Selected quad for the lemma: nation_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nation_n	baptize_v	command_v	disciple_n	1,791	5	9.8839	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63888	Eniautos a course of sermons for all the Sundaies of the year : fitted to the great necessities, and for the supplying the wants of preaching in many parts of this nation : together with a discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacredness and separation of the office ministeriall / by Jer. Taylor ...	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1653 (1653)	Wing T329; ESTC R1252	784,674	804

same persons be a sacred ministery a Sacrament and a mysterious rite whose very Sacramentall and separate nature requires the solemnity of a distinct order of persons for its ministration yet if the Laity may be admitted to the dispensation of so sacred and solemn rites there is nothing in the calling of the Clergy that can distinguish them from the rest of Gods people but they shall be holy enough to dispense holy offices without the charges of paying honour and maintenance to others to doe what they can doe themselves In opposition to which I first consider that the ordinary minister of baptisme is a person consecrated the Apostles and their successors in the office Apostolicall and all those that partake of that power and it needs no other proof but the plain production of the Commission they who are teachers by ordinary power and authority they also had command to baptize all nations and baptisme being the solemn rite of initiating disciples and making the first publick profession of the institution it is in reason and analogy of the mystery to be ministred by those who were appointed to collect the Church and make Disciples It is as plain and decretory a Commission as any other mysteriousnesse of Christianity and hath been accepted so for ever as the doctrine of Christianity as may appear in Ignatius Tertullian S. Gelasius S. Epiphanius and S. Hierom who affirme in variety of senses that Bishops Priests and Deacons onely are to baptize some by ordinary right some by deputation of which I shall afterwards give account But all the Jius ordinarium they intend to fixe upon the Clergy according to divine institution and commandement So that in case lay-persons might baptize 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon urgent necessity yet this cannot upon just pretence invade the ordinary ministery because God hath dispensed the affairs of his Church so that cases of necessity doe not often occurre to the prejudice and dissolution of publick order and ministeries and if permissions being made to supply necessities be brought further then the case of exception gives leave the permission is turned into a crime and does greater violence to the rule by how much it was fortified by that very exception as to other cases not excepted And although in case of extreme necessity every man may preach the Gospell as to dying Heathens or unbeleeving persons yet if they do this without such or the like necessity what at first was charity in the other case is schisme and pride the two greatest enemies to charity in the world But now for the thing it self whether indeed any case of necessity can transmit to lay persons a right of baptizing it must be distinctly considered Some say it does For Ananias baptized Paul who yet as it is said was not in holy orders and that the 3000 Converts at the first Sermon of S. Peter were all baptized by the Apostles is not easily credible it being too numerous a body for so few persons to baptize and when Peter had preached to Cornelius and his family he caused the brethren that came along with him to baptize them and whether hands had been imposed on them or no is not certain And in pursuance of the instance of Ananias and the other probabilities the Doctors of the Church have declared their opinions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In cases of necessity a lay person may baptize So Tertullian in his book of baptisme Alioqui Laicis jus est baptizandi Quod enim ex aequo accipitur ex aequo dari potest The reason is also urged by S. Hierome to the same purpose onely requiring that the baptizer be a Christian supposing whatsoever they have received they may also give but because the reason concludes not because as themselves beleeve a Presbyter cannot collate his Presbyterate it must therefore rest onely upon their bare authority if it shall be thought strong enough to bear the weight of the contrary reasons And the Fathers in the councell of Eliberis determined Peregrè navigantes aut si ecclesia in proximo non fuerit posse fidelem qui lavacrum suum integrum habet nec sit bigamus baptizare in necessitate infirmitatis positum Catechumenum it a ut si supervixerit ad Episcopum eum producat ut per manus impositionem proficere possit The Synod held at Alexandria under Alexander their Bishop approved the baptisme of the children by Athanasius being but a boy and the Nicene Fathers ratifying the baptisme made by hereticks amongst whom they could not but know in some cases there was no true Priesthood or legitimate ordination must by necessary consequence suppose baptisme to be dispensed effectually by lay-persons And S. Hierome is plain Baptizare si necessitas cogat scimus etiam licere Laicis the same almost with the Canon of the fourth Councell of Carthage Mulier baptizare non praesumat nisi necessitate cogente though by the way these words of cogente necessitate are not in the Canon but thrust in by Gratian and Peter Lombard And of the same opinion is S. Ambrose or he who under his name wrote the Commentaries upon the fourth to the Ephesians P. Gelasius S. Augustine and Isidor generally all the Scholars after their Master But against this doctrine were all the African Bishops for about 150 years who therefore rebaptized persons returning from hereticall conventicles Because those hereticall Bishops being deposed and reduced into Lay communion could not therefore collate baptisme for their want of holy Orders as appears in S. Basils canonicall Epistle to Amphilochius where he relates their reason and refutes it not And however Firmilian and S. Cyprian might be deceived in the thinking heretickes quite lost their orders yet in this they were untouched that although their supposition was questionable yet their superstructure was medled with viz. that if they had been Lay persons their baptizations were null and invalid I confesse the opinion hath been very generally taken up in these last ages of the Church almost with a Nemine contradicente the first ages had more variety of opinion and I think it may yet be considered anew upon the old stock For since absolutely all the Church affixes the ordinary ministery of baptism to the Clergy if others doe baptize doe they sin or doe they not sin That it is no sinne is expresly affirmed in the 16 Canon of Nicephorus of C. P. If the own Father baptizes the child or any other Christian man it is no sinne S. Augustine is almost of another minde si Laicus necessitate compulsus baptismum dederit nescio an pie quisquam dixerit Baptismum esse repetendum Nullâ enim cogente necessitate si fiat alieni muner is usurpatio est si autem necessitas urgeat aut nullum aut veniale delictum est And of this minde are all they who by

would presse further then is intended for Ananias tells him he was sent to him that he might lay his hands on him that he might receive the holy Ghost and to doe that was more then Philip could doe though he was a Deacon and in as great a necessity as this was And yet besides all this this was not a case of necessity unlesse there was never a Presbyter or Deacon in all Damascus or that God durst not trust any of them with Paul but onely Ananias or that Paul could not stay longer without baptisme as many thousand converts did in descending ages And for the other conjecture it is not considerable at all for the Apostles might take three or four days time to baptize the 3000 there was no hurt done if they had stayed a week the text insinuates nothing to the contrary The same day about 3000 were added to the Church then they were added to the Church that is by virtue and efficacy of that Sermon who it may be considered some while of S. Peters discourse and gave up their names upon mature deliberation and positive conviction But it is not said they were baptized the same day and yet it was not impossible for the twelve Apostles to doe it in one day if they had thought it reasonable For my own particular I wish we would make no more necessities then God made but that we leave the administration of the Sacraments to the manner of the first institution and the Clericall offices be kept with their cancells that no Lay hand may pretend a reason to usurpe the sacred ministery and since there can be no necessity for unbaptized persons of years of discretion because their desire may supply them it were well also if our charity would finde some other way also to understand Gods mercy towards infants for certainly he is most mercifull and full of pity to them also and if there be no neglect of any of his own appointed ministeries so as he hath appointed them me thinks it were but reasonable to trust his goodnesse with the infants in other cases for it cannot but be a jealousie and a suspicion of God a not daring to trust him and an unreasonable proceeding beside that we will rather venture to dispense with divine institution then thinke that God will or that we shall pretend more care of children then God hath when we will breake an institution and the rule of an ordinary ministery of Gods appointing rather then cast them upon God as if God loved this ceremony better then he loved the child for so it must be if the childe perishes for want of it and yet still me thinkes according to such doctrine there was little or no care taken for infants for when God had appointed a ministery and fixed it with certain rules and a proper deputation in reason knowing in all things else how mercifull God is and full of goodnesse we should have expected that God should have given expresse leave to have gone besides the first circumstances of the Sacrament if he had intended we might or should and that he should have told us so too rather then by leaving them fast tyed without any expresse cases of exception or markes of difference permit men to dispute and stand unresolved between a case of Duty and a point of Charity for although God will have mercy rather then sacrifice yet when both are commanded God takes order they shall never crosse each other and sacrifice is to be preferred before mercy when the sacrifice is in the commandement and the mercy is not as it is in the present question And if it were otherwise in this case yet because God loves mercy so well why should we not thinke that God himself will shew this mercy to this Infant when he hath not expressed his pleasure that we should doe it we cannot be more mercifull then he is The Church of England hath determined nothing in this particular that I know of onely when in the first Liturgy of King Edward the sixt a rubrick was inserted permitting midwives to baptize in cases of extreme danger it was left out in the second Liturgies which is at least an argument she intended to leave the question undetermined if at least that omission of the clause was also not a rejection of the Article Onely this Epiphanius objects it against the Marcionites and Tertullian against the Gnosticks that they did permit women to baptize I cannot say but they made it an ordinary imployment and a thing besides the case of necessity I know not whether they did or no. But if they be permitted it is considerable whither the example may drive Petulans mulier quae usurpavit docere an non utique tingendi jus sibi pariet that I may turn Tertullians Thesis into an Interrogative The women usurpe the office of teaching if also they may be permitted to baptize they may in time arrogate and invade other ministeries or if they doe not by reason of the naturall and politicall incapacity of their persons yet others may upon the same stock for necessity consists not in a Mathematicall point but hath latitude which may be expounded to inconvenience and that I say truth and feare reasonably I need no other testimony then the Greek Church for amongst them a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the absence of the Priest is necessity enough for a woman to baptize for so says Gabriel Philadelphiensis In the absence of a Priest a Christian Laick may baptize whether it be man or woman either may doe it and whether that be not onely of danger in the sequel but in it selfe a very dissolution of all discipline I leave it to the Church of England to determine as for her own perticular that at least the Sacrament be left intirely to clericall dispensation according to divine commandement One thing I offer to consideration that since the keyes of the kingdome of heaven be most notoriously and signally used in baptisme in which the kingdome of heaven the Gospel and all its promises is opened to all beleevers and though as certainly yet lesse principally in reconciling penitents and admitting them to the communion of the faithfull it may be of ill consequence to let them be usurped by hands to whom they were not consigned Certain it is S. Peter used his keyes and opened the kingdome of heaven first when he said Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sinnes and ye shall receive the gift of the holy Ghost However as to the main question we have not onely the universall doctrine of Christendome but also expresse authority and commission in Scripture sending out Apostles and Apostolicall men persons of choice and speciall designation to baptize all nations and to entertain them into the services and institution of the holy Jesus SECT V. I Shall instance but once more but it is in