A26923:852
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.
§. 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.
§. 8. When we call it [Consent] or Acceptance, or [Receiving Christ] we mean, that as Man's Soul hath an Intellect and Will, and a true actus humanus vel moralis, is the act of both, but of the Intellect as directive, and of the Will as more perfective, or as the Faculty, primarily moral; so the same Faith which is initially in the intellect's Assent, is perfectlier in the will's Consent: And it is the Receiving of a Saviour believed, or the Consent to a believed Covenant: We suppose Assent when we name it Consent.
§. 9. And when we name it Affiance or Trust, we include both the former, and mean a resolved practical Trust, and dedition of our selves accordingly to one that covenanteth to bring us from Sin and Misery to GOD and Glory; where Belief and Consent to that Covenant are supposed.