A26923:851
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
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.
§. 5. Saving Faith is such a moral work as we use to express by the names, Believing, Trusting, Consenting, Taking, Accepting, Receiving, in Contracts personal with men. If we say [You shall Trust such a Physician, or take such a man for your Physician] all men understand us, and none is so logically mad, as to think that by Taking or Trusting we mean only some one physical act of the smallest distribution. If we say [I take this man for my King, my Master, my Commander or Captain, or this woman to be my Wife, &c.] every one knoweth here what Taking meaneth: viz. our Consent to ⟨p. 228⟩that Relation, according to the nature and ends of it.
§. 6. Therefore though we use divers names for this Faith, and also on several occasions, give several half-descriptions of it, we mean still the same thing, and suppose what we omit to make the description entire.
§. 7. When we call Faith [a Believing] or [Assent] we mean such an Assent as prevaileth with the Will, to accept Christ with his Grace as offered in the Gospel, and consent to the Baptismal Covenant; and this indeed as a fruit of the assenting act, but as essential to justifying Faith.