A26998:395
The Protestant religion truly stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard BaxterThe Protestant religion truely stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter
The Protestant religion truly stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter ; prepared for the press some time before his death ; whereunto is added, by way of preface, some account of the learned author, by Mr. Daniel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester.The Protestant religion truely stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter ; prepared for the press some time before his death ; whereunto is added, by way of preface, some account of the learned author, by Mr. Danel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester.
London: printed for John Salusbury, 1692
Protestant Religion Truly Stated, and Justified, &c. › The Eight and Twentieth accused Point.
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.
The Eight and Twentieth accused Point.
That we may not pray to them.
Ans. 1. We may desire Living Saints to pray for us, and this may be called Praying to them: So a Child prayeth to his Father or Master. But we pray not to dead Saints nor Angels: 1. Because we have an hundred Commands to pray to God, and not one to pray to them, and where there is no Law, there is no Transgression or Sin. Therefore while we are sure it is no Sin to forbear it, and know not but it is Sin to do it, we go the safe way: If they say, it is against the Popes Law or his Clergy's, we say with Paul, it is a small thing to us to be judged of man, (who can but kill our Bodies,) we have one that judgeth us, even the Lord. Let the Pope Damn us if he can.
2. As the first Commandment forbiddeth us to have any God but one, so the ⟨p. 111⟩second forbiddeth us to worship so as the Heathens did their Idols, because it is Bodily interpretative Idolatry and Scandal: But the Heathens used to pray to their under Deities, whom they judged to be much like that which the Papists judge of Angels, and praying to Invisible Spirits is to imitate them as scandalously as praying toward Images: No wonder therefore that you so usually leave out the second Commandment.