Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	put_v	spirit_n	stony_a	3,973	5	11.7036	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63006	Of the sacrament of baptism, in pursuance of an explication of the catechism of the Church of England. By Gabriel Towerson, D.D. and rector of Welwynne in Hartfordshire	Towerson, Gabriel, 1635?-1697.	1687 (1687)	Wing T1971A; ESTC R220158	148,921	408

Ubi supra was by what the Prophet Ezekiel * Ezek. 36.25 brings in God as speaking concerning the times of the Messiah Even that he would sprinkle clean Water upon them and they should be clean from all their filthiness and from their Idols For as it appears from what follows (a) Ezek. 26 27. even that God would give the persons there spoken of a new heart and a new Spirit take away their stony heart from them and put his own spirit within them that this whole passage was spoken more particularly with reference to the times of the Messiah Maimonides himself (b) Explic. Tract Sanh c. 10. apud Pocock Port. Mosis p. 160.1 so applying this and the like passages So we cannot therefore better interpret the sprinkling of clean Water upon them in order to it than of the Water of Baptism and which the Spirit of God expressing by the term of sprinkling of Water shews it to have foreseen a necessity of its being so administred oftentimes and his own allowance of it All which things whosoever shall consider will I doubt not see reason enough to think that necessity may justifie an Aspersion in Baptism and nothing more therefore left to enquire upon this Head than what may be look'd upon as such a necessity which will bring the question yet nearer to our selves Now as there can be no doubt of sickness being such and particularly such a sickness as fastens Men to their Beds So we shall therefore have nothing more to consider of than the case of Infants and to whom as Baptism is generally administred so it is also perform'd by an effusion or sprinkling With what necessity is the thing we are to enquire and so much the rather because the Greek Church useth immersion or dipping to this very day and the Muscovitish Church after its example For if the coldness of any Clime may be thought to make that Rite dangerous to such tender Bodies one would think they of the latter should find it to be such and therefore see a necessity of changing it For the clearing whereof we are to know that as they who use the Rite of immersion even in warmer Countries are so sensible of the tenderness of Infant Bodies that they make use of warm Water to baptize them So the Muscovites making use of it without any danger if yet they always do so will not make it cease to be such to Infants of other Countries There being as every one knows no small difference between the Bodies of Infants as well as those of Men and to some of whom therefore and in some Countries that may be exceeding dangerous which Infants of other Countries find no such inconvenience by And indeed as such an Immersion of Infants especially in these Northern parts cannot generally be thought to be without its hazard how warily and carefully soever managed As it may be yet more hazardous to weaker Infants and whom as it would not be thought fit to deny Baptism to so as little to do any thing to send them out of the World so I am apt to believe upon second thoughts for I have elsewhere (c) Expl. of the Creed in the Words And Buried spoken more harshly concerning it that that Rite came to be disused here after a sufficient proof of the inconveniencies thereof Because as Erasmus notes (d) Vid. Pamel in not ad Cypr. epist ad Magnum it was in use among us even in his time and the Liturgies that have been in force since not excepting the present one seem rather to perswade the use of it For our Fore-fathers being so strangely tenacious of that Rite and both they and their posterity not without a venerable opinion of it it cannot well be thought they should come at length so generally to disuse it but that they found by experience that it was not without its hazard and so more prudently omitted However it be our Church hath acquitted it self from all blame because manifestly licensing (e) See the Rubr. of Bap● before the Words I baptize thee c. the sprinkling of Infants with respect to the weakness of their State And I have the more carefully noted both that and the ground of our practice the better to defend our selves from a retort of the Romanists when we charge them with Sacrilege in the matter of the Eucharist for taking away the Cup from the Laity For why not as they sometime answer as well as change the Rite of Immersion in Baptism into that of sprinkling Especially when a great part of the Symbolicalness of that Sacrament lies in the manner of the application of its sign Which Answer of theirs were not in my opinion easie to be repel'd were it not that we have that necessity to justifie our practice which they cannot pretend for their own Having thus said enough concerning the applying of the outward sign of Baptism whether by an Immersion or Aspersion which was the first thing I had to consider Enquire we in the next place how often that application ought to be made that is to say whether as many times as there are persons in the God-head into which we baptize or once for all into the three The ground of which question is not only that distinct profession of the Trinity which Baptism was intended to declare but the appearance there is of the Churches using a threefold immersion from the beginning For not to mention any other proofs Tertullian who flourished within an hundred years after the last of the Apostles doth not only mention the threefold immersion as a thing in use in his time but as a thing which was derived to them from * Tert. de Coronâ c. 3. Ergo quaeramus an Traditio nisi scripta non debeat recipi Plane negabimus recipiendam si nulla exempla praejudicent aliarum observationum quas sim ullius scripturae instrumento solius traditionis titulo exinde consuetudinis Patrocinio vindicamus Denique ut à Baptismo ingrediar Aquam adituri ibidem sed aliquanto prius in Ecclesiâ sub Antistitis manu contestamur nos renunciare Diabolo pompae angelis ejus Dehine ter mergitamur amplius aliquid respondentes quàm Dominus in Evangelio determinavit Item adv Praxeam c. 26. Tradition and which considering the time wherein he liv'd cannot well fall short of an Apostolical one And thus much certainly ought to be allow'd to this and other testimonies that in or near the Apostolical Age the more fully to express that distinction of persons into the Faith of which Christ commanded to baptize Men were with the command or allowance of those who presided in the Church plunged into the Baptismal Water at the mention of each person's name But as that threefold immersion cannot be collected from the command of Christ because simply enjoyning to baptize into the Faith of the Trinity and which one immersion may declare as well as a threefold

some of the most eminent among them and which whosoever shall seriously consider will wonder how it should come to fall back to a naked and ineffectual sign For Justin Martyr (r) Apolog. 2. p. 93 94. speaking concerning those who had prepar'd themselves for Baptism affirms them to be brought by the brethren to a place where water is and there to be regenerated after that way of regeneration wherewith they themselves were Which what it was and of how great force he afterwards shews by affirming them thereupon to be wash'd in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost as that too conformably to what our Saviour spake concerning the necessity of men's being born again To what the Prophet Isaiah meant when he said Wash you make you clean put away wickednesses from your souls And in fine to procure their deliverance from that whether natural or habitual corruptions they were under the power of For these things shew plainly enough that as he spake of the Baptismal regeneration so he spake of it too as a thing which procur'd as well as figur'd the internal regeneration of them To the same purpose doth Tertullian discourse and particularly in his Tract de Baptismo Witness his calling it in the very beginning thereof that happy Sacrament of our water wherewith being wash'd from the faults of our present blindness we are freed into eternal life His affirming presently after that we the lesser fishes according to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or greater one Jesus Christ are born in the water neither can continue safe unless we abide in it That we ought not to wonder if the waters of Baptism give life when that Element was the first that brought forth any living creature That as the Spirit of God moved at the beginning upon the face of waters so the same spirit of God after the invocation of his name doth descend from Heaven upon those of Baptism and having sanctified them from himself gives them a power of sanctifying others For these and the like passages shew as plainly that that Authour look'd upon the outward sign of Baptism as contributing in its place to the production of our new birth or sanctification as well as to the representation of it But of all the Antient Fathers that have entreated of this affair or indeed of that Sacrament which we are now upon the consideration of there is no one who hath spoken more or more to the purpose than S. Cyprian or whose words therefore will be more fit to consider Only that I may not multiply testimonies without necessity I will content my self with one single one but which indeed for the fulness thereof will serve instead of many and be moreover as clear a testimony of our dying unto sin by Baptism as of our regeneration by it For when saith he (ſ) Epist ad Donat. I lay in darkness and under the obscurity of the Night When uncertain and doubtful I floated on the Sea of this tossing World ignorant of my own life and as great a stranger to truth I thought it exceeding difficult as the manners of Men then were that any one should be born again as the divine mercy had promis'd and that being animated to a new life by the laver of salutary water he should put off that which he was before and whilst the frame of his body continu'd the same become a new Man in his heart and mind For how said I is it possible that that should be suddenly put off which either being natural is now grown hard by the natural situation of the matter or contracted by a long custom hath been improv'd by old Age c. To these and the like purposes I often discours'd with my self For as I was at that time entangled with many errours of my former life which I did not then think it was possible for me to put off So I willingly gave obedience to those vices that stuck to me and through a despair of better things I favour'd my evils as though they had been my proper and domestick ones But after that through the assistance of this generating water the blemishes of my former life were wash'd off and my mind thus purged had a light from above poured into it After that the second birth had chang'd me into a new Man through the force of that spirit or breath which I suck'd in from above Then those things which were before doubtful became exceeding certain and manifest things which were before shut were then laid open and dark things made light Then that which before seemed difficult appear'd to help rather than hinder and that which sometime was thought impossible as possible to be done So that it was not difficult to discern that that was earthly which being carnally born did before live obnoxious to faults and that that began to be God's which the Holy Ghost now animated You your self verily know and will as readily acknowledge with me what was either taken from or bestow'd upon us by that death of crimes and life of vertues Which as it is an illustrious testimony of the force of Baptism in this particular and with what reason we have affirm'd it to be a means of procuring the former death and birth So I have the more willingly taken notice of it because it comes so near even in its expression to what our Catechism hath represented as the inward and spiritual Grace thereof There being no great difference between a death of crimes and life of vertues which is the expression of that Father and a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness which is the other's And I shall only add that as the Doctrine of the Church must therefore be thought to bear sufficient testimony to Baptism's being a means of our regeneration So its practice is in this particular answerable to its Doctrine and though in another way proclaims the same thing Witness what hath been elsewhere observ'd concerning its giving Milk and Hony (t) See Part 3. to the new Baptized person as to an Infant new-born its requiring him presently after Baptism to say (u) Expl. of the Lord's Prayer in the words Out Father Our Father c. as a testimony of his Son-ship by it And in fine its making use of the word regenerated to signifie Baptized As is evident for the Greek Writers from what was but now quoted out of Justin Martyr De vitâ B. Martini c. 1. Necdum tamen regeneratus in Christo agebat quendam bonis operibus Baptismatis candidatum and from Sulpitius Severus among the Latins Which things put together make it yet more clear that whatever it may be now accounted yet the Church of God ever look'd upon the Sacrament of Baptism as a mean of our internal regeneration And indeed as it is hard to believe that it ought to be otherwise esteem'd considering what hath been alledg'd either from Scripture or the declarations of the Church So it