Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	day_n	find_v	time_n	10,442	5	3.7145	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25966	The ministration of publick baptism of infants to be used in the church, or, A disswasive from baptising children in private by Edm. Arwaker ...	Arwaker, Edmund.	1687 (1687)	Wing A3900; ESTC R23012	18,374	39

bringing their Children on Sundays or other publick days to be baptiz'd at Church when the Congregations were assembled defends the practice and calls it an honest and decent Circumstance of celebrating that Sacrament in things of which kind says he Quis negavit Ecclesiae extra Scripturam licere Now this Power being granted it will necessarily follow that what our Mother does so lawfully command we must readily and submissively obey for in refusing we sin as much against Heaven that has given this Commission to the Church as against its Delegate our grave and reverend Mother and however we may arrogate to our selves the specious title of her Sons are no longer worthy to be called so For by our refractory and stubborn carriage we destroy her Being as a Church whence we derived our own as Christians There is no Body can subsist without Oeconomy nor Oeconomy without Subordination For as there is variety of Offices to be performed so there are different Parts and Agents adapted to the several Imployments and Operations some for the Authoritative and others for the Executive Part. For as St. Paul says If the whole Body were an Eye where were then the hearing So 't is sure they should be the more afraid to alienate the property and sacrilegiously rob God of his interest to transfer it to another And when they meet with any that were witnesses of their Dedication they cannot without shame and confusion let them see how they have contradicted the good intentions of their Parents broke all the Promises of their Sureties and frustrated all the Prayers of the Congregation made in their behalf The Third instance is in the Prayer of Consecration where it is no small Argument to prevail for God's assent to the Petitions offer'd in behalf of the Child to be regenerated That he would regard the Supplications of his Congregation and comply therewith in sanctifying the Water to the Mystical washing away of Sin and in granting that the Child ready to be Baptiz'd therein may receive the fullness of his Grace and ever remain in the number of his Faithful and Elect Children Where we see the Church has a great Opinion of the prevalency of the Prayers of the Congregation esteeming its united force a kind of holy Violence that does as it were wrest Blessings from the Almighty as an ancient Author intimates the design of the Assembly to intend Telling us That the whole Sacred Assembly is gathered to assist at and celebrate the safety and deliverance of the Person Baptiz'd and to return thanks for it to the Divine Beneficence But still this Congregation whose Prayers are thought thus efficacious must be such an Assembly of which the Minister may safely and truly say Thy Congregation for there can be no validity in the Prayers of any but God's Congregation and that is none of his which is not Assembled in the place which the Church has appointed and by its Allowance and Authority Now private Houses were never allow'd of by the Church much less commanded to be the places of Publick Baptism and they who so illegally Assemble there are as much guilty of disorder in the Church as they who meet in prohibited numbers or places are of a Riot in the State The Fourth Instance is the receiving the Child when the Minister having first named and Baptiz'd him and still holding him in his Arms uses these words as it were of Matriculation We receive this Child into the Congregation of Christ's Flock c. Which reception does not only mean the whole body of the universal Church but as well that representative part thereof then present and consenting to it as Proxy for the whole And the Minister's Embracing the Child is for the same end as the Imposition of Hands in Baptism was of old which Durantus tells us signified the Reconciliation by which he that was without the Church a Child of Wrath according to our Catechism was in the Church received into the Church's favour and made a Child of Grace And besides all this our Church for farther prevention of the performance of this Publick Office in Private has in cases of necessity prepared and injoyn'd a Private Form of Baptism to be administred to those who by reason of Sickness cannot be brought abroad without peril of their lives Which we find by an antient Council to be an Indulgence only on supposition of invincible necessity and rather than such who cannot be safely brought to Church should die Unbaptiz'd they may have this Sacrament administred to them at home but this still with an injunction that if they out-live their Sickness as soon as they are fit to be carried abroad they should be brought to Church that those Prayers and Rites which were before omitted in the Office may be there publickly supplied which is a most convincing Argument of the Church's sense in this matter as well as of its determination and should be sufficient of it self to oblige every genuine and obedient Son to acquiesce therein But since by sad experience we find many refractory and undutiful the next and last thing will be to enquire into their Objections against this duty or Pleas for not performing it As for Objections against it there are truly none for to urge that St. John the Baptist and the Apostles Baptiz'd their Converts every where in Lakes and Ponds and Rivers in Houses Fields and Prisons does not at all make against the administration of Baptism now in Churches only For what they did then in the Infancy of the Church was suited to its circumstances and it was then impossible to have large Assemblies and much more Churches for that purpose till Christianity gain'd ground and obtain'd in the World and to argue that Baptism ought not to be administred in Churches because it was not so at first is as ridiculous and inconsequent as 't would be to say That we should not live in Houses now because 't is known the Israelites who were God's People dwelt at first in Tents For their not having Churches and Fonts for Baptism was not because they were unfit or unnecessary but because they could not have them as Beda says of the ancient Britains That in the beginning of Christianity there where their Churches could not be so soon erected the People were generally Baptiz'd in Rivers but we find that quickly discontinued and Fonts provided for that purpose To all which there needs only this be added That he who said every day was the Lord's and every hour and time fit and convenient for Baptism yet did not affirm the same hability of place for he could not so well say of Place as of Time If it is conducing to the Solemnity it is insignificant as to the Grace conferr'd for tho' it does not tend to the Esse yet it does to the Bene esse of the Sacrament For it has been generally allowed That God is more immediately present upon general