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death_n	die_v	nature_n	sin_n	7,957	5	5.0292	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

a point as the Covenant that men make with Christ We have wares that deserve the light and need not a dark shop We have a Master that we need not be affraid or ashamed explicitly and publickly to confess It beseemes not so high and honourable a Profession as that of a Christian to be lapt up in obscurity Such a Glorious state as Sonneship to God to be an Heir of Heaven c. should be entered into with great solemnity and owned accordingly at our first rationall acceptance and acknowledgment Kings are Crowned more solemnly then poor men take possession of their cottages Christ will be ashamed of them before the Angels that are ashamed of him before men and will confess them before his Father that confess him before men Christianity is not a game to be plaid under board Why then should any be against an open Professing and Covenanting with Christ If it be needfull that we Covenant certainly the plainest and most explicite Covenanting is the best And what will be his portion that hath a male in his flock and offereth the worst yea the halt and blind to God Let us therefore deal as openly and plainly and understandingly in the Covenant of God as we can and not contrive it in the greatest darkness that is consistent with the Essence of a Church Nay let us not tempt men to unchurch us or separate from us by leaving our cause to such Arguments as this such a man sitteth among other hearers in the Congregation therefore he maketh a Profession of the Christian Faith lest they think it followeth not therefore he seemeth to understand the Christian Faith much less he Professeth it especially when it 's known that so many understand it not and that the Papists in their writings maintain it lawfull for them to be present at our Assemblies and Infidels tell us that they can hear any man and do come thither Nehemiah caused the Jewsto subscribe the Covenant and seal it c. 9 v 38. Even under the Law it was the character of visible Saints to make a Covenant with God by Sacrifice Psal 50. 5. At least now God hath caused us to pass under the Rod. Let us yield to be brought under the bond of the Covenant Ezek. 20. 37. And let us as weeping Israel and Judah Seek the Lord our God and ask the way to Zion with our faces thitherward saying come and let us joyne our selves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten Jer. 50 4 5. Let us take hold of his Covenant and choose the things that please him that he may bring us into his holy Mountain and make us joyfull in his house of Prayer and our Sacrifices may be accepted on his Altar Isa 56. 4 6 7. Are not these the daies of which it is said Isa 44. 3 4 5. I will poure water on him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will poure my Spirit on thy seed and my blessing on thine offspring and they shall spring as among the grass as willows by the water courses One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name of Israel I would have as little Covenanting for doubtfull or needless or mutable things in Church or State as is possible but in the great things of our Salvation even the Essence of Christianity we cannot be bound too fast nor deal too understandingly and openly with God Prop. 6. It is not every kind of Profession that is the Condition or necessary qualification of those that are to be admitted to the Priviledges of Adult members but such a Profession as God hath made necessaery by his express Word and by the Nature of the Object and the Vses and Ends to which be doth require it THe Negative is not controverted among us If any were so quarrelsom or ignorant it 's easily proved And I shall do it briefly but satisfactorily in the opening of the Affirmative I have proved in my first Disputation of Right to Sacraments which I desire the Reader that would have further satisfaction to peruse the Necessity of these following Qualifications of this Profession 1. In General as to the Object of our Faith it must be a Profession of true Christianity and no less It must be a Profession of our entertainment both of the Truth of the Gospel and of the Good therein Revealed and offered More particularly it must be a Profession that we believe in God the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost as to the Nature persons and works which they have done or undertaken for us Yet more particularly and explicitly It must be a Profession 1. That we Believe in God the Father and so the pure Deity as our Creatour Soveraign and chief Good who gave us the Law of Nature by breaking of which we have lost our selves and all our part in Everlasting Life 2. That we Believe in Jesus Christ God and Man that taking our Nature fulfilled the Law overcame the Devil dyed as a Sacrifice for our sinnes Rose again and conqured death ascened into Heaven where he is Lord of all and the King Prophet and Priest of his Church in Glory with the Father That he hath offered himself with Pardon and Eternal Life to all that will accept him on his terms and that he will come again at last to Raise us from death and judge the world and Justifie his Saints and bring them to Eternal Glory and cast the wicked into utter misery 3. That we Believe in God the Holy Ghost that Inspired the Prophets and Apostles to deliver and confirm the Word of God and who is the Sanctifier of all that shall be saved illuminating their understandings changing their hearts and lives humbling them for their sinne and misery causing them to believe in Christ the Remedie and heartily and thankfully accept him Possessing them with an hearty Love of God and a heavenly mind and a hatred of sinne and Love of Holiness and turning the principal bent of their hearts and lives to the Pleasing of God and the attaining of Eternal Life This much must be believed and the Belief of this much must be somehow Professed 2. As to the Acts of the thing Professed it must be not only the naked Assent of the Understanding but both this Assent that the Gospel is true and a Consent of the Will to take God the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost to the forementioned Ends in the forementioned Relations and to give up our selves unfeignedly to him renouncing the flesh the world and the Devil 3. As to the Nature of the Profession it self 1. It must in General be Credible For no man is bound to Believe that which is Incredible The words are the signs of the mind and as such they are to be uttered and received If they be contrary to the mind they are false and

of the Church that men be truly Penitent believers before they are Baptized at age or admitted into the number of Adult Church-members and to the Lords Table and so never made the Eucharist an Ordinance which is Primarily and Directly intended for Conversion of the unregenerate and which known ungodly men may seeke and be admitted to in order to their Conversion Bellarmin himself confessing that such come into the Church praeter intentionem Ecclesiae Yet Christ that knew abundance of unsound Professours would thrust themselves into the Church hath provided those Ordinances there which conduce much to their regeneration And even the Lords Supper though instituted primarily for another use may be a means of this to those that yet unworthily drew neer it However if we be commanded to invite yea and compel men to come in to the Church that the house of Christ may be filled we must not be too scrupulous in admitting them nor to busy in keeping them back If any where it 's here that Christ is like to say Odi servum nimis diligentem If men make a Credible Profession I dare not refuse them Nor dare I by my uncharitable Incredulity take that for Incredible which I cannot Prove to be so His Profession is the Evidence of his Title with the Church If I will deny him when he seeks admittance I must disprove that Profession and shew it to be invalid Truly much experience hath taught me that many that were never commonly noted for Godliness and that through bashfulness or want of expressions or the hinderance of carnal friends and worldly affaires have lived as strangers to those that are eminent for the feare of Cod have yet at last disclosed themselves to me to have been humble serious Christians many years as far as I was able to judge Especially take heed how you slight or reject people for want of parts or gifts or utterance I have known excellent Christians that through bashfulness are not able to give an account of their knowledg of the very fundamentals of Religion to a person whom they much Reverence and are in awe of And I meet with many ignorant people that in answer to many of my Questions do seem to be ignorant of Christ himself who yet shew the contrary when by other words I have caused them better to understand me If people be but desirous and willing and diligent it must be very gross Ignorance indeed that must warrant us to refuse them Many thousands are guilty of wrong intruding into the Church when the Ministers and Church were not guilty of wrong admitting them but had been culpable if they had refused them I speak all this to the Congregational Brethren rather then the rest because they are most suspected to be overstrict in their admissions and because I would intreate them to avoid all just occasions of offence and disunion in their Practise when we are all so happily agreed in our Principles in this great point of the Necessity of an Approved Profession 4. And for the Erastians as in the point of Discipline they commonly contend with us upon a meer mistake thinking we claime a proper Imperium or Magisterial Power when as we claime but the Power of an Embassadour with such a kind of Power as a Physician hath over his Patients or as Plato or Zeno had in their Schooles besides the Ministerial Power in Worshiping so their Principal quarrel with us will be removed by the Practice of Confirmation You talk much of the Sacraments being converting Ordinances and against examining men in order to the Lords Supper and keeping men away But are you not Agreed with us that a personal understanding serious Profession of Christianity even of Faith and Repentance which conteineth a Renouncing the flesh the world and the Devil is necessary to those that will either by Baptism or Confirmation be admitted into the Number of Adult-members of the Church And do you not grant that the Adult whether before Baptism or Confirmation are to be tried and approved by the Pastours before they Baptize them or Confirm them Grant us but this and that the ancient Discipline should be exercised in the Church which the Scriptures and all the Church Canons do record and wee shall be agreed with you in a moment For Baptism we are no stricter then the Common-Prayer Book that required that the party by him self or others did Promise and vow 1. To forsake the Devil and all his works the Pomps and vanities of the wicked world and all the sinfull lusts of the flesh 2. To believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith 3. To keep Gods holy will and Commandements and walk in the same all the daies of his life That so it may be truly said of the Baptized that he is made a member of Christ a Child of God and an inheritour or heir of the Kingdom of Heaven and of the Confirmed we expect but that which is here said to be given and assured in Baptism viz. A Death unto sinne and a New birth unto Righteousness that being by Nature born in sinne and the children of wrath we are hereby made the Children of Grace yea we expect but what is required of persons to be baptized viz. Repentance whereby they forsake sinne and Faith whereby they stedfastly believe the Promises of God made to them in that Sacrament All these are the words of the Catechism in the Common-Prayer Book Yea we expect but that open Profession before the Congregation which the forecited Rubricke of Confirmation requireth no nor alway so much as that So that I may well suppose that no Godly moderate man of the Erastian way can dissent from us in this point of Confirmation And a Consent in this will be next to a Consent in all between us and them 5. And for the Anabaptists themselves though we evpect not their Consent yet we may well expect their Moderation and non-opposition and that as we thus draw as neer them as possibly in our present judgment we can so they would lay by all bitterness and reproach and divisive carriage and come as neer us as they can And as now with the more moderate of them our difference appeareth less then many of them imagined so it may appear that the distance in affection and Communion shall be no greater then there is cause The odium of Division and unpeaceableness hath so long laine upon their party that methinks they should be willing to have it taken off And there is no way to take it off but their visible amendment by becoming Lovers and Promoters of Union Communion and Peace among the Churches of Christ Men will never take your opinion to be of God while general experience shall shew them that it will not stand with that Love Union and Communion of the Saints but engageth almost all that receive it in Divisions Opposition and Reproach of the Servants of Christ and his Churches Though you think your own

of the means now And 1. When I have proved it once Appointed it lyeth on the contrary minded to prove it changed or ceased That 's the task of them that affirm it ceased If I shew them an obligation once laid they must prove it taken off Their only Argument is that the persons and occasion were only extraordinary and are ceased and therefore so is the signe or means To which I Answer 1. By denying the Antecedent both as to persons and occasion They were not Only extraordinary 2. By the denying the Consequence as it is inferred from the persons For extraordinary persons were our patterns for ordinary durable works But I prove the Negative 1. The Use and Ends of the Ancient Imposition of hands do still continue Therefore we are to judge that the signe and means is not to cease For the proofe of the Antecedent remember that I have before proved that it was not only though very eminently the gift of Tongues and Miracles that was then meant by the Holy Ghost that was given but also Corroborating Grace And the necessity and actual collation and use of this doth still continue 2. There is still a discernable Aptitude in the means to these necessary Ends. The Baptized believer may yet want the Joy of the Holy Ghost and boldness of Access to God and the shedding abroad of fuller Love in the heart Rom. 5. 5 And that Consolation which is much of the work of the promised Spirit which therefore is called the Comforter and that Corroboration and Stability which he needeth Now to have a Messenger of Christ that hath received a binding and loosing power in the Name of Christ to Encourage us in our Profession and to put up Solemn Prayers for us and as it were take us by the hand and place us in the higher form at least to place us at our first personal Profession among Adult believers and make particular application of the Promise to us and Bless us in the Name of Christ by virtue of their Ministerial Office this must needs tend much to confirm and comfort and encourage the weak Though still further Ministerial Confirmation by Praying and Exhortation will be necessary to the end Acts 14. 22. 15. 31 32. 3. The Scripture signifieth to us that Imposition of hands was of standing use in the Church and therefore not to cease with Miracles In Heb. 6. 2. We find it named among the parts of the Foundation Laying on of hands Now all the doubt is what Impositon of hands is there mentioned 1. For them that think the Apostle meaneth Jewish Imposition when he mentioneth the Christian Foundation Points I think their Opinion saveth me the labour of Confuting it 2. Either then it is Imposition of hands in case of Ordination or in case of Confirmation or in case of Absolution or for working Miraculous cures The last alone it cannot be because we find it among Foundation Points and find it a continued thing and because there is no evidence to lead us to such a restrained exposition And if it be in the case of Absolution or Ordination that Imposition is to continue it will by consequence be proved that it no more ceaseth here then there And usually they that question the use of it in one case question it in the rest 3. For my part I think that it is no one of these cases alone that the Scripture here speaketh of but of the Power and use of it in General for the Ministers of Christ to be his Instruments in conferring Evangelical Gifts and Power by imposition of hands We must not limit and restrain the sence of Scripture without Evident cause It is as if the Apostle had said You are long agoe taught the Necessity of Repenting and forsaking the works of Death and of Believing in the true God and of being Dedicated and Engaged to Father Sonne and Holy Ghost in the Baptismal Covenant in which you your selves have been consecrated unto God and received the remission of sinne and you have seen the Power that is given to the Ministers of Christ that by their Prayers and Imposition of hands Miracles have been wrought to confirm their Doctrine and Grace is given to confirm the Soul and Absolution and Peace is given to the Penitent and Ministeriall Power delivered to others c. But however you understand this Imposition of hands without apparent violence you must confess either Imposition in the case that we are speaking of or that which will warrant it and stands on the same ground to be here meant So 1 Tim. 5. 22. Lay hands suddenly on no man neither be partaker of other mens sinnes Some think that here is meant Imposition of hands in Ordination and some that it 's meant only of Confirmation and some of Absolution but however it will help us in the following Argument 4. Scripture fully proveth that Laying on of hands is a thing to be continued to other Vses where the reason of continuance is the same Therefore we are not to judge it ceased as to this use This Text last named shews that it is a standing or continued thing and if for Absolution then for Confirmation and if for Ordination then for both the other So 1 Tim. 4. 14. sheweth that the Presbytery did lay hands on Timothy in Ordination And if it cease not to this it ceaseth not to other continuing uses This much from Scripture for Imposition of hands is more then Nothing though it may not be so full as you expected But on the contrary Nothing is brought to prove it unlawfull that 's worth the mentioning The last thing that I have to do is to argue from the Practice of the Church as the Exposition of these texts of Scripture If the Universal Church of Christ have used Confirmation by Prayer and Laying on of hands as a Practice received from the Apostles and no other beginning of it can be found then have we no reason to think the Ceremony to be ceased or to interpret the forementioned Scripture contrary to this Practice of the Universal Church But the Antecedent is true as I now come briefly to prove supposing what Mr Hanmer hath said It is commonly known that the Ancientest Canons of the Church do speak of this as the unquestioned Practice and duty of the Church So that to recite Canons were loss of time in so known a case And if any say that Anointing and Crossing were Ancient I Answer 1. That they were as ancient in the Popish use as the Matter of a Sacrament or as necessary signes is not true nor proved but disproved by our Writers against the Popish Confirmation frequently 2. Nor can it be proved that they were as Ancient as Indifferent things 3. We prove the contrary because they were never used in Scripture times their being no mention of them 4. So that we bring Antiquity but to prove the continuance of a Scripture Practice and so to clear the sence