The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1875-11-03
Baxter and Unity.

What was the message which this ever
dying saint, this indomitable student, was
specially empowered to deliver? 1t was thai
which has been inscribed on his monument
"In a stormy and divided age stormy
with the storms of three revolutions, divided
with the divisions of hundred sects-" ne
advocated unity and comprehension. Many
other thoughts abounded in that teeming
brain, but they are more or less secondary.
This one thought was primary and ever.re-
curing. Other messages of divine or hu-
man truth were delivered with more force
and consistency by others of this time. But
in the solemn proclamation of this message
he stood pre-eminent. Milton and Jeremy
Taylor in the eloquence of the "Areopa-
gitica " and the "Liberty of Prophesying,"
Tillotson in his prudent and generous policy,
Chillngworth and Cudworth in their pbilo-
sophie arguments, promoted the same great
cause of healing the divisions Of Christep-
dom and enlarging the borders Of the ma
tional Church. But with Baxter this zeal
for the unity Of the spirit in the bond of
peace, and in righteousness in life, was the
fundamental dogma of his theology, the ab-
sorbing passion of his existence, mingling
with all it's combats in this world, and with
all his meditations on the world to come.
SIN necessary things unity, in unnecessary
things liberty, in all things charity" This
famous maxim was dug out by Baxter from
an obscure German treatise and made al
most the motto of his life, and now it has
gradually entered into universal literature,
and been deemed worthy of no lesser name
than that of the great Augustine, who, |
fear with all his power and piety, never, or
hardly ever, wrote anything SO good or SO
wise as this. Listen to few of the sayings
in which Baxter carried out this maxim
81 tell you that if you use but true love
and willingness in diligent, reformed, pious,
and righteous life, there is, certainly there
is, saving faith and knowledge within" 81
will not be ohe that shall condemn or reject
a lover of God and Christ and holiness for
want of distinct peculiar knowledge, or
words to utter it Alright" "The least con-
tested points are commonly the most weigh
y."
Again and again, amidst all his own limi-
tations and contradictions, he falls back on
the creed, the Lords Prayer and the Deca-
logue, as the essentials and fundamentals of
religion; and maintains that ono particular
words in the world are essential to our relig-
ion; otherwise no man could be saved with
out the language those words belonged to."
And even to the objection, so terrifying in
his own age as in our own, that the breadth
of this scheme would admit the Papist and
the Socinian, he boldly replied, $50 much
the better, and so much the filter it is to be
the matter of our concord" "For myself,
he says, 81 will take no narrow name | will
be Christian, mere Christian, Catholic
Christian" That much abused word "Cath-
olic" was to him the expression of dearest
convictions. He always uses it in its origi-
nal sense of universal" comprehensive"
1t runs through the titles of his treatises, it
forms the staple of his arguments. If it
ever could be redeemed from its perverted
use, it would have been by the persistent ac-
curacy with which he was determined to en-
ploy it. In the last resort sin and moral evil
were, in his judgment, the only grounds of
division in Christendom--h holiness and moral
goodness the only grounds of union here or
hereafter.-Dean Stanley, IN Macmillam's
Magazine,