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book_n	life_n	name_n	write_v	18,504	5	6.4426	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76157	Confirmation and restauration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of the corruptions and divisions of the churches: submissively, but earnestly tendered to the consideration of the soveraigne powers, magistrates, ministers, and people, that they may awake, and be up and doing in the execution of so much, as appeareth to be necessary as they are true to Christ, his Church and Gospel, and to their own and others souls, and to the peace and wellfare of the nations; and as they will answer the neglect to Christ, at their peril. / By Richard Baxter, an unworthy minister of Christ, that longeth to see the healing of the churches.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing B1232; Thomason E2111_1; ESTC R209487	172,368	411

of the person because no duty is at all times a duty to be performed and especially when the hurt that will follow upon it in the divisions of the Church is like to be far greater then the good if it be done 6. But if the Church should be so corrupted as that the Major Vote doth set against Faith and Godlines as such and so will not admit a sound member to be added to them the Pastour with the Minor part may after due Admonition and Patience as justly reject the guilty and obstinate as if they were but one man and not a Major part What is said of this case of Admission holds also of Rejection by Excommunication and of other Antecedent acts of Discipline 4. Lastly If Excommunication must usually be done in publique before the whole Church that they may know whom to avoid and know the Reason of it then Admission must usually be done in publique the Person or the Pastour opening the case to the people that they may know whom to have Communion with and know the Reason of of it but the Antecedent is confessed by almost all And it s proved plainly by Paul's practice and direction 1 Cor 5. throughout And it was the custom of the Christian Churches in Tertullians daies Apolog. cap. 39. There also in the Christian meeting for Worship are exercised exhortations castigations and the Divine Censure for Judgment is passed with great deliberation or weight as with men that are assured of the presence or sight of God and it is the highest Representation of the Judgment to come if any one so offend as that he be discharged or banished from Communion of Prayer and of the Assembly and of all holy Commerce or fellowship Abundance more out of Cyprian and others might be easily produced to prove that this which I have spoken was the ancient interest of the people in these Church-affaires Yea in the choise of their Pastours yea and in rejecting unworthy Pastours Cyprian saith they had a chief Interest Not by Ruling Power but by a prudent exercise of obedience choosing the good and refusing the evil Self-preservation is naturall to every body where it is not by evil means and to the hurt of the Publike State It 's hard if a Natural body may not lawfully refuse or cast up Poison if a Governour should give it them God bindeth none to the perdition of their Souls nor any holy Society to destroy it self or suffer it self to be destroyed or corrupted by others without the use of all just means to resist the bane But of this I shall desire the Reader that would know the Judgment and Practice of the Ancient Church to peruse Dr Blondel de Jure plebis in Regimine Ecclesiast adjoyned to that excellent piece of Grotius de Imperio summarum Pot●statum circa Sacra This much may satisfie you that it should not be usually a secret but a solemn Transition from an Infant-state of membership into an Adult-state and that by a publike Profession or Notification of it the particular Church should have satisfaction herein Prop 17. It is convenient though not of Necessity that every Church do keep a Register of all that are admitted thus into the Number of the Adult-members AS we were wont to keep a Register of the Infants Baptized so have we as much Reason of the Adult Approved and Confirmed or Restored Corporations of old were wont to keep a book of the names of their Burgesses or Citizens in respect to which God is said to have a Book of Life wherein he writes mens names and out of which he blots them speaking after the manner of men The Church hath great reason for this practice the business being of so great weight that we forget not who are of our Communion which without a Register in great Congregations must needs be done If any be so vaine as to demand a Scripture proofe of this let him first bring me a Scripture-proofe that he may read with spectacles or write a Sermon from the Preachers mouth or use Notes in the Pulpit or print c. and then I will give him proofe of this In the mean time if this do not satisfie him he shall have liberty to disuse it Prop. 18. Those that were never thus Ministerially and Explicitly Approved Confirmed or Absolved after an ungodly life but have been permitted without it to joyne ordinarily with the Church in Prayer and Praises and have been admitted to the Communion of the Church in the Lords Supper are approved and confirmed Eminently though not Formally though in so doing both the Pastours and themselves did sin against God by the violation of his holy Order So that such may be a true Church though much corrupted or disordered THis I adde for two Reasons 1. To confute them that say our Churches are no true Churches for want of an explicite Profession 2. And to acquaint you who it is among us that are or are not to be called to Confirmation 1. It is not the degree of clearness and openness in our Profession or in the Ministerial Approbation or Admission that is Essential to a Church-member An obscure Profession may be truly a Profession Some obscure Profession hath been ordinarily made by our people in this Land heretofore by their ordinary hearing the Word and standing up at the Recital of the Creed and joyning with the Church in Prayer and Praise and confessing the Scriptures to be the Word of God and acknowledging the Ministry And a further Profession they made by actual receiving the Lords Supper which is a silent Profession of their Faith in Christ And though they were not solemnly Approved and Confirmed except that one of many had a Cerimonious Confirmation from the Bishop in their Childhood yet were they Actually admitted to daily Communion with the Church and the special part of Communion in the Lords Supper And though this Profession and admission was lamentably defective of which more anon yet it is such as may prove our ordinary Assemblies to have been true Churches 2. And I do not think it fit that any that have been already admitted to Church-communion in the Lords Supper should be now called out to Confirmation by Imposition of hands though where there is just cause to question their Knowledg Faith or lives they may by the Postour be called to give an account of them and put upon a clearer Profession then they have yet made But sure when they have been admitted to the Lords Supper by any regular Ministry and Church they are to be taken for Adult-members till they are justly cast out or do cast out themselves For the more Perfect doth include the less Perfect in it If a man be ordained a Presbyter that was never ordained Deacon he is not to be called back againe and made a Deacon If you make a man free of your Trade before he was ever bound prentice you cannot call him back againe and bind him

upon the duty of Personal instruction I should never have known the state of the people But now we have dealt with them almost all in private personally I shall truly tell you the state of this Parish by which you may conjecture at the rest of the Nation I know not a Congregation in England that hath in it Proportionably so many that fear God and yet our whole Parish consisteth of all these sorts following 1. Among eight hundred Families there are about five hundred persons such as the vulgar call precise that are rated to be serious Professours of Religion or perhaps somewhat more These live in Unity and seem to me to seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and are of as peaceable harmless humble Spirits and as unanimous without inclination to Sects or Ostentation of their parts as any people I know 2. Besides these there are some of competent Knowledg and exterior performances and lives so blameless that we can gather from them no certain Proofe or violent Presumption that they are ungodly or that their Profession is not sincere So many of these joyning with the rest as make about six hundred do own their Church-membership and consent to live under so much of Church-Order and Government as unquestionably belongeth to Presbyters to exercise and to be my Pastoral charge 3. Besides these there are some that are tractable and of willing minds that by their expressions seem to be ignorant of the very Essentials of Christanity which yet I find to have obscure conceptions of the truth when I have condescendingly better searcht them and helped them by my enquiries These also as weak in the Faith we receive 4. Some there are that are of competent understandings and of lives so blameless that we durst not reject them but they hold off themselves because they are taught to question if not to disown our Administrations for all that we give liberty to all that in tollerable things do differ 5. Some there are that are secret Heathens believing with Aristotle that the world was from Eternity making a scorn of Christ and Moses and Heaven and Hell and Scripture and Ministers and all Religion thinking that there is no Devill no Immortality of the Soul or Everlasting Life But this they reveale only in secret to those that they find capable by viciousness unsetledness or any malignity or discontent against the Godly or the Orders of the Church And yet for the hiding of their minds they will hear and urge us to baptize their children and openly make the most Orthodox Confessions and secretly deride it when they have done as I can prove And this is the only differing party among us in Judgment and designe that is in danger of leavening many that God forsaketh 6. many there are that have tollerable knowledg and live in some notorious scandalous sins some in gross Covetuousness and these will not be convinced some in common drunkenness and those will confess their faults and promise amendment a hundred times over and be drunk within a few daies againe and thus have spent the most part of their lives some in as constant ●ipling drinking as great a quantity but bearing it better away some in ordinary swearing cursing ribaldry whoredomes sometimes Many in neglect of all Family-duties and the Lords Day and some in hatefull bitter scorns at Prayer holy Conference Church-Order and holy living and the people that use it sometimes rising up in tumults against the Officers that endeavour to punish a drunkard or Sabboth breaker and rescuing them and seeking the ruine of the Officers 7. Some there are that are of more tractable dispositions but really know not what a Christian is that heare us from day to day yea and some few of them learn the words of the Catechism and yet know not almost any more then the veryest Heathen in America They all confess that we must mend our lives and serve God but they know not that God is Eternal or that Christ is God or that he is man but say he is a Spirit some say neither God nor man some say God and not man some say man and not God abundance say He was man on earth but now He is not Abundance know not what He came to do in the world nor that there is any satifaction made for sinne but what we must make our selves and they tell me they trust to nothing for Pardon and Salvation but Gods Mercy and their good serving him which is only saying every night and morning in bed or as they undress them the Lords Prayer and the Creed for a Prayer and comming to Church They say openly they do not know of any surety that we have or any that hath borne the punishment of our sinne or suffered for us And when I repeat the History of the Incarnation life death and resurrection of Christ to them they stand wondering and say they never heard it before what the Holy Ghost is they know not nor what Sanctification Faith or Justification is nor what Baptism is nor the Lords Supper nor to what use but in general for our Salvation What a Church is they know not nor what is the Office of Pastour or People save only to preach and hear and give and receive the Sacraments If I ask them what Christianity is the best answer is that it is a serving God as well as we can or as God will give us leave So that there is scarce an Article of the Creed or very few that they tolerably understand Nay one of about fourescore yeares of age now dead thought Christ was the Sunne that shineth in the Firmament and the Holy Ghost was the Moone 8. Many there be that joyne this Heathenish ignorance and wicked obstinacy together hating to be instructed scorning to come neer me to be taught and to be told of their sinne when they come They will raile at us bitterly behind our backs if we will not let them have their own will and way about the Sacraments and all Church-affaires but they will not submit to that Teaching that should bring them to know what Christ or Christianity is 9. Some there be that are of tollerable knowledg and no Drunkards nor Whoremongers that the world knoweth of but of more plausible lives and have some formes of Prayer in their families but yet live in idle or tipling company or spend their lives in vanity and hate more a diligent serving of God and heavenly life then the open Drunkars do These make it their work to possess people with a hatred of strict Professours and of our Churches and Administrations and to that end get all the books that are written for admitting all to the Lords Table that they can light of and contrary to the Authors meanings they make them Engines to harden others in their Impiety and hatred of Reformation The like use they make of the Writings of man●y Dissenting Divines about Church-governemnt or

reasonings that we shall be far better able to manifest the variety of them then otherwise we could do For whereas their common Argument against Infant Baptism is that it defileth the Church by letting in all the Children in the Nation which must be cast out againe or the most will be openly vile and that it defraudeth the Adult of the benefits of solemn Engagement to Christ all this will be taken off by Confirmation and will lie no more on us then on themselves seeing by this means we can as faithfully hold the Church door against the Adult that are unfit to enter into the number as they can And here I shall intreat the moderate godly persons among us that are of the Episcopal Presbyterian Congregational or Erastian Judgment yea and the first and second sort of Anabaptists to consider how neerly we are all Agreed or how neer to an Agreement when we are not aware of it or live at such a distance as if we were not aware of it And whether it be not our duty to close upon this Practice at least much nearer then we are It is a sad and fearfull case when men Professing Godliness and all pretending to a Love of Unity Peace and Holiness shall hate or oppose each other and separate from each other upon a pretence that we differ in things that we are agreed in and when such shall perswade the common Enemies and the ignorant people that we differ where we do not as if the Enemy had not already matter enough of reproach against us nor the ignorant matter enough of temptation and offence but we must falsly give them more by seeming to differ when there is no such thing And if this becaused by any mens hating their own Principles when they see them in anothers hand or yet by hating the Practice of their own Principles I leave it to the consideration of sober men whether such are liker to the Ministers of Christ or Satan Give me leave here a little by way of Application to review what I said concerning our Accord 1. How much many Brethren of the Episcopal Judgment do censure other mens attempts for Reforming their Congregations is too open to be hid But how little cause they have to be offended with any Moderate attempts let their own forecited Principles be judge I know that it is the Administration or Government of the Churches that seems by the noise of Opposition among us to be the greatest point of differences But as far as I can descern it is not so The Constitution of our Curches is the great difference It 's a shame to speake it we differ most where we are Agreed I have so much experience of the minds of Godly Ministers and private men in England that I dare boldly say would we but all Agree in Practice in the constituting our Churches of due Materials where for ought I know we are almost all Agreed in Principles there were no Probability that all the rest of our disagreements would keep us at a quarter of the distance as we are Truly the common honest godly people stick not much on the difference in formalities and extrinsick modes of Government If they heare a Minister pray heartily preach soundly judiciously and powerfully live holily and righteously and charitably and beate down sinne and set himself to promote true Piety they are commonly where I am acquainted if not indifferent what form of Government he is for yet at least can easily beare with him though he differ from them Let us have the Work of God well done and we shall care the less who it is that doth it The greatest offence that commonly is taken against Episcopacy is 1. The former viciousness negligence and persecution that men of that way were guilty of and 2. Because men know that a Diocesan Bishop hath so much work upon his hands that he will certainly leave the far greatest part undone So that the Question is not so much who shall do the work as whether it shall be done or not But now if this Principle were Practised in which we are Agreed about Confirmation or at least a Publicke Profession that so our Churches might be constituted of fit materials and not be pestered with so many Infidels or persons so Ignorant as that they know not Christ or persons so notoriously vicious as that they are openly bruitish and prophane and make a very scorne of Honesty and Godliness this would do much to heale all the rest of our Divisions The Country knows that the reason why the multitude of Ignorant ungodly people are for Episcopacy is principally because they think that Government will do as it did and rather curbe the Precisians as they call them then them and will not trouble them with a Differencing discipline or administrations nor urge them so hard to labour for Knowledg and live a Godly life Take away this conceit from them by the faithfull practice of your own Principles and they will hate you as much as others What great satisfaction would you give to all that fear God among us if you would Practise but that which the Rubricke of the Common-Prayer Book requireth of you in this one point For it requireth not only a Learning of the Catechism but also a publike owning of their Baptismal Covenant in the face of the Congregation and a solemn Promise to live a holy obedient life and this at full age and after this they must be Confirmed before they be admitted to the Sacrament of the Eucharist That it may appeare how fully we are Agreed in this point I shall transcribe some more of the Rubricke of Confirmation which is as followeth The Reasons given why none shall be Confirmed till they can answer such questions of the Catechism as they shall be apposed in are these 1. Because that when Children come to the years of discretion and have learned what their Godfathers and Godmothers promised for them in Baptism they may then themselves with their own mouth and with their own consent openly before the Curch ratifie and confirme the same and also promise that by the Grace of God they will evermore endeavour themselves faithfully to observe and keep such things as they by their own mouth and confession have assented unto 2. Forasmuch as Confirmation is ministred to them that be baptised that by imposition of hands and prayer they may receive strength and defence against all temptations to sinne and the assaults of the world and the Devil it is most meet to be admitted when Children come to that age that partly by the frailty of their own flesh partly by the assaults of the world and the Devil they begin to be in danger to fall into sundry kinds of sinne 3. For that it is agreeable with the usage of the Church in times past whereby it was ordained that Confirmation should be ministred to them that were of perfect age that they being instructed in Christs Religion should openly