Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BX5200 .B352 1835 v2

556 HOW TO DO'.GODO' TO MANY. man in one person, and trusteth him as our onlyRedeemer, by his merits and passions, and our Mediator in the heavens; and obeyeth him as our sovereign Lord, for pardon, for his Spirit, and for salvation. And as a Christian this man is to be loved and used, though he have not so much skill in metaphysics as to know whether it be a proper speech to call Mary the mother of God, or that one of the Trinity was crucified; or to know in what sense Christ's natures might be called''one or two ; and in what sense' he might be said to have one will or two wills one operation or two ; and know not whether the tria capitula were to be condemned ; yea, though he could not define, or clearly tell, what hypostasis persona, yea, or substantia, signifieth in God; nor tell whether God of gods be a proper speech. This man is a Christian,-though he know not whether patriar- chal, and metronoïitical, and diocesan church forms, be according to the will of Christ, or against it ; and whether symbolical signs, in the worship of Gdd, may lawfully be devised and imposed by men ; and whether some doubtful words, in oaths And subscriptions of men's imposing, being unnecessary, be lawful; and how far he may, by them, incur the guilt of perjury, or deliberate lying; and though he think that a minister may preach and pray in fit words of his own, though he read not a sermon or prayer written for him by others, who think that no words,but theirs, should be offered to God or man. ' 2. If Christ's description of a Christian be forsaken, and mere Christianity seem not a sufficient qualification for our love and concord, men will never know where to rest, nor ever agree in any one's determination but Christ's. All.. men that can get power will be making their own wills the rule and law, and'others will not think, of thesis as they do; and the variety of fallible, mutable church laws, and terms of concord', will be the engine of perpetual discord, as Ulpian told honest Alexander Severus the laws would be, which he thought to have made for sober concord, in. fashions of apparel. Those that are united to Christ by faith, and have his sanctifying Spirit, and are justified by him, and shall dwell with him in heaven, are certainly Christians ; and such as Christ bath commanded us to love as ourselves. And seeing that it is his livery by which his disciples must be known, by loving one another, and the false prophets must be known by the fruits of their'hurtfulness, as wolves, thorns, and thistles,,I must profess. (though order and government hav,e been so amiable to me as t4 tempt me to favorable thoughts of some Roman power in the church) I am utterly irreconcilable to it, when 'I see that the very complexion of that hierarchy is malice and-bloodiness against men most seriously and humbly pious, that dare not obey them in their

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