Selected quad for the lemma: grace_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
grace_n	abraham_n	covenant_n	law_n	4,107	5	5.8933	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80854	The vertue and value of baptism: in which the dignity and duty of [baptism], the due right of infants to [baptism], and their right above that of grown persons by [baptism], the degrading and destructive principles and practices of [baptism] are / catechetically propounded, plainly preached, and now published as an antidote to the baptism-despising dictates of John Simpson. By Zachariah Crofton ... ; Imprimatur, Edm. Calamy.	Crofton, Zachary, 1625 or 6-1672.	1658 (1658)	Wing C7003B; ESTC R174314	79,234	315

most grosse ignorance to say that Circumsion Sealed to the naturall issue of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the land of Canaan and Promise thereof but not the Covenant of Grace whilst the matter sealed and very ground on which every man child must be Circumcised is expressely declared to be I will be thy God and the God of thy seed whilst the Holy Ghost tells us Circumcision was the seale of the Righteousness of faith which is the Covenant of Grace Rom. 4.11 and Circumcision was set on the flesh of the Profelyted Gentiles who never claimed nor possessed by the vertue thereof any portion of Canaan the land of Promise so that if this were the onely matter Sealed by Circumcision it did to them Seale a blank and they had by it no benefit again God doth lay an eminent claime to the naturall issue of the Jewes in their very Apostasies from him when he calls them out of Egypt he doth it with an especial claime let my People go Exod. 5.1 when he chargeth them with duty he enforceth it with relation ye are the children of the Lord your God Deut. 14.1 when he chides their abominable Idolatry he aggravates it by the sacriledg owning his own title Thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters which thou hast born unto me and sacrificed c. Thou hast slain my Children and delivered them to cause them to passe through the fire for them in Ezek. 16.20 21. When he chastiseth them he comes to them as a Father Ye children of Israel you onely have I known as mine therefore I will visit you for your iniquities Amos. 3.1 2. and when he comes to deliver them from afflictions their sins provoke to continue the Covenant made with Abraham Isaac and Jacob is the onely cogent reason thereunto this is pleaded as the prevalent argument and ground of faith in prayer Exod. 32.14 Isa 64.9 And affectionately resented by the Lord Levit. 26.42 Ezekiel 16.59 60. I might deal with thee as thou hast done when thou didst despise the Oath in breaking the Covenant neverthelesse I will rememember my Covenant made with thee in the dayes of thy youth when I consider this carriadge of God toward Israel according to the flesh I cannot without blasphemy but think God to be more just then to lay such a speciall claime under the series of his dispensation towards Israel if by his Covenant with their Fathers he had not a cleare and unquestionable title to the posterity and it is to me a most senselesse and dull evasion to say that Israel were Gods People by right of Creation as wool and hempe and flax are his whilst he himselfe tells us he had chosen them to be a precious People unto himselfe above all people that are upon the earth Deut. 14.2 and you onely have I known above all the families of the earth Amos 3.2 Where doth God say of any Nation they are my people Israel excepted and is not the transmission of the Covenant to the Gentiles that which makes them who were not a People to be the People of the living God and unto this it may further be added that our Saviour in the very rejection of the Jewes when he declares them to be of their father the devill denieth them not to be the children of Abraham John 8 nay declareth them to be Children in the Right to the Grace he brought into the world in comparison of whom the Gentiles are called dogs Mat. 15.26 Nay and ownes them as children of the Kingdome of Heaven Mat. 8.11 And St. Paul lamenting the rejection of his Kinsfolke aggravates their present miseries by their past mercies reckoning up their priviledges Adoption Glory Covenants Oracles the giving of the Law the Service of God the Promises the Fathers and the coming of Christ concerning the flesh but not a word of Canaan the great dreamed of Priviledge in Anabaptist view and determines these belonged not to Israel heires of Abrahams faith but to Israel his kinsfolk according to the flesh even the naturall issue of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. By all this and much more that hath been said by others and might be by me it is more then manifest that during the dispensations of the Covenant under the Law and to the Jewes the children of Gods Covenant People even as their children and without personall acts of faith were in Covenant with God and subjects capable of the initiating Seale thereof and me thinks under the Gospell if as undoubtedly it is the Covenant be substantially the same though ministerially different men should have more reason then to release such a priviledge without a very plain and clear reversall in the New Testament and limitation of the Covenant to adult and actuall believers which my dimme sight could never yet read nor dull brain conceive and more justice to themselves and Postesterity then if it be at their choice to change a Fee-farm to themselves and heires for ever for a Lease for a terme of life and meere personall title sure I am my little honesty would act me with such foolish selfe love more regard to the rejected Jew who are yet the beloved of God according to Election for the Fathers sake Rom. 11.28 And in hope to be Re-implanted into the Olive from which they were cut off can we with any confidence court them to a new Covenant with straiter termes shall we not earnestly emulate and highly provoke them to receive the Gospell by bidding them to their losse will not ingenuity engage them thus to retort why you perswade me to turn Christian as I am a Jew I beget Children to the Lord and bring forth an Holy seed the Priviledges of the Covenant is entailed on me and on my Naturall issue and therefore the Covenant of God is set on the flesh of my child assoon as born whereas if I turne Christian I bring forth children of wrath and beget children to the God of the world I have indeed a Personall right to the Covenant and am provided for during my own life but my children are turned into the wide world to sink or swim shift for themselves without any speciall Divine Protection is not a poor pittance with perpetuity better then more large enjoyments with so short a tenure never tell me of a better Testament on such tickle termes O the hopes the hopes of England to convert the late inlet Jewes their new inhabitants by such narrow and Honourable treaty and tenders of Grace and Salvation Lastly Me thinks men calling themselves Saints should have more Religion then to restrain the Grace God hath extended to themselves and feed and curtaile the Covenant that by the New Testament is conferred on the Believer and his issue naturall even as his child in infancy and before he acts any Personall faith when I consider little infants sucking the brests and brought in armes not able to go received by our Lord Jesus Christ by him blessed and pronouneed with others of the

succession that some Antipaedo baptists have urged and talked of among you viz. Circumcision was a National priviledg and only sealed the promise of Canaan to the children of Israel If so how then came it to be used before Israel was a Nation and how came it to be used after the land was possessed and the promise accomplished Why doth Moses mention the Covenant of Grace I will be your God as the ground and reason of Circumcision To what doth the Circumcision of heart so frequently mentioned in Scripture allude it is often joyned with the Circumcision of flesh What was the benefit of Circumcision to the proselyted Gentiles We never read that by the virtue of it they demanded or the Jews divided to them any portion of the Land of Canaan And it will be an hard matter to make me believe it did to them Seal a Blank for that I find it in Scripture called A laying hold on the Covenant of God and the Uncircumcision are declared strangers to the Covenant and without God and without hope in the world Why doth the Apostle define Circumcision to be the Seal of the righteousnesse of Faith I find this phrase to denominate the Covenant of Grace and its Spiritual priviledges but that it ever denominated Canaan or any National priviledges I am yet to be informed And the limitation of it unto the personal faith of Abraham is so inconsistent to the scope of the Text absurde in it self and smells so much of Popish Bellarmine that I cannot but avoid I had almost said abhor it But lastly I would Quaery whether the adversaries of Circumcision sealing the Covenant of Grace did ever yet observe adjuncts separable from a Covenant to bear the name of a Covenant or did ever yet discern that the Land of Canaan was an appendant on the Covenant but not of the essence of the Covenant which if they well study I doubt not but they will correct their ignorance and the errors thence arising and so with us conclude That Circumcision sealed Spiritual priviledges to the Jews as Baptism doth to Christians and Baptism succeeding to its use and ends must have the same subjects and is now the special ground of confident approach to God Reas 4. The nature and order of Baptism doth dispose unto a confident approach to God Baptism is a Seal and the first Seal to the Covenant of Grace and Salvation and so is a ground of Faith and an encouragement in accesse to God But in the Nature of Baptism three things do dispose unto confidence in approach to the Lord 1. It is an Ordinance of Conjunction to the Church 2. Consecration to God 3. Confoederation with God And every one of these are Reasons of boldnesse in Access and assurance of Acceptance 1. Baptism is an Ordinance of coojuuction to the Church The Church is Christs Body and every individual Christian is the members thereof united by Baptism as by Nerves and Sinews None but the Church may come nigh unto God in Zion every one must appear before God Christ is only conversant with his Spouse if the Gentiles will draw nigh to the God of Jacob they must joyn themselves to Israel the people of the Lord and all believers that will come nigh to God must be added to the Church all the promises of God are made to the Church and all the administrations of the Covenant are in and to the Church Ex Ecclesia nulla Salus out of the Church no Salvation They that will come nigh to God as his children must be the daughters of Sion of the houshold of Faith and Commonwealth of Israel To be cast out of the Church is to be debarred all priviledges of grace delivered over to Satan for that relation to the Church is the only reason of every individual believers claim of promises and priviledges ground of confidence in all worship unto God and this relation is conferred by Baptism 1 Cor. 12.13 We are all Baptized into one Body whether we be Jews or Greeks bond or free Baptism is the only badg of distinction to the Lords people the very door of admission into the houshold of Faith the very method of matriculation to Christ his Disciples and manner of adding to the Church such as shall be saved Act. 2.41 In a word Baptism is the band of union to all Gods servants binding them to a constant adherencie to his Name and joynt attendance on his Worship and is the bar of division from all others that are yet strangers to the Covenant so as that until baptized they may not communicate of the holy things of God with the Church nor come nigh with them to the Lord. In the Primitive times of the Church the Catechumenists who were preparing for Baptism not having been yet Baptized were sent from Church Communion and holy priviledges with the profane and paenitentiaries by the cry of Sacra Sacris holy things for holy men but when by Baptisme they were incorporated into the Church then they continued in prayer breaking of bread and every act of Worship to God with confidence so that till the Church appear our mother we see no warrant to call God Father his children are no vagrants in the high way and hedges and when begotten by uncorruptible seed of the Word were by Baptisme placed in the lap and laid to the brests of the Church then as her children we claim all the Priviledges of the Covenant and come to the throne of Grace with confidence nor may any without a forfeiture of Baptisme be judicially exacted by the Church deny our relation and liberty of accesse to God I never yet could conceive any warrantable reason to deny the liberty of accesse to the Lords table to such Baptized soules whose horrid profaneness and obstinate spirits did not make them obnoxious to the censures of the Church in order to their excommunications and dismembring from the body and certainly Circumcision did not more firmly incorporate unto the Church under the Law and conferre a liberty of approach unto the Sanctuary then Baptisme doth under the Gospell 2. Baptisme is an Ordinance of Consecration unto God God is a God of Holiness and will be sanctified in such as come unto him none may appear before him in their prophanenesse the Masse of Mankind is so prophaned with sin that men in common may not appear before God such as shall adore him must be adorned for him and if they will hold communion with him they must be consecrated to him God never comes nigh to Israel but he first calls to have the people Sanctified nor comes the Messiah before his Messenger had prepared his way Israel the onely Nation that holds communion with and comes to God are called an holy Nation because con●ecrated by Circumcision hence Circumcision is the terme and title of a Sanctified people but uncircumcision the title and terme that denominates the prophanations that might not come nigh to God It is Gods command

THE VERTUE AND VALUE OF BAPTISM In which the Dignity and Duty of Baptism The due Right of Infants to Baptism And their right above that of grown persons by Baptism The degrading and destructive Principles and Practices of Baptism ARE Catechetically propounded plainly Preached and now Published as an Antidote to the Baptism-Despising-Dictates of John Simpson By Zachariah Crofton Minister at Botolph Aldgate London Imprimatur Edm. Calamy London Printed by D.M. for J. Nuthal living next door to the Dolphin in the Minories 1658. To the Right Worshipful Richard Garforde AND Robert Burdet Esquires And the rest of his Beloved Parishioners late Assertors of his innocency and Protestors against his groundless and furious Persecutions Right Worshipful and wel-beloved TO you of all men this Treatise oweth its Dedication and from you must needs demand its Patronage for that in order to your good in the Instruction and establishment of you in the order of the Gospel and Ordinances of Jesus Christ it hath been preached once and again and is now Printed you cannot be insensible how you baptized Members of the Catholick Church were dispersed as Sheep without any Shepherd nay by the Congregational Anabaptistical principles and practises and in order to their Schismatical Church-gathering design you were by Rude Rust Foolish Wise and Baptism-blaspheming Simpson paganized and proclaimed Dogs aliens and strangers to the Common-wealth of Israel when the zealous importunity of some among you meeting in me with a real pity of your Pagan posture did engage me to take of you as a Church of Jesus Christ the care and charge I was constrained to lay again the Foundations these wicked men had razed and to inform you in the first rudiments of Religion and first ordinances of worship that you might understand the dignity and duty of your Baptism in which I finde such dulness in common capacity that the things you heard you must hear again and indeed Read before many will receive them I being come among you and by Gods blessing on my Ministry having reduced you into some order convinced some persons of their Rebaptized vanity and Parents of the sinfull neglect of their Infants interest in the Covenant have met with violent opposition and malitious interruptions in the work of God constraining me to preach unto you the Gospel of Truth through much contentation wherein yet through grace I have waxed bold You are manifest Witnesses that the Anabaptists will Baptize with fire and fury such as they cannot Baptize with water in the way of their folly By what clamours have they clouded my name representing me uncivil whilst for fear of the Law they durst not render me prophane how they have by false surmizes prejudiced present powers by false accusations palpable perjury extrajudicial Process partial and prejudiced Judges of their own picking and implacable fury darkned my credit weakned my Ministery disturbed my peace and endeavoured 〈◊〉 stop my mouth you and all the Churches of God cannot but know The guilt and odium whereof you have taken from your selves by your seasonable Attestation to my Innocencie and serious protest against their groundless cruelty wherein I bless God I can rejoyce It is the cause that makes the Martyr and what is the cause of all that calamity they have to me created Let the fretting of their spirits when your Pulpit sounded the Sacrament of Bastism is to be administred your Reverend attendance on that Ordinance is desired their railing speeches on all occasions uttered against Infant Baptism their invective Letters to me written which I keep as Monuments of their folly and malice their often strugling to set up Oats Knowls Lamb Simpson to blaspheme Gods Ordinances and at last violent and unjust intrusion of John Simpson into the Baptismal Season of the Sabbath to the excluding of that Ordinance and vilifying the same in the sight of the People and that not only in its subjects but in it self openly teaching baptism is no ground of Communion with the Church visible witness to all the world if I suffer as an evil doer Whose Ox or Ass have I taken what Law have I violated whom did I injure in word or deed How often have I sought for competent impartial Judges that might convict me and proposed ways of Accommodation admitted them when sought by my enemies whose Return hath been we will have no peace no agreement no arbitration nay my enemies being Judges the ground of their quarrel and enmity is my endeavours to return you into order and their cry is He will not let Simpson preach So that because I will not suffer that woman Jezabel to teach and seduce the Lords people I must be loaded with calumny and followed with vexation Well be it so I will bless God for supporting and wait on him for saving mercy and pray that you may be more confident in the truths confirmed by my Sufferings wherein you also have bo●n your share I cannot but observe how Heretical Malice hath trampled on your dignities and gravities by Military insolency and vulgar rudeness yet hath God hitherto given you hearts to adhere to me and the truths by me witnessed Whilst you have owned my Ministry under so great a Fight of affliction I cannot but hope you will do it still and be more confirmed in the vertue and value of your received Baptism both which are here plainly and practically propounded to your view Many eminent men have most fully debated the Controversie and defended your Infants Right to Baptism but of their Labours I observe the vulgar make little use for Practical conviction of sin I find to be the best confutation of error and have therefore attempted it in the ensuing Treatise for its stile and method suited to vulgar capacity receive it as a token of my true affection to your Souls and Gods holy Ordinances read it as the direction of your duty learn by it to prize Baptism as the high Priviledge of you and yours and in doing and suffering shew forth the vertue and value of the Covenant of God on your flesh living as Baptized into the name of Father Son and Holy Ghost to which end you may be assured as of the endeavours so the earnest prayers of Your greatly reproached and persecuted but yet really innocent and resolvedly zealous Pastor Zach. Crofton To the READER Courteous Reader THou canst not be such a stranger in our Israel as to be ignorant of my sufferings by the intrusion of John Simpson into my Pulpit and amongst my People I doubt not but thou mayest well with many other enquire the reason of my resistance the which is written in such legible Characters that just men and zealous Christians cannot but Run and Read them I have in a small Book called Right Re-entered given the world some account as to my own personal Reasons wherein had I been silent can any that know John Simpson a man subject to such windings and turnings that he cannot to his own

out of your common discourse an ordinary terme relating to Baptisme viz such a one is Christned if I did not hope you well understand it Baptisme may Christianum dicere declare and pronounce a man a Christian but it doth not Christianum facere make a Christian if your Children be not made Christ●ans by the extent of the Covenant to believers and their seed bring them not to me to be Baptized most cursedly prophane was the cruelty of the Spanish Papists in America who with whips and scourges drave the unchristanized untaught Indians to the Fonts to be Baptized for that Baptisme belongs to none but Christs disciples and Covenant People Baptisme belongs to all Christs Disciples and Gods Covenant People so that none of them may without sin nay sacriledg be barred from Baptisme and these are resolved into two ranks and known by two names in the Church viz Infidells converted to the faith and the Infants of one or both Christian Parents These two are the orders into which Gods faederates have been Ranked ever since Gods Covenant was established and his Church was estated in Abraham Isaac and Jacob and their seed as to the first of them they are on all hands consented to as fit and proper Subjects onely our over-pious age hath started the quaery How and when they must be judged converted to the faith which I must needs resolve to be by a profession of saving faith not the saving Profession of faith and possession of sincere Grace which the Congregating Anabaptists call for sincere grace and saving Profession must be the soules care and ground of joy but cannot be the signe that shall guide the Church in giving the Sacrament of Baptisme assoon as they professed to believe Philip Preaching the things of God and the name of Jesus Christ they were Baptized both men and women Act. 8.12 Philip required no more of the Eunuch in v. 37. and when I hear Peter declared Simon the Sorcerer to be after his Baptisme in the Gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity as v. 23. I perceive they in whose company he was Baptized yielded no more and when I remember Annànias and Saphira Demas and other Baptized Persons proved hypocrites and reprobates I cannot believe they possessed sincere Grace or made a saving Profession though they professed saving Faith I cannot yet turn Arminian and believe true Grace may be finally and totally lost and a man may be a child of God to day and a child of the Devill to morrow I have not faith enough to believe that when God made me a Minister he made me a God and endowed me with the property of to searching the heart nor have I wit enough to conceive that God making me a Steward of his Misteries prescribes to my as my guide the qualification of subjects which lies beyond my knowledg I believe the grosse enormities of many baptized Saints as they call themselves hath convinced them that true Grace is not within their sight but they may and have baptized hypocrites why then do they call for that qualification God hath not directed and they can not discern God hath made the tongue the trumpet of the heart and I can better hope men will not play the hypocrite and make that utter an uncertain sound then I can know the sincerity of their Grace Though Infidels converted to the Faith be generally resolved within the Covenant yet since the dayes of Balthazar Pacimontanus who pretending to have derived his fancy from Luther constrained Luther to write against him in the year of our Lord 1527. The Right of Infants to the Covenant of God and consequently their capacity for Baptisme hath been called in question and of late yeares hath met with most high and violent though irrational and unscripturall opposition wherein I cannot but admire at the erroneous industry of the Antipaedobaptists to curtail Gods Covenant cut off their seed from the priviledges of Grace and cast away their own reasons blinding their eyes against plaine demonstrations of Scripture and the Antient enjoyments of the Church wherein we must see better warrant before we strike hands with them and be of their uncharitable beliefe for if I know any thing of the method of Gods Covenant or in the least how to Reason from Scriptures It is as cleare as the Sun that the Infants of believing Parents Gods Covenant People whilst Infants and as their naturall seed are Gods faederates and within his Covenant and so fit Subjects of Baptisme In politicall and all civill transactions of men we find all the world over that Covenants made from or to parents do usually include children as their children so that by that very relation without any new formall contract they claime Priviledges and stand bound to duty and when I consider Gods way of dealing to be according to mans capacity and humane method I have no ground on which to imagine that he hath inverted the order and cut off Relation in the conveighing of the priviledges of Grace and constituting a peculiar People to himselfe for Gods speciall dispensations do ordinarily run in the same Channell though not with the same Latitude that his Generall Providences do and then when God after the manner of men assumes to himselfe a Kingdom without doubt he confers Honours on and looks for Loyalty from his subjects and their seed or off-spring who as their seed are born heires of such Honour and duty Further in all the transactions of God with man ever since he had a being the Covenant hath extended to his seed as his seed without any personall qualification all that know any thing of Gods dealing with Adam know the Covenant of works was made to him for himselfe and his seed as they were his naturall seed he received priviledges for himselfe and them and so he lost them and by one mans disobedience we were all made sinners if this were Gods method in the Covenant of works we must have good reasons to make us believe it is altered in the extent and Administration of the Covenant of Grace but not to stand on Generall equity and demonstrations the Scripture doth by plain and clear instances in both Old and New Testament evidence the children of men under the Covenant of Grace to be also in Covenant as they are their naturall issue There is nothing plainer in Scripture then that when the Covenant of Grace was established in Abraham Isaac and Jacob it was extended to their naturall seed their children as their children even in infancy and before they attained to any Personall qualifications were in Covenant and the children of God This is expressed in the very form of the Covenant Gen. 17.7 I will be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee This is evidenced by Circumcision the Seale of the Covenant set in their flesh on this very ground and that at eight dayes old whilst infants unable to any personall acts of Abrahams faith and it must needs be