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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26887	The certainty of Christianity without popery, or, Whether the Catholick-Protestant or the papist have the surer faith being an answer to one of the oft canted questions and challenges of the papists, sent to one who desired this : published to direct the unskilful, how to defend their faith against papists and infidels, but especially against the temptations of the Devil, that by saving their faith, they may save their holiness, their comfort and their souls / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1672 (1672)	Wing B1213; ESTC R5291	42,876	122

being or power XXV Either the Pope and Council themselves know the true Copies Readings and Translations from the Authority of former Councils or by their own or by the Evidence of the thing and Common History or by Inspiration or Supernatural Revelation If all the rabble of wicked Popes and Prelates pretend to Rule the Church and our faith by Inspiration they are crackt-braind fanaticks Sure they were no Prophets before they were Popes or Councillers But if it be by their own Authority who will take a self-made faith of men that Believe only because they Believe And must have all others believe only because they believed before them Then it is themselves and not Christ that they believe If it be former Popes and Councils that they believe tell us whom and why the first believed Mark that you cannot arise to St. Peter For the various Copies and Translations which we are in question of were all made since St. Peters daies XXVI When in a Council the major part carry it by vote perhaps by one or a few How shall we be sure that all the minor part were deceived XXVII How shall all those Abassines Armenians Indians in New-England or others that know not that ever there was a Pope or General Council in the world become Christians Or are you sure they are none XXVIII We see by experience in the foresaid Nations and feel in our selves that men may have a certain faith without receiving it from the Pope Can you make me know that I do not believe when I know that I do And can you prove that only the third part of Christians in the world are true Christians and have Certain faith because all the rest receive it not from the Pope and why may not the major part of the Church be sure as well as he XXIX Hath the Church a twofold foundation for faith If the Pope and Council believe Gods word to be his word on one Ground and all other men on another ground that is because they say it then we have two faiths and two Churches on two foundations But if otherwise then Pope and Council do as we must do by their doctrine even believe it because they say it themselves XXX The Councils Decrees of Faith are so Voluminous that not one Priest of fourty knoweth them all and not one lay man of many thousand The very bulk therefore of your faith must make it more uncertain than ours is And who can tell whether he have it all XXXI The words of your Councils are as obscure as Scripture words and are controverted by your Doctors And how can it be otherwise when humane language is so ambiguous in such huge Volumes How then shall the sense of your Councils themselves be certainly known XXXII Councils are rarely extant God only knoweth whether ever there will be anothor even a pretended one And must we have no judge in the mean time to give us a Certainty of the meaning of the very foregoing Councils themselves Most confess that the Pope himself may err XXXIII It is but few persons in the world that ever saw and consulted with a Pope and a General Council How then shall we be all sure what they said or determined How know we whether the Records of them be truest in Crab in Surius in Nicolinus in Binnius or in none of them What was Caranzas's fault that he is blamed for Which of the various Copies of Canons are true which are given us oft by the same Author Who knoweth what alterations the Index expurgatorius not infallible maketh in the books Have we no more or other Certainty of our Creed than of all these Councils so variously and doubtfully delivered XXXIV Seeing that each lay man that never saw Pope or Councils can know them only by believing the Priest that telleth him This the Church saith is that Priest Infallible Can no man be be certainer of the Creed than of that Priests words Is not the faith of almost all your vulgar Papists resolved into the Priests affirmation And so is it not a humane faith And how ignorant and wicked is many a Priest Is our faith uncertain because we take it not on such a mans credit XXXV If you say that an Implicite faith that all is true and of God which the Pope and Council saith is so will save men 1. How do the people know whether the Pope and Council determine any thing at all but on the Priests credit 2. Then all Infidels may be saved without believing that there is a Saviour or salvation so they do but believe in the Pope and Council 3. Then believing in the Pope and Council is made far more necessary than believing in Christ. 4. Why will not an implicite belief in Christ go as far as yours XXXVI By your way we can never be Certain when we have all the Christian faith For more Councils may still make more decrees as hitherto they have done and who knows when they will hae done And so you make a Christian quite another thing than he was in the primitive Church And you cruelly make it far harder to be saved when as then a man might be saved that believed the Covenant and Creed and foresaid Catechism and now he must also believe so many Canons as that the Councils containing them in the last Edition exceed the purse of a poor Minister to buy them and the time and brains of most to read them XXXVII You confess all our faith and Religion to be true as far as I can learn but we deny all your additions Both parties therefore being agreed of the truth of ours it 's like to be the surer Our Religion in the Essentials is nothing but the Sacramental Covenant the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue with the Law of Nature And in the Integrals it is nothing but the Scriptures which we receive as Canonical And all this you commonly confess to be true And I told you before how Bellarmine Costerus and others confess less to be sufficient to Salvation as commonly necessary But your additions we reject as uncertain or false XXXVIII We see you to be a Carnal Kingdom set up against Christs express determination Luk. 22. 26. 1. Pet. 5. 3. As the Geographia Nubiensis saith In Vrbe Roma c. In the City of Rome are the seats of a King called the Pope Nor is there any superiority in dignity above the Pope and Kings are lower or inferior than he We see that you have compaginated your policie all for these carnal Ends and that dignity and dominion and riches and worldliness is promoted by your faith And that your Religion is propagated and upheld by most inhumane cruelties and bloodshed and they must be burned that seem not to believe as you do And will it not raise suspicions in us of the fidelity of such men when they make their own faith and tell us that we have no certainty of ours but by their determination

THE CERTAINTY OF CHRISTIANITY Without POPERY OR Whether the Catholick-Protestant or the Papist have the Surer Faith Being an Answer to one of the oft canted Questions and Challenges of the Papists sent to one who desired this Published to direct the unskilful how to defend their faith against Papists and Infidels but especially against the Temptations of the Devil that by saving their Faith they may save their Holiness their Comfort and their Souls By Richard Baxter 2 Cor. 4. 1 2. Seing we have this Ministry as we have received mercy we faint not But have renounced the Hidden things of dishonesty not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully But by manifestation of the truth commending our selves to every mans Conscience in the sight of God LONDON Printed for Nevil Simons at the Sign of the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1672. TO THE Protestant Reader IT is for your Reading and not for the Papists chiefly that I publish this short and hasty writing For I may probably prognosticate of them 1. That the lay men will not must not read it 2. That the Priests will not read it with any impartiality as Lovers of Truth 3. That what they cannot answer they will silently dissemble or if any meddle with it they will either take some scrap and leave the rest or they will spend paper in cavilling at my 40. Reasons against them because lest I be tedious I have not improved them by Syllogistical form and full confirmation and they will put off the full answers already given them in the former Books to which I refer them without a Reply And they will pass by the strength of what they meddle with 4. And when I am dead they will patch up some confident answer to some of my Books as vain as Mr. Iohnson alias Terret hath done to one and will borrow some lies from the writings of some against me that are of the same spirit with them wherewith to reproach my Name which shall be instead of an answer to my Books The Answer to their present Question I have already fullier given them 1. In my Reasons of the Christian Religion 2. And in my More Reasons 3. In my Life of Faith Part 2. 4. In my Safe Religion throughout especially Disp. 3. 5. In my Key for Catholicks 6. In my Preface to the 2. Part of the Saints Rest. And none of them that I know of are answered But they cant over and over the same thing and tempt or necessitate us thereby to write over and over the same thing to the wearying of the Readers while they silently dissemble all But the end of this writing is to tell young unstudied persons on what terms and in what order they must deal with this great Question and defend the foundations of their faith against Infidels Papists and the Devil himself who will here assault us with greater craft and force than Papists or Infidels can do Reader study it well till thy soul is clear and well confirmed For the Keeping or Losing of this Fort is the Keeping or Losing of thy Religion thy Comfort and thy soul. This following Paper was sent me from an unknown person in a Letter which had these words SIR THe business of this Paper is to beg a favour of you of a publick nature an Answer to the inclosed Paper which was sent me from a friend of mine who is a Papist with an earnest desire that I would procure it to be answered The resolution of which would be of use to us both in the things in Controversie between us I cannot but wonder at the confidence of this deluded people who though they are so often again and again Learnedly and Religiously writ against yet they can with as great confidence and boasting challenge and dare the Ministers of Truth to encounter and answer them in such kind of Papers as if their tenets had never been refuted at all And though I have referred my friend to your Books that will not satisfie but he doth as it were Goliah-like bid defiance to our Ministers telling me that if any be so hardy let them answer his Papers The Paper followeth ALL who call themselves Christians are agreed in this principle That every Revelation of God or whatsoever God says is most certainly true in the sense wherein he intends it And this is a matter of right on Gods part to have this granted But all Christians do not agree and it is the sole point wherein Christians differ Whether God hath Revealed or said what is proposed to us as his Revelation Or as the sense intended by him by that which they all agree to be his Revelation And this is purely matter of Fact viz. 1. Whether several Books affirmed and proposed to us as the Revelations of God be truly so For Instance the Old Testament affirmed by some to be and proposed as the Revelations of God are denied by the Valentinians and the Manichees The Gospels of St. Mark St. Luke St. Iohn and all St. Pauls Epistles proposed by some Christians as the Revelations of God are denied by others namely by the Ebionites So likewise several parties agreeing several Books to be Scripture and the Revelation of God do notwithstanding differ touching the Copies and touching the Translations Some affirming one Copie to be true and one Translation to be true whilst others expresly say that Copy is false and that Translation false And Lastly several parties agreeing the Books to be Scripture the Copies true and the Translations true and to be the Revelation of God do nevertheless differ touching the sense each party delivering a particular sense of such a Text and proposing such sense as the sense and the only sense Revealed by God to be intended by God by that Text and each proposed sense being contrary to the other It is clear in any difference arising touching matter of Fact there can only be one party which can have the true Faith touching that matter for it is impossible one thing can be a Revelation of God and no Revelation of God That one Copy or one Translation or one Sense can be true and not true It is now enquired whether Christ hath setled any principle or medium in the world And what principle or medium it is which Christ hath setled in the world for the determining of matters of Fact of this nature By which Unity in Faith may be conserved and Christians may with certainty know what is a true Revelation of God which a true Copy of such true Revelation which a true Translation of such true Copy and what the true sense thereof that Christians may not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine The solution of this is desired to be by fixed and solid principles and not by tedious discourses for the Nature of the thing requires that there be a firm Principle setled among Men for the final determining of matters of Fact THE CONTENTS THe Papists

pravity of mans nature and the great necessity that we have of Deliverance by Pardon and Sanctification the malice and endeavour of Devils or evil spirits to tempt us from God and destroy us the need of Gods continual help against them and our selves with such like And these also we have a double Revelation of § 20. 4. The Principal part of the Supernatural Revelations are so exceeding congruous to those which are of Natural and Experienced Certainty and are so aptly adjoyned to them and have so Divine a design and tendency apparent in them as that they are the more easily believed § 21. 5. And the main frame of the book hath so much of the same spirit and design and is adapted to the Communication of these principal parts that is the Essentials of Christianity and thereto so compaginated as that the Belief of the said Estials maketh it the more easie to believe that the whole system of books is of God § 22. 6. But where we are uncertain of any thing whether it be really a part of that book or system as some questioned Books some various Readings some Texts whose sense is not understood we must needs be equally uncertain whether those be the word of God § 23. 7. But that Medium which ascertaineth us that these supernatural Revelations are indeed Divine I mean the proper Truths of Christianity must be something which is Lower or is Notius prius cognitum better known than Christianity and known in order of Evidence before it For all proof of conclusions must be from something first and better known § 24. 8. These things which are sooner and better known than the supernatural Revelation can be nothing but Natural Revelations by Gods works in the Nature of things compared and our natural experience For there is nothing else antecedent to be a medium of proof The forementioned natural Verities about God and Holiness carry their own Evidence with them either as first principles or as certain conclusions And the Essentials of Christianity have a self-commending Goodness which rendreth them sweet to a man that is already a true Believer and desireable to all truly rational men and the Congruencie rendreth it credible supposing further proof But that really the Incarnation Deity Life Satisfaction Resurrection Ascension Offices and Coming of Christ are truth with the Trinity of persons and such other points must be proved by some more notorious Medium proving that they are Divine assertions which must be some Natural Verities § 25. 9. Therefore the Ascertianing Inference must be this that If this be not a Divine Revelation then some Certain Natural Verity must be denied which at last will amount to the denying of a God § 26. 10. Here the Matter of fact is supposed to be known by sight and other senses to the first Christians and the first Churches where Christ and his Apostles and multitudes of other Christians wrought them And to be known by Certain History to those that saw them not And the existence of the Persons Words and Books is supposed known the same way And on this supposition we infer that These Impressions of Divine Power Wisdom and Goodness set upon this Doctrine and all these Miracles by Christ and multitudes of his servants wrought in attestation of it and all this sanctification of all true Believers by this word through the world are either done by Gods will or against his will If they be done by his will he is the Author of them and approver And seeing it is evident that they are to the common capacity of mankind so notorious a signification that God is the Author or approver of that word which be so evidently and wonderfully attesteth if yet this word prove false mankind is unavoidably deceived and Governed in the greatest concernments and business of all his life by this deceit For he hath no principle no means left him to know that these are not Divine attestations nor to disoblige him from judgeing them so to be But if God shall thus necessitate mankind to a false belief and thereby Govern him while in Nature he hath taught man to value Truth and hate Lying he must do this either for want of Power to do otherwise or for want of Wisdom to do otherwise or for want of Will and Goodness to do otherwise And if he wanted any of these he is not God Or if he Govern not the world himself but permit some Evil Spirit to do all this he is not God For to be God is to be the Supream Governor and to be every where the nearest universal Agent These consequences being plain though there are vain Objections which I must not stay to answer we certainly infer There is a God who is the perfect Governour of the world and therefore is Gracious True and Iust and therefore doth not rule even the best of men by unavoidable deceit and falshood and therefore this word is True which he so notoriously owneth and attesteth as aforesaid § 27. And hence it is that we take our selves bound about the Sacrament to believe that all mens senses are not deceived because if they be man hath no remedy For God hath made our sense the perceiver of things sensible and if it be not a Certain perceiver we have no Certainer nor other about those objects And if the apprehensions of sense be uncertain having all the natural requisites then all Gods Miracles by which he attested the word as well as the word it self are so And if it be not contrary to Gods perfection Veracity and Justice to deceive all mens senses in the Sacrament we cannot prove it contrary to them to deceive them by Miracles § 28. As an unbeliever is not so well disposed to receive the Gospel as a holy person after is and recipitur ad modum recipientis so usually a more wavering belief goeth before a fuller Certainty And the holier and more experienced any man is the more he is Certain of the truth of the Gospel because he hath the witness in himself in the Gust and Certain Effects of it But yet there is that Evidence of Truth which Preachers may and must use to the Conviction of Infidels to bring them to true belief § 29. The holy Scripture Containing all the Divine Revelations belonging to Religion compleatly Essentials Integrals and Accidentals the parts of it are not of equal necessity to us All that truly have the Essentials in Head and Heart and Life shall be saved yea though culpably they understand not other points as plainly revealed and so believe them not to be Divine For this is the Covenant of Grace No wonder then if many less necessary parts are less evident § 30. We have a fuller Evidence that all these Miracles Prophesies and subsequent operations of the Sanctifying Spirit do attest the New Covenant and Substance of the Gospel than we have that they attested every book e.g. the Chronicles the Canticles c. or

that they attested every phrase method yea or the truth of every word of the penmen so as that none of them could through oversight or forgetfulness misrecite a name number or circumstance Though we have here sufficient satisfaction yet not so full a Certainty as we have of the Doctrine of the Gospel which the Apostles converted the world by Preaching of before the New Testament was written and which in the Sacramental Covenants the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and Catechisms was distinctly by it self delivered to the Churches and so cometh to us by a double way of tradition CHAP. VII Quest. IV. What Certainty have we of the Copies § 1. Answ. THE same that we have of the Statute Books in England save that the Recorded Originals of some Laws remain And the same that you have of the Copies of the most Certain Councils and Authors extant § 2. 1. They are delivered to us by men of so many Countries minds and interests as could not possibly agree to falsifie them in the substance and in those points in which the Copies agree § 3. 2. They were constantly read in the holy Assemblies through the Christian world and by private Christians and especially all Teachers And therefore any great depravation could not grow common § 4. 3. The Copies all over the world of Greatest antiquity still agree so far as is aforesaid and the Commentaries of the Fathers containing the Text with all the Citations are the same in the main So that we have a Historical Certainty of the Copies so far as they are commonly known to agree which the Old Translations also Confirm § 5. The words in which they disagree though many are such as no article necessary to Salvation dependeth on and are plainly the errors of Scribes and not of the holy Penmen § 6. In the points where any late or inconsiderable Copy differeth from the generality which have Evidence of Antiquity and Concord that singularity is no cause of doubting § 7. Many slips are such as the Context will sufficiently detect § 8. In all those points where the Copies so differ as that it cannot be proved which is the truest by certain proof we can have no certainty Nor is our uncertainty of any danger to us CHAP. VIII Quest. V. What Certainty have we of the Canonical Books § 1. Answ. 1. OF all those Canonical Books which the Christian world now commonly receiveth there is the same Certainty by the same means which I before mentioned of the Copies The Doctrine of them was spoken of before it being that Divine Revelation which God hath attested as was opened We have the Certain History and Tradition of all ages from the first common notice and reception of them agreeing which are the true Books § 2. 2. But yet even of these Canonical Books agreed on the Evidence of Divinity is not equal For 1. Some of them have more Evident Impressions of Gods Image upon them in the Matter than others have As the Psalms more than Ruth the Chronicles c. The Doctrinal Books more than the Genealogies Chronologies particular Histories 2. God did confirm some more notoriously by Miracles and publick attestations than others So Moses his words had more confirmation by Miracles than Ruth Chronicles Ecclesiastes Canticles c. 3. Some have had a fuller testimony by Tradition than others As the Pentateuch and Psalms more than the Chronicles part of Daniel c. 4. In all these respects the New Testament cometh to us with fuller and clearer Evidence than the Old As being of later date and so the Historical proof more discernible And hath more clear Impressions of Divinity and was confirmed by the most notorious multiplied long-continued Miracles and by the most notable effects of holiness in all true Believers c. And indeed its attestation to the Old Testament is not our weakest proof of its Divinity § 3. There is less doubt of those few books of the New-Testament which were unknown or doubted of but by some Churches for a time than of those which are controverted as belonging to the Old § 4. As to those Books which he saith the Ebionites and Valentinians denied they have as full Historical proof as any And those that denied them denied Christs Resurrection or some Essentials of Christianity and were no Christians but mad-brained factions withdrawn from Christians the Valentinian Gnosticks in their whole heresie plainly shewed themselves crackt-brained Fanaticks as Irenaeus and Epiphanius describe them so that for Number Quality and Cross-interest their Exceptions were not any considerable discredit of the History and indeed but excite the Christians the more carefully to examine and preserve their Canon Nor were their exceptions so much against the Matter of Fact whether Mark c. wrote those books as about the Divinity of them And were but of the like nature with all the Turks Heathens and other Infidels exceptions against the whole Gospel § 5. And as for those Apocryphal books which are in Controversie between the Papists and us some Protestants say that they are Certainly none of Gods word and some that it is utterly uncertain to any man that they are his word And let the Papists who assert the Certainty that they are give us the proof of it and we will thank them Till then our denial or uncertainty of those books maketh no alteration in the Great and Necessary Articles of our faith CHAP. IX Quest. VI. What Certainty have we of the truth of Translations § 1. Answ. 1. THose that understand the Original and the Language into which it is Translated have a Certainty from the Known signification of the words answerable to the degree of their skill in those tongues The signification of the words is Certain to them by Infallible Tradition The use and sense of the words in Hebrew and Greek is known by Lexicons and the constant use of Authors and by the confession of all parties friends and Enemies and by present use so that as your Priests understand a true Translation of any Latine Greek or Hebrew Author Cicero Plutark Demosthenes Antonine Maimonides c. by the same means do the Learned know a true Translation of the Bible § 2. In the Essentials of Christianity and all the necessary Articles of faith the Ignorant themselves have an Infallible Certainty that the Translations are true so far as that all that is necessary to Salvation is contained concordantly in them all 1. Because it hath pleased God to deliver all those Necessary points in various words distinctly by themselves by all Baptizers and Pastors of the Churches as is aforesaid With which the Scripture Translations do agree 2. Because there is a natural Impossibility that men of so various minds and interests as all the Translators and all the Defenders of those Translations should agree till this day to deceive the world and not be discovered § 3. And by the same evidence it is certain to an unlearned man that