A27054:571
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.
§. 16. 3. And (not only Davenant, Morton, Hall, but) all peace-making Divines are agreed that unseen consequences are not to be taken for a mans judgement, rather than the contrary truths which he professedly owneth.
§. 17. For instances, I will over-pass the word [Greek or Hebrew], and not resolve the Controversy whether Eusebius Caesariensis proved by D. Petavius and others to have been indeed an Arian, after all his great labours in his History, his Praeparatio & Demonstratio Evangelica, ought to have been cut off from the Catholic Church: or whether Constantine justly chid Alexander as well as Arius for their contention? Nor whether Hilary justly blamed the making of New Creeds, beginning with the Nicene; Nor whether Justin and all the rest of the Ancient Fathers whose words Petavius citeth as speaking as the Arians, should have been Excommunicated. Doubtless the denial of Christs Godhead is the denial of his Essence. But there be subtle School-men that think the word [substance] is spoken of God but equivocally or metaphorically, yea some and no small men or number say the same of Ens it self, which yet the Scotists contradict them in: And many choose rather to call God A Pure Act, than a substance: And these men think that they that know not what substance meaneth as spoken of God, should not excommunicate men for denying Christ to be [of the […] substance] unless they better understood the subject: And they think that Damascene that subtly calleth God [[Greek or Hebrew]] must needs be as guilty as they that denied Christ to be [[Greek or Hebrew]]; and that where there is no substance, there is no [same substance] And therefore ⟨p. 185⟩thinking that some men mean the same word heretically, and some well, they wish that the word had never been put into a Creed, which must be the test of all Church-members: Though the word be true.
§. 17. For instances, I will over-pass the word 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, and not resolve the Controversie whether Eusebius Caesariensis proved by D. Petavius and others to have been indeed an Arian, after all his great labours in his History, his Praeparatio & Demonstratio Evangelica, ought to have been cut off from the Catholick Church: or whether Constantine justly chid Alexander as well as Arius for their contention? Nor whether Hilary justly blamed the making of New Creeds, beginning with the Nicene; Nor whether Justin and all the rest of the Ancient Fathers whose words Petavius citeth as speaking as the Arians, should have been Excommunicated. Doubtless the denyal of Christs Godhead is the denyal of his Essence. But there be subtile School-men that think the word [substance] is spoken of God but equivocally or metaphorically, yea some and no small men or number say the same of Ens it self, which yet the Scotists contradict them in: And many choose rather to call God A Pure Act, than a substance: And these men think that they that know not what substance meaneth as spoken of God, should not excommunicate men for denying Christ to be [of the substance] unless they better understood the subject: And they think that Damascene that subtilly calleth God [] must needs be as guilty as they that denyed Christ to be []; and that where there is no substance, there is no [same substance] And therefore