Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	church_n	member_n	visible_a	4,197	5	9.3868	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96113	A scribe, pharisee, hypocrite; and his letters answered, separates churched, dippers sprinkled: or, A vindication of the church and universities of England, in many orthodox tenets & righteous practices. Whereunto is added a narration of a publick dipping, June 26. 1656. In a pond of much Leighes parish in Essex, with a censure thereupon. By Jeffry Watts B.D. and Rectour of Much-Leighes.	Watts, Geoffrey, d. 1663.	1657 (1657)	Wing W1154; Thomason E921_1; Thomason E921_2; ESTC R207543	280,939	342

Baptism in a proportionable time if there be no intercoming excusable impediment like as the same were of Circumcision And now also before I set upon your next Consideration consider with your self whether your Doctrine of baptizing Believers onely and thereupon your not baptizing of Infants of Believers until they come to have actual Faith and to a confession of it doth not rather overthrow the state and nature of Christs visible Church under the Gospel I have largely proved before and that out of Texts you here cite to the contrary Romans 1.7 1 Cor. 1.2 c. That Christs visible Church under the Gospel consisteth and is made up of visible and outward members and professors some of which though unknown unto us are members also of the invisible Church under the Gospel and I have also clearly shewed you that Baptism is a means of entrance and admission into the visible Church whereby Infants who by vertue of Gods Covenant may also belong to the invisible Church as members are reckoned enrolled even made members of the visible Church N●w then whether of us do overthrow the State and Nature of Christs visible Church under the Gospel we who help to uphold and increase it by our ad nitting and initiating of our Infants to be visible members thereof through our baptising of them in their Infancy or you who by your not baptising of them for the space of 15. or 16. years and more and sometimes as much more do all that while with-hold visible members from the Church yea and do all that while leave them to a visible standing and being under the kingdom of darkness though invisibly it may be otherwise which is most opposite to the Church of Christ Let the next Reader judge for you are neither fit nor able to judge herein as who are already prejudiced prejudicated and prepossessed with a Spirit of delusion as to the Nature and State of Christs visible Church under the Gospel 3 You bid me Consider That Infants babtism it overthrows the end for which true babtism was appointed For the Chief one of Christs true babtism of beleevers was to distinguish the true Church from the World Col. 2.12 Compared with Verse 20 Gal. 3.26 and 27 Act. 2.41 But Infant baptism overthroweth this distinction because all are admitted in by it and no distinction made Sir I not think of it until just now or else I should have asked you a Quaere Why you alwayes write it Bahatism when as you are so great an enemy to Babe-baptism I shall be bold to answer it thus because you do so babble about baptism For is not this in present as there hath been much of it before profane and vain babling which the Apostle bids you shun to talk of The end for which baptism is appointed and then to call it a Chief one And then to instance in the distinguishing of the true Church from the world as a chief one which is the inferiour one and lastly to cite holy Scriptures which are too no such purpose is not this prophane and vain babling But I answer to the matter 1. It is an unsound and lame assertion or proposition to say that Infants baptism is to be rejected for ever as you conclude your Considerations with and therefore mean so in every one if it should overthrow one chief end for which true baptism was appointed when as in the mean it upholds five other ends as chief if not chiefer which I have reckoned up to you in my fift warrantable Reason for baptism to which I refer you 2. How will you prove Infants baptism to overthrow the end why true baptism was appointed because it overthroweth the chief one which was to distinguish the true Church from this but how if there be the ends as well as the end why true baptism was appointed how if amongst the ends there be chiefer ones than that chief one you mention how if Infants-baptism do not overthrow those five chiefer ones though supposed onely it should overthrow one chief one Here be now some Quaeres for you But now how prove you also The chief one end of true baptism to be to distinguish the true Church from the world you cite Col. 2 12. and 20. There is mention made of baptism and the world and a spiritual end and effect of baptism that therein the Colossians were buried in Christ and risen with him alluding to the ancient manner of baptising by immersion and emersion to signifie them both they were freed from the Rudiments and Ordinances of the World that is of the Legal oeconomy of the Jewes and what 's all this to the purpose of baptisms being a chief end to distinguish the true Church from the Heathen World which is also but an external end And though the Text speak of grown persons and Heathens converted yet it is true also of all elect and regenerate Infant of which there are many you cannot deny it that they are buried with Christ in baptism and risen with him c. So that you get nothing by this Text against Infants-baptism They rather gain by you hence for their baptism But ther 's nothing at all gained for the distinguishing the true Church from the World by baptism as the chief end thereof So that other Text Galathians 3.26 Is nothing to your purpose yea against your purpose for it speaks onely of the inward and spiritual effects of Baptism and of baptism into Christ that thereby the Galathians had put on Christ and were so incorporated as they were one in Christ so that there was neither Jew nor Gentile bond or free So far is this Text from shewing the distinction of the true Church from the World to be the chief end of baptism that it rather and onely shews the spiritual Union of true Christians with Christ to be one end and a chief one which also all Infants regenerate and baptised into Christ do attain unto as well as these grown Galathians and converted Heathens I professe I never read in all my life time Texts of Scripture more impertinently cited and I had once thought to have let your Citations of the word alone and onely have replyed to your words But that I honor the word and you do dishonor it by citing it for that which is not in it even as Christ said he honored the Father but the Jewes dishonored him by saying he came not from the Father Your last place though it comes some what neerer that the former as to an external addition of the 3000. Souls unto the Church by baptism yet it as far from mentioning any distinction of the true Church from the world and making it the chief end of baptism as the other before 3. Infant baptism doth not overthrow but support that end the distinguishing of the true Church from the World that is from the World out of the Church which is the Pagan and Heathenish World you must mean this or else

him as the Pharisees did upon our Saviour and have said thou bearest witness of thy self for thy self thy witness is not true they would have given a check or denyal to such a Custom accused it of Novelty or but of Yesterday and so have turned off easily that Argument which of all other lay most heavily upon them the Ancient Churches Custom and Practice in Baptizing Infants But they never did that as who could not deny this And so that other exception against Augustine as if he should utter and urge this in Heat and Passion against Pelagius his Adversary in point of Baptizing of Infants and speak more of the Custom and Practice of the Church than was true falleth of it self For they differed not in that point of Infant-Baptism no nor in the matter of the Custom of the Church herein For so Augustine affirmeth both in his first Book of the Merit and Remission of Sin The Peloagians themselves do grant that little Children are to be Baptized as who cannot come in or stand up against the Authority of the Vniversal Church delivered without doubt or Traditioned by our Lord and his Apostles And again in the eleventh Book against Caelestius and Pelagius He affirms and cites that Caelestius in a Book of his written at Rome acknowledged that Infants in a Book of his wirtten at of sin according to the Rule of the universul Church and according to the sense and meaning of the Gospel and Therefore Pelagius not daring to deny though otherwise impudent enough the General Practice of the Ancient Church in Baptizing Infants as who then and that way might have slipt his neck out of the Collaror Yoke Augustine held him to was feign to shist off that Fathers Argument as well as he could but very poorly and pittifully That the Church Baptized indeed Infants but not for the washing away of original fin which he denyed in Infants but for the better bringing them to the Kingdome of Heaven which Christ said was of such as theirs And truly this makes a great Addition to the Truth of this The Custom and Practice of the Universal Ancient Church in Baptizing lnsants that Pelagius so great a Schollar and Travellour who had seen the Customas and Practices the manners and fasthions of the Affricane and Asiatiqne yea and Europaean Churches being also himself a Brittish born should not as indeed he could not make any denyal or take any exception thereto as who by his own eyes and experience saw found it to be most true and uniform and so I may say our Baptism of Infants is a true Baptism and the Ancient Churches Practice hereof is a true Practice even our enemies themselves being Judges as Deut. 32.31 〈◊〉 why then was not Augustine himself Baptized in his In … y who was such as strong Advocate for the Baptism of Infants the Reason is plain and makes nothing against our Infant Baptism or the General Practice of the Church for neither his Father nor Mother were Christians or Believers when himself was born and they continued so untill a little before their death Augustine himself was not converted from his Manichean Haeresies and other vices untill the 31. year of his age who two years continuing a Catechumen and in the mean time writing somethings to give proof and testimony of the truth of his conversion or of his conversion to the Truth was Baptized himself and his Son Adeodate together like as Ahraham was circumcised with Ismeal his Son on the self-same day These things may be seen in His Confessions I shall need to adde no more for the shewing Infant-Baptism to have been the Custom and Practice of all the former Ancient Churches Augustines Testimony of the same is to me instead of all and as Goliahs Sword to David there is none like that Give it me 1 Sam 21.9 I have taken it and I give it thee not as a single Testimony of one Father for it but as a Quadruple witness of the Universal Church and its Custom and Practice for the point of Paedobaptism being four times expresly deliveced though by one and the same Father Saint Austin Yet I may for more perspicuity sake follow up this General Testimony by one Father unto its Particulars I mean the Covattestations of other particular Fathers in their several ages You have heard what Augustine hath said and written as for that Century For the year 390. 384. and those years wherein he lived Hierom In his Epistle ad Laetam having told her that the good and the evill of little once are imtured much to their Parents he addeth in the middle of that Epistle unless perhaps you think the Sons of Christians is they receive not Baptism They onely are guilty of sin and that the wickedness also thereof is not to be referred or to redound to the Parents who would not give it especially at or in such a time wherein they could not contradict who were to receive it In his Book against the Pelagians towards the end he is for Infant-Baptism and confirms it by allerdging the Authority of Cyprian and his Colleagues In the same third Book against Pelag it is thus Crito i.e. Pelagian saith grant me thus much at lest that they are without sin who cannot sin speaking of Infants To whom Atticus i.e. Hieronimus Answereth I will Grant it if they have been Baptized in Christ and again They are without any Sin through the Grace of God which they have received in Baptism Chrysostom Arch-Bishop of Constantinople For the year 382. in his Homil. to the Neophytes is for the Baptism of Children and in his 40. Homil upon Genes calls Baptism our Circumcision His being not Baptized untill he was 21. years of age doth not prejudice here as whose Father and Mother were not Christians at his birth and who himself was brought up under Libanius an enemy to and a scoffer at Religion but after he was instructed in the Divinity knowledge by Miletus a Bishop and Baptized of him In his Homil ad Neoph having spoken of the Honours and Benefits of Baptism he saith a little from the beginning For this cause we Baptize the little Infants that they may not be defiled with sin that to them may be added Sanctity Righteousness Adoption Inheritance Fraternity of Christ That they may be all his Members and the Habitation of the Spirit In his 40. Homil upon Genes having spoken of Circumcision appointed to the Children of the Jewes and the pain of the Incision he addeth but our Circumcision or the grace of our Baptism brings the medicine without without such dolour and Innumerable benefits with it It hath indeed no definite time set down for it as that hath but it is lawful to receive both in the first and in the middle and in the last age this not made with hands Circumcision in which there is susteined no great pain but the weight of sins are put off and Remission of them is