A26923:814
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 18: Of the necessity of Faith in Christ, where the Gospel is made known.
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. 4. And who will avoid Sin, Temptations, and Hell, that believeth not him that tells them of the evil, and of the danger that is before him?
§. 13. 5. And God can have no lower End ultimately than Himself, and the Glory of our Redeemer is more excellent than mine or yours. And therefore if We have the Salvation, it is meet and necessary that God and our Redeemer have the Love and Thanks, the Praise and Glory of it.
§. 14. Yet hath not God arbitrarily made Faith more necessary than it is in the true Reason and Aptitude of it to its Ends. He hath not made to all a Faith so necessary of Christ, and his Intercession; and therefore though Infants and Idiots cannot actually believe, they may be saved by Christ: And though those before Christ believed not all that we must now believe, nor the Gentiles before, so much as the Jews, yet neither of them were thereby excluded from Salvation.
§. 14. Yet hath not God arbitrarily made Faith more necessary than it is in the true Reason and Aptitude of it to its Ends. He hath not made to all a Faith so necessary of Christ, and his Intercession; and therefore though Infants and Ideots cannot actually believe, they may be saved by Christ: And though those before Christ believed not all that we must now believe, nor the Gentiles before, so much as the Iews, yet neither of them were thereby excluded from Salvation.