A26887:138
The certainty of Christianity without popery, or, Whether the Catholic-Protestant or the papist have…The certainty of Christianity without popery, or, Whether the Catholick-Protestant or the papist have…
The certainty of Christianity without popery, or, Whether the Catholic-Protestant or the papist have the surer faith being an answer to one of the oft canted questions and challenges of the papists, sent to one who desired this : published to direct the unskilful, how to defend their faith against papists and infidels, but especially against the temptations of the Devil, that by saving their faith, they may save their holiness, their comfort and their souls / by Richard Baxter.The certainty of Christianity without popery, or, Whether the Catholick-Protestant or the papist have the surer faith being an answer to one of the oft canted questions and challenges of the papists, sent to one who desired this : published to direct the unskilful, how to defend their faith against papists and infidels, but especially against the temptations of the Devil, that by saving their faith, they may save their holiness, their comfort and their souls / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simons, 1672
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.
These consequences being plain, (though there are vain Objections which I must not stay to answer) we certainly infer: There is a God who is the perfect Governor of the world, and therefore is Gracious, True and Just; and therefore doth not rule even the best of men by unavoidable deceit and falsehood: and therefore this word is True which he so notoriously owneth and attesteth as aforesaid.
These consequences being plain, (though there are vain Objections which I must not stay to answer) we certainly infer: There is a God who is the perfect Governour of the world, and therefore is Gracious, True and Iust; and therefore doth not rule even the best of men by unavoidable deceit and falshood: and therefore this word is True which he so notoriously owneth and attesteth as aforesaid.
§. 27. And hence it is that we take our selves bound about the Sacrament to believe that all mens senses are not deceived; because if they be, man hath no remedy: For God hath made our sense the perceiver of things sensible; and if it be not a Certain perceiver, we have no Certainer nor other about those objects. And if the apprehensions of sense be uncertain, (having all the natural requisites) then all Gods Miracles by which he attested the word, (as well as the word it self) are so: And if it be not contrary to Gods perfection, Veracity and Justice, to deceive all mens senses in the Sacrament, we cannot prove it contrary to them to deceive them by Miracles.
§. 28. As an unbeliever is not so well disposed to receive the Gospel as a holy person after is, and recipitur ad modum recipientis; so usually a more wavering belief goeth before a fuller Certainty: And the holier and more experienced any man is, the more he is Certain of the truth of the Gospel, because he hath the witness in himself, in the Gust and Certain Effects of it: But yet there is that Evidence of Truth which Preachers may and must use to the Conviction of Infidels, to bring them to true belief.