore that serious godliness be every where encouraged, and that
the profane and ignorant rabble be never encouraged in their enmity
and opposition to it: and that true fanaticism, hypocrisy, and schism,
be so prudently discountenanced and suppressed, that none may have
encouragement to set themselves against godliness, under the slander
or pretension of such names. If christianity be better than
heathenism, those christians then are they that must be countenanced,
who go further in holiness, and charity, and justice, than heathens
do, rather than those that go no further (besides opinions and
formalities) than a Cato, a Plato, or Socrates have done. If all
religion were a deceit, it were fit to be banished, and atheism
professed, and men confess themselves to be but brutes. But if there
be a God, there must be a religion; and if we must be religious, we
must sure be so in seriousness, and not in hypocrisy and jest. It
being no such small, contemptible matter, to be turned into
dissembling compliment.[26]
_Mem._ VIII. Endeavour the unity and concord of all the churches and
christians that are under your government, and that upon the terms
which all Christ's churches have sometime been united in; that is, In
the Holy Scriptures implicitly, as the general rule; in the ancient
creeds explicitly, as the sum of our _credenda_; and in the
Lord's prayer, as the summary of our _expetenda_; and in the
decalogue, as the summary of our _agenda_; supposing, that we
live in peaceable obedience to our governors, whose laws must rule us
not only in things civil, but in the ordering of those circumstances
of worship and discipline, which God hath left to their determination.
_Mem._ IX. Let all things in God's worship be done to edification,
decently, and in order, and the body honour God, as well as the soul;
but yet see that the ornaments or garments of religion be never used
against the substance; but that holiness, unity, charity, and peace,
have alway the precedency.
_Mem._ X. Let the fear of sinning against God be cherished in all, and
let there be a tenderness for such as are over-scrupulous and fearful
in some smaller things: and let not things be ordered so, as shall
most tend to the advantage of debauched consciences, that dare say or
do any thing for their carnal ends. For they are truest to their
governors, that are truest to their God; and when it is the wrath of
God and hell that a man is afraid of, it is pity he should be too
eagerly spurred on. The unconscionable sort will be true to their
governors, no longer than it serves their interest; therefore
conscientiousness should be encouraged.[27]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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