In a day when many churchmen are decrying disunity with their mouths while throwing rocks at Christ’s bride with their hands, a fresh blast of truth (i.e. kick in the pants) in love from a churchman long gone is a much needed cup of cold water to we thirsty pilgrims, trying to find the church among all her broken pieces.
As in Richard Baxter’s day, so in ours:
Alas, our flames do rise so high, that Turks, and Jews, and Heathens stand looking on them, and ask, “What is the matter that these Christians thus irreconcilably worry one another?” Do we need any proof, when we feel the smart? When we see the blood? When we hear the noise of revilers at home, and see the scornful laughters of those abroad? When almost all Christendom is up in arms? When the churches are so many by-names, and broken into so many odious fractions; and so many volumes fly abroad, containing the reproaches and condemnations of each other? And (which is enough to break an honest heart to think or speak of) that all this hath continued so long a time!
If the first paragraph (in full) doesn’t have us in tears, we may be well nigh beyond hope.
Baxter’s concluding exhortation points the Spirit’s sword straight to our hearts:
I beseech you therefore, poor, peevish, quarrelsome souls, give others leave to live in the same house with you: Do not disown your brethren, and say, they are bastards, because they somewhat differ from you in complexion, in age, in strength, in health, in stature, or any of the points wherein I told you a little before that the members of the church do usually differ in. Shew not yourselves so ignorant or froward as to make a wonder of it, that God should be the Father both of infants, and men at age, of weak and strong, and that the sick and sound should both be in his family. Doth such cruelty beseem the breast of a Christian, as to wish God to cast out all his children from his family that are weak and sick? Do not make it such a matter of wonder, that God�s house should have so many rooms in it; and think it not a reproach to it, that the kitchen or the coal-house is a part of the house. Wonder not at it as a strange thing, that all the body is not a hand or eye; and that some parts have less honour and comeliness than the rest. Hath God told you so plainly and fully of these matters, and yet will you not understand, but remain so perverse? I pray hereafter remember better that the catholic church is one, consisting of all true Christians as the members. . . .
May the many be drawn back to the One, and the One flourish in love among the many, not at the expense of truth (as some would have), but upon it as our foundation and only hope.
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Sweet soul patch on Baxter!