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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26886	Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending them against several sorts of opponents, especially against the second assault of that pious, reverend and dear brother Mr. Thomas Blake / by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing B1212; ESTC R39868	418,313	558

I give you not better then either Dr Molin or the two Arminian Divines give let me be branded for a factious Calumniator of the dead whose name is so honourable that the forgery is the greater sin First there is a Manuscript of his own in many mens hands dated March. 3. 1617. at Dublin which I intend to print if no one else do it first which asserteth this Doctrine in the same middle way as Davenant and Camero do And I askt him whether he yet owned it not long before his death and he said He did and was firm in that judgment I asked him to whom he wrote it and he told me as I remember to Mr Culverwell I am certain it was to him or to Mr Eyr who he told me was the man that fell so foul on Mr Culverwell 2. If my own word be not sufficient Dr Kendal can bear witness that he was present once when he heard him own this judgement of Universal Redemption in the middle way and intimated that Dr Davenant and Dr Preston were minded of it by him as reioycing that he sooner owned it and that we cannot rationally offer Christ to sinners on other grounds Now because the Bishop went this middle way when he speaks against the Arminians some feign him to speak against his own doctrine And when he spoke for Universal Satisfaction the Arminians say he was turned to them This is the faithfulness of the world It shames and grieves me to say Of siding Divines and as much almost to say Of a publick Professor of History in Oxford For the principal honour of a Historian is his veracity and impartial fidelity and how much of that this Preface to the Paraenesis is guilty of I leave to consideration upon the taste that is here given But enough of this The fourth and last particular in which I offend some few Brethren by my judgement is that which is the subject of these ensuing Disputations But I can truly say of this as of the rest 1. That if I should change my judgement and please these Brethren its like I should displease many more For 2. I take it for granted that I go in the common rode that the Church of Christ hath gone in from the beginning to this day so far am I from singularity 3. I am most certain that my thoughts were so far from intending singularity or the disturbance of the Church by these or other points in Controversie that I apprehended them strongly to be the truths that must be instrumental to the Churches peace when ever God seeth us meet to attain it And though I never took a point for true eo nomine because it was in the middle or tended to peace yet I purposely chose out these truths rather then other to vindicate because they tend to peace And to the praise of God I speak it that in those antient common disturbing Controversies between the Arminian and Antiarminian Lutheran and Calvinist Iesuite and Dominican I have discerned those Principles which quiet my own mind and which I am confident were they received according to their evidence would quiet the now-contending Christian world But I am past doubt to be derided as arrogant for this confidence and should the Principles in a Method with Evidence be propounded though purposely to heal the divisions of the Church many of the several parties would but rage at the Reconciler and pour out their impotent accusations and reproaches against him because he would attempt the healing of their divisions and would feign him to be the Author of some new Sect for seeking to put an end to Sects But let any man make good my just demand that the Principles propounded shall have an impartial reception according to their Evidence and I will give you security to make good my confidence that they shall quiet the Chrstian world hereabouts But I know this is to be expected from none but God nor at all on earth in any perfection As to the present Controversie it seemed good to Mr Blake to begin it with me and to my Defense he hath opposed an angry Reply not to my whole Book as I did to that part of his which concerned me but to here and there a scrap disordered and maimed and parcelled as he thought good I was in doubt whether to make any rejoinder or further Defense but while I doubted divers Reverend Brethren from several parts wrote to me to move me neither to be silent nor to answer all his words which would be tedious to the Reader but to handle the Controversies by way of Disputation and to bring in Mr Blake's Arguments under them so far as shall be thought necessary Though at first I scarce liked this way as seeming not a full answer but such a course as he took with me yet I did acquiesce in the judgement of my Brethren But yet indeed I think I had never printed a word at all in Defense of my self against Mr Blake but for another providence The third Disputation as here printed was written before Mr Blake's Book against me was printed or in the press as I have reason to think A Copie of this I lent about two years ago to a friend But by what means I know not about three quarters of a year ago I received tidings from a pious learned Minister in the West writing to a friend of his not far from me that there were such abundance of Copies of that Disputation in those parts and some were so purposed that it would be printed if I did not do it my self I confess I was much offended at the news because the Disputation was imperfectly written and on such a subject as to the later part which shews what sins may consist with Godliness that I would have been loath it should have been by them made publike as knowing how unfit it was for the eyes of the Profane But when there was no remedy the best I could do was to add some cautions and annex the other Disputations here adjoyned which were hastily written that the former might not go alone without that company that seemed necessary And this is the occasion of this present writing For the Matter of it I have manifested that I hold the common Doctrine of the Church And many another could I mention as consenting in it besides those particularly there cited Mr Wil. Fenner in the second part of Christs Alarm p. 92 93. saith Another inseparable mark of a true Church is a sincere Profession of the word of God and true Christian religion either in truth and uprightness of heart or else so far as man can judge For though the preaching of the Word come to a place yet it doth not follow presently that there is a Church of God but when divers of them embraced the Word either sincerely or else to see to as far as Paul and others could judge then they were a Church There must be a Congregation of People that do

Godly may both scorn in press and pulpit persecute and kill each other As one Godly man may persecute another for some Truths and Duties which he knows not to be such so in particular it is possible that such may imagine that private Meetings tend to schism or proud singularity and so may deride them Or he may by strangeness to them entertain some false report of the stricter Professors of Religion as if they were proud humorous schismaticks disobedient and differed only in these things and not in true piety from others And I believe I have known some in former times that were such who had such thoughts as these of all the Godly that were not conformable and of others that used any private Meetings living where they had little acquaintance with any of them save two or three that by scandals increased their prejudice and hearing no better language of them these persons would reproach them as bitterly as most that ever I heard and yet themselves lived not only uprightly to men but so piously that they seemed to hate all profaness and spent more time in secret prayer and reading then most I have known It is not therefore all scorn or persecution of Godly persons Doctrines or Duties that will prove a man to be Notoriously Graceless or Ungodly But again left any Ungodly person take occasion of presumption from all this let me add this much more 1. Though another cannot know such to be certainly ungodly yet they may know it by themselves who know their own ends and reasons better then we can do And alas the souls of such are never the safer because we are bound to judge charitably of them This is but to prevent our wronging them but it will not prevent their damnation 2. Though we know them not to be certainly ungodly yet God doth and it is he that must judge them And therefore he will put many a thousand out of heaven whom we may not put out of the Church When the Tares and Wheat are so mixed that we cannot pluck up the Tares without plucking up the Wheat that is in doubtfull inevident cases there we must let both grow till the time of harvest both in forbearing persecution by the sword and Excommunication but then God will sever the wicked from the just and gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend and them that work iniquity and cast them out into the lake of fire 3. And our selves may see cause enough to bewail the misery of many as too probable whom yet we cannot certainly conclude to be miserable yea we have cause to call them out of our communion of which more anon I must therefore intreat two sorts of Readers that they do not mis-interpret these foregoing passages First The Vngodly are desired to beware that they pervert not this to their own delusion nor to the opening of their mouths against the teachings and censures of the Church I cannot but fore-see that such will be prone to draw venom out of necessary truths and to say I may be godly and be saved though I pray not in my family though I swear or be drunk c. But such must know 1. That they cannot be saved if in the bent of their lives they live after the flesh and if God be not dearer to them than all the world and if their hearts be not more on heaven than on earth and if the main aim and business of their lives be not for God and the life to come nor can they be Godly or saved unless they truly hate their sin and long to be rid of it and are willing to be at the cost and labour of using Gods means by which they may be rid of it unless in the bent of their lives they overcome gross sin and live not in it and groan under their infirmities desiring to be rid of them feeling the need of a Saviour and flying to his blood for pardon and to his word and spirit for cure All this must be in every one at age that will be saved Now though we may be uncertain of a mans ungodliness by one or more such fals as Peters or Davids were when the bent of his life appeareth to be holy yet if the bent of your lives be carnal and you have not all this that I have now mentioned then you may be sure that you are Graceless though you never commit any scandalous sin much more when you live in them 2. And remember that you may know your own hearts and secret lives when we cannot It s no comfort to you therefore that a Minister is not certain of your Gracelesness if you be indeed Graceless what if we must hope the best who know not the worst alas this will be no relief to your souls Nor should you be offended if Ministers in preaching and personal reproof do speak terror to you for all this For 1. they preach to you as described in a graceless state and not named 2. They must tell you what every sin deserves and whither it leads and tell you of the sad probabilites of your damnable state though they have not a certainty 2. I foresee also that some Godly people will think that these passages though true may accidentally harden the wicked in their sin and therefore that this will do more harm than good To whom I say 1. That the wicked will draw evil from the most certain truths and all must not be concealed which they will abuse 2. Yet I must confess that my own heart made this Objection which caused me to think this Paper my self unfit to be published and so I did this two years lay it by And had I not understood that from the Coppy which I sent one friend so many are communicated and at such a distance into the hands of strangers and that somewhat defective and had I not been acquainted that they will print it if I will not it might have yielded still to this Objection for ought I know for had I been left to my own choice I should have laid it in the dark Now for the Affirmative I will shew you whom we may take for Notoriously ungodly and then I will shew you whom we must judge probably to be godly and whether we must not exclude some persons and refuse their Infants who yet are not Notoriously ungodly 1. A man that not inconsiderately or in a Temptation but deliberately and obstinately denieth any fundamental Article of the Christian faith is notoriously ungodly for he cannot have a godly heart that excludeth the necessary principles of Godliness from his head I mean those Truths without which there is no salvation for surely without them there can be no Grace He that denieth thus the God head or the Goodness Wisdom or Power of God or the Incarnation Holiness Death Ransom of man thereby Resurrection Rule or Judgement of Jesus Christ or the everlasting life that he giveth to Believers or the