A26887:68
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.
§. 7. But there are plain passages in Scripture which I understand certainly, (not because the Pope saith This is the meaning:) Such are all the essentials of Christianity and abundance more. And there are difficult passages which I am not certain of the sense of.
§. 8. IV. I know that this Doctrine and the Bible containing it as such, are of God, (or are his word,) by the spirit attesting and sealing it; not in the fanatic sense, as they think they have an inward impulse persuading them that so it is; (as some Papists think the Pope and Councils know that to be of God which they decree, by Prophetical Inspiration:) But, 1. As to the Gospel, the spirit attested it by antecedent Prophecy. 2. The image of Gods Power, Wisdom and Goodness imprinted on the Scripture, is its essential constitutive evidence, being unimitable by mere man, and that which is its intrinsic self evidencing light: so that a spiritual well disposed soul, may from a sensibleness, taste that it is Gods word; if a Bible had come to them by chance and they had never heard of it before. I say that they may do so, if you can suppose them spiritually disposed before: But if not, yet they may strongly suspect that it is Gods word, when they read that it affirmeth it self to be so, and that the image of God upon it is so clear. 3. But the Concomitant Evidence of the spirit maketh up the proof; in the miracles of Christs Life, Resurrection and ascension; and in the miracles of Apostles and primitive Christians, abroad the world by which the Gospel was fully sealed, 4. And the ⟨p. 17⟩effected subsequent evidence of the spirit completeth all the evidence; which is the spirit of holiness given by the means of this same word to all true serious Believers in the world in all ages and nations: which Holiness is the Image of God himself, and is such a gift as none but God can give, and as God would not give by a Doctrine, which he abhorreth as a lie. Therefore, 1. It witnesseth objectively as an evidence; 2. And it witnesseth effectively, by inclining the heart to taste and close with and receive the [Greek or Hebrew] the innaturalized word; as life and health cause a man to know suitable food, by a gust which proceedeth from a suitable nature; so is it in the new nature and the sincere milk of the word. And indeed though the intellect be the proper apprehender of Truth as such suo modo, yet the will is quaedam natura, and hath a natural propensity to Good as Good, which is natural to it, and is the pondus motuum in the rational soul: And it is not an universal notion, or nothing under the name of good which it thus inclineth to;