A26923:759
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 16: Of the State of Heathens and others, that have not 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.
Ans. The second assertion is false: The Jews were under the Law of Grace, which Paul calleth the Promise, and might be justified by it, and had greater helps to know and keep it than the rest of the World had. But when they foolishly separated their Mosaical Law from the Promise or common Law of Grace, Paul tells them, by the Deeds of that Law no flesh could be justified.
§. 35. Obj. Do you not thus confound the World and the Church?
Ans. No: I ask you, Did he confound them before Christ's Incarnation, who thought that more than the Jews were saved? Certainly no: No more do I now.
§. 36. The word [Church] is sometime taken so properly and strictly, as to signify only those ⟨p. 202⟩that are under the Covenant of Peculiarity: And so the Jews before Christ's Birth, and Christians since, make up the Church, (and some few perhaps before the Jews Covenant.) But sometimes it is taken more largely, for the Kingdom of God: For all that are in a state of Salvation, under the several editions of the Law of Grace. And so Job and his Friends, and Melchizedek and many others, before, and all now that love God and Holiness sincerely, are of the Church. Accordingly by the [World] is meant, either, 1. All Men as under the Redeemer's Law of Grace, antecedently to their Consent; and so all the World belong to God's Kingdom, as subditi obligati. 2. Rebels that refuse Consent: And so they are of the Kingdom by obligation, but condemnable for Rebellion: And these are the [World] in the worst sense. 3. Consenting Subjects under the Common Law of Grace, who yet were not Jews, nor are not in the Covenant of Peculiarity: And such are in a state of Salvation, though not in the Church of the peculiar (as the Subjects of Melchizedek, Shem, &c.) and so are both in the Church and in the World, in several senses.