Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	baptize_v	child_n	infant_n	1,168	5	9.1746	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69535	The grand debate between the most reverend bishops and the Presbyterian divines appointed by His Sacred Majesty as commissioners for the review and alteration of the Book of common prayer, &c. : being an exact account of their whole proceedings : the most perfect copy.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Commission for the Review and Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer.	1661 (1661)	Wing B1278A; Wing E3841; ESTC R7198	132,164	165

baptized have all things necessary for salvation and dying before they commit any actual sin be undoubtedly saved though they be not confirmed which assertion if understood of all Infants even of Heathen is certainly false and if only of the Infants of Christians is doubtfull and contrary to the judgment of many learned Protestants and will give little satisfaction to us or others some more we might name which for brevity sake we omit All which considered we altogether despair of that happy success which thousands hope wait for from this his Majesties commission unless God shall incline your hearts for the peace and union of the Nation to a more considerable satisfactory alteration of the Liturgie In which that we may the better prevail we here tender an answer to your Reply both against our general and particular Exceptions of which we desire a serious perusal and candid interpretation We have divided both your Preface and Reply into several Sections that so you might more easily understand to which of the particulars both in the one and in the otoer our Answer doth refer THE PAPERS That passed between the COMMISSIONERS Appointed by His Majesty for the Alteration of the COMMON PRAYER c. THe strain of these Papers we fear is like to perswade many that your design is not the same with ours Being assured that it is our Duty to do what we can to the peace and concord of Believers especially when we had the past present Calamities of these Nations to urge us and His Majesty's Commands gracious Promises to encourage us we judged the fittest means to be by making known the hinderances of our Concord and without reviving the remembrance of those things that tend to exasperate to apply our selves with due submission to those that may contribute much to our recovery and without personal reflections to propose the Remedies which we knew would be most effectual and humbly and earnestly to petition you for your consent But instead of Consent or amicable debates in order to the removal of our differences we have received from you a Paper abounding with sharp accusations as if your work were to prove us bad and make us odious which as it is attempted upon mistake by unrighteous means so were it accomplisht we know not how it will conduce to the Concord which ought to be our common end If we understand Christs Commission or the Kings and our duty as Christians or as Ministers our work now assigned us was not to search after aggravate the faults of one onother though of our own in season we are willing to hear but to review the Liturgy and agree upon such alterations diminutions and enlargement as are needfull to our common unity peace What is amiss in us we shall thankfully accept your charitable assistance to discover but we take not that for the question which his Majesty called us to debate nor do our judgements or dispositions lead us to recriminations nor to cast such impediments in the way of our desired accord And were it not that our Calling and our Masters work are concerned somewhat in our just vindication we should not trouble you with so low so private and unnecessary a work but leave such Causes to the righteous Judge who will quickly impartially infallibly and finally decide them PREFACE BEfore we come to the Proposals it will be perhaps necessary to say a word or two to the Preface wherein they begin with a thankefull acknowledgement of his Majesties most Princely condescention to which we shall only say that we conceive the most real expression of their thankfulness had been an hearty compliance with his Majesties earnest and passionate request for the use of the present Liturgy at least so much of it as they acknowledge by these Papers to be lawful how far they have in this expressed their thankefulness the world sees we need not say The Reply to your Preface 1. AS we hope it is no matter of offence to acknowledge his Majesties gracious condescention so when his Majesty by his Declaration hath granted us some liberty as to the use of the Liturgy before the Alteration and hath by his Commission engaged us in a consultation for the alteration of it we conceive our Brethren nor the world to whose observation they appeal had no warrant to censure us as unthankful to his Majesty because of our present forbearance to use it or part of it before the intended alteration At least till they had heard us speak for our selves and render an account of the reasons of our forbearance and they had gone before us more exemplarily in their own obedience to his Majesty's Declaration As to our own Conscience if we thought not the Common-Prayer Book to be guilty of the general and particular faults which we have layd open to you we durst not have found fault with it and while we took it to be a defective disorderly and inconvenient Mode of Worship it would be our sin to use it of choice while we may prefer a more convenient way what ever we ought to do in case of necessity when we must worship God inconveniently or not at all And as to our People for whose Edification and not Destruction we have our Power or Offices we have taken that course as far as we are able to understand which most probably tended to their good and to prevent their hurt and separation from the Church and consequently that course which did most conduce to his Majesty's Ends and to his real Service and the Churches Peace none of which would be promoted by our obtruding that upon our People which we know them unable to digest or by our hasty offending them with the use of that which we are forced to blame and are endeavouring to correct and alter And we see not how it can be justly intimated that we use no part of it when we use the Lords Prayer the Creed the Commandments the Psalms the Chapters and some other parts And how much more you expect we should have used that we might have escaped this brand of Ingratitude we know not But we know that Charity suffereth long and thinketh no evil 1 Cor. 13. 4 5. and that we have not attempted to obtrude any mode of Worship on our Brethren but desired the liberty to use things of that nature as may conduce to the benefit of our Flocks And as we leave them to judge what is most beneficial to their own Flocks who know them and are upon the place so it is but the like freedome which we desire we are loath to hurt our People knowingly The time is short if you will answer our reasonable Proposals it will not be too late at the expiration of our Commission or the date of the reformed Liturgy to use it greater liberty hath been used about Liturgies in purer times of the Church with less offence and accusation It can be no just cause of offence to

scandalous sinner may come to make this thanksgiving THus have we in all humble pursuance of his Majesties most gracious endeavours for the publick weal of this Church drawn up our thoughts and desires in this weighty affair which we most humbly offer to his Majesties Commissioners for their serious and grave confideration wherein we have not the least thoughts of depraving or reproaching the Book of Common-Prayer but a sincere desire to contribute our endeavours towards leading the distempers and as far as may be reconciling the minds of Brethren And in as much as his Majesty hath in his gracious Declaration ond Commission mentioned new Forms to be made and suited to the several parts of worship we have made a considerable progresse therein and shall by Gods assistance offer them to the reverend Commissioners with all convenient speed And if the Lord shall graciously please to give his blessing to these our endeavours we doubt not but that the peace of this Church will be shortly setled The hearts of Ministers and People comforted and composed and the great mercy of Unity and Stability to the immortal honour of our most dear Soveraign bestowed upon us and our posterity after us August 30. 1661. FINIS To the most Reverend ARCHBISHOP AND BISHOPS And the Reverend their Assistants Commissioned by his Majesty to treat about the Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer Most Reverend Father and Reverend Brethren WHen we received your Papers and were told that they conteined not onely an answer to our Exceptition against the present Liturgy But also severall Concessions wherein you seem willing to joyn with us in the Alteration and Reformation of it Our expectations were so far raised as that we promised our selves to find our Concessions so considerable as would have greatly conduced to the healing of our much to be lamented Divivisions the setling of the Nation in Peace and the satisfaction of tender Consciences according to his Majesties most gracious Declaration and his Royal Commission in pursuance thereof but having taken a survey of them we find our selves exceedingly disappointed and that they will fall far short of attaining those happy Ends for which this meeting was first designed as may appear both by the paucity of the Concessions and the inconsiderablenesse of them they being for the most part Verbal and Literal rather then Real and Substantial for in them you all allow not the laying aside of the reading of the Apocrypha for Lessons though it shut out some bundreds of Chapters of Holy Scripture and sometimes the Scripture it self is made to give way to the Apochryphal Chapters you plead against the addition of the Doxology unto the Lord's prayer you give no liberty to omit the too frequent repetition of Gloria Patria nor of the Lord's Prayer in the same publick Service nor do you yield the Psalmes be read in the new Translation nor the word Priest to be changed for Minister or Presbyter though both have been yielded unto in the Scottish Liturgy you grant not the omission of the Responsals no not in the Let any it self though the Petitions be so framed as the people make the prayer and not the Minister nor to read the Communion service in the Desk when there is no Communion but in the late Form instead thereof it is enjoyned to be done at the Table through there be no Rubrick in the Common Prayer book requiring it you plead for the bolinesse of Lent contrary to the statute you indulge not the omission of any one Ceremony you will force men to kneel at the Sacrament and yet not put in that excellent Rubr. in the v. and vj. of Edw. 6. which would much conduce to the satisfaction of many that scruple it And whereas divers Reverend Bishops and Doctours in a paper in Print before these unhappy Wars began yielded to the laying aside of the Crosse and the making many material alterations you after xx years sad calamities and divisions seem unwilling to grant what they of their own accord then offered you seem not to grant that the clause of the fourth commandement in the Common Prayer book the Lord blessed the seventh day should be altered according to the Hebr. Exod. 20. the Lord blessed the Sabbath day you will not change the word Sunday into the Lord 's day nor adde any thing to make a difference between Holidaies that are of Humane Institution and the Lord's day that is questionlesse of Apostolicall practise you will not alter Deadly Sin in the Letany into Heynous Sin though it hints to us that some sins are in their own nature Venial nor that Answer in the Catech. of two Sacraments onely generally necessary to salvation although it intimates that there are New Testament Sacraments though Two onely necessary to salvation you speak of singing David 's Psalmes allowed by Authority by way of contempt calling them Hopkins Psalmes and though singing of Psalmes be an Ordinance of God yet you call it one of our principal parts of VVorship as if it were disclaimed by you And are so far from countenancing the use of conceived prayer in the publick VVorship of God though we never intended thereby the excluding of set Forms as that you seem to dislike the use of it even in the Pulpit and heartily desire a total restaint of it in the Church you will not allow the omission of the Benedicite nor a Psalm to be read instead of it nor so much as abate the reading of the chapters out of the Old Testament and the Acts for the Epistles But rather then you will gratifie us therein you have found out a new device that the Minister shall say for the Epistle you will not so much as leave out in the Collect for Christmas day these words this day though at least it must be a great uncertainty and cannot be true stylo veteri novo In publick Baptism you are so far from giving a liberty to the parent to answer for his own child which seems most reasonable as that you force him to the use of sureties and cause them to answer in the name of the Infant that he doth believe and repent and forsake the devil and all his worke which doth much favour the Anabaptistical opinion for the necessity of an actual profession of Faith and Repentance in order to Baptism you will not leave the Minister in the visitation of the sick to use his judgment of discretion in absolving the sick person or in giving the Sacrament to him but enjoyn both of them though the person to his own judgment seem never so unfit neither do you allow the Minister to pronounce the absolution in a Declarative and conditional way but absolutely and conditionately And even in one of our concessions in which we suppose you intend to accommodate with us you rather widen then heal the breach for in your last Rubr. before the Catech you would have the words thus altered That Children being