A76157:583
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.
Answ. A dangerous doctrine! A negative consent is no consent.1 Why then should the ears of men be abused by the •ame, when there is nothing to answer it? A Negative Faith, in english is Infidelity, or not believing. Is not this a delusory teaching of the Church, to call unbelief by the name of Negative Faith, or Negative Consent? If a block, a brute, or a Subject otherwise Naturally uncapable, be the Subject; then indeed it is inculpable, and your Negative Consent or Faith, is properly but a Negative dissent, or unbelief. But if a capable ⟨image 189⟩obliged person be the Subject (which is our case) then your Negative consent is in english privative not consenting, and privative unbelief, or rejecting Christ. What a meanness is here to convey flat Infidels into the Church, or continue them there, under the Cloak of an abusive name! even by calling a non-dissenting conjunct with their Infidelity, or not consenting to the Covenant of grace, by the name of Negative consent. Were it a person that had entered at age, yet if he have afterward but your Negative consent, (which is neither to consent or dissent) he is an Apostate: And if he refuse consent, when called to it, by his lawful governors, he gives occasion to be suspected of Apostasy, much more when he continueth to refuse consent, when so much of the life and practise of Christianity consisteth in it, and in the manifestation of it. But especially when persons were Baptized in Infancy, and never yet professed a Faith or Consent of their own. If that man that had no Faith but his Parents, (and his being a Believers seed, which you call Federal Faith) shall be continued at age a Member of the Church, by a not-actual dissenting or renouncing Christ, by express words, then lets talk no more of a Church, nor abuse poor Heathens and Infidels so much as to question ⟨image 189⟩their salvation, or let them below us. But again, I answer you, that not consenting, is dissenting in the inward act; it is undoubted, that he that for one year, or month doth not consent, doth certainly dissent. There's no middle state between Believers and Infidels; Consenters, and Refusers. How shall they escape that neglect of so great salvation? Neglecting, and not consenting in a capable invited Subject is certain Infidelity: and therefore in the external profession, we must judge accordingly.