Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	blood_n	soul_n	sprinkle_v	1,209	5	10.9438	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33967	The improvableness of water-baptism, or, A discourse concerning the gravity and seriousness of the action and the usefulness of the sacred institution of baptism instructing all parents how great a thing they do when they bring their children to that holy ordinance, and all persons, whether young or old, what obligations their baptism hath brought them under, what wrath it hath exposed wicked and impenitent persons to, and what use they may make of their baptism for confirmation of their faith, and quickening them to repentance and an holy life : discoursed from Rom. 6:3,4, by way of sermon / by John Collinges ...	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1681 (1681)	Wing C5321; ESTC R5112	38,449	47

most dear and blessed Saviour To thee O most holy Spirit To the only living and true God! I here dedicate my child and my desire is that thou wouldst accept him that as long as he lives he may be the Lords Is not here now a most grave and solemn action requiring all our thoughtfulness seriousness gravity and attention imaginable Was the dedication of an house to God so serious an action that Solomon at it offered a sacrifice of 22000 Oxen and an 120000 Sheep and kept a feast seven days and then a solemn assembly Was the dedication of an Altar so solemn an action that it took seven days time 2 Chron. 7. 8 9. And can the dedication of a child a piece of our selves flesh of our flesh unto God be judged a slighty action so as that there needs no more than for parents without any praevious thoughts on the sudden to send for a Minister and he in great haste to read over two or three prayers and sprinkle water on it saying I baptize thee c. I wish this slighty kind of Administration of this sacred Ordinance flow not from that novel conceit of the necessity of Baptism to salvation or the certain effect of it upon all that shall not afterwards run on the score with God for the washing away of the guilt of Original sin Whatsoever it be which hath incouraged such hasty and perfunctory Administrations I am sure they no way sute the grave nature of this solemn Administration Dedications if they were of no more than wood and stone and other inanimate things were wont to be more serious actions and done in a more grave and serious manner 2. But there is in Baptism not only a solemn dedication of the A solemn ingagement of the Soul to God party baptized unto God but also a solemn adstriction or obligation of the person to God Circumcision of old was called Gods covenant in their flesh Gal. 17. 13. Baptism under the Gospel succeeds into its place It is Gods Covenant in our flesh We read in Scripture of three ways of making Covenants betwixt parties 1. By words only Thus God made a Covenant with Abraham saying I will be thy God and of thy seed 2. By words and a ceremony or sign Such a Covenant you read made of betwixt Jacob and Laban Gen. 31. 46. 3. By a Ceremony alone Thus the Masters boring through the ear of his servant with an Awl the servant submitting to it was a covenant though at the time the servant said nothing yet he was by that submission obliged to be his Masters servant for ever Thus with us the Soldiers taking Press-money or the Kings Colours is an actual obligation upon him to keep to the Kings service and subjects him to death if he deserts it Baptism is such a ceremony The person brought under it is by such submission actually engaged in the service of Christ no longer to live unto himself nor to dye unto himself but unto him who hath dyed for him the sign of whose blood he hath received in the sprinkling or pouring of water upon him The man or woman that is baptized doth in effect say Let the blood of Christ signified by this water be a witness against me let is be upon me for ever to confound me if I ever apostatize from the profession of the Doctrine of the Gospel and the Faith of Christ or wilfully and presumptuously live contrary to his law Is not this a most serious action think we Marriage is but a Covenant betwixt man and wife wherein God is no party but only called in as a witness in it the husband and wife mutually bind themselves each to other for the term of one of their natural lives yet it is a most grave and serious action I have always thought that the most of men and women trifle a great deal too much with that and should be much more grave and serious than they are and take many more serious thoughts before they give away themselves each to other and put themselves out of a power over their own bodies and that the cursed Atheistical lives of very many husbands and wives their discontents and breaches and the perverse spirit mixed betwixt them is but the effect and just punishment of men and womens hasty slighty and inconsiderate engagements in that Covenant this is a Covenant of another nature a Covenant betwixt the great God and the baptized person where God is not a witness only but a party Ought we not to be serious in such an action O let this mind you that hear me to bring your Children to Baptism and to attend the administration of it with much more gravity and seriousness of thoughts than is usual Believe me it is no light action to Dedicate a child to God not to covenant with God that your child shall be his servant for ever If afterward you direct it otherwise or shew it an example to the contrary or omit to instruct it and mind it of its duty and to call upon it for the performance of it or as much as in you lyeth to hinder it from the contrary the child shall perish for its Apostacy because the Oath of God was upon it but its blood shall also be required at your hands 2. But I told you that as the action is serious so the Institution The usefulness of Baptism is useful There are too many who slight this great Institution because they cannot understand the usefulness of it There are others that will make an usefulness of it beyond what I can find in holy Writ making it upon the work done to wash away the guilt of Original sin and to set the soul rectum in curia right in the Court of Heaven I cannot allow this but doubt not to evince to you That leaving this effect only to the blood of Christ sprinkled upon the conscience Baptism is a very useful thing and that upon a fourfold account 1. To repel temptations to sin and this as it is a pre-ingagement To repel temptations upon the soul It is an excuse you often put men off with in your converses with the world when you have no mind to meet or treat or converse with them you tell them you are pre-engaged you cannot meet with them or deal with them or be for them indeed you tell them you are pre-engaged thus you look often upon pre-engagements as very useful to you You have this from your Baptism to answer all tempters all temptations to sin be they from what tempters they will if Satan if your own lusts if the world sollicit you to Apostacy either from the profession of faith which you have made or from your practice of holiness When the Devil makes any such impressions upon your souls you can say to him Satan I am ingaged When the men of the world the sinful companions in it tempt you to cast in your lot with them you can say to