A26892:6472
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.
And withal reading that we are made Kings and Priests to God, and a Royal Priesthood, they thought this might be signified by the usual honourary signs of such, as well as by words to be called such. So that they took it as if in our age, the baptized should be set in a Chair of State, and sumptuously apparelled, and a •east made to solemnize it, as they do at Weddings, and the baptized person set at the upper end, &c. which are significant Actions and Ceremonies; But they intended them not as new Sacraments, or any part of the Sacrament, but as a pompous celebration of the Sacrament by such additional ceremonial accidents.
5. And you must remember that they lived among Infidels, where their profession was made the common scorn, which tempted them by such ostentation and pomp to seek to make it honourable, and to show that they so accounted it, and to encourage those who were discouragable by the scorn. On which account also they used the Cross, and the Memorials of the Martyrs.
5. And you must remember that they lived among Infidels, where their profession was made the common scorn, which tempted them by such ostentation and pomp to seek to make it honourable, and to shew that they so accounted it, and to encourage those who were discouragable by the scorn. On which account also they used the Cross, and the Memorials of the Martyrs.
6. Yet some, yea, many afterwards did seem to take the Anointing for a Sacramental Action. When they read that the Laying on of hands was the sign of Giving the Holy Ghost, as distinct from baptism, and that the Spirit is called in Scripture the Anointing, they joined both together, and made that which they now call the Sacrament of Confirmation.
6. Yet some, yea, many afterwards did seem to take the Anointing for a Sacramental Action. When they read that the Laying on of hands was the sign of Giving the Holy Ghost, as distinct from baptism, and that the Spirit is called in Scripture the Anointing, they joyned both together, and made that which they now call the Sacrament of Confirmation.