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
A65564	Two discourses for the furtherance of Christian piety and devotion the former asserting the necessity and reasonableness of a positive worship, and particularly of the Christian : the later considering the common hinderances of devotion and the divine worship, with their respective remedies / by the author of The method of private devotion.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1671 (1671)	Wing W1522; ESTC R38254	87,149	410

men Now this particular respect of prayer under which considered we usually name it Intercession of what wholesome use is it to the publick benefit of the Christian Community Besides that by this means we each enjoy the fruits of one anothers Prayers which the Christian Doctrine teacheth us to believe is it not a most effectual endearment of one another that we daily pray from the bottom of our hearts each for the others good both as to Soul and Body So that consequently it must singularly dispose to and inhance Charity as that signifies loving one another Of so great and various use and subserviency to virtue is even private prayer but we are also injoined the performance of the same office in publick bodies or Assemblies which besides that it must needs promote Charity and Brotherly Love so the office being thus made more solemn and august must needs have a stronger influence in all the particular benefits mentioned or accrueing by every part of it To conclude this point of Prayer Both private and publick Prayer we are injoined often to repeat or frequent Thereby all these holy dispositions and affections are more deeply imprinted in our hearts and the nearer commencing setled and rooted habits that is to say virtues And both in private and publick Prayer we use words as well as thoughts to keep our minds more intent unto the office and its several parts that thereby we may the more ensure unto our selves the several benefits For we find our selves so accustomed to utter our thoughts by words in other cases that we can scarce in this or any at least in a long series form our thoughts except we also conceive in our minds words which for the main express them So that even the very words and external modes of Prayer are not without some contributive energy to the ingenerating virtue in us Nor has therefore God been arbitrary in the institution of this office of Worship which we call Prayer in any part respect or mode of it nor is it unreasonable to be by us performed albeit there were no such thing as hearing or granting Prayers on Gods hand which yet Christianity assures us of Sect. 3 Another by us Christians pretended and received part of divine Worship by positive right is what we call the Sacraments Offices which in their very essence having a relation after the nature Seals to a certain pact or Covenant supposed to be made between God and Man do therefore import a mutual concernment of both But whatsoever concernment they do on either side import we say each either implants or obligeth to and confirmeth virtue and consequently ensures man of happiness Of Sacraments in this notion there are and can be but two of which the first viz. Baptism is an initiation of us into Christianity and therefore administred or supposed to be administred upon our first striking the covenant with God and renouncing his our Souls supposed enemies On our part therefore it must lay a most Solemn obligation upon us to abandon vice and practice virtue as being a sacred sign or rite by which we plight our troth and are devoted to the service of that God whom Christianity teacheth us to be Father Son and Holy Ghost this being the meaning of being baptized into their name that we are by baptism consecrated to their service and accept their laws It is certain that vows testified by some external or visible sacred sign or pledge have a deeper impression to retain the devote in fidelity than if they were simply received in thought and the whole transaction passed not without the brest And in this office the particular rites we undergoe in their very intent represent our being buried with Christ and with him rising again which two being by us engaged unto and in the particular passages of our Lives reflected upon cannot but most naturally quicken us to our duty by minding us that now we have a long time professed and protested to be as dead men to every vitious sollicitation and as persons vivified active and livelily inspirited to every virtuous practice Then as to Gods part herein we pretend that he by this Sacrament makes over unto the baptised the pardon of all past sin conveies into the mind a supernatural and divine power which we call the Holy Spirit whereby the person is enabled if he will comply therewith to perform the fealty undertaken and lastly seals unto the said person upon his continuance in this fealty the promise of an happy and everlasting reward Which things if they are true as Christianity pretends and divine oracles assure us it is most evident that as baptism on our sides obliges us to virtue so on Gods it ingenerates virtue in us or enables us to and confirms us in it withal ensuring us of a most blessed reward the hope and expectation of which will be of force to bear up our minds and fill them with heroick courage constancy and resolution in the most difficult parts of Christian Duty that is to say of any virtue It may possibly be acknowledged conceiveable that Baptism may have much of this efficacy if administred to adult and understanding persons who consider what they do and undertake but whereas ordinarily amongst Christians it is administred unto infants insensible of their vow and condition it is not so readily intelligible how it should become such a Sovereign expedient unto virtue To which I answer that as to baptized Infants dying in that their infant state I do not conceive my self bound to give an account because I know not nor may any man define on what easy terms God may receive them to bliss certainly not upon the terms of personal virtue of which as far as we can see he hath by the course of nature provided that they be uncapable Subjects It s efficacy therefore as to these I leave as a more occult and unaccountable part of his providence in the mean while not doubting it as being able to believe that effect the manner of whose being effected I do not understand But as to persons baptized while Infants and after growing up it is easy to conceive how Baptism may operate to virtue in such persons as soon as they come to be capable Subjects of virtue that is sensible that they were baptized and what their Baptism meant there being nothing imaginable which can hinder its efficacy upon them proportionably to their understanding and consideration which would not proportionably hinder the same in the adult person And it is as rational as pious to believe that many of those good affections and sweet dispositions to virtue which appear in several baptized Children growing up are the effects of baptismal grace or that supernatural power before said to be by God in baptism made over and secretly conveyed into the baptized I may then conclude Baptism although an office of positive Worship yet to have been of most reasonable institution a mistery contrived by the

infinite wisdom of God for our good and necessary by reason of its conducency to virtue The nature of what we call the other Sacrament the Lords Supper is plain by what we have spoken of this We pretend it besides that it is a memorial of our Lords Death to be a badg of our Christianity and because a second and consequent one to that of baptism therefore an office reinforcing that baptismal Covenant an holy rite and symbol by which we reassume the same vow as before with new resolution and more considerate purpose of mind It must therefore first have an equal force with that of baptism to implant and confirm virtue and besides that such additional strength which repeated and more deliberate vows use to have In short how strict an obligation that is which Christians believe this office lays upon them unto all parts of holiness may appear partly from the preparation which we generally teach to be necessary to the participation hereof and partly from the very elements partaken of and their intent and signification As to matter of preparation we teach every person who eateth of this bread and drinketh of this Cup not having before examined himself of his Souls state or not renouncing all known sin and honestly resolved to endeavour universally an holy life every such person so eating is guilty of the body and blood of his Saviour or eateth and drinketh damnation to himself We usually therefore both direct and practice strict self-examination confession humiliation prayer and devotion to capacitate and dispose our selves to be meet partakers of this holy mystery Consequently then all that efficacy towards virtue which any of these now named practices have in them must this Sacrament bring with it and ensure us of by that very preparatory temper and state of Soul to which it so strictly obligethus Then further inasmuch as the elements do livelily represent the crucified body and shed blood of our Saviour and we in most solemn and sacred manner receive them as of such import and further mystick energy we are by this holy reception as often as by us repeated led to be so mindful of and faithful to our most sacredly reassumed vows of virtue as we do expect any good from our Lords passion or would not have that horrid guilt of contriving and effecting it charged upon us than which there cannot be imagined any more powerful incentive to the strictest holiness as to whatsoever points or degrees of it are here practicable To conclude what I shall say on this subject if there be any amongst us who admit not that mystical virtue of the Sacraments above insinuated which consists in the divine benediction and grace that communicants are generally believed to be made partakers of in this Sacrament and so should seem to hold only man and not God concerned in this affair yet if they will acknowledge only man so concerned as above which it is not easy to see how they can evade even according to their judgments still this office retains a singular efficacy or availableness to virtue By none who can pretend to any faith which may be called Christian in this point can less be admitted touching this Sacrament than 1. that it is a badg of our Christianity and Symbol of our Faith and profession 2. that it is a pledge of our confederacy and communion 3. a commemoration of Christs death and 4. a thanksgiving or Eucharistical rite for it Now take it but under these notions and see if it be not under each particularly contributive to virtue First as it is a badge of our Christianity it minds and obligeth us to approve our selves truly Christian to do nothing unworthy our holy profession that is to be in all things most exemplarily virtuous Secondly as a bond of communion it obligeth us most sacredly to peaceableness sweetness charity an hearty desire and passionate endeavour of one anothers and common good As thirdly a commemoration of our Lords Death it leads not only to imitation that is constancy in the truth patience meekness forgiveness under all even the most exquisite and unjust sufferings but also to an irreconcileable abhorrency of all vice for if divine justice spared not him no not though really innocent when guilt was only charged upon him how much less will it us if by no such means nor examples we will be led to break off our sins by repentance And lastly with what face can we give thanks for his Death and the grace vouchsafed us therein and thereby except we seriously resolve and study to approve our selves grateful to live in some sort worthy of or answerable to the grace vouchsafed that is holily It is then now manifest touching the Lords Supper as well before of Baptism that is of both and so all the Christian Sacraments properly so call'd that neither the one nor the other was causelesly or purely arbitrarily instituted but that they have great reason as being so necessary at least available unto virtue Sect. 4 As to that worship of God by reverent attending his word whether in private by consulting and meditating therein or in publick by hearing it read and preached all which by positive law are certain duties the immediate influence hereof both to instill virtue into the mind and there heighten and nourish it is so evident that it is in a sort needless to speak thereof We have said that there are mainly but two things the knowledge of which is necessary to make men virtuous the Nature of virtue and our Obligations thereto What virtue is the Christian law most particularly instructs us What our obligations to it the Christian Doctrine or Articles of pure Faith Both which are fully comprized in those Oracles which we call Scripture So that if due and diligent attention be given thereto such who give it cannot be long ignorant of what is sufficient to instruct and perswade them to virtue Then if at any time this light thence shining in the mind suffer imminution or be less effectual by reason of forgetfulness inadvertency or like accident the ministration of the word duly attended upon cannot but be very proper to relieve the weakness of memory to compose heedless and quicken duller minds and in a word to assert all notions which it hath conveyed into the mind into their due vigour and most lively efficacy From all which the availableness and indeed necessity of the ministry of the word to bring men to virtue is so apparent that it must be confest it cannot well be conceived how men can be virtuous without it Now if here any one shall say that the Divine Oracles we speak of confess themselves insufficient to implant virtue in men when they call themselves but a dead letter instead of all other larger answers which might be given for the present we only say that as the ministration of the word is not pretended to be the sole positive office of Christian Worship so neither the