Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	adam_n	bring_v	sin_n	7,991	5	5.4699	4	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

which were and which are much-what the same And if it be so acceptable a thing to Christ for us to receive one such little Child in his name as that he takes it as well as if we received Him nay takes himself to be received in our so receiving it which could not well be if it were not a member of his body the Church can you then think it a thing displeasing to him to baptize such in his name when as that is a sacred Rite appointed by him for a solemn receiving such in his name into his Church as do belong to him as doubtless such Infants do or else they could not be received in his name And when Christ hath given Commission to disciple all Nations and baptize them can you fancy that the same Commission implies a prohibition to baptize little Children though they are Disciples If little Children are made Disciples in their Parents being made so and that in Gods account and by his appointment then to baptize them certainly cannot be a deviation from Christs Commission to baptize Disciples And lastly if our Saviour hath said it of some little Children that they believe in him then the same Commission which authorizeth the baptizing of Believers must authorize the baptizing of them The Commission is general to baptize Disciples indefinitely and therefore must needs extend to all that are so or that are Believers though but in the lowest sense These are no forced or far fetcht consequences but flow naturally from their premises And whereas the Scripture speaks of Baptism as the Sacrament of Regeneration or new Birth which you make as an argument against the administration of it to Infants by reason of their incapacity for Regeneration you should consider first that Circumcision was a Sacrament of Regeneration as well as baptism is and yet Infants were not uncapable of it upon any such account Circumcision in the Letter was a sign of spiritual Circumcision of that made without hands the Circumcision of the heart and was a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith And what thing more spiritual than this is I pray you signified by Baptism Which considered the spirituality of baptism in nature or use is no more an argument against Infants capacity for Baptism than the spiritual use of Circumcision was an argument against that And this is sufficient to take off your argument But you may consider yet farther that Infants even while such must needs be capable of Regeneration in one sense or other unless you will say they are not in a salyable state which yet you have not been wont to say or else that unregenerate persons may go to Heaven and be saved contrary to that of our Saviour Joh. 3.3 Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God And therefore you seem to be under a necessity of granting Infants to be capable of Regeneration in a sense more or less proper And if you think Regeneration most properly and strictly taken to be incompetent to an infant state as Regeneration signifies that new state into which a person is brought by a change in the frame and temper of the mind and will and by a regulation of the motions and operations of the Soul in reference to their several objects then you must be constrained to accept of another sense of Regeneration and such as is more competent to an Infant State unless as I said you will say that persons may go to Heaven in an unregenerate State Dr. Hammonds Annot Mat. 19.28 Now therefore since the word translated Regeneration according to the assertion of learned men and the reason and nature of the thing it self doth properly signifie a new or second state it follows that if it can be proved that Infants are brought into a new or second State or capacity of being happy other than what is natural to them as deriving from Adam or their immediate Parents which is called a being born of blood John 1.13 then they may be said to be in a regenerate state And that the whole Race of Adam are put into a new state or capacity for happiness by the second Adam after they had lost it by the first until they fall into actual Rebellion against God by actual sin in their own persons of which sure they are in no danger while they are but in their infant state may I conceive be sufficiently evinced from Rom. 5.18 where the Apostle says as by the offence of one Judgment came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto the justification of life And the same might be backt by many other Scriptures And it may well be that it was in respect of this new state into which little Children are brought by Christ the second Adam that our Saviour said of such is the Kingdom of God Now so far as Baptism signifies our Communion in the virtue of Christs Death and Resurrection by which our state is changed as well as our conformity to it by a moral change in our nature there is in Infants or conferred upon them that spiritual grace which answers the outward sign in Baptism And that such a change of condition as to be raised out of a state of death into which we were brought for sin into a state of life by forgiveness of sin by virtue of Christs Death and Resurrection is called a being quickned together with him as well as that moral change which is made by sanctification is a thing which seems fairly to lie in those words Col. 2.13 And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickened together with him having forgiven you all trespasses And let me say this further that it seems not improper neither to say that Infants are dead to sin to actual sin in their own persons in as much as we cannot say that lust hath conceived in them so as to bring forth sin by any consent of will though it 's true they are not dead to it as having mortified it they having not yet while Infants contracted any ill habits to mortifie So that as burying with Christ in Baptism signifies a death unto sin in the person baptized there is in some sort that in Infants which answers the outward sign in baptism in that respect also These things considered you may well infer that if that new state into which Infants are brought be in some respect a new birth a birth from above and such as puts them into an immediate capacity for Salvation as well as Regeneration in the common acceptation of it does the adult and you see by what reason you are perswaded to believe it is then you have as great yea greater certainty of the regenerate state of Infants in this sense than you have of the regenerate state of any adult persons in the other notion of Regeneration and consequently a more certain ground to baptize them so

whosoever shall receive this Child the individual Child then set by our Saviour in my name receiveth me And if that Child or other such were to be received in the name of Christ then that Child was and other such are spiritually related to Christ as those of his body the Church are how else could they be received in his name Now to receive one into the Church of Christ is to receive one in his name therefore since our Saviour would have some little Children received in his name he would have them received into his Church The words whosoever shall receive this Child in my name receiveth me are indefinite and not limited to any one way of receiving in his name So that if there should be more ways of receiving little Children in the name of Christ than by receiving them into the Church yet that being one way and an eminent way too it cannot according to Christs own Declaration but be highly acceptable to him to receive such little Children into the Church as that he spoke of was since he takes it as if he himself were received Let us consider yet further those words of our Saviour Mat. 18.6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me c. If I can demonstrate to you that this was spoken of little Children properly I shall not need to determine in what respects they can be said to believe in Christ I can easily think as well as you that they cannot be said to believe in the properest sense They are not indeed unbelievers as that signifies a wilful rejection of the terms of Grace and Salvation which yet it may be is the common sense of the word unbelief in Scripture which is damning And considering their redemption by Christs Death from Condemnation for original sin while actual is not added to it they may be as well in a state of Salvation as actual Believers are till actual sin take place and so be numbred with them upon that account When our Saviour says Whosoever doth not receive the Kingdom of God as a little Child shall not enter therein it is not only implyed that little Children receive the Kingdom of God but also more fully exprest that none shall receive the Kingdom of God but upon the same terms in some sort as they do and what can those be but Christs Ransom and Purchase and their being free from a prevailing principle of opposition against the Gospel and Government of Christ And that may well be true in this case which our Saviour says in another He that is not against us is for us Lu. 9.50 and if little Children in such a sense are for Christ they may well be reckoned to be of his party and called as those of his party are Believers Disciples The little Children of old could no more properly enter into Covenant nor the uncircumcised male Child break the Covenant nor the Children of the Kohathites of a month old keep the charge of the Sanctuary than little Children can believe in Christ and yet in some respect and in such a latitude of speech as the Scripture sometimes useth they were said to do all these things Let the reason then be what it will for which they are said to believe yet that it is some little Children properly taken who in this place are said to believe in Christ I shall endeavour to evince by shewing these two things First That they were little Children in a proper sense of which our Saviour spake Ver. 5. in the words next preceeding these in Ver. 6. Secondly That these in this 6. Ver. who were said to believe in Christ were the very same or the same sort of little ones of which he had spoken in Ver. 5. That they were little Children in a proper sense of which our Saviour spake in Ver. 5. when he said Who so shall receive one such little Child in my name receiveth me will appear partly by the relation these words bear to those which go before and partly by comparing them with the relation which another Evangelist makes of the same matter In the 2. Verse of this Chap. Christ is said to set a little Child in the midst of his Disciples And in the 4. Ver. he saith Whosoever shall humble himself as this little Child the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven This little Child in ver the 4th is the same with that said to be set in the midst of the Disciples ver 2. And then in ver 5. he saith Who so shall receive one such little Child in my name receiveth me meaning such little Child as had been spoken of just before in ver 2. and 4. And to put the matter out of all doubt that by such little Child mentioned ver 5. our Saviour meant that very little Child that was set by him or any other such and not men resembled by the humility docility or innocency of that or any other such Child the Evangelist Luke relating the same matter Chap. 9.48 saith thus Whosoever shall receive this Child in my name receiveth me plainly speaking this of that individual Child which in the very next Verse before Christ is said to have set by him The true sense of the same matter related thus by both the Evangelists seems to be this That whosoever should receive that little Child that very Child which Jesus had set by him or any other such in his name should by so doing receive him The one Evangelist relates one and the other the other part of our Saviours saying in this matter as is usual also in other Cases Thus far the matter before us is as clear as well could be desired that when our Saviour said whoso shall receive one such little Child in my name receiveth me he meant it of little Children properly And that it was these very little ones so understood or this sort which our Saviour said did believe in him when he said but whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me c. seems to be as plain as the other For to whom can those words one of these little ones relate but to them of whom our Saviour last spake Besides the opposition here between receiving and offending the receiving one of those little Children in Christs name and the offending of one of those little ones shews the matters spoken of in both verses 5. and 6. to respect the same sort of persons which then must needs be little Children properly And the opposition seems to ly thus as he whoever he be which shall receive a little Child in Christs name as related to him or so as to educate and instruct him in the knowledge of him and his Religion shall do a worthy act such as Christ will take as if done to himself So he that shall turn one such little Child aside by training him up in a contrary Religion shall do a most unworthy act and such as would expose