A26892:1704
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
§. 14. Direct. 11. Consider how impossible it is in it self, that so many men should agree together to deceive 1the world and that for nothing, and at the rate of their own undoing and death: and that they should all agree in the same narratives and doctrines so unanimously. And that none of these should ever confess the deceit and disgrace the rest. All things well considered, this will appear not only a Moral but a Natural impossibility: Especially considering their quality and distance, there being thousands in several countries, that never saw the faces of the rest, much less could enter a confederacy with them, to deceive the world.
§. 14. Direct. 11. Consider how impossible it is in it self, that so many men should agree together to deceive 1the world and that for nothing, and at the rate of their own undoing and death: and that they should all agree in the same narratives and doctrines so unanimously. And that none of these should ever confess the deceit and disgrace the rest. All things well considered, this will appear not only a Moral but a Natural impossibility: Especially considering their quality and distance, there being thousands in several countries, that never saw the faces of the rest, much less could enter a confederacie with them, to deceive the world.
- 1Direct. 11.
§. 15. Direct. 12. Consider the certain way by which the Doctrine and Writings of the Apostles and 1other Evangelical messengers, hath been delivered down to us, without any possibility of material alteration: Because the Holy Scriptures were not left only to the care of private men, or of the Christians of one country, who might have agreed upon corruptions and alterations: But it was made the office of the ordinary Ministers to read, and expound, and apply them: And every Congregation had one or more of these Ministers: And the people received the Scriptures as the Law of God, and that by which they must live and be judged, and as their charter for Heaven: So that it was not possible for one Minister to corrupt the Scripture Text, but the rest with the people would have quickly reproved him: Nor for those of one Kingdom to bring all other Christians to it, throughout the world, without a great deal of consultation and opposition (if at all): which never was recorded to us.