To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
IT is no small won∣der to me, that amongst all those great wits of the later times, that have so curiously pried into all the corners of Apostolicall In∣stitutions and practises, I could meet with no one, that hath so much as taken notice of this, of the Imposition of Hands; which yet, all the while, lay so broad open before them, as that the Doctrine thereof is by the Apostle reckoned amongst the first Principles of Christian Religion: Is it for that men are unwilling to know some
Truths, whose unpleasing con∣sequences they would be loath to own? Or, is it that they are carried away with so high a pre∣judice against this practice, by reason of the extreme abuse of it, as that they are afraid to en∣tertain any thoughts concern∣ing it? However it be, certain∣ly the Spirit of God hath not* 1.1 doubted to place this amidst the rank of the clearest and most concerning verities; and amongst such, as are essentially fundamentall to our Christian Profession; joyning it together with those main Principles of Faith, Repentance, Baptisme, Resurrection and Judgment: What shall we say then? Dare any Christian presume to say, that the Apostle, the great and wise Master-builder of the* 1.2 Church, mistook the foundati∣on whereon he built? Or, dare
any presumptuous soul single this one Article from the rest, as meerly temporary, when all the rest are granted to be of e∣ternall use? Can there be any time wherein Faith, and Re∣pentance from dead works, shall not be necessary, both for knowledge and practice? Can it be, that Baptisme should be ever out of date? Can the Do∣ctrine of the Resurrection from the dead, and of the last Judg∣ment, be ever unseasonable, and super annated? How, or why then should that of Imposition of Hands, which is indivisibly marshalled with all these, by the blessed Apostle, be shuffled out from the rest, as arbitrary, and altogether unnecessary?
Hebr. 6. 2.
1 Cor. 3. 10.