A26886:502
Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending…
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 ...
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1658
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.
To what I said from Mat. 28.29.1 [I am very sorry to hear the constitution of visible Churches to suffer the brand of making of counterfeit and half Christians] Answ. For all that I will not be moved with pity to err because you are sorry to hear the truth. 1. Church constitutions make not Christians, of one sort or other ⟨p. 152⟩but contain them when made. 2. And my arguing was to prove that every faithful Pastor must intend the making of sincere Christians, and not only counterfeit or half-Christians. This is a truth that so good a man should not have been sorry to hear. 3. If you mean that visible Churches contain not counterfeit and half-Christians, you might have been sorry long before this to hear both Protestants and Papists say the contrary.
To what I said from Mat. 28.29.1 [I am very sory to hear the constitution of visible Churches to suffer the brand of making of counterfeit and half Christians] Answ. For all that I will not be moved with pity to err because you are sorry to hear the truth. 1. Church constitutions make not Christians, of one sort or other ⟨p. 152⟩but contain them when made. 2. And my arguing was to prove that every faithful Pastor must intend the making of sincere Christians, and not only counterfeit or half-Christians. This is a truth that so good a man should not have been sorry to hear. 3. If you mean that visible Churches contain not counterfeit and half-Christians, you might have been sorry long before this to hear both Protestants and Papists say the contrary.
- 1Mat. 28.29. vindicated.
You add [Its well known whose language it is, that all charging duty on unregenerate persons is only to bring them to hypocrisy.] Answ. And if the end of that duty were no higher than to bring men to be counterfeit Christians, they had not said amiss. When we hear that charge, it is for persuading men to hear, pray, &c. for sincere faith: But if I persuade men to become Christians, and mean only the Professors of faith without the thing professed, or the believing with another sort of faith, then I might well be charged with persuading some to hypocrisy, and the other to be half-Christians. 2. You have not yet proved that Baptizing the Professors of a lower faith, is the appointed means to bring them to saving faith.