A thanksgiving for the deliverance of women, in child- Of pastoral discipline, public confession, absolution, and ex- clusion from the holy communion of the church A form of public admonition to the impenitent.... A form of confession to be made before the congregation.. PAGE A form of rejection from the communion of the church .. A form of absolution and reception of the penitent... A form of thanksgiving, or prayer, for the restored penitent A larger Litany, or general prayer, to be used at discretion MR. BAXTER'S SENSE OF THE ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: In answer to the scruples A TREATISE OF KNOWLEDGE AND LOVE COMPARED. IN TWO PARTS: I. OF FALSELY PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE. I. AGAINST HASTY JUDGING, AND FALSE CONCEITS OF KNOWLEDGE; AND FOR NECESSARY SUSPENSION. II. THE EXCELLENCY OF DIVINE LOVE, AND THE HAPPINESS OF BEING KNOWN AND LOVED OF GOD. WRITTEN AS GREATLY NEEDFUL TO THE SAFETY AND PEACE OF EVERY CHRISTIAN, AND OF THE CHURCH: THE ONLY CERTAIN WAY TO ESCAPE FALSE RELIGIONS, HERESIES, SECTS, AND MALIGNANT PREJUDICES, PERSECUTIONS AND SINFUL WARS: ALL CAUSED BY FALSELY PRETEN- NOT THEIR IGNORANCE. BY RICHARD BAXTER; Who by God's Blessing on long and hard Studies, hath learned to know that he knoweth but little; and to suspend his Judgment of Uncertainties, and to take great, necessary, certain Things, for the food of his Faith and Comforts, and the measure of his Church Communion. VOL. XV. “A wise man feareth and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth and is confident." PROV. xiv. 16. "But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his subtlety; so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ." 2 Cor. xi. 3. "The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? We speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world." 1 Cor. i. 25. 20; ii. 6. men. Study to shew thyself approved to God; a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of Truth. But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness." 2 TIM. ii. 15, 16. "Cúm ista quæruntur, et ea sicut potest quisque conjectat, non inutiliter exercentur ingenia, si adhibeatur disceptantia moderata, et absit error opinantium se scire quod nesciunt. Quid enim opus est ut hæc et hujusmodi affirmentur, vel negentur, vel definiantur cum discrimine, quando sine crimine nesciantur?" AUGUST. ENCHIRID. Cap. 59. (De Corporibus Angelorum.) TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL SIR HENRY ASHHURST; AND THE LADY DIANA HIS WIFE. SIR, YOUR name is not prefixed to this Treatise, either as accusing you of the sin herein detected, or as praising you for those virtues which good men are more pleased to possess and exercise, than to have proclaimed, though they be as light that is hardly hid: but it is to vent and exercise that gratitude which loveth not the concealment of such friendship and kindness, as you and your Lady eminently, and your Relatives and her's, the children of the Lord Paget, have long obliged me by; and it is to posterity that I record your kindness, more than for this age, to which it hath publicly notified itself, during my public accusations, reproaches, sentences, imprisonments, and before and since: who knoweth you that knoweth not hereof? And it is to renew the record of that love and honour which I owed to your deceased father formerly, though too slenderly recorded, to be the heir and imitator of whose faith, piety, charity, patience, humility, meekness, impartiality, sincerity and perseverance, is as great an honour and blessing as I can wish you, next to the conformity to our highest Pattern. And though he was averse to worldly pomp and grandeur, and desired that his children should not affect it, yet God that will honour those that honour him, hath advanced his children, I believe partly for his sake: but I entreat you all (and some other of my friends whom God hath raised as a blessing to their pious and charitable parents and themselves) to watch carefully lest the deceitful world and flesh do turn such blessings into golden fetters, and to be sure to use them as they would find at last on their account. And as you are a Member of the present House of Commons, I think the subject of this Treatise is not unnecessary to your consideration and daily care: that when proof, and notorious and sad experience telleth us what distractions have befallen Church and State, by men's self-conceited, erroneous rushing upon sin and falsehood, as if it were certainly good and true, and how little posterity feareth and avoideth this confounding vice, though history tell us that it hath been the deluge that in all ages hath drowned the peace and welfare of the world; you may be wary, and try before you venture, in doubtful cases; especially where the sacred and civil interest of this and many other lands, doth probably lie on the determination. Do you think all that ventured upon the actions and changes, that have tossed up and down both churches and kingdoms, by divisions, persecutions and wars, had not done better to suspend their judgments, till they could have more certainly determined? Who should proceed more cautiously than bishops? And where rather than in councils? And in what rather than about faith and public government and order? And had bishops and councils torn the church, and empires, and kingdoms, as they have done by aspiring after superiority, and by contentious writings, and condemning each other, and by contradictory and erroneous, and persecuting canons; or by raising wars and deposing princes, ever since four, five, or six hundred years after Christ, if not sooner, if they had known their ignorance, and suspended in such dangerous cases till they were sure? I know you are none of them who dare pretend to a certain knowledge, that all those oaths, declarations, covenants, practices imposed by laws and canons on ministers and people in this land, in the Act of Uniformity, the Corporation Act, the Vestry Act, the Militia Act, the Five Mile Act of Banishment, &c. are so good and lawful, as will justify the execution of them, and the silencing, ejecting, ruining, and judging to lie from six months to six in the common jails till they die, two thousand as faithful ministers of Christ as any nation hath under heaven, unless they forbear to preach the Gospel to which they are vowed, or venture their souls on that which they fear to be sins so great as they are loath to name: when Christ will sentence them to everlasting punishment, who did not visit, feed, clothe him in the least of them whom he calls his brethren. Before men silence conditionally the whole ministry of such a kingdom, and actually two thousand such, while the wounding, |