Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	lord_n	remember_v	youth_n	2,235	5	9.3916	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80854	The vertue and value of baptism: in which the dignity and duty of [baptism], the due right of infants to [baptism], and their right above that of grown persons by [baptism], the degrading and destructive principles and practices of [baptism] are / catechetically propounded, plainly preached, and now published as an antidote to the baptism-despising dictates of John Simpson. By Zachariah Crofton ... ; Imprimatur, Edm. Calamy.	Crofton, Zachary, 1625 or 6-1672.	1658 (1658)	Wing C7003B; ESTC R174314	79,234	315

kingdome all my dayes thou hast done me good yet wretched I have sinned against such a God ungratefull I have been ready to forsake thee my God and my fathers God and have dealt falsly in thy Covenant It might be just with thee to deal with me as I have dealt with thee when I despised the oath in breaking the Covenant but in thy mercy Lord I pray thee Remember thy Covenant thou madest to me in the dayes of my youth and establish it for an everlasting Covenant that I may know the Lord that I may remember and be ashamed and never open my mouth any more because of my shame when thou art pacified towards me for all that I have done against the God of my father and the God of my youth Now will I live in loyalty to so good a God if thou wilt give me to be sanctified by the blood of sprinkling and my old man to be crucified by Baptisme which by thy Grace shall be the awe of my soul and answer of my heart unto every temptation to sin against thee This benefit cannot be effected by adult Baptisme which affords no such matter of meditation apprehending the dispensations of God to be only personal and therefore to be personally improved The fifth Benefit of Infant-Baptisme is that it enforceth faith towards God Baptisme as a seal of the promise pledge of love and sanctifying Ordinance of God is a ground of faith pleadable in prayer by all its subjects but receiveth not a little force from the season of its application in infancie whilest it self witnesseth the Covenant it seals the season of its use witnesseth the extent of the Covenant to beleevers and their seed and creates a ground on which to claim protection as well by early seizure as covenant proprietie not to note how all the Graces of God in order to salvation and good things of this life even all things pertaining to life and godliness are assured to the soul by Baptisme as the seal of the Covenant The Parent can with faith thus plead from the season Lord my childe is thine in Covenant to thee begotten to thee dedicated by thy seal on his flesh Oh! wilt thou own him Remember him take care of him establish thy Covenant with him let all the graces of thy promise be performed to him let not Satan seduce him from thy service to which he is so soon sealed How much doe I owe to thee that makest Grace to run through Natures channel my loins Lord let him in time know and have faith to claim his interest keep him from the property of prophane Esau that he despise not his birth-right in thy Covenant which thou hast sealed to him in the sight of thy people by his baptisme And as the Parent so the person baptized acting faith in the Ordinance doth thus enforce it from his Infant season of enjoyment of it God is a gracious God in calling my parents he had respect unto my good before I had a being he graciously established w th them a Covenant which he extended to their seed I no sooner sprang from the womb but he owned me as his own and called me by his name and set the seal of his Covenant in my flesh as studious to forestall the choice of my corrupt will which would never have chosen him he challenged me and caused me to be dedicated to his service as sensible of Satans malice he made an early seizure of me and set his mark upon me and before there was in me the least of act or qualification he sanctified me to himself by the washing of water What ever doubts may deter me I will now draw nigh unto him and depend upon him for he that was so soon gracious in extending and sealing to me the Covenant will faithfully perform it My condemnation will be most just if I having such grounds of faith should be cut off by reason of unbelief now I will walk before and wait upon him for he will not now forsake me or suffer Satan to repossess me and take me out of his house and family The sixth Benefit of Infant-Baptisme is That it engageth more to duty than adult Baptisme Herein it is of use to the Parent and baptized child How much of argument doth Infant-Baptisme press upon the Parent to the due instruction and education of his baptized child Not to speak any thing of the benefit of catechising it self the Parent hath reason to refl●ct the Baptisme of his child in its infant estate to convince him That if God hath been so gracious to extend a Covenant of Salvation to his seed he must have so much grace as to make them know Gods goodness and understand the extent of the Covenant If God hath caused their loins to convey grace as well as sinne their care must be that the grace of God be not received in vain The childs ignorance of interest in conceded honours and priviledges is the baseness of education and blot of natural affection If by their Parental power they have dedicated them to Father Son and holy Ghost it is their part to make them know to what they are devoted And as it bindes the Parents to the duty of education so the child to carefull observation Early adoption is the greatest argument of filial observation that can be the child taken off the Stall is more bound to the will of Parents than the man at years adopted to inherit the one is the object of more pitie subject of more care cost and charge but of lesse service and obedience therefore bound more to duty than the other Infant-Baptism giveth cause to sing with Israel He is our God and our fathers God we will exalt him Exod. 15.2 and with David I am thy servant the son of thy handmaid I will offer sacrifice and call upon thy name Psal 116.16.17 We must not think as heirs of dignity to wear Gods livery in our cradles but must know it makes us also heirs of duty to yeeld loyalty to him all our dayes Parental dedication to God layeth on us the duty of observation Shall Parents proclaim dayes of purim to be observed in all generations and posterity dare to pretermit them Whether we consider Gods pitie or our Parents power sparkling in our Infant-Baptism both impose on us duty the nature of our Baptism the effect of both binds us to fight at Gods command under Christ his Banner against every iniquity and vice to the discharge of every duty of Religion but neither faith nor obedience can be so enforced by the Baptisme of grown persons which deny relations natural to be of any use in things of Salvation and doth greatly darken the method and order of the Covenant of Grace and Salvation The seventh and last Benefit of Infant-Baptisme is That it encourageth under death and that either the Child or Parents We read in primitive times of Infant Martyrs certainly they were thereunto prepared by a knowledge of

THE VERTUE AND VALUE OF BAPTISM In which the Dignity and Duty of Baptism The due Right of Infants to Baptism And their right above that of grown persons by Baptism The degrading and destructive Principles and Practices of Baptism ARE Catechetically propounded plainly Preached and now Published as an Antidote to the Baptism-Despising-Dictates of John Simpson By Zachariah Crofton Minister at Botolph Aldgate London Imprimatur Edm. Calamy London Printed by D.M. for J. Nuthal living next door to the Dolphin in the Minories 1658. To the Right Worshipful Richard Garforde AND Robert Burdet Esquires And the rest of his Beloved Parishioners late Assertors of his innocency and Protestors against his groundless and furious Persecutions Right Worshipful and wel-beloved TO you of all men this Treatise oweth its Dedication and from you must needs demand its Patronage for that in order to your good in the Instruction and establishment of you in the order of the Gospel and Ordinances of Jesus Christ it hath been preached once and again and is now Printed you cannot be insensible how you baptized Members of the Catholick Church were dispersed as Sheep without any Shepherd nay by the Congregational Anabaptistical principles and practises and in order to their Schismatical Church-gathering design you were by Rude Rust Foolish Wise and Baptism-blaspheming Simpson paganized and proclaimed Dogs aliens and strangers to the Common-wealth of Israel when the zealous importunity of some among you meeting in me with a real pity of your Pagan posture did engage me to take of you as a Church of Jesus Christ the care and charge I was constrained to lay again the Foundations these wicked men had razed and to inform you in the first rudiments of Religion and first ordinances of worship that you might understand the dignity and duty of your Baptism in which I finde such dulness in common capacity that the things you heard you must hear again and indeed Read before many will receive them I being come among you and by Gods blessing on my Ministry having reduced you into some order convinced some persons of their Rebaptized vanity and Parents of the sinfull neglect of their Infants interest in the Covenant have met with violent opposition and malitious interruptions in the work of God constraining me to preach unto you the Gospel of Truth through much contentation wherein yet through grace I have waxed bold You are manifest Witnesses that the Anabaptists will Baptize with fire and fury such as they cannot Baptize with water in the way of their folly By what clamours have they clouded my name representing me uncivil whilst for fear of the Law they durst not render me prophane how they have by false surmizes prejudiced present powers by false accusations palpable perjury extrajudicial Process partial and prejudiced Judges of their own picking and implacable fury darkned my credit weakned my Ministery disturbed my peace and endeavoured 〈◊〉 stop my mouth you and all the Churches of God cannot but know The guilt and odium whereof you have taken from your selves by your seasonable Attestation to my Innocencie and serious protest against their groundless cruelty wherein I bless God I can rejoyce It is the cause that makes the Martyr and what is the cause of all that calamity they have to me created Let the fretting of their spirits when your Pulpit sounded the Sacrament of Bastism is to be administred your Reverend attendance on that Ordinance is desired their railing speeches on all occasions uttered against Infant Baptism their invective Letters to me written which I keep as Monuments of their folly and malice their often strugling to set up Oats Knowls Lamb Simpson to blaspheme Gods Ordinances and at last violent and unjust intrusion of John Simpson into the Baptismal Season of the Sabbath to the excluding of that Ordinance and vilifying the same in the sight of the People and that not only in its subjects but in it self openly teaching baptism is no ground of Communion with the Church visible witness to all the world if I suffer as an evil doer Whose Ox or Ass have I taken what Law have I violated whom did I injure in word or deed How often have I sought for competent impartial Judges that might convict me and proposed ways of Accommodation admitted them when sought by my enemies whose Return hath been we will have no peace no agreement no arbitration nay my enemies being Judges the ground of their quarrel and enmity is my endeavours to return you into order and their cry is He will not let Simpson preach So that because I will not suffer that woman Jezabel to teach and seduce the Lords people I must be loaded with calumny and followed with vexation Well be it so I will bless God for supporting and wait on him for saving mercy and pray that you may be more confident in the truths confirmed by my Sufferings wherein you also have bo●n your share I cannot but observe how Heretical Malice hath trampled on your dignities and gravities by Military insolency and vulgar rudeness yet hath God hitherto given you hearts to adhere to me and the truths by me witnessed Whilst you have owned my Ministry under so great a Fight of affliction I cannot but hope you will do it still and be more confirmed in the vertue and value of your received Baptism both which are here plainly and practically propounded to your view Many eminent men have most fully debated the Controversie and defended your Infants Right to Baptism but of their Labours I observe the vulgar make little use for Practical conviction of sin I find to be the best confutation of error and have therefore attempted it in the ensuing Treatise for its stile and method suited to vulgar capacity receive it as a token of my true affection to your Souls and Gods holy Ordinances read it as the direction of your duty learn by it to prize Baptism as the high Priviledge of you and yours and in doing and suffering shew forth the vertue and value of the Covenant of God on your flesh living as Baptized into the name of Father Son and Holy Ghost to which end you may be assured as of the endeavours so the earnest prayers of Your greatly reproached and persecuted but yet really innocent and resolvedly zealous Pastor Zach. Crofton To the READER Courteous Reader THou canst not be such a stranger in our Israel as to be ignorant of my sufferings by the intrusion of John Simpson into my Pulpit and amongst my People I doubt not but thou mayest well with many other enquire the reason of my resistance the which is written in such legible Characters that just men and zealous Christians cannot but Run and Read them I have in a small Book called Right Re-entered given the world some account as to my own personal Reasons wherein had I been silent can any that know John Simpson a man subject to such windings and turnings that he cannot to his own

claim God when deserting them Is that an engagement to divine faithfulnesse and may not thy Faith make it thy encouragement to appear before him did God complement when he annexed Baptism to the Covenant and called it The Seal of the righteousnesse of Faith or dost not thou rather cozen thy self of the comforts the Ordinance do really and according to divine designment exhibit It is indeed true Salvation is not conferred op re operato by the act done and meer application of the water yet it is thereby assured to the Soul that by acts of Faith shall duly argue its interest The Privy-Seal is the clearest token of affection to be puri●●ed but is the Broad-Seal of no authority or advantage to be retained and improved The outward Ordinance is not without inward Grace to be depended on as sufficient to Salvation but inward grace duly reflects the outward Ordinance as Gods great mercy and the ground of Faith and encouragement to it self The Moral swasion of any Ordinance is too short to sanctifie or solace any Spirit without supernatural Grace but supernatural Grace comes not into any soul to convince or comfort but by a moral improvement of every Ordinance by rational meditation of its nature use and end Many sit under Gods Ordinances and make most sad complaints they find no profit in them when the reason is in themselves they cry out God must do all work in them to will and to do at his own pleasure which is indeed true but they consider not Gods method of working grace or comfort in any souls he alwayes deals with men like themselves as they are r●asonable creatures and have a power of discourse and therefore his Ordinances are moral instruments by due discourses to enforce their end We have reason to check some under the Ordinances as the Disciples we●e checked from heaven for their posture in the Lord his ascension Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing this Jesus that is taken from you shall so come as you have seen him go into heaven Act. 1.11 As if the voice had said Considerations of his return better become you than silent observations of his present going So I say Why doe many enjoy Gods Ordinances and not goe home and consider them must we run so far from free will as to run out of our wits Let such men as make not their Baptism a moral engagement to and encouragement in their access to God know that they appear ignorant or sinfully insensible of its nature and expose it to great contempt Can any thing more easily cast a soul into contempt of an Ordinance than its unprofitableness and unusefullness The grand cause of all the blasphemie that our age doth belch out against Baptism is the little benefit men finde it brings them not by reason of any defect in the Ordinance but their own neglect to improve it as a ground of faith guard against sin and special qualification of access to God The fift sort that carrie contradictorily to this consecrating nature of Baptisme are such who declare not to theirs baptized the dignity and duty of their Baptisme Men doe with much zeal present their children to Baptism but never minde to acquaint them of their priviledge or instruct them in the nature of so holy an Ordinance they are carefull to bring them up to some Trade or Calling to acquaint them with all external rights and priviledges and the past ground of claim to all future injoyments in the world but education in the fear and nurture of the Lord is to them unusual and the affecting them with baptismal priviledges and Church Rites or the acquainting them with Covenant interest and ground of claim as to spiritual mercies and soul enjoyments is the last and least of their endeavors Well may we observe the men of this world are wiser in their generations than the children of the Kingdome Common prudence if Scipture were silent would direct a more serious instruction of our children in the nature of their Baptisme Shall they be begotten to the Lord and not be made to know whose children they are and how they came by that relation Shall they be incorporated into the body of the Church and not know the family and houshold to which they belong Shall holyness be stamped upon them and they not be made to know that they are out of the common lump and mass of mankind Shall the Covenant of God be in their fl●sh and they not know the Charter sealed and Conditions to be performed In a word Shall they be sanctified by the washing of water and not made sensible that they stand consecrated unto holy service and dedicated to the worship of an holy God Father Sonne and Holy Ghost and therefore ought not to stain themselves with guilt but carrie as an holy people peculiar to the Lord that must wait on him because they wear his livery and may worship in his presence with confidence because their bodies have been washed with pure water I did in the last branch of this Use blame them that disesteem and disregard their own Baptisme and that was but the effect of this sin Our progenitors neglected us and we neglect our posterity as to their instruction in the nature of divine Ordinances How shall they esteem that wherein they see no excellencie or improve that priviledge of whose nature they are ignorant How shall they claime the promises who neither understand what they are or on what ground to be claimed What conscience can they make of dutie who doe not know themselves under sacred obligation What confidence can they have in accesse to God who know not themselves consecrated If men have in them parental affection to their children and doe care for their future good we must needs conclude they sought no more in their B●ptisme than friends satisfaction and a Formal Religious complement and so not any special Soul saving priviledges thereby conferred for charity forbids us to thinke they would bring up their children in the ignorance and incapacity of claiming such high priviledges and rationally improving so holy engagements if themselves were affected with them or they had any sense of duty as to such Religious education which should indeed spur their natural affection to the discharge thereof Little doe men consider that the same God that gave babes the right to the initiating seales of the Covenant did provide catechising as the way to make them know their priviledge He to whom they are born hath provided milk for their nourishment no less than meat for stronger men and hath committed them as his lambs to the care of his Church and charged it as the duty of their Parents to educate them in the feare and nurture of the Lord So that such Parents who doe not seriously instruct their seed in the solemn Bond of their relation to God and his Church the suitable qualification by which they are fitted for divine communion the seal of