Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times, Part 3 · Section 1 (1 of 2)
Alterations in the Catechism (or another allowed.)
Q. WHat is your Name?
A. N.
Q. When was this Name given you?
A. In my Baptism.
Q. What was done for you in your Baptism?
A. I was devoted to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and entred into his Holy Covenant, and engaged to take him for my only God, my reconciled Father, my Saviour, and my Sanctifier: And to believe the Articles of the Christian Faith, and keep God's Commandments sincerely all the Days of my Life; Renouncing the Devil, and all his works, the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked World, and all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh.
Q. What Mercy did you receive from God in this Covenant of Baptism?
A. God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as my reconciled Father, my Saviour and my Sanctifier, did forgive my Original Sin, and receive me as a Member of Christ, and of his Church, and as his Adopted Child, and Heir of Heaven.
Q. Do you think that you are now bound to keep this Covenant, and to believe and live according to it?
A. Yes, Verily, &c.
Q. Rehcarse, &c.
A. I Believe, &c.
Q. What, &c.
A. First, &c.
Q. What be the Commandments of God, which you have Covenanted to observe?
A. The Ten Commandments written by God in Stone, besides Christ's Precepts in the Gospel.
Q. Which be the Ten Commandments?
After the Answer to [What is thy Duty towards God?] add, [And to keep holy the Day which he separateth for his Worship.] In the next, let [to bear no malice, &c.] be put before [to be true and just.]
In the Answ. to the Quest. after the Lord's Prayer, after [all People] put [that we may Honour and Love him, as our God; That his Kingdom of Grace may be set up in our Souls, and throughout the World, and his Kingdom of Glory may come, and that God's Law, and not Men's sinful Lusts and Wills may be obeyed, and Earth may be liker unto Heaven. And I Pray, &c.]
Q. How many Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace, hath Christ Ordained in his Church?
A. Two only, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord.
Q. What meanest thou, &c.
A. I mean that Solemn Covenanting with God, wherein there is an outward visible sign, of our giving up our selves to Him, and of his giving his Grace in Christ to us: being ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive that Grace, and a pledge to assure us of it.
To Q. What is the inward Spiritual Grace?
A. The pardon of our Sins by the Blood of Christ, whose Members we are made; and a death unto sin, &c.
Q. Why are Infants Baptized?
A. Because they are the Children of the Faithful; to whom God's Promises are made, and are by them devoted unto God, to be entered into Covenant with Him, by his own appointment; which when they come to Age, themselves are bound to perform.
After the next Answer add, [And for our Communion with Him, and with his Church.]
To Q. What are the Benefits, &c.
A. [The renewed Pardon of our Sins, and our Communion with Christ, and his Church, by Faith and Love, and the strengthening, &c.
In the Visitation of the Sick, let the Minister have leave to vary his Prayer, as Occasions shall require. And let the Absolution be conditional, [If thou truly believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and truly repentest of thy sins, I pronounce thee absolved, through the Sacrifice and Merits of Iesus Christ.]
If any who is to kept from the Communion, for Atheism, Infidelity, Heresie or Impenitency in gross sin, shall in sickness desire Absolution, or the Communion: And if any Minister intrusted with the power of the Keys, do perceive no probable sign of true Repentance, and therefore dare not in conscience absolve him, or give him the Sacrament, left he profane God's Ordinance, and harden the wicked in presumption and impenitency, let not that Minister be forced to that Office against his conscience; but let the sick chuse some other, as he please.
And at the Burial of any who were lawfully kept from the Communion, for the same causes, and not absolved, let the Minister be at liberty to change the words thus [For asmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of this world the soul of this deceased person, we commit his body, &c. believing a Resurrection of the just and unjust, some to joy, and some to punishment]: And to leave out in the Prayer [We give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world]: And instead of it put [And the souls of tne wicked to wo and misery… We beseech thee to convert us all from sin, by true and speedy repentance: And teach us to spend this little time in an holy and heavenly conversation, that we may be always prepared for Death and Iudgment: And—] And in the next Collect to leave out [as our hope is this our brother doth.]
But in the Rubrick before Burial, instead of [any that die unbaptized] put [anythat die unbaptized at years of discretion]; That the Infants of Christian Parents who die unbaptized, be not numbered with the Excommunicate and Self-murderers, and denied Christian Burial.
Let the Psalms in the Parish-Churches be read in the last Translation.
Let the Liturgy either be abbreviated, by leaving out the short Versicles and Responses; Or else let the Minister have leave to omit them: and in times of cold or haste, to omit some of the Collects, as he seeth cause.
In Churches where many cannot read, let the Minister read all the Psalms himself: because the confused Voice of the multitude is seldom intelligible.
Let the shorter confession, and the general Prayer, offered by the Commissioners 1660. be inserted as alias'es, with the Confession and Litany, and liberty granted some time to use them.
All things in the Canon contrary to any thing in this Act to be void and null. And all things repeated in any former Law, that is contrary to this Act.
§ 73. We inserted these Rubricks and Orders, because they gave us more hope that the Alterations of the Liturgy would be granted, than the rest: And therefore we thought best to get that way as much as we could. And yet we insisted most duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page on the other part, because therein it was desired, that till the Liturgy was satisfactorily reformed, we should not be constrained to read it, but only sometimes the greater part of it: Which words I offered my self, lest else the whole should have been frustrate; and because the very words of the Scripture (the Psalms, Sentences, Hymns, Chapters, Epistles, Gospels, &c.) are the far greater part of the Liturgy; so that by this we should not have been forced to use any more, or any thing scrupled.