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A32091
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A practical discourse concerning vows with a special reference to baptism and the Lord's Supper / by Edmund Calamy.
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Calamy, Edmund, 1671-1732.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing C274; ESTC R6151
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137,460
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320
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on to keep thy Vow But however what I aim at is plain any Promise or Engagement of weight and moment by how much the more deliberate it is so much the more Binding and Obliging is it Deliberation being a guard against our being deceiv'd or impos'd on against our being surpriz'd or ensuar'd And a security that we are well satisfi'd in what we do That our grounds are firm and our way safe Now no Promise or Engagement that can be mention'd is more deliberate than is the Vow which those who frequent the Holy Communion are often Repeating None therefore can be more binding and obliging than that I add further 3. THAT no actions can have greater Solemnities attending them than those Vows have we often come under to be the Lords and to Live to him Altho ' there hath been very great variation discernable in the Solemn Rites that have attended Faederal Transactions according to the different Inclinations of several People and Nations yet have they all agreed in their design and tendency which is to encrease their awfulness and bind the parties concern'd the more effectually to the performance of what they engage to waving other instances that might be produc'd let 's a little consider the Solemnity that attends our Christian Covenanting In Baptism Parents give up their Children to God as his God by his Ministers who are his Representatives accepts them He orders them to pour Water on them in token of his readiness to pour on them his Grace and Favour The poor Infants are washt to betoken their need of Divine Grace to purge away their Defilements and this Water is also the Representative of Blood the Blood of Atonement Which Blood will be upon them in order to their Acceptance if when they come to years they live to him to whom they were Devoted but 't will be upon them to their confusion if they revolt and rebel lead dissolute carnal wicked and ungodly Lives In the Lords Supper the visible Memorials of a Crucifi'd Christ a Christ Crucify'd for Sin are set before all the Communicants and distributed amongst them There is a Beholding and a Receiving and a Feasting and an admission to the utmost Familiarity and nearest Communion which our embody'd Spirits are at present capable of withâ—… our Glorifi'd and Exalted Saviour And what can awe us if not the sight of the Blood of our Dearest Saviour which was shed to Expiate Sin But we not only see it but we drink it intimating our firm Resolution to Revenge it on our Sins which were the cause of its Effusion We swear over our Lords Body and Blood that we will be true to him as ever we hope for any Interest in his Death and Sufferings we engage to be subject to him we Vow with his Blood in our hands with his Blood in our mouths that we will be true to him to the death who shed his Blood for us and that we will be the death of those Sins and Lusts by indulging which we should Crucify him afresh Withal we do this not under a covert or in a corner but openly before Men and Angels we do it in the face of the Church which much adds to its Solemnity by reason that so many Spectators as are present at our Vows and Engagements so many Witnesses should we have of our horrid Perfidiousness should we falsify and break them The very Solemnity of these our Vows and Engagements adds to their awe and encreases their Sacredness and Force And then further 4. Direful Imprecations attend and accompany our Repeated Vows which much adds to their awfulness Direful Imprecations I say if we should not be faithful and true to our Engagements When we from time to time Solemnly Profess our selves to be Christs Disciples at his Holy Supper and promise to live in Obedience to the Laws he hath given us and the Pattern he hath set us in hope of the Blessings he hath purchas'd for us and is at his Table ready to make over to us we call for all the Curses of God upon our Heads if we don't take care to pay our Vows It was a Custom in old times which we find often mention'd and hinted at in Holy Writ To hew a Beast in pieces and divide the pieces into 2 parts and then walk between them the Language whereof was this That the Parties concern'd wisht they might have the like treatment if they were not Faithful and True So while we at the Communion are striking Covenant with God over the mangled and broken Body of our Dearest Lord we wish as 't were for the like treatment if we are not faithful in Service and true to his Honour and Interest The Natural Language of such a Rite according to the Jewish manner of Imprecating at the time of their making Compacts is this God do so to us and more also if we forget or perfidiously break our Vows When we take the Blood of our Lord into our Hands we do as 't were wish it may be upon our Heads if we live not to him who dy'd for us This is the natural language of Actions tho' it ben't express'd in words The chief Priests and Seribes that were the Murderers of our Saviour cry'd out His Blood be upon us when Pilate convinc'd of his Innocency would have Released him and all succeeding Ages have cry'd out against them for their horrid Impiety and Audaciousness But they and their Progeny have felt the fruit of that Curse they brought on themselves with a witness to this day And so will they also sooner or later do who from time to time joyn in a Sacred Action that hath such an imprecation attending it or imply'd in it to which by their wilful and allow'd Breaches of their Vows they openly expose themselves over and over Withal the Communicants at a Sacrament do all profess to believe the whole Gospel and to submit themselves to it Now the Threatnings of Christ are a part of his Gospel which therefore they choose to fall under if they don't obey his Commands if they lead Ungodly and Unchristian Lives they consign themselves over to Eternal Death and bind themselves to endure the Torments of Hell Fire What besotted Creatures then must they be who live in the wilful and allow'd Breach of many and often repeated Vows to be the Lords and to live like Devoted ones as securely as if all were well Whose case is the subject of the Chapter next ensuing From these four considerations taken conjunctly which so fully lay opon the Sacredness and Strength of our Christian Vows viz. Their Voluntariness Deliberateness Solemnity and Attending Imprecations I might I think warrantably draw this Conclusion That no Ties can bind those fast to God no Bonds can be strong enough for such Persons as can cvade the force of such Vows as these But this will more properly come to be consider'd in another place CHAP. X. Of the dreadful case which all those are in who heap
to come unto his Table when I am invited and call'd And to joyn in that Sacred Solemnity that I may thereby testifie my Union with the Church my Charity for all and my Thankfulness to Christ And will never forget his Unspeakable Love to my poor Soul manifested in his Sacrifice of Everlasting Vertue and will hope according to the Integrity of my Heart that tho' my Failings be many yet he will encrease my Graces and Heavenly Comforts upon my waiting upon him therein AND in the keeping of this my Vow and acting agreeably thereunto I Resolve by the Assistance of that Grace which God hath promis'd to Persevere and hold on to the end of my days Living in the constant expectation of Death Judgment and Eternity and my Lords Return THIS is the Nature and Purport of that Vow or Engagement which Christianity obliges all its Adult Votaries freely to come under And this is the substance of all our Religion I Appeal to all that will take the pains to read and review it Whether this Vow thus drawn up contains any thing unreasonable Whether there is not the highest Reason running thro' it Whether any Branch of it is liable to any just Exceptions Whether those who refuse to come under it or being under it to obey it are not Enemies to themselves as well as to God Whether it contains any thing impossible to a willing Mind And whether it would not be happy for the World and reflect a great Lustre upon Religion if it were faithfully and punctually kept by all that are under it HERE I desire it may be Observ'd 1. THAT it was much more usual for Persons first to come under this Vow in Baptism in an Adult State in the Primitive Church than in after times For when Christianity first made its entrance it found the World in possession of sundry Religions in which those of that Age were bred up and in the practice whereof they persisted till they were better inform'd by Gospel Light which spreading and diffusing it self far and wide insinuating it self into Mens minds and carrying its own convictive evidence along with it which was back'd by the Miraculous Power then resident in the Church brought in Proselites in abundance from Iudaism and Gentilism in all its Forms to Christianity in a full age till which time therefore they were incapable of being Baptiz'd and coming under the Vow foregoing But when Christianity having justled out its Rival Religions came to be fixt and setled Parents generally thought it their Duty to get their Childrens Names inscrib'd in the Christian Roll from their Infancy and to enter them into a Sacred Bond to be the Lords in Baptism and actually did so So that afterwards none remain'd to be Baptiz'd when Adult but either those whose Parents neglected to devote them to the Lord by that Sacred Rite in their Infant state or those who were themselves Proselyted to Christianity after they came to Maturity which after the three or four first Ages of the Church were all along comparatively few 2. THAT the more publickly this Vow is made by those who are Baptiz'd when Adult 't is so much the better In the Primitive Church 't was generally in the face of a Christian Assembly that this Affair was transacted and tho' it cannot be justly pretended that its validity at all depends upon the publickness of it yet is it unquestionable that its ends will be thereby the better answer'd It makes it much more Solemn there will be the more Witnesses who may be afterwards Monitors if there be occasion and the greater Force will it probably have and the greater is the Awe that is likely to be thereby imprest 3. THAT this Vow is by no means to be confin'd to the Adult But even those who are Baptiz'd when Infants areas much concern'd in it For 1. their Infant Dedication to God in Covenant obliges them to stand to and keep this Vow as much as if'twere Personally made in their first Consecration And 2. Their Infant Baptism obliges them actually to make a Vow of this Nature when they come to Age and so are capable of Personal Covenanting for themselves Which matters will receive no small light from the following Chapter CHAP. V. Of the Baptismal Vow as to those Baptiz'd in Infancy An Account of the distinct concern of Parents and Children in it and a distinct Address to each concerning the Duty thence resulting THO' the case of Persons Baptiz'd when Adult be more clear yet is that of those Baptiz'd in Infancy much more common in the days we live in and so it hath been in the Church now for several Ages Tho' the Obligation of the former by the Baptismal Vow be more immediate and therefore more obvious and sensibly discernable yet is that of the latter as fully and sufficiently evident if rightly stated I design not to run out into Disputes and shall therefore take that for granted which so many Eminent Persons of all Professions have so Laboriously and Clearly Prov'd viz. That it is the Duty of all Christian Parents to enter their Children while Infants into the Visible Church and the Christian Covenant by Baptism and so from the first to bring them under the Vow fore going I lay that down here as a Postulatum and take it to be but a reasonable one And supposing it evident shall set my self to show what Apprehensious we are to form of the Engagement which such Baptiz'd Infants come under and of the manner of their coming under it And here I think it undeniable That as 't is in the Parents right that Infants are admitted to Baptism so 't is by their engagement that they are brought under the Vow which that Solemnity carrys in it That we may be clear in this matter therefore it is needful distinctly to consider 1. THE part and work of Parents in Devoting their Children to God and bringing them under the Baptismal Vow 2. THE concern of Children in what upon that occasion is done by their Parents for them and on their hehalf And 3. THE Parents Power to bring them and the Childrens Capacity of being brought under such an Obligation as the Baptismal Vow 1. AS for the part and work of Parents in Devoting their Children to God and bringing them under the Baptismal Vow that is compriz'd under the following Particulars 1. THEY disclaim all Right to their Children that is inconsistent with Gods Absolute Propriety and Resign them as a part of themselves entirely to his Management and Disposal From him they receiv'd them and to him they return them begging his acceptance of them for his own 2. THEY bring them to God for his Blessing and hold them up before him with earnest desires that these little parts of themselves may be not only under his Providential Care but under the entail of his Covenant Love As they embrace that Covenant which the Gospel offers for themselves so is it also their earnest request