A26892:6372
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.
12. So the adult themselves have the operation of the spirit by which they Believe and Repent, by which they come to have their Right to Gods part in the Covenant of Baptism; (for this is antecedent to their baptism): But they have not that gift of the spirit, which is called in Scripture, the spirit 1of sanctification, and of Power, Love and a sound mind, and is the benefit given by the Covenant of Baptism, till afterward; Because they must be in that Covenant before it can be made good to them. And their Faith or Consent is their Infants right also, antecedent to the Covenant gift.
13. There is therefore some notable difference between that work of the spirit by which we first Repent and believe and so have our title to the promise of the spirit, and that gift of the spirit which is promised to believers: which is not only the spirit of Miracles given in the first times, but some notable degree of Love to our Reconciled Father, suitable to the Grace and Gospel of Redemption and1 Reconciliation, and is called the spirit of Christ, and the spirit of Adoption, which the Apostles themselves ⟨p. 820⟩seem not to have received till Christs ascension: And this seemeth to be not only different from the Gifts of the spirit common to Hypocrites and the unbelievers, but also from the special gift of the spirit which maketh men believers: So that Mr. Tho. Hooker saith trulyer than once I understood, that V•cation is a special Grace of the spirit, distinct from Common Grace on one side, and from sanctification on the other side. Whether it be the same degree of the spirit which the faithful had before Christs Incarnation, which causeth men first to believe, distinct from the higher following degree I leave to enquiry: But the certainest distinction is from the different effects.