A27054:365
The true and only way of concord of all the Christian churches the desirableness…
The true and only way of concord of all the Christian churches the desirableness of it, and the detection of false dividing terms / opened by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Hancock, 1680
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.
3. If he profess not to intend to baptize the person, or to intend it in general, but to corrupt it in the Essentials, it is as a Ministration invalid coram Ecclesiâ and should be done again.
4. If the adult person baptized profess baptismal Consent dissemblingly, it is valid baptism coram ecclesiâ as to what the Church must do upon it, but invalid as to what God is to do as the performer of the Covenant.
5. If the person baptized do not so much as profess consent, or profess not to consent, nor to intend to be then baptized, it is no baptism before God or the Church.
6. If he profess to be baptized in general, but deny any Essential in particular, it is not the true Christian baptism, but must be better done.
§. 5. When any came in so great error as that the Church scarce knew whether it was an Essential part of faith and baptism that was denied, it made the Controversy hard about their re-baptizing. Many thought that the Photinians and Arians denying Christs Godhead as of the same substance with the father, denied an essential article, and were to be re-baptized if they so entered at first: Our Socinians are much worse, that deny Christs Godhead in a fuller sense. And how doth he believe in Christ that believeth him not to be God, which is most eminently essential to him?