A27054:534
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.
§. 20. 6. It is most probable (by the reason of the thing and the history, Act. 2. and elsewhere) that at the first no form of words was required and used besides the form in baptism, but that the people being instructed in the sense of those words, thereupon professed understanding, belief and consent. (And no more is essentially necessary) But that after a Creed in terms was the common form which was used by Professors in order to baptism: 1. Because so many thousands being baptized, the matter being short, and merely Divine, they could not be supposed to be left to much variety of expression: Divine, great, necessary things must be spoken with so much caution as may avoid error, heresy, corruption and abuse: And if every ignorant man and woman were left to use only words of their own devising to express the Christian faith, it would be of confounding and dishonourable consequence.
§. 20. 6. It is most probable (by the reason of the thing and the history, Act. 2. and elsewhere) that at the first no form of words was required and used besides the form in baptism, but that the people being instructed in the sense of those words, thereupon professed understanding, belief and consent. (And no more is essentially necessary) But that after a Creed in terms was the common form which was used by Professors in order to baptism: 1. Because so many thousands being baptized, the matter being short, and meerly Divine, they could not be supposed to be left to much variety of expression: Divine, great, necessary things must be spoken with so much caution as may avoid errour, heresie, corruption and abuse: And if every ignorant man and woman were left to use only words of their own devising to express the Christian faith, it would be of confounding and dishonourable consequence.
2. And the great care that then was used that all Christians might be of one faith and speak the same things, and that the heresies then arising might be suppressed, doth imply that this necessary means was then used by those that commanded that all be done to edification and unity and in order.