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A41782 The loyal Baptist, or, An apology for the baptized believers ... occasioned by the great and long continued sufferings of the baptized believers in this nation / by Thomas Grantham ... Grantham, Thomas, 1634-1692. 1684 (1684) Wing G1540; ESTC R26748 84,492 109

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be restrain'd from Seditious Practices as well as others and we do by as good Right think it unlawful for us to be so restrained We hope our Legislators did not intend at all to exalt their Authority against the Lord whose Power is above all But yet when these Laws come to be executed upon good Men by the Industry of mercenary Fellows meerly for worshipping God then are they turned into Snares to the ruin of the Innocent and dishonour of that Power which gave them being And all this falls out for want of better provision in the said Laws to convict Men of Sedition than only because they were observ'd to preach or pray 4. Wherefore being fully satisfied that our Assemblies are true Church-Assemblies and that upon the strictest enquiry we are able to make into the due Nature and Order of such Assemblies we conceive our selves indispensibly bound by the Word of God the Examples of the first and best Churches and the Tie of Conscience as regulated by a sincere Love of Religion to hold fast the Profession of our Faith without wavering or changing by reason of the Change of Times or Man's Laws Being also rationally persuaded that the more publick and free Men are to serve the Lord the less danger of Sedition Wherefore with innocent Hearts and pure Hands as to any Design of Sedition in the strength of Christ we will keep his Way and let the Lord do with us as seemeth him good SECT V. Of the Baptized Believers Call to Christianity and to the Work of the Ministry WHen our Saviour commanded his Apostles to teach all Nations and to preach the Gospel to every Creature We do not doubt but their performance of this his gracious Will may truly be said to be the calling of the Gentiles or Nations And that Men enjoy a great Mercy for which they ought to be very thankful to be born in a Nation to whom the Gospel has been preached and received by their Progenitors And that it is also a great Blessing to be born under the Government of Christian Princes and we believe we ought to love and honour our Nation and the Rulers of it upon this very account as well as for the Obligation of Nature and Laws viz. because they assert the Interest of Christ Jesus in general as well as we Nor is it our Business to destroy the State of Christianity received in any Nation nor at all to despise the Ministry that conscientiously upholds it but only to labour that Christianity may be delivered from the Errors that have encumbred it by reason of the change of Governments and Interests or Corruptions of the Ages past And in this Consideration as we look upon our Nation to be a Christian Nation so we count our selves much more happy in being Members of a Nation that owns the true God Christ Jesus to be the Saviour of the World the Scriptures to be holy and true and that Faith and Holiness is the way to true Blessedness than to have been of any other Nation whatsoever But yet for all this there is a great Truth in the Words of Tertullian i. e. We are not born but made Christians And therefore we do not think that our meer Birth of Christian Parents does qualify us or give us an actual Right to Christ's Ordinances but to this end we believe and know that every Person ought to have the Gospel preached or some way made known to them and that a work of real Grace or the new Birth at least by a solemn Profession must precede our Baptismal Covenant to this the Scriptures give full consent John 1. 12 13. 2 Cor. 5. 17. Eph. 2. 10. 1 Pet. 1. 23. And thus we and ours so many of them as the Lord our God does call by the preaching of the Gospel are actually incorporate with the Church of Christ Militant and engaged thenceforth in the high and holy Calling and actual Profession of the Christian Religion 2. But now Whether we have any lawful Call to the work of the Ministry is the business to be a little considered partly for that some of our late Persecutors were pleased to suggest the contrary and partly to put our selves upon the strictest Trial even in this case where we are supposed to be the most deficient The Questions in this case to be resolved are 1. Whether a succession of Ordination from Man to Man down from some of the Apostles be absolutely necessary to a due Call to the Ministry or 2. Whether the same Means that is of Authority sufficient to make Men Christians be not also sufficient to make Ministers In answer to these Questions we shall do little more than offer what we have formerly written upon this Subject And tho the Papists are the Men who stand most stifly for Succession as necessary yet of late we find our Friends of the Church of England looking that way as if they would justify their Ordination in a successive Line from Man to Man through the Papacy which thing is disclaimed by Dr. Luther with the greatest vehemency in these words Whoso loveth Christ ought to endure any thing rather than to be ordained by the Papists because in their Ordinations all things are carried with such wicked preposterousness that if they were not mad and blind they would perceive how they mock God to his Face being stricken with an universal blindness they do not so much as know the Word of God specially the Bishops who ordain Let me be counted a Fool a Knave a Lyer if there be any one of them ordain'd by them who dare say that at such time as he received Orders he was commanded to dispense the Mysteries of Christ or to teach the Gospel but they ordain Sacrificers of the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass and to hear Confessions c. Thus far Luther And the Oath which they take at their Ordination as set down by Mr. Bullinger is very un-gospel-like the sum of it is in these Words That the Priest will be a true Subject to the Pope obey the Decrees of the Fathers and of the Church i. e. the Roman Church and that he will persecute Hereticks Beza censures all Ordination taken from the Papists Let us hear him speak What ordinary Vocation is that which you say the first Reformers had excepting some few of them is it not the Pall Shall we think then that the Popish Orders are valid in which there is not any preceding enquiry into manners No such Enquiry or Procedure as is inviolably to be made or observed by Divine Right in Elections and Ordinations Shall we think so highly of their Ordinations that as often as any false Bishops are converted to true Christianity immediately all the Filth Uncleanness and Impurity collated is washed away Nay but with what Face or Conscience will he be able to forsake Popery and not abjure his irregular Ordination or if he do abjure it how can he by virtue thereof claim Authority to