Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	build_v	peter_n	rock_n	30,238	5	9.7701	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93844	A plain discovery of the unrighteous judge and false accuser wherein is soberly ... brought to light ... the spirit of that pamphlet, intituled, The leper cleansed ... by Richard Ballamy ... as also, a clear vindication of ... Anabaptists ... / by Robert Steed and Abraham Cheare ...	Steed, Robert, of Dartmouth.	1658 (1658)	Wing S5376B; ESTC R223912	66,136	82

or term in either of his propositions But the next work we find him upon is an impertinent confused accusation that the Anabattists obscure and darken Scripture and perswade the world that children have no right to the promise till they are actually called Wherein we shall use some patience to bear his abuses and frothy traverses to give an answer as God shall inable Our sence of the Scripture alleadged is this That ver 39. hath a necessary and plain coherence with verses 37 38. wherein we have an inquiry of the Jew wounded in conscience for sin and the Apostles full and comfortable resolution of the case to this effect that God hath made his precious promise in Christ to Jew and Centile of pardoning repenting sinners and of giving to them the holy spirit and that in this grace and promise the Jew and his children had a precedency and priority to all other people and therefore they repenting and being baptised should receive the mercy promised This resolution of this Scripture is not only pertinent to the case but also very coherent with it self and consonant to other Scriptures It was a pertinent point for comfort to the Jew that grace was tendred to all that all scruple from personal incapacity might be removed by such rich mercy and it was an additional comfort that the tender of this grace was specially reserved to be made to the Jew and his children before any others as is elsewhere also declared Rom. 2.10 Acts 13.26 46. But withal it was profitable to inform the Jew who boasted much of his birth-priviledg that although he had a priority in the tender yet as to the grace it self he was but in a parity and likeness with all others that a right frame of spirit might keep him from being puffed up under a mistake of that wherein his Interest lay and this also we have elsewhere frequently instanced Gal. 3.28 Rom. 3.29 30. Eph. 4.5 6 7. And that therefore the same common requisite of Faith and Repentance in order to Baptism must be found alike in all persons that would partake in the benefit of this grace indeed Mar. 16.15 16. He that beleeveth and is baptised c. this is the Doctrine that Christ comanded to be preached to every creature for salvation and this is the order by which it should inure to every creature first that they repent and then that they be baptised And let not your mindes be shifted aside from this truth by a pretence that the Spirit of God in these and such-like places of Scripture is onely to be understood of an invisible work of grace in the hearts of the saints and not of the principle upon which the Gospel-Church was to have its constitution Of which you have formerly in like case been warned 1. Jesus Christ came to gather the true seed into his granary the Church and not the chaff Mat. 3.12 and his sanne the Gospel-administration was fitted as a fanne to doe the thing according to the doctrine held forth he came not to set up a Church after the Jewish principle Mat. 16.18 of a natural generation of the sons of men but by spiritual regeneration to be made the Sons of God and therefore tells Peter that he will build his new Church upon the rock of personal profession And 2. who shall presume to lay a right in natural generation as a principle to give an enterance into the visibility of the Church of which there is not one titlte to be found in all the New Testament from Christ or any Apostle while in the mean time the Scriptures of the Prophets and all the New Testament doe everywhere abound with evidences that run upon a supposition of a real profession of a work of grace as the state of the Gospel-Church and many passages against the principle of a seed according to the flesh the principle of the bondage covenant as hath been promised 2. Whereas he chargeth us with perswading the world to believe that children have no right to the promise till they are actually called It is a very odious and false suggestion the man was ill instructed to publish it this we say that a right to the promise doth not conclude a right to be baptised We affirme that children have a right to the promise as well as the aged but to have a right to be baptised is not given to old or young till the rule of the word be complied with according to which baptisme is to be administred As for his discovery of our mistake which he thus rectifieth Accuser Call hath no relation to children but to them that are afar est 1. Because the children are joyned with their parents in the promise which is an intire proposition in the Text. Answer We say that his affirmation and his reason are of the like worth both made up of a meer trinkling about words his reason supposeth that in a continued discourse a word in one proposition can have no relation to words without the same which is sensless or that there may not be more then one logical proposition in the same coherence of matter which is also as vain as the other We have not yet ended with this Scripture Acts 2.39 We lay our claime to it as eminently justifying our practise of baptisme and that it speakes not in favour of our opposites at all although alledged as a chief evidence against us The promise is to you and to your children therefore repent and be baptised This is part of the Apostles argument to the Jew which plainly infers this That the reason upon which the title of the Jew and their children to the promise was to inure was repentance and baptisme thereupon otherwise there lay no force at all in the Apostles argument if the promise would inure where there was not found in the person the prescribed qualification of repentance antecedent to baptisme If the children should be admitted to baptisme before repentance then the promise carries more to the children then it would afford to the parents although the parents title to the promise be reckoned antecedent to the childs and the childs title through the parent If call in the close of the 39. vers is to be restrained to them afar off and to have no relation to children as is alledged what a disproportion would it have produced in the converts to the Church that the Gentiles and their children being comprised under them afar off must first be called and then baptised but on the part of the Jewes the effectuall calling of the parents and their baptism sufficed to justifie the baptisme of the children without calling Our Accuser proceeds with a long train of arguments we cannot pick out the coherence they have with what had been before alledged we shall therefore take them in their course as the Lord shall give assistance and make our answers to them severally without taking advantage from their inconsequential application either to his

said touching the abrogation of the legal covenant to teach the abrogation of any moral Doctrine or Precept The last administration of the covenant of grace The ministry by Christ usually called the new covenant is that which was established by Jesus Christ at his coming which was altogether of another nature to that which went before it This was not a covenant ministring or serving to any doctrine above or beyond it self as was the other Heb. 10.1 But this was the mystery of the grace of God it self plainly administred a mystery hid from ages and generations Golos 1.26 Ephes 3.8 9. It was under a vaile or behind a curtain till Christ himself came to reveale it and the whole scope of the doctrine preached by Christ and his Apostles runs quite beside the pretented priveledg of the seed after the flesh and is placed upon the seed after the spirit as being indeed the true seed who were really stated by God in the priviledg of the everlasting covenant through their new-birth and not otherwise Mark the preaching and practise of John the Baptist Matth. 3.8 9. Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance and think not to say within your selves We have Abraham to our father Observe the doctrine of Christ upon what foundation he builds the gospel-Gospel-Church Matth. 16.18 Upon the profession of actual faith in the Son of God The birth-priviledg cannot be squared by this rule to have a place in this building Again Isaiah 54.13 Prophesying of the Gospel-Church sayeth And all thy children shall be taught of God is applyed by Christ John 6.44 45. with this introduction No man can come to me except the father which sent me draw him c. There is no coming unto Christ nor sonship in the Church upon birth-priviledge any longer Again Luke 14.26 If any man come to me and hate not his father c. he cannot be my disciple here is no roome for birth-priviledg to make disciples to Christ or upon that title to come unto him Gospel-priviledges are a part of the Gospel-inheritance and follow Gospelsonship If sous then heires Gal. 4.7 Rom. 8.17 Now Gospel-sons are not born such of the will of the flesh but of the will of God Of his own will begat he us James 1.18 And therefore the visible profession hereof must be the common principle to constitute visible children of the Gospel-covenant under the administration of Jesus Christ by whom grace and truth was administred not flesh and figure Thus much of the first terme that came to hand in our opponents first proposition the Covenant of Grace The next expression to be explained is stands now in force It seemeth to us an hard kinde of expression to say That the Covenant of Grace stands now in force as if it were capable of being or not being in force with respect to seasons but thus we understand our opponents meaning by this terme that it signifieth a person to be comprised and stated in the covenant of grace by God Another expression craving explanation is the children of beleevers under the Gospel which in our opponents intention we take not to be such children as were begotten unto the faith by beleevers and in that respect came under that appellation of which we read 1 Cor. 4.15 3 Epist Joh. ver 4. But we understand it of the children begotten of the bodies of beleevers and in the same sence and no other we our selves crave to be understood throughout this Reply by the terms of carnal or natural seed seed after the flesh seed of the birth-priviledge which caution we premise that these terms made use of by us be not applyed to signify some evil qualification The second proposition needoth not to have any thing farther said unto it being dependant upon the first and must stand and fall with it These things premised we return answer to these his two propositions viz. 1 that the Covenant of grace stands now in force to the children of beleevers under the Gospel 2 That this is a sufficient ground by Gods appointment why children of beleevers should be baptized And first We say If by this term the Covenant of Grace in his first proposition be meant the Covenant of Grace in our first acceptation of it and by the children of beleevers under the Gospel be meant their natural seed as before explained Then we deny the first Proposition because the Covenant of grace in that sence is not in force to any upon any other consideration then as they are in Christ Then also is the second Proposition to be denyed because God hath made no such appointment that Baptism should be administred to persons upon the single ground of election If the Covenant of grace be meant of the covenant of grace ministring according to our second acceptation then if it be also meant to be in force c. by vertue of some institution appointed of God before the coming of Christ we deny the second proposition that that is any sufficient ground by Gods appointment of Baptizing infants now such institutions being vanished with the other shadows If by the Covenant of Grace be meant the Covenant of grace as it is now ministred since the coming of Christ we also deny the same proposition in this particular that there can be found no such appointment instituted by Christ or any of his Apostles for the baptising of the children of beleevers Last of all we say That the Covenant of Grace is always in force to the elect as such called or uncalled infants or aged it is also in force to all sorts of persons as it is a doctrine by Gods appointment to be published for the calling of sinners to repentance but we utterly deny that there is any thing at all in force by the covenant of grace or by any appointment of God for the baptizing of infants The ordinance of Baptism is a part of the instituted worship of the Gospel and all the force and authority that it hath upon the Conscience in point of practise is to be derived from the plain and express law and word of God by which it is made an Ordinance of the gospel and that in point of practise must be the Rule not to be swerved from God hath been very jealous of all his Ordinances to keep them exactly to his own methods and manner in the practise of them and the nature of man is very presumptuous to be interposing and medling Let us not forget that of Heb. 8.5 Exod. 25.9 40. See that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount all instituted worship must be conformed to the heavenly pattern But to follow our opponent in the proof of his propositions This is evident saith he from many Scriptures in the New Testament and so gives you an instance in that one Acts 2.39 and then fairly leaves you to make the application as you please without managing his authority to prove any one point