Certainties and uncertainties

In The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter indicates the importance of unity among the churches writing, " ... we must be very studious of union and communion among ourselves, and of the unity and peace of the churches that we oversee. We must be sensible how needful this is to the prosperity of the whole, the strengthening of our common cause, the good of the particular members of our flock, and the further enlargement of the kingdom of Christ." This, of course, is a difficult task. nevertheless, Baxter makes many suggestions to help us, one of which he states clearly, "We must learn to distinguish between certainties and uncertainties, necessaries and unnecessaries, catholic verities and private opinions; and to lay the stress of the Church’s peace upon the former, not upon the latter."

Note, Baxter does not say that we must have peace in the churches at any cost. Not at all. He says our peace must rest on the certainties, which really exist, and not on the uncertainties. We must choose the right hills to die on. But, we fight, and die if needs be, together!