A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian EcclesiasticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
2. I think that no man can prove that all unbaptized infants are
damned, or denied heaven. Nay, I think I can prove a promise of the
contrary.
3. All that are rightfully baptized _in foro externo_ are visible
church members, and have ecclesiastical right to the privileges of the
visible church.
4. I think Christ never instituted baptism for collation of these
outward privileges alone, unless as on supposition that persons
culpably fail of the better ends.
5. I think baptism is a solemn mutual contract or covenant between
Christ and the baptized person. And that it is but one covenant, even
the covenant of grace which is the sum of the gospel, which is sealed
and received in baptism; and that this covenant essentially containeth
our saving relation to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and our
pardon, justification, and adoption or right to life everlasting; and
that God never made any distinct covenant of outward privileges alone,
to be sealed by baptism. But that outward mercies are the second and
lesser gift of the same covenant which giveth first the great and
saving blessings.
6. And therefore that whoever hath right before God, to claim and
receive baptism, hath right also to the benefits of the covenant of
God, and that is, to salvation; though I say not so of every one that
hath such right before the church, as that God doth require the
minister to baptize him. For by right before God, or _in foro
cœli_, I mean such a right as will justify the claim before God
immediately, the person being one whom he commandeth in that present
state to claim and receive baptism. For many a one hath no such right
before God to claim or receive it, when yet the minister hath right to
give it them if they do claim it.
The case stands thus. God saith in his covenant, He that believeth
shall be saved, and ought to be baptized, to profess that belief, and
be invested in the benefits of the covenant; and he that professeth to
believe, (whether he do or not,) is by the church to be taken for a
visible believer, and by baptism to be received into the visible
church. Here God calleth none but true believers (and their seed) to
be baptized, nor maketh an actual promise or covenant with any other;
and so I say that none other have right _in foro cœli_. But yet the
church knoweth not men's hearts, and must take a serious profession
for a credible sign of the faith professed, and for that outward title
upon which it is a duty of the pastor to baptize the claimer.[275] So
that the most malignant, scornful hypocrite, that maketh a seemingly
serious profession, hath right _coram ecclesia_, but not _coram Deo_,
save in this sense, that God would have the minister baptize him. But
this I have largelier opened in my "Disputations of Right to
Sacraments."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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