A76157:205
Confirmation and restoration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of…Confirmation and restauration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of…
Confirmation and restoration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of the corruptions and divisions of the churches: submissively, but earnestly tendered to the consideration of the sovereign powers, magistrates, ministers, and people, that they may awake, and be up and doing in the execution of so much, as appeareth to be necessary as they are true to Christ, his Church and Gospel, and to their own and others souls, and to the peace and welfare of the nations; and as they will answer the neglect to Christ, at their peril. / By Richard Baxter, an unworthy minister of Christ, that longeth to see the healing of the churches.Confirmation and restauration the necessary means of reformation, and reconciliation; for the healing of the corruptions and divisions of the churches: submissively, but earnestly tendered to the consideration of the soveraigne powers, magistrates, ministers, and people, that they may awake, and be up and doing in the execution of so much, as appeareth to be necessary as they are true to Christ, his Church and Gospel, and to their own and others souls, and to the peace and wellfare of the nations; and as they will answer the neglect to Christ, at their peril. / By Richard Baxter, an unworthy minister of Christ, that longeth to see the healing of the churches.
London: printed by A.M. for Nevil Simmons book-seller, 1658
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.
Prop. 12. This solemn Investiture on personal Profession, being thus proved the Ordinance of God, for the solemn renewing of the Covenant of Grace, between God and the Adult Covenanter, it must needs f•llow, that it is a corroborating Ordinance, and that corroborating Grace is to be expected in it from God, by all that come to it in sincerity of heart: And so it hath the name of Confirmation upon that account also.
The Papists quarrel with us, and curse us in the Counsel of Trent, for denying their Ends of Confirmation, and making it another thing. But they falsely describe our Opinion: We do not take it to be a mere Catechising, or receiving the Catechized to the Lords Supper, or to a higher form: But we take it to be the Approbation of the personal ⟨p. 94⟩Profession of them that claim a Title to the Church-state, and Privilege of the Adult, and an Investing them solemnly therein, upon the solemn Renewal (and personal Adult entrance) into Covenant with God. Now in this Renewed Covenant, as they give up themselves to Christ afresh, and personally engage themselves to him, and renounce his enemies, owning their Infant-Baptism, when this was done by others in their names, so God is ready on his part to bless his own Ordinance, with the Collation of that Corroborating Grace, which the Nature of the Renewed Covenant doth import. Otherwise God should appoint us means in vain, and fail them in the Use of his own Ordinances, that use them as he hath appointed: which is not to be imagined: Though the unsound hypocritical Receivers may miss of this blessing; and though as the Degrees of Corroborating Grace, God is free to give it out as he pleaseth. So that the Papists shall have no cause to say, that we needlessly, or erroneously do deny either the name of Confirmation, or the true use and ends of it, or the notional Title of a Sacrament to it in a larger (yet not the largest) sense. We affect not to fly further from them, then we needs must;