Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	baptism_n	baptize_v	infant_n	1,991	5	9.3594	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23673	A serious and friendly address to the non-conformists, beginning with the Anabaptists, or, An addition to the perswasive to peace and vnity by W.A.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1676 (1676)	Wing A1072; ESTC R9363	75,150	222

cause you to consider whether those Sub-divisions and sub-separations among your selves do not befal you as a correction for your first dividing from others without a cause and to awaken you to review the grounds on which it hath been done Now to convince you that you have no sufficient ground to separate upon account of Infant Baptism and that you have great cause to repent that you have so done is that I confess which I chiefly design in this Charitable Address so far as it concerns you only You are wont to interpret the extent of Christs Commission to Baptize by what is recorded in point of fact touching who or what manner of persons were Baptized by the Apostles and others in their times and to conclude that no Infants were authorized by that Commission to be Baptized since as you suppose the Scripture gives no account that any such were Baptized But if this way of arguing were good it would certainly make against your own practice whether it make any thing against Infant Baptism or no. For then the said Commission of our Saviour would not warrant the baptizing of any such as you baptize to wit persons at age whose Parents were Christians when they were born and who have been educated from their Childhood in the Christian Religion for there is not the least hint in Scripture that any such were baptized in the Apostles days nor of any except Infants but only such as were Converted from Judaism or Paganism to Christianity and that presently after such their Conversion But if you think the lawfulness of baptizing such persons as you baptize may be deduced by way of consequence from Christs Commission though there be no instances in Scripture of the baptizing any such Then you cannot deny it to be lawful to baptize Infants if the lawfulness of it can be deduced from Christs Commission to baptize though there should be no instances in Scripture of the baptizing any Infants By this you see that your popular argument against Infant Baptism falls foul upon your selves and your own practice The difference then between you and the Paedo-Baptists must not be decided by examples in point of fact though if it should you would be far more to seek than they as shall be shewed afterwards but by the Doctrine of the Scriptures relating to Church-membership and Baptism which we will now come to consider and therein proceed gradually When any thing hath been wont to be argued from the Church-membership and Circumcision of Infants in Old Testament times in favour of the visible Church-membership and Baptism of Infants now and in favour also of the Nationality of Churches it hath been still replied and urged by you that there is this difference between the Church then and now to wit that the Church was Constituted then by Natural Generation whereas it is Constituted now by Spiritual Regeneration and further that what was sufficient to make Church-members then and to qualifie them for the initiating Ordinance is not so now And because this is a Corner-stone in your building a foundation principle upon which both you and the Congregational men in great part do found your separate Congregations therefore it will be very meet in the first place to examine what there is in this pretension That which is usually alledged for it is Rom. 9.6 7 8. where it 's said They are not all Israel which are of Israel neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all Children but in Isaac shall thy seed be called That is they which are the Children of the flesh these are not the Children of God but the Children of the promise are counted for the seed However you may have flatter'd your selves from the meer sound of these words to think them a strong foundation for your aforesaid notion and opinion yet being more narrowly looked into they will be found to subvert and utterly overthrow it For that which these words will directly prove is that Church-Membership or persons Relation unto God as his Children did not no not in Old Testament times proceed from Natural Generation or meerly from being Abrahams Seed according to the flesh The unbelieving Jews against whose pretences the Apostle here argues did indeed hold that because they were naturally descended from Abraham and Circumcised and kept the Law that God should be unrighteous and not make good his promise if he should not own them for his Children but cast them off as the Apostle in his Doctrine it seems asserted that he would if they did not believe but reject the Gospel of his Son And that upon which they built this confidence was in that God had promised to be the God of Abraham and his Seed To take off which pretence of theirs and to prove that God would act nothing contrary to his promise made to Abraham and his Seed though he should reject them for rejecting the Gospel he shews they were under a great mistake just as you are now in thinking they were the Children of God or of his Church meerly because they were descended from Abrahams Loins For saith he they are not all Israel that are of Israel which yet they would have been if somewhat else had not been requisite to make them so than their procedure out of his Loins in a course of natural Generation Neither saith he because they are the Seed of Abraham are they all Children to wit of God as after he expounds it when he saith they that are the Children of the flesh these are not the Children of God Ver. 8. But as he shewed from what this Relation of Sonship unto God did not proceed so he shews likewise from what it did by interpreting those words of God to Abraham but in Isaac shall thy seed be called That is saith he they which are the Children of the flesh these are not the Children of God but the Children of the promise are counted for the seed Now by Children of the promise is meant Abrahams spiritual Seed for they we see are opposed to Children of the flesh and spiritual and carnal are contra-distinguished the one from the other as Seeds of a different species or kind This is so plain as what can be plainer So that in Abrahams time and after we see those who were Related to God as his Church and Children were so upon the account of their being Abrahams spiritual Seed And furthermore in that any of the Gentiles being proselyted to the Faith and Religion of Abraham were with their Children to be admitted to the same priviledges with the people of the God of Abraham and to be numbred with them as they were it 's a plain case that their Church-membership or Relation to God as his people did not then proceed meerly from natural Generation and Relation they being Children of Abraham not according to the flesh but according to faith The same may be said of Strangers from among the Gentiles that were born of Gentile Parents in

Christians who contended with the believing Gentiles for not observing the Law of Moses in Circumcision meats and days never that we find quarrelled with them for not entering their Children into the Church as by the Law of Moses they were to do when they themselves were received as Proselytes nor for not baptizing them according to the custom of the Jews both in reference to their own Children and the Children of Proselytes Nor do we find that the unbelieving Jews ever contested with them for any such thing though otherwise they were forward enough to lay hold of any thing they could to object against them All which still renders it probable that there was no such thing wanting in the believing Gentiles as might give either the Judaizing Christians or unbelieving Jews any occasion for such a quarrel which otherwise we may well think would have risen among them But leaving these things suppose it were granted you which yet will not be that the Scripture were wholly silent as to matter of fact touching the baptizing of Infants in the Apostles days yet when we find in Scripture sufficient reason why they might and should have been then baptized it may well induce belief that they then were and now may We do not find as to matter of fact that any of six of the seven Churches of Asia were baptized nor of some other Churches of the Apostles planting but yet that 's no good argument that there was none so long as there is ground enough to conclude that they ought to have been baptized for that they were a part of that one universal Church that hath one baptism belonging to it for the solemn incorporation and initiation of all its members of all that are qualified for Church membership We do not read in Scripture that the Jews baptized the Proselytes both Fathers and Children when they received them into the Church and yet we are otherwise satisfied that they did So that you see it can be no good argument that Infants were not baptized in the Apostles days though it should be supposed and granted that we have no record in Scripture that they were I have told you before that if this way of arguing were good it would oppose and run down your own practice as much and more than Infant Baptism Because there is nothing at all recorded in Scripture as to matter of fact that gives the least hint that any were baptized at age whose Parents were Christian at their birth So that either the baptism of Children is recorded in the recording of the baptism of Housholds or else the baptism of none is recorded in Scripture but of such who immediately before their being baptized were converted from Judaism or Paganism I mean as to what was done after Christs Resurrection This argument from matter of fact I know hath taken much with people of weak minds who cannot see a far off as St. Peter speaks in another case and hath furnished your Congregations with Proselytes to your way but doth indeed wound your cause and gratifieth none but Socinians in their opinion that none ought to be baptized but such as are newly converted to Christianity from another Religion And it is not a thing to be slighted in reference to this matter of fact That Authors of good credit in the antient Church who lived in times not far distant from the age in which the Apostles or one of them lived did assert Infant Baptism to be an Apostolical Tradition and to have been received from them and practised in the Church from their times downwards as many Books before you have made it appear And that which yet adds the more credit to their testimony is in that they were never contradicted in this their report and testimony by any that lived in the same age with them or near to it no not by Tertullian himself though otherwise in reference to his opinion of all sin past being wash'd away by Baptism he would have had it deferred except in case of danger of death in Infants not only till persons were past Childhood but till after Marriage and the heat of youth was over if not till old age or towards the time of death Neither could ever any Advocate of your cause so far as I can learn give any account short of the Apostles times of the first rise of Infant Baptism But not example in matter of fact but the reason and ground on which they stand or do depend is our rule And therefore the reason and ground from Scripture why some Infants may be baptized I reckon is more to be attended to than the evidence of fact And these I have laid before you already and shewed That the reason of allowing the visible Church-membership of some Infants is the same now as it was in old Testament times such as is Gods chusing them to it sanctifying and setting them apart for it and calling them to it That Gods gift in granting this priviledge in the days of the Patriarchs and his calling them to it is without repentance and unrepealed That they are as much qualified for the Church initiating Ordinance now as ever heretofore and as capable of the ends thereof That our Saviour hath owned their special relation to him by appointing them to be received in his name That he hath acknowledged them to be of the number of those that believe in him And that our Saviour and his Apostle hath put them into the number of Disciples That they are in a sense in a regenerate state All which together plainly show them to be qualified for Baptism according to the very Letter of Christs Commission And if there be substance in these reasons as I doubt not but there is Then Infant Baptism is far from being a Nullity And whatever I have said heretofore in times long since contrary to the tenour of these reasons I hereby Revoke and do think I have given you sufficient reason for my so doing and for every one of you to do so likewise Considering then what lies in your way you will find it a difficult task to satisfie your selves or to give others any tolerable account that you can satisfie your selves that Infant Baptism is a Nullity And it is so much the more unreasonable for you to think that it is when yet those who have been baptized in their Infancy do agree with you in the doctrine of baptism touching the nature and necessity of it and the reasons and ends of it and hold themselves as much obliged by it as you do by yours and the sincere of them do as well and as much perform their obligation as those among you do who are sincere AND if these things be so as I have endeavoured to represent them from the Scriptures and if Infant Baptism be indeed no Nullity Then so many of you must needs be under a dangerous mistake and guilty of the odious sin of Schism who think it a sufficient ground to