Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	life_n	righteousness_n	sin_n	20,387	5	5.1345	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26964	The nonconformists advocate, or, A farther account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood written principally in vindication of A letter from a minister to a person of quality, shewing some reasons for his nonconformity, modesty answering the exceptions of two violent opposers of the said reasons.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1680 (1680)	Wing B1318; ESTC R1328	72,144	90

that score deny his Babe Christendom He saith in such a Case the answer is plain that he ought not Though here he speaks without Book I mean the Common-prayer Book and against the Order of it in the Baptizing of Infants Whereas you say on the contrary in these words That odium he meaning me would load the Minister with that shall deny to Administer Baptism to them who come not according to the Rule of the Church are surely it should be is referring to odium besides our Argument 't is sufficient he the Minister hath no Title I think you mean hath no right for I am often at a loss to unriddle you so to do it that he is more serious in his function than to be knowingly unjust either to the trust the Church or God himself as I may say hath reposed in him If a Father come to have his Child Baptized but not according to the Rules of the Church The Minister has no Title so to do it and therefore in such Circumstances will be more just to the trust reposed in him than to Baptize the said Child If this be not the purport and intention of your words you speak unintelligibly but if they be you fight against your fellow Souldier yea and against Truth it self Shall we obey God or Man Christ hath said Go and disciple all Naions Baptizing them in the name of the Father c. and among others the Children of believing professing Parents simply because they are so This is the True Gospel trust put into the hands of Gospel Ministers well but the Church or man commands to Baptize them with God-Fathers and God Mothers and the sign of the Cross meer accidents and accessories forreign from the Nature and Essence of Baptism but only invented and imposed from Humane Tradition which therefore some weak and Scrupelous believers question and fear as a profanation of that Holy Ordinance and accordingly dare not so address themselves with their Children unto Baptism But now shall their Babes upon this account be denyed their birth-right Shall they be denyed a priviledge so excellent and so desirable Shall a pitiful order of the Church in Comparison over-rule and obtain Shall it be heeded and observed by the Minister more than the Regia placita of heaven it self God forbid I Objected against the order for the burial of the dead because what is there spoken to God and man though often at the interment of the worst of sinners is spoken of them as if they had been Saints and most devout Holy persons and their Souls then in a safe and happy State For first the Congregation by the mouth of the Minister speaks as it were to themselves one to another concerning the party deceased Forasmuch as it hath pleased God of his great mercy to take unto himself the Soul of our dear brother He is a Brother a dear Brother his Soul is now taken by God taken in mercy in great mercy and it is taken to himself And then when Corps is put into the Grave he continues his speech in these words we therefore commit his body to the ground in a sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to Eternal life Then Secondly the Congregation in the close of the Office by the mouth of the Minister speaks unanimously to God we meekly beseech the O Father to raise us from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that when we shall depart this life we may rest in him Christ Jesus as our hope is this our Brother doth What can be said more if the most Holy Martyr or confessour if Stephen again were carried to his Burial Let him be a Nabal a Cain a Judas yet here is if I might use the Word his Apotheosis his enthronization among the Crowned in Celestial glory You say I have only this to say That it is in the judgment of Charity we prenounce this of all I answer Charity with judgment is a gracious Excellency but without judgment it is the greatest absurdity and nothing else but the vain opinion of an over-pittiful simplicity But if Charity be with judgment then it must have some Rule of judging and if the right Golden Rule then this Rule is the Word for I know no other Now if Charity hath this Golden Rule of the Word to judge by then Charity can have no hope for some many flagitious abominable sinners so living and so dying when they are brought to be buried as suppose two Hectors falling out and fighting for a Miss and both killing one another in the place or let it be one of them which happens too too often suppose some High-way Gentlemen in the very Act of Robbery shot down stark dead the same moment by the Honest Traveller and thus I might instance in many like Cases Here if we will speak soberly and according to Truth we can have no hope nothing being written in the whole Bible from end to end to ground the least of any such hope upon Here to mention what happened to the Thief upon the Cross and what may be the dealings of God with the most profane wretch at the last Minute as you do and what may befall the most profligate persons inter pontem fontem as some others is a vain execuse and cannot afford the least shew or shadow of a just Apology As for the Thief upon the Cross a wonderful Act of mercy was extended to him at the last by an extraordinary priviledge at an extraordinary occasion but withal we know what a wonderful extraordinary Testimony he gave of his Faith and of the Change of his heart before expiration The order for the burial of the dead might have been proper enough at his interment but would it also have been as proper at the interment of the other his Copartner in sin Had he suffered in England supposing all things then as now he might have then been buried according to Liturgy For I see none else excluded but the unbaptized Excommunicate and laying violent hands upon themselves and yet even these also upon your grounds may equally be admitted to Christian burial I am sure the first of them the unbaptized may upon far better and as for the worst of the other who knows how gracious God may be in his dealings with them in the last Minute Who knows None can know and because none can know therefore none can hope for hope without knowledge is a meer Nullity As for what we know concerning such abominable wicked workers if we believe the Holy Scripture which saith Neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor Thieves nor Covetous nor Drunkards nor revilers nor Extortioners shall ever inherit the Kingdome of God which saith without regeneration and holiness no man shall see the Lord and every where to the like purpose it speaks their condition desperate and damned and therefore with silence but without hope we must leave them wholly to the disposition and

viz. That there is a real difference between that conformity which is requir'd of a Clergy man and that which is required of a Lay-man You add further The use I would make of this acknowlodgment is this that whatever objections there may be against conforming as a Minister there are none against conforming as a private Christian and therefore that nothing he hath said ought to disswade private Christians from conforming to the Church of England by his own confession I answer Let the persons concerned judge and do according as God and a good Conscience shall dictate unto them but as for mine own part were I one of them I should not cordially chuse and approve of him to be my Shepherd nor easily assent and consent to sit under his Pastoral charge if good Pasture might be found and had elsewhere who entreth not by the door into the Sheepfold but climbeth up some other way especially if this other way appeared to me to be too too like the way which David most devoutly prayed against Psal 119.29 Remove from me the way of lying Amen The Second Part. AFter a Confutation in Quarto another is brought to my hands in Folio I have kill'd him for a Villain said he on the Stage and made him an Example What have you kill'd him kill him again I was kill'd sufficiently as one would think by my first Antagonist notwithstanding to make sure work another comes in with his deadly stab and will needs kill me the second time and yet I find and feel a quite contrary effect and even return into life by this renewed death while the first of these as it were with a strong puff of wind blows out my Candle and the second with a sharper blows it in again and my Candle burns still as bright as ever For comparing one Confutation with another I am the better informed to answer them both and continue more stedfastly the same what I was in my first opinion inasmuch as in several things mine Opponents are not more contrary to me than contrary to themselves in what they write against me though yet in their spirit and temper they are one full of wrath censure and bitterness a man that shall touch them must be fenced with Iron and the Staff of a Spear else they will pierce and gore intollerably I have scuffled with the first as well as I could and am now come to encounter the last Sir Your Introduction is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the common place called Revi●ing and Reproaching and though it be particularly calculated for a Preface against me yet it may indifferently serve as a general Exordium to any Philippick against the whole Tribe of the Non conformists in all Controversies whatsoever I have heard of one beholding a great pair of Gates to a very little City said facetiously to the Citizens Pray shut your Gates lest the City run out and be lost such me thinks is your large beginning above the proportion of the following matter it being more than a sixth of the whole O how copious and fluent are you in this kind of Rhetorick how is your Pen as the tongue of a ready Speaker None I dare say about the Bridge can out-do you or put you down but I check my self for I have a better answer prepared to my hand in which I shall acquiesce not rendring evil for evil or rai●ing for railing but contrariwise blessing I bless the Lord Jesus that I am accounted worthy among my Brethren to suffer shame for his Name and I pray God to bless you in turning your heart from your causless prejudice and wrathful indignation against us This is all I have to reply to your Premises and now come to the work before us I could not declare my assent and consent mine unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in and prescribed by the Book of Common-Prayer This you say may be one of my chief scruples that I could not prevaricate with Authority had there been allowed a l●ttle Equivocation and might I have been permitted to give an assent and consent which were not unfeigned the task had not been so intollerable but to require such an assent and consent searches men to the bottom and beats the Hypocrite out of all his Subterfugies who can bear it I answer The declaring of my unfeigned assent and consent is a great scruple to me though not hereby to be kept from a little Equivocation with man but from a down-right lying before God and against mine own Conscience and the rather as you truly observe because such an unfeigned assent and consent search me to the bottom yet not because I am an Hypocrite according to your supposition but because I am none my tongue and my heart being as they ought to be perfect Unisons and going together For if I were an Hypocrite indeed I could easily find my several Subterfugies and no such Declaration should be ever able to bear me out of them Herein therefore you are out But in the interim upon the whole matter you plainly infer what was denied by your Fore-man that Conformity is now much stricter than in former days and this also designedly You say Because of some possible Errata or faults that may escape in the printing of the Book of Common-Prayer or otherwise I scruple to give my unfeigned assent and consent unto all and every thing contained in it but this is a weak foundation and the Cavil trivial and therefore you leave me to be noted in my folly I answer It is you and not I who make such Errata properly so called which may be found in the Common-Prayer Book as well as in any other Book wholly besides the intention of the Composers of them to be the true proper and main ground of my bogling at the Declaration for I plainly by name except against the Order appointed for reading the holy Scriptures against the Order appointed for the administration of Baptism and so against the Order appointed for the burying of the Dead Now the things wherein I except against these in my apprehension are not Errata but Errors not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 however I am sure they are not escapes by accident and besides the intention of the Law-makers but are both contained in and prescribed by the Book as some of the substance and chief matter of it and this too confirmed by the Rubrick By what I have now spoken I clearly free my self from the absurdity of calling Errata the Contents of any Book or Writing as you would fasten upon me against all apparent truth and reason And whereas you say My scruple cannot affect you here because though such Errata may be contained in yet they are not prescribed by the Book of Common-Prayer I have evidenced the contrary in the instances forementioned wherefore the Coat you would put upon me is more proper for another who lets the true

into the Covenant of Grace Here again I might fasten upon you the opus operatum conferring grace as well as you upon me from a lesser cause but I pass it by to tell you of another errour for children of believers were actually i.e. really and truly in the Covenant of Grace before their Baptism because it is by vertue of their interest in that Covenant that they are admitted to that Ordinance Baptism is but an open Declaration of that which before was more latent and implicit it strengthens our Claim to the Covenant but our Title was good and sure before In a word Baptism is as the mutual sealing when both sides are agreed the Articles are drawn up all things are concluded and now only to be consummated by setting their Hands and Seals Children say you baptized and dying before actual sin are undoubtedly saved that is put at least in a salvable condition I answer After all your strong Proofs and Arguments you faint in your great Assertion and very tamely are contented to come down to lower Terms Vndoubtedly saved that is to be in a Salvable condition You are like the wise Steward who instead of an Hundred Talents willed the Debtor to write down Fifty Vndoubtedly saved and to be put into a Salvable condition are no Synonyma's for the last is far short from an Equipolency to the first There is a vast difference between a Non posse non vivere and a posse non mori between a necessary enjoyment of life with the utmost security from death and the most possible yea probable attainment of life cum formidine contrarij with the hazzard of the contrary Of these two Undoubtedly saved is the first and a Salvable condition is the last You know the Proverb A bird in the hand Undoubtedly saved is a Ship arrived put in and safely come to shore past all danger a Salvable condition is a ship far off on the main Though she be a stout and strong built Vessel with all her Tacklings firme and compleat and in a good and likely way to make a prosperous Voyage yet she may miscarry and perish in the deep Your paraphrase therefore is paradox to the Text though sound and Orthodox in it self Children Baptized are indeed in a Salvable condition not only before but also after they have committed actual sin yea according to the Doctrine of the Liturgy in the order appointed for the burial of the dead not only Children but grown up men committing actual sins sins of the deepest die most gross immoralities not to be named among Christians Heaven-daring and Hell-deserving sins all the days of their lives unto their last Exit are still in a Salvable condition Or else how can they be thought to be in an hope-able condition You know what is read over all such when they are brought to the Grave That when we shall depart this life we may rest in him in Christ as our hope is this our Brother doth There is a Gospel without an hope to relie upon the promise of it and there is an hope I see without a Gospel to justifie the reason of it But that remains yet to be discussed I therefore return to the matter before us Children Baptized are in a Salvable condition that is in a right hopeful and probable way of salvation according to the Gospel For though Christ hath said it many are called and few are Chosen and though from hence even because of the multitude who are called into Gods Family continually by Baptisme as from other Objections some Scruples may arise in our minds powerful enough to take off and hinder the full Assurance and certain belief of the undoubted Salvation of all such yet because the secret things of Election belong wholly to God and the revealed things of the outward call only unto us we according to what is revealed unto us in that outward call may and ought to judge Charitably concerning all Infants Baptized and hope well of their Eternal State In the general we have good reason to believe that God will own and bless his own Ordinances and grant Salvation to his people in his own ways and Institutions appointed for such an end Truth hath said it He that believeth and his Baptized shall be saved Children I confess cannot actually believe and so perhaps this promise is not properly theirs yet they cannot wholly be debarred of it for even in their infancy the seed of Grace and the seed of Faith may be sown and Rooted in their Hearts but however they are actually Baptized which leads on directly to the Blessing there mentioned and has such a full and fair Aspect upon the same that I would not be wanting of the Ordinance of Baptisme my self nor deprive my Children of it for Thousands of Gold and Silver and the rather because Wisdom hath said again Except a man be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God You have therefore my vote and suffrage for the Salvable condition Children Baptized I leave them in the way of life while yet they are living in via Salutis dum viatores but how they can be thought or said to be so in termino after they are gone to their long lasting Everlasting home or how you can apply this for the vindication of the Rubrick is beyond my understanding It is certain by Gods Word that Children which are Baptized dying before they commit actual sin are undoubtedly saved that is say you in your explanation they are put at least in a Salvable condition what are they still but in a Salvable condition after dying I shall make no remark upon this remarkable but am ready to Trespass another way even volens nolens Quis tale legendo Temperet a risu Nevertheless this shall be spoken for your Honour that you are a more generous Opponent than the former for you intrepedly and Heroickly own justifie the Truth of the Rubrick when as he most basely and sneakingly would have shuffled it off by the slight of evasion not allowing it any place in his assent and consent though it hath evidently a place in the Liturgy and is a part of the whole But then on the other side I think him more sober than your self though he call a certain query of mine A raving question which was this since Baptizing gives such an unquestionable Title unto heaven may a Minister deny the Ordinance to any infant whatsoever if he might be permitted to Administer it In particular I brought down the question to a True believer whose Child had an unquestionable right unto Gospel Baptisme according to the Terms and conditions of the Gospel Whether if such a believer should bring his Child to the Font and desire the Minister to have it Baptized but yet either out of weakness or tenderness of Conscience Scruples God-Fathers and God-Mothers and the sign of the Cross and dares not admit of them the Minister may and ought upon