Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	eat_v	idol_n	weak_a	2,180	5	9.3570	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

far as Regeneration in a person is a reason or ground of baptizing him than you have to baptize the adult Considering farther that the words of our Saviour's Commission did run in general terms to disciple all Nations and baptize them how can you think that the Jews or the Apostles themselves could understand otherwise thereby than that the Children of the converted Gentiles and Jews too should with their Parents be received as Proselytes to the Christian Religion and as such baptized unless they had had caution to the contrary which if they had there would have been no place for controversie in this matter The reason of the unlikelihood of their understanding otherwise is taken from a usage among the Jews by which they did initiate Proselytes both Fathers and Children from among the Nations of the Gentiles by baptizing as well as circumcising them A thing which is acknowledged by the more learned among your selves and which you may find recited by several of our English Authors out of the writings of the ancient Jewish Doctors as by Dr. Hammond for one in his Annotations upon Mat. 3.1 John 3.5 See also Ainsworth on Gen. 17.12 The reception of the Proselytes into the Church in this way the Jews esteemed a new birth unto which our Saviour seems to refer in his discourse with Nicodemus when he said except a man be born again of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Jo. 3. And when Nicodemus grosly mis-understood our Saviour and demanded how can these things be our Saviour replied and said art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things As if he should have said is this any such strange thing which is so like what is familiarly practised among your selves This considered they by Christs commanding them to Disciple or Proselyte all Nations baptizing them could not well understand but that they were now to go abroad into all the World to Proselyte the Nations to Christianity and to enter them in the Christian Church by Baptism both Parents and Children like as now and then a family of them had been formerly Proselyted to the Jews Religion and received into their Church And accordingly the recorded instances in Scripture of persons baptized that had Housholds makes it probable in conjunction with other circumstances that when the Father or chief of a Family was converted to Christianity and baptized his Houshold was baptized also as it had been before practised in the reception of Proselytes Of all those in Scripture who by name or personal description are said to have been baptized there are but nine so far as I remember besides our Saviour to wit Simon Magus the Eunuch Saul called Paul Cornelius Lydia the Jayler Crispus Gaius and Stephanus The Eunuch had no Children and was baptized-upon the road Paul had none not being Married Whether Simon had or had any Houshold is not said And whether Gaius at that time had any Houshold when he was baptized is uncertain But the other five of the nine who had Housholds their Housholds came into the Church with them by Baptism as the Housholds of the Proselytes formerly had done If then we may make a Judgment of what was usually done by so many instances in Scripture as we have of what was done in this Case we shall not want reason to incline us to think that when the Apostles did baptize any that had Housholds that it was their usual practice to baptize all those also that were of their Housholds except such as rejected the counsel of God against themselves and were not baptized which little Children could not do It was not without its signification that of old the great promise of Grace to the World by the Messias was made to Families in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed as if Gods design signified thereby was to bring the Nations of the World into the Church by Families as the event shews he hath done for the most part both before and since the Gospel dispensation The Proselytes of the Gentiles of old as well as the Jews came in by Families and we see by the instances before-mentioned that the Christians came in by Families and were baptized by Families also And the Church hath been stockt by Families and the Christian Religion transmitted down from Age to Age from Parents to Children and from Masters to Servants It will seem the less strange to you that when the Father of the Family was converted to Christianity his Houshold was brought into the Church with him if you consider upon how small appearance of becoming Christians adult persons were baptized and received into the Church in the Apostles days and by them When we read in 1 Cor. 8.7.11 that such as unto that hour continued to eat of the Idol sacrifice with conscience of the Idol are yet called brethren though weak brethren indeed you may easily guess upon how little appearance of Christianity persons were received into the Church and so you may by the baptizing of Simon Magus and many others that soon proved great scandals in the Church by whom the way of truth was evil spoken of When in the same hour of the night in which St. Paul preached the Gospel to the Jayler and his Houshold they were all baptized they did not long stand Candidates for Church-membership nor could attain to much knowledge in the Christian Religion into which they were baptized No doubt but the door into the visible Church is far wider than the gate of the Church as invisible and of the Kingdom of Heaven I do not find that any were refused that were willing presently to be baptized how bad soever they had been before or proved to be after no not Simon Magus himself than whom there could hardly be a worse But then it must be remembred that Discipline was appointed for the cure of distempers in the Church and for the purging it of the notorious scandalous members These things I have the rather mentioned to render it the more probable that little Children were baptized where whole Housholds were baptized when there were any such in those Housholds For if adult and grown persons were baptized and received into the Church upon such easie terms as I have shewed they were if they were baptized when there was but any fair probability that they would own the Christian Religion for the future though but by so little appearance of such a thing as was visible in some of them when they were baptized Then it is not unlikely but that they might baptize some little Children also concerning whom circumstances considered there was every whit as great a probability that they would own profess and assert the Christian Religion for the future as there was that their Parents would in as much as Parents still use to educate their Children in the same Religion which they themselves profess Unto all which let me add this further That the Judaizing