Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	believe_v	reason_n	word_n	1,564	5	4.5860	3	false

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

far as Regeneration in a person is a reason or ground of baptizing him than you have to baptize the adult Considering farther that the words of our Saviour's Commission did run in general terms to disciple all Nations and baptize them how can you think that the Jews or the Apostles themselves could understand otherwise thereby than that the Children of the converted Gentiles and Jews too should with their Parents be received as Proselytes to the Christian Religion and as such baptized unless they had had caution to the contrary which if they had there would have been no place for controversie in this matter The reason of the unlikelihood of their understanding otherwise is taken from a usage among the Jews by which they did initiate Proselytes both Fathers and Children from among the Nations of the Gentiles by baptizing as well as circumcising them A thing which is acknowledged by the more learned among your selves and which you may find recited by several of our English Authors out of the writings of the ancient Jewish Doctors as by Dr. Hammond for one in his Annotations upon Mat. 3.1 John 3.5 See also Ainsworth on Gen. 17.12 The reception of the Proselytes into the Church in this way the Jews esteemed a new birth unto which our Saviour seems to refer in his discourse with Nicodemus when he said except a man be born again of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Jo. 3. And when Nicodemus grosly mis-understood our Saviour and demanded how can these things be our Saviour replied and said art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things As if he should have said is this any such strange thing which is so like what is familiarly practised among your selves This considered they by Christs commanding them to Disciple or Proselyte all Nations baptizing them could not well understand but that they were now to go abroad into all the World to Proselyte the Nations to Christianity and to enter them in the Christian Church by Baptism both Parents and Children like as now and then a family of them had been formerly Proselyted to the Jews Religion and received into their Church And accordingly the recorded instances in Scripture of persons baptized that had Housholds makes it probable in conjunction with other circumstances that when the Father or chief of a Family was converted to Christianity and baptized his Houshold was baptized also as it had been before practised in the reception of Proselytes Of all those in Scripture who by name or personal description are said to have been baptized there are but nine so far as I remember besides our Saviour to wit Simon Magus the Eunuch Saul called Paul Cornelius Lydia the Jayler Crispus Gaius and Stephanus The Eunuch had no Children and was baptized-upon the road Paul had none not being Married Whether Simon had or had any Houshold is not said And whether Gaius at that time had any Houshold when he was baptized is uncertain But the other five of the nine who had Housholds their Housholds came into the Church with them by Baptism as the Housholds of the Proselytes formerly had done If then we may make a Judgment of what was usually done by so many instances in Scripture as we have of what was done in this Case we shall not want reason to incline us to think that when the Apostles did baptize any that had Housholds that it was their usual practice to baptize all those also that were of their Housholds except such as rejected the counsel of God against themselves and were not baptized which little Children could not do It was not without its signification that of old the great promise of Grace to the World by the Messias was made to Families in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed as if Gods design signified thereby was to bring the Nations of the World into the Church by Families as the event shews he hath done for the most part both before and since the Gospel dispensation The Proselytes of the Gentiles of old as well as the Jews came in by Families and we see by the instances before-mentioned that the Christians came in by Families and were baptized by Families also And the Church hath been stockt by Families and the Christian Religion transmitted down from Age to Age from Parents to Children and from Masters to Servants It will seem the less strange to you that when the Father of the Family was converted to Christianity his Houshold was brought into the Church with him if you consider upon how small appearance of becoming Christians adult persons were baptized and received into the Church in the Apostles days and by them When we read in 1 Cor. 8.7.11 that such as unto that hour continued to eat of the Idol sacrifice with conscience of the Idol are yet called brethren though weak brethren indeed you may easily guess upon how little appearance of Christianity persons were received into the Church and so you may by the baptizing of Simon Magus and many others that soon proved great scandals in the Church by whom the way of truth was evil spoken of When in the same hour of the night in which St. Paul preached the Gospel to the Jayler and his Houshold they were all baptized they did not long stand Candidates for Church-membership nor could attain to much knowledge in the Christian Religion into which they were baptized No doubt but the door into the visible Church is far wider than the gate of the Church as invisible and of the Kingdom of Heaven I do not find that any were refused that were willing presently to be baptized how bad soever they had been before or proved to be after no not Simon Magus himself than whom there could hardly be a worse But then it must be remembred that Discipline was appointed for the cure of distempers in the Church and for the purging it of the notorious scandalous members These things I have the rather mentioned to render it the more probable that little Children were baptized where whole Housholds were baptized when there were any such in those Housholds For if adult and grown persons were baptized and received into the Church upon such easie terms as I have shewed they were if they were baptized when there was but any fair probability that they would own the Christian Religion for the future though but by so little appearance of such a thing as was visible in some of them when they were baptized Then it is not unlikely but that they might baptize some little Children also concerning whom circumstances considered there was every whit as great a probability that they would own profess and assert the Christian Religion for the future as there was that their Parents would in as much as Parents still use to educate their Children in the same Religion which they themselves profess Unto all which let me add this further That the Judaizing