Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
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A26948
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Mr. Richard Baxter's last legacy in select admonitions and directions to all sober dissenters.
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing B1297_VARIANT; ESTC R25271
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57,203
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76
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thought this be his own Sin it will not excuse the People from Obedience unless the Errour of his Directions be so great as would frustrate the Ordinance it self or do more harm than our Disobedience would do which in Circumstantials is rarely found By long Experience I am assured that Practical Religion will afford both to Church State and Conscience more certain and more solid Peace than contending Disputers with all their pretences of Orthodoxness and Zeal against Errours for the Truth will ever bring or did ever attain to Holy Common-wealth p. 352. God never instituted Churches to be kept up in Disobedience to those Christian Magistrates which he Commands us to obey upon pain of Damnation Disobedience to our Rulers is in Ministers double Treason and Wickedness Page 30. of the 1st Plea Princes and Rulers may forbid all that preach Rebellion and Sedition and may punish them if they do it and may hinder the Incorrigible whose preaching may do more hurt than good from exercising their Ministry or preaching within their Dominions Pag. 32. They should see that their Kingdoms be well provided of Publick Preachers and Catechists And may by due means compel the Ignorant to hear and learn what Christianity is And Sect. 37. They ought to be Preservers of Peace and Charity among Churches and to hinder Preachers from uncharitable and unrighteous Reviling each other and their unpeaceable Controversies and Contentions Pag. 35. Sect. 40. They may make their own Officers circa Sacra to execute their Magistratical Power And if they authorize any particular Bishops or Pastors to exercise any such Power as belongs to the Prince to give not contrary to Christ's Laws we judge that the Subjects ought to obey for Conscience sake Christian Direct He that is silenced by a just Power though unjustly in a Country that needeth not his preaching must forbear therefore Let none perswade you i. e. the Magistrates that you are such Terrestrial Animals that have nothing to do with the Heavenly Concernment of your Subjects Bodily things Rewards and Punishments are the Means whereby you may promote it you are Custodes utriusque tabulae and must bend the force of all your Government to the Saving of the Peoples Souls The Mischief of Separation The Mischief of Separation lies not in the bare Errour of Judgment but in the Unchristian and Church-dissolving Division and Alienation which thence followeth contrary to that Humility and Love which is the visible Character of Christians and to that Oneness which is still in Scripture ascribed to the visible Church Alas that Pride and Ignorance should have such power among Believers that Men cannot be of several Judgments in lesser Points but they must needs be of several Churches God will make us value Peace and Union a little more before we shall taste of the perfect everlasting Peace and Union yea before we shall see the Blessing of Union in the Church Wounding is a dividing healing is a re-uniting a Building is of many Stones or Pieces orderly conjoyned a Church is an Aggregation of Individuals an Association of Believers What then is it to demolish but to separate and disjoyn and what is it to dissolve Churches but to break their Association to reduce them to the Individuals to cut them into shreds As for the Differences in way of Government between the moderate Presbyterians Independants Episcopal and Erastian I make no doubt but if Mens Spirits stood not at a greater distance than their Principles they would quickly be united But of all the four sorts there are some that run so high in their Principles that they run out of the hearing of Peace or Truth For Anabaptism and Antinomianism God spake effectually against them by those wondrous Monsters in New-England but Wonders are over-lookt where the heart is hardned and God intends to get his Justice a Name The fearful Delusions that God hath formerly given them over to and the horrid Confusion which they have introduced where they have sprung hath spoken fully against both these later Sects The weeping Eyes the bleeding Sides the lacerated Members of these Churches the reproach of the Gospel the disappointed Reformation the hideous Doctrines and unheard of Wickedness that hath followed them the contemned Ordinances the reproached slandered and ejected Ministers the Weak that are scandalized the Professors are apostalized the Wicked hardned and the open Enemies of the Gospel that now insult all these do describe them more plainly to England than words can do and cry loud in the Ears of God and Man What will be the Answer time will shew but from Rev. 2. 14 15 16 c. we may probably conjecture He that is not a Son of Peace is not a Son of God All other Sins destroy the Church consequently but Division and Separation demolish it directly Building the Church is but an orderly joyning of the Materials and what then is disjoyning but pulling down Many Doctrinal differences must be tolerated in a Church and why but for Unity and Peace therefore Disunion and Separation is utterly intolerable Believe not those to be the Churches Friends that would cure and reform her by cutting her throat Those that say no truth must be concealed for Peace have usually as little of the one as the other Study Gal. 2. 22. Rom. 14. 1. Acts 21. 24 26. 1 Tim. 1. 4. 6. 4. Titus 3. 8 9. I hope sad experience speaks this lesson to your very hearts if I should say nothing Do not your hearts bleed to look upon the State of England and to think how few Towns or Cities there be where is any forwardness in Religion that are not cut into shreds and crumbled as to dust by Separations and Divisions To think what a wound we have hereby given to the very Christian Name how we have hardned the Ignorant confirmed the Papists and are our selves become the scorn of our Enemies and the grief of our Friends and how many of our dearest best esteemed Friends have fallen to notorious Pride or Impiety yea some to be worse than open Infidels These are Pillars of Salt see that you remember them Though of your own selves Men should arise speaking perverse things to draw Disciples after them Acts 20. 30. Yea though an Angel from Heaven should draw you to Divisions see that you follow him not If there be erroneous practices in the Church keep your selves innocent with Moderation and Peace It must be no small Error that must force a Separation Justin Martyr professed that if a Jew should keep the Ceremonial Law so he did not perswade the Gentiles to it as necessary yet if he acknowledged Christ he judgeth that he might be saved and he would imbrace him and have communion with him Paul would have him received that is weak in the Faith and not Un-church whole Parishes of those that we know not nor were ever brought to a just trial I ever loved a godly peaceable Conformist better than a
that the Infidel and Impenitent were in a state of Life because he was baptized but that all that truly consent to the Covenant and signifie this by being baptized are saved So the Church of England saith that they receive no detriment by delaying Confirmation but it never said that they received no detriment by their Parents or Responses Infidelity or Hypocrisie or by their want of true Right coram Deo to be baptized Q. 39. What is the true meaning of Sponsors or Godfathers and is it lawful to make use of them Answ My Opinion is that they did both witness the probability of the Parents fidelity and also promised that if they should either apostaize or die they would see that the Children were piously educated If you take them but as the ancient Churches did for such as do attest the Parents fidelity in their perswasion and do promise first to mind you of your Duty and next to take care of their pious Education if you die I know no reason you have to scruple this much yea more it is in your power to agree with the Godfathers that they shall represent your own Persons and speak and promise what they do as your Deputies only in your Names and what have you against this Object When the Church-men mean another thing this is but to juggle with the World Answ How can you prove that the Authority that made or imposed the Liturgy meant any other thing 2. If the Imposers had meant ill in a thing that may be done well you may discharge your Conscience by doing it well and making a sufficient Profession of your better Sense As for the Antiquity of God-fathers the current consent of Historians assures us that Hyginus Bishop of Rome did first ordain God-fathers at the Baptism of Infants He lived but forty years after St John Preface to Infant Baptism Christ Direct p. 116. Part 3. Q. 41. Whether they are really baptized who are baptized according to the English Liturgy and Canons where the Parents seem excluded and those to consent for the Infant who have no power to do it Answ p. 117. That the Parents Consent is supposed though he be absent 2. The Parent is not required to be absent 3. The Reason of that Canon seems to be their jealousie lest any would exclude God-fathers 4. While the Church hath not declared what Person the Sponsors bear nor any farther what they are to do than to speak the Covenanting words and promise to see the pious Education of the Child the Parents may agree that the God-fathers shall do all this as their Deputies primarily and in their steads and secondly as Friends that promise their Assistance 5. While Parents really consent it is not their Silence that nullifieth the Covenant 6. All Parents are supposed and required to be themselves the Choosers of the Sponsors and Sureties and also to give notice to the Ministers before hand by which it appears their Consent is presupposed And though my own Judgment be that they should be the principal Covenanters for the Child expresly yet the want of that expresness will not make the Persons to be unbaptized Q. 42. How is the Holy Ghost given to Infants in Baptism whether all the Children of true Christians have inward sanctifying Grace c. Answ My judgment agreeth more in this with Davenant's than any others saving that he doth not appropriate the Benefits of Baptism to the Children of true Believers so much as I do And though by a Letter impleading Davenant's Cause I was the occasion of printing good Mr. Gataker's Answer to him yet I am still most inclined to his judgment Not that all the baptized but that all the baptized Seed of true Christians are pardoned justified adopted and have a title to the Spirit and Salvation And we must choose great Inconveniences if this Opinion be forsaken viz. That all Infants must be taken to be out of Covenant with God and to have no promise of Salvation whereas surely the Law of Grace as well as the Covenant of Works included all the Seed in their Capacity Of the Responses Q. 83. May the People bare a Vocal part in Worship and do any more than say Amen Answ The People bare an equal part in singing the Psalms which are Prayer and Praise and Instruction if they may do so in the Psalms in Metre there can be no reason given but they may lawfully do so in Psalms in Prose for saying them and singing them are but modes of Utterance and the ancient Singing was liker our Saying than our Tunes The Primitive Christians were so full of zeal and love to Christ that they would have taken it for an Injury and a quenching of the Spirit to have been wholly restrained from bearing their part in the Praises of the Church The use of the Tongue keepeth awake the Mind and stirreth up God's Graces in his Servants It was the decay of Zeal in the People that first shut out the Responses while they kept up the Ancient Zeal they were inclined to take their part vocally in the Worship And this was seconded by the Pride and Usurpation of the Priests thereupon who thought the People of God too prophane to speak in the Assemblies and meddle so much with Holy things Yet the very remembrance of former zeal caused most Churches to retain many of the words of their predecessors even when they lost the Life and Spirit which should animate them and so the same words came into the Liturgies and were used by too many customarily and in formality which their Ancestors had used in the servour of their Souls And if it were not that a dead-hearted formal People by speaking the Responses carelesly and hypocritically do bring them into disgrace with many that see the necessity of Seriousness I think few good People would be against them now It is here the duty of every Christian to labour to restore the life and spirit to the Words that they may again be used in a serious and holy manner as heretofore Exod. 19. 8. In as solemn an Assembly as any of ours when God gave Moses a form of words to preach to the People all the People answered together and said All that the Lord hath spoken we will do So Exod. 24. 3. and Deuter. 5. 27. which God approved of v. 28 29. See Levit. 9. 24. 2 Kings 23. 2 3. 1 Chron. 1. 35 36. It is a command Psal 67. 3 5. Let all the People praise thee O God c. And he that will limit this to single Persons or say that it must not be vocally in the Church or it must be in metre only and never in prose must prove it lest he be proved one that addeth to God's Word Q. 84. Is it not a Sin for our Clerks to make themselves the mouth of the People Answ The Clerks are not appointed to be the Mouth of the People but each Clerk is one of the