A26880:734
Catholic communion defended against both extremes, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…Catholick communion defended against both extreams, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…
Catholic communion defended against both extremes, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ... / by Richard Baxter ...Catholick communion defended against both extreams, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ... / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1684
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Ans. Not without Baptismal Confederacy in the necessary Duties commanded by Christ: But as to your Confederacies in Humane new Church-Forms, Patriarchal, Metropolitan, &c. was not the Church One without them, before they were invented? Here he maketh voluntary Confederacies to make new Church-Canons, or Laws of Discipline, necessary to Unity, and that Unity necessary to Salvation, all being cut off from Christ that break it: As if Christ had not made Laws enough necessary to salvation, and he that only kept his Laws, and not mens Canons, could not be saved. Can he tell us then where to fix our Religion? On what Bishops, and on what Canons? I am certain that his Religion will not stand with certainty of salvation, when no man can be certain what is necessary to salvation, nor what de novo will by Bishops be made necessary the next year, nor who those Bishops must be.
Ans. Not without Baptismal Confedera•y in the necessary Duties commanded by Christ: But as to your Confederacies in Humane new Church-Forms, Patriarchal, Metropolitan, &c. was not the Church One without them, before they were invented? Here he maketh voluntary Confederacies to make new Church-Canons, or Laws of Discipline, necessary to Unity, and that Unity necessary to Salvation, all being cut off from Christ that break it: As if Christ had not made Laws enough necessary to salvation, and he that only kept his Laws, and not mens Canons, could not be saved. Can he tell us then where to fix our Religion? On what Bishops, and on what Canons? I am certain that his Religion will not stand with certainty of salvation, when no man can be certain what is necessary to salvation, nor what de novo will by Bishops be made necessary the next year, nor who those Bishops must be.
2. See here again: When he made it a renouncing our Christianity, to confederate and associate to do mens duty in a particular Church, he yet maketh it necessary to Unity (and so to salvation) by confederacy to make new Humane Church Forms. All this is to bring all mens salvation (opinionatively) into the power of those that can get uppermost; as if men could as easily damn others as themselves.