Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
faith_n covenant_n sacrament_n seal_n 4,627 5 9.5821 5 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A27392 An answer to the dissenters pleas for separation, or, An abridgment of the London cases wherein the substance of those books is digested into one short and plain discourse. Bennet, Thomas, 1673-1728. 1700 (1700) Wing B1888; ESTC R16887 202,270 335

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

3. Some are offended with our praying against Sudden Death But why shou'd we not by Sudden Death understand our being taken out of this World when we are not fit to die For sometimes a thing is said to be Sudden to us when we are not prepar'd for it And in this sence can any good Christian find fault with the Petition But suppose that by Sudden Death we mean what is commonly understood by it that is a Death of which a Man has not the least warning by Sickness are there not Reasons why even good Men may desire not to die suddenly May they not when they find themselves drawing towards their end by their good Instructions and Admonitions make Impressions upon their Friends Companions and Relations to the bettering of them May not their Counsels be then more effectual with them than ever they were before And is it not reasonable to believe they will be so As for themselves may not the warning they have of approaching Death be improv'd to make them more sit to die than they were in their perfect Health In a word he that thinks himself to have sufficiently perfected holiness in the fear of God and not to stand in need of those acts of Self-Examination Humiliation and Devotion by which Good Men improve the Warning of Death which Mortal Sickness or Extreme Age gives them let him suspend his Act and refuse to join with us when we pray God to deliver us from sudden death· 4. Some are offended that we pray to be deliver'd By the Mystery of Christ's Holy Incarnation c. By his Agony and bloody Sweat by his Cross and Passion c. And by the Coming of the Holy Ghost Some say this is Swearing others Conjuring and I know not what To these I answer that when we say By the Mystery of thy holy Incarnation and by thy Cross and Passion c. Good Lord deliver us we implore Christ who has already shew'd such inestimable goodness towards us by taking our Nature into his Divinity to Die upon the Cross to be Buried to Rise again to ascend into Heaven and there to intercede with the Father for us and by sending the Holy Ghost to qualifie the Apostles for their great Work of carrying the Word of Salvation into the World I say we implore him who hath already done such mighty things for our Salvation and we plead with him by that goodness which he has already given us such great demonstrations of by those Wonders of Mercy that he has wrought for us that he wou'd now go on to deliver us by his powerful Grace from those Evils which we pray against And this is so reasonable so devout and affectionate so humble and thankful a way of praying that I am sorry that any who call themselves Believers shou'd be so ignorant as not to understand it or so profane and unlike what they pretend to be as to deride it To conclude I must confess that of all the Prayers in our Liturgy that are of humane composition I shou'd be most unwilling to part with the Litany It seems to be what it was design'd to be A Form of Prayer apt to excite our most intense and fervent desires of God's Grace and Mercy The whole office is fram'd with respect both to matter and contrivance for the raising of the utmost Devotion of good Christians and for the warming of the coldest hearts by the heat of the Congregation And in such a disposition it is most fit to express our Charity by praying for others even all sorts of men as distinctly and particularly as public Prayers will bear CHAP. V. Of Infant-Baptism BEfore I proceed to the Vindication of our Office of Baptism I think it is proper to justify Infant-Baptism which is practis'd by us and dislik'd by some of the Dissenters And that my Discourse concerning Infant-Baptism may be the better understood I shall take the liberty of premising a few things 1. That the Original of the Jewish Church consider'd purely as a Church is to be dated from the Covenant which God made with Abraham but that of the Jewish Common-wealth from the delivery of the Law by Moses For that the Jewish Church and Common-wealth are distinct things is plain because the Apostle makes this distinction Rom. 4.13 Gal. 3.17 And therefore 2. The way to find out the Nature of the Jewish Church is to consider the Nature of the Covenant made with Abraham upon which the Jewish Church was founded Now 't is plain from Rom. 4. 9th to the 17th and 9.6 c. Gal. 3.5 c. that the Covenant made with Abraham was a Spiritual Covenant made with him as the Father of Believers and with his Posterity not as proceeding from him by Natural but by Spiritual Generation as heirs of his Faith Hence saies the Apostle in the name of the Christians We are the Circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and have no confidence in the Flesh Phil. 3.3 and it is one God which shall justify the Circumcision by Faith and the Vncircumcision thro' Faith Rom. 3.30 and if ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's Seed and heirs according to the Promise Gal. 3.29 Nay 't will farther appear that this Covenant was made not with Abraham's Natural but his Spiritual Off-spring if we consider 3. That the initiatory Sacrament into it was Circumcision For the Covenant is call'd the Covenant of Circumcision Acts 7.8 and Circumcision on the other hand is call'd the Seal of the Righteousness of faith Rom. 4.11 faith or faithful obedience being the condition of that Covenant which God requir'd of the Children of Abraham and which they promis'd to perform It also signify'd the Circumcision of the heart Deut. 10.16 and 30.6 Rom. 2.28 29. 4. As to the Persons to be admitted into the Covenant we have a very plain account at the institution of it Gen. 17. from whence it appears First that the Children of Heathens were to be circumcis'd See Exod. 12.48 49. which also proves that the Promise was made not to his Natural but to his Spiritual Children Hence in all Ages great numbers of Gentiles were admitted into the Jewish Church by Circumcision Secondly that persons of all Ages were to be Circumcis'd and that God was so far from excluding Children from Circumcision that he order'd that the Circumcision of them shou'd not be deferr'd beyond the 8th day God was pleas'd to be so gracious as to chuse the Children with their Parents and look upon them as holy upon their account This was ground enough for their Admission into the Church and for God to look upon them as Believers tho' they cou'd not make open profession of their faith The Faith and consent of the Father or the God-father and of the Congregation under which he was Circumcis'd was believ'd of Old by the Jews to be imputed to the Child as his own Faith and consent See Seld. De Jure lib. 2. c. 2. De Synedr lib. 1.
c. 3. And they had good ground in Scripture for this opinion because the infidelity and disobedience of the Parents in wilfully neglecting or despising the Circumcision was imputed to the Children who were esteem'd and punish'd as breakers of the Covenant when they were not Circumcis'd Gen. 17.14 And therefore if the act of Parents in neglecting to bring their Children to Circumcision was reputed theirs much more their act in bringing them to it might well be reputed as their act and deed Thus Numb 3.28 we find the keeping of the sanctuary imputed to the Males of the Cohathites of a month old and upwards because their Fathers actually kept it and they were to be train'd up to it Thus Deut. 29.11 12. the little ones are expresly said to enter into the Covenant with God because the Men of Israel did so Thus also tho' Christ heal'd grown Persons for their own Faith Matth. 9.29 yet he heal'd Children for the Faith of their Parents or others who besought him for them as it were imputing it to them for their own Faith Mark 9.23 Matth. 8.13 John 4.50 Vid. Cassand De Baptismo Infant p. 729. Taylor of Baptiz Inf. Great Exemplar Part 1. Sect. 9. 5. The Church was the same for substance under the Law as it was before it and still remains the same for substance under the Gospel as it was under the Law For Abraham is still the Father of the faithful and we that Believe under the Gospel are as much his Children in the true meaning of the words as those that were Believers under the Law Hence St. Peter Epist 1. calls Christians by those Titles which God gave to the Jews as to his peculiar People viz. a Chosen Generation Royal Priesthood c. and St. Paul compares the calling of them to the engrafting of the Wild Olive-tree into the Old Olive-tree's Stock Rom. 11. Christ and his Apostles introduc'd as much of Judaism into the Christian Church as the nature of the Reformation wou'd bear and adher'd as much as they cou'd to the Old both in the Matter and Form of the New Oeconomy For the proof of this the Reader may consult Grot. Opusc Tom. 3. p. 510 520 c. Hammond of Baptizing Infants Selden de Jure l. 2. c. 2. de Synedr l. 1. c. 3. Lightfoot's Horae Heb. p. 42. Hammond on Matth. 2.1 Alting Dissert Septima de Proselyt Mede's 1 B. disc 43. 2 B. Christ Sacrif Cudworth on the Lord's Supper Thorndike of Religious Assembl Taylor 's Great Exemplar Part. 1. Disc of Baptism Numb 11. Dodwell's One Altar and One Priesthood Light●oot on 1 Cor. 5.4 Some things I confess they laid aside but their Reasons for so doing were 1. Because very many of the Jewish Rites were fulfilled in Christ and this is so plain that I need not prove it 2. Because many of them were inconsistent with the Nature of Christianity which was to be 1. Manly in opposition to the Law which was but a School-Master to bring them to Christ Gal. 3.24 and the Jews were under it as Children are under Tutors Chap. 4.1 2 3 4. for they had Childish understandings and were like Children to be instructed by Symbolical Lessons viz. Washings c. 2. Free in opposition to the servile Nature of the Jewish Church which was loaded with numberless observances of which the Jews were grown weary and with which they had been for a long time heavy laden when Christ call'd them to take his yoke upon them which was to be so easy and light 3. Vniversal God injoin'd the Jews many things in oposition to the Neighbouring Idolatrous Nations that there might be a mutual strangeness between them and that by Ceremonial singularities they might be distinguisht from the rest of the World but then Christ coming to break down the Middle wall of Partition betwixt the Jews and Gentiles and to abolish the enmity of ordinances that was betwixt them that he might make peace between them and reconcile them both into one body it was requisite to this end that he shou'd abolish these and all oher distingishing characters betwixt them which wou'd have hindred the progress of the Gospel because they were become so odious and ridiculous to the Gentile World And this is the reason why the bloody Rite of Circumcision is changed into the easy Rite of Baptism 6. Circumcision was a Sacrament of equal Significancy Force and Perfection with Baptism and Baptism suceeded in the room of it not as an Antitype succeeds in the place of the Type but as one positive institution succeeds in the place of another For we must note that strictly and properly speaking there was the same difference betwixt the Type and the Antitype as betwixt the shadow and the substance or betwixt a Man and his picture in a Glass insomuch that what was in the Type did only represent something which did in a more perfect manner belong to the Antitype Thus the blood of Sacrifices represented the blood of Christ which do's truly purge the Conscience from dead works and the healing vertue of the Brazen Serpent was a Symbol of the healing vertue of Christ upon the Cross But the case is not so betwixt Circumcision and Baptism because Circumcision has no Symbolical likeness with Baptism nor any thing belonging to it common to Baptism which doth not as fully belong unto it as unto Baptism it self For 1. Circumcision was heretofore a real Sacrament of Initiation into the Covenant of Grace a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith and a confirmation of the Covenant betwixt God and Man as much as Baptism is now Baptism do's nothing under the Gospel which Circumcision did not as properly and effectually do under the Law and therefore it cou'd not be a Type of Baptism any more than the broad-Broad-Seal of England 300 years ago was a Type of this And accordingly 't is never mention'd in the New Testament as a Type of Baptism nor Baptism as the Antitype of it but succeeded in the room of it not as the Antitype did in the place of the Type but as one absolute Ordinance or positive Institution do's in the place of another 2. Circumcision was not a Type of Baptism because a Type is an Exemplar appointed under the Old Testament to prefigure something under the New but Baptism was it self of Jewish Institution under the Old Testament and by consequence cou'd not be Typify'd and prefigur'd by Circumcision because it was us'd together with it in the Jewish Church The Jewish Church made it a Ceremony of Initiating Proselytes under the Law and our Saviour liking the Institution continu'd the use of it and made it the only Ceremony of Initiating Proselytes under the Gospel superadding to it the compleat nature of an Initiatory Sacrament or the full force of Circumcision as it was a sign of the Covenant and a seal of the Righteousness of Faith Having premis'd these Six things I proceed to the main business in treating of which