A26923:586
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches by reconciling explication without much disputing. Written by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Salusbury, 1691
Chapter 12 › Section 5: Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the last Edition, or the Gospel.
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.
§. 22. Yet it is not probable that they composed exactly such a Form of Words as might not at all be altered, and used still the very same terms; for the Creeds recited by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Marcellus in Epiphanius, and others, do all differ in some words from one another, and some Articles have been added since the rest (of which see Usher and Vossius de Symbolis.) But (except those few Additions) they all agree in Sense; which may persuade us that the ancient Churches kept still to Words which signified the same matter of the Articles of our common Creed, and admitted no variation of the Words, but such as was small, and endangered not the Doctrine.
§. 22. Yet it is not probable that they composed exactly such a Form of Words as might not at all be altered, and used still the very same terms; for the Creeds recited by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Marcellus in Epiphanius, and others, do all differ in some words from one another, and some Articles have been added since the rest (of which see Usher and Vossius de Symbolis.) But (except those few Additions) they all agree in Sence; which may perswade us that the ancient Churches kept still to Words which signified the same matter of the Articles of our common Creed, and admitted no variation of the Words, but such as was small, and endangered not the Doctrine.
§. 23. Though Baptism explained by the Symbol of Faith, Lords Prayer, and Decalogue, contain at least the Constitutive Essentials of Christianity, yet the Integrals are much larger, and all that Christ commanded was to be taught the Church. And though this was done by Voice many years by the Apostles before they wrote any part of the New Testament, yet the Memory of men from Generation to Generation, would have been a very unsafe and treacherous Preserver of so many things, had they been committed to Memory alone▪ ⟨p. 146⟩Therefore it pleased the Wisdom and Love of God, to inspire the Apostles prophetically and infallibly to commit the Sum of the History of Christ's Life, Sufferings, and Death, &c. with all the Integrals of his Word, to those durable and sacred Records which we call the Holy Scriptures, for the easier and fuller Propagation and Preservation of the Christian Faith, and all its Integrals, especially his Example and sacred Precepts; yea, and the necessary Accidentals, or Appurtenances.