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

R. B. 1. The difference is so small that were it not for some scattered by-passages, I should scarce have replied to you. 2. All the quarrel ariseth from the divers understanding of the term sealed. I suppose that you include the confirming of the Receiver, and the conferring of Right to the Benefit, both which I have said are done Conditionally, as being to follow the Delivery and Reception; whereas I take it for the Testimonium secundarium, or that Obsignation whereby the Instrument is owned: the following effects belonging to it in a further respect. I ever granted that by the sealing of the Conditional Promise, the Believer hath a singular help to raise the Conclusion, and be confirmed in it; but not a help sufficient, without the discerning of his own Faith, which is the Assumption. So that if you will, participaliter and consequenter, the Conclusion may be said to be sealed to him that hath the Condition (whether he see it, o• not). But totaliter & directè only the Conditional grant is sealed. 3. The Conclusion issues from, and hath its strength from both Premises jointly, and no more from one alone, then if it were none at all: and therefore where only one of the Premises is sealed, and the other unsealed, there the Conclusion can be but as I said, participaliter & consequenter sealed: And though I grant thus much to you for reconciliation, yet I conceive it unfit to say at all, as in proper speech, that the Conclusion is sealed: which I make good by this Argument. Conclusio sequitur partem debiliorem, vel deteriorem. At Propositio non obsignata est pars debilior vel deterior: therefore Conclusio sequitur Propositionem non obsignatam. And so it is on the same grounds to be denominated, not sealed; as a Conclusion is to be denominated Contingent, when one of the Premises is Contingent and the other Necessary; or to be Negative, when one of the Premises is Negative and the other Affirmative; or to be Particular, when one of the Premises is Particular and the other Universal; And therefore I still say, that it is fittest for you and me to say, that this Conclusion, Thou A. B. art Justified, and hast Right to Salvation, is an unsealed Conclusion: till you can prove the Minor sealed, Thou A. B. art a sincere Believer.