A26892:6262
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.
Object. You have no certainty what adult professor is sincere, nor to which of them the special benefits belong; no not of any one in a Church, And yet because that there is a probability that among many there are some sincere, you baptize them all. Take then the birth privilege but as equal to the profession of the adult.
Object. You have no certainty what adult professor is sincere, nor to which of them the special benefits belong; no not of any one in a Church, And yet because that there is a probability that among many there are some sincere, you baptize them all. Take then the birth priviledge but as equal to the profession of the adult.
Answ. This partly satisfied me sometimes: But I cannot forget that A visible, false or hypocritical profession is not the condition of Gods own Covenant of Grace, nor that which he requireth in us, to make us partakers of his Covenant-benefits, Nay, he never at all commandeth it; but only commandeth that profession of Consent, which followeth the real consent of the heart; He that1 condemneth lying, maketh it neither the condition of our Church-membership, as his gift by promise, nor yet our duty.
And mark well, that it is a Professed Consent to the whole Covenant that God requireth, as the condition of our true right to any part or benefit of it. He that shall only say, I consent to be a visible Church-member, doth thereby acquire no right to that membership; no not in foro Ecclesiae: But he must also profess that he consenteth to have God for his God, and Christ for his Lord and Saviour, and the Holy Spirit for his Sanctifier. So that he must be a liar or a sound believer that maketh this profession.