A27054:568
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.
Viz. I. Anathematizing men for a dark ambiguous word or phrase, though inept, and though in the obvious sense by undiscerned consequence it might be inconsistent with the essentials of Religion, is tyrannical and unjust.
Viz. I. Anathematizing men for a dark ambiguous word or phrase, though inept, and though in the obvious sence by undiscerned consequence it might be inconsistent with the essentials of Religion, is tyrannical and unjust.
§. 14. 1. When the words only are bad, and the man doth not so mean them, this is no heresy in the man. If that word which signifieth God, or Heaven, should in another language, or by mis-information be used to signify, Satan or Hell, and so have opprobrious epithets annexed, this were no blasphemy or error in the man. For he used the words as significations of his mind: And they are not Natural but arbitrary signs. Else all unskilful speakers would be heretics: Yea all men would be damned; For there are few words but are ambiguous, or of many sense and are good in one sense and bad in another.
§. 14. 1. When the words only are bad, and the man doth not so mean them, this is no heresie in the man. If that word which signifieth God, or Heaven, should in another language, or by mis-information be used to signifie, Satan or Hell, and so have opprobrious epithers annexed, this were no blasphemy or errour in the man. For he used the words as significations of his mind: And they are not Natural but arbitrary signs. Else all unskilful speakers would be hereticks: Yea all men would be damned; For there are few words but are ambiguous, or of many sens• and are good in one sence and bad in another.
§. 15. 2. And as Amesius hath well noted, there is so harmonious a connection between all the Moral parts of Religion, that if you deny any one, by consequence it will overthrow the rest: and every