Rich. Baxters apology against the modest exceptions of Mr. T. Blake and the digression…

Where these essentials are not in the apprehension of the object, there is not truly the consent, or faith, or covenanting which God hath made the condition of his Promise; and therefore such are said (as to the Faith, Consent and Covenant so required) but equivocally or analogically to Consent, Covenant or Believe: when truly and properly it is to be said, that they do not Consent or Covenant. Consent hath relation to the offer: and if it be not the offered thing that is consented to but somewhat else under that name, then it is ⟨p. 63⟩not indeed Consent: for there is no Relate without its Correlate. Covenanting (in the present sense) implies Gods propounded Covenant and terms. For our entering the Covenant, is not a Making of terms, but an Accepting of the terms made to our hands and tendered (with a command to accept them.) Now if we do not consent to the same terms propounded, it is truly no Accepting, nor no Covenanting: For God never offered to enter into Covenant on such terms, and that which was never offered, cannot be properly accepted; nor can we Covenant with God in a mutual Covenant, on terms contrary to those which he propounded. The Civil Law saith, Ignorantis non est Consensus. A God that is inferior to creatures in Rule, or in Goodness and Desirableness, is not God indeed. And therefore he that takes God in this sense for his God, takes but the Name of God, and not God himself, but an Idol of his brain. A Christ that is only a Justifier and not a King and Governor, is not the Christ that is offered us of God; and therefore no man is called to accept such a Christ. To err therefore about the very essence of the Object, as such, is to null the Act, it can be no Consent or Covenant or Acceptance truly at all, but equivocally only. 11. The same may be said of counterfeit Covenanting, when it is only ore tenus, with the mouth and not the heart. 12. Yet may an oral counterfeit Covenanting oblige the party to the duty promised (in our case) though it give him no right to the benefit offered, nor is God as it were obliged to perform his Covenant to such. 13. The like may be said of the foresaid equivocal erroneous Consenting, Accepting, Covenanting. If the error be through the fault of the man himself, his act may oblige himself, though God remain disobliged, and though he have no right to the thing promised by God.

Where these essentials are not in the apprehension of the object, there is not truly the consent, or faith, or covenanting which God hath made the condition of his Promise; and therefore such are said (as to the Faith, Consent and Covenant so required) but equivocally or analogically to Consent, Covenant or Believe: when truly and properly it is to be said, that they do not Consent or Covenant. Consent hath relation to the offer: and if it be not the offered thing that is consented to but somewhat else under that name, then it is