A27066:112
Mr. Baxter's vindication of the Church of England in her rites and ceremonies, discipline,…
Mr. Baxter's vindication of the Church of England in her rites and ceremonies, discipline, and church-orders as faithfully taken out of his own writings, without either false citation, or fraudulent alteration : to which is prefixed his epistle to the non-conformists, being a just and true abstract of his book entitled, A defence of the principles of love.Mr. Baxter's vindication of the Church of England in her rites and ceremonies, discipline, and church-orders as faithfully taken out of his own writings, without either false citation, or fraudulent alteration : to which is prefixed his epistle to the non-conformists, being a just and true abstract of his book entituled, A defence of the principles of love.
London: printed for Walter Kettilby, 1682
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.—4. It altereth the very definition of the the holy Scripture, and maketh it another thing. That which God made to be the Record of his holy Covenant, and the Law and Rule of Faith and Holiness, and the general Law for outward modes and circumstances, which are but accidents of Worship, is pretended by men to be a particular Law, for that which it never particularly meddleth with.
3.—4. It altereth the very definition of the the holy Scripture, and maketh it another thing. That which God made to be the Record of his holy Covenant, and the Law and Rule of Faith and Holiness, and the general Law for outward modes and circumstances, which are but accidents of Worship, is pretended by men to be a particular Law, for that which it never particularly medleth with.
5. If sorely prepares men for Infidelity, and to deny the divine authority of the Scripture, and utterly to undo all, by over-doing. If Satan could but once make men believe, that the Scripture is a rule for those things which are not to be found in it, and which God never made it to be a rule for. He will next argue against it, as a delusory and imperfect thing— he that believes it to be given as such a particular rule, and then finds that it is silent, or utterly insufficient to that use, is like next to cast it away as a delusion, and turn an Infidel, or Antiscripturist.
6. This mistake tends to cast all rational Worship out of the Church and the World.