Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	baptism_n	baptize_v	infant_n	2,779	5	9.3007	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43613	The ceremony-monger his character in five chapters ... with some remarks (in the introduction) upon the new-star-chamber, or late course of the Court of King's Bench, of the nature of a libel, and scandalum magnatum, and in conclusion, hinting at some mathematical untruths and escapes in the common-prayer book, both as to doctrine and discipline, and what bishops, were, are, and should be, and concerning ordination, humbly proposed to the consideration of the Parliament / by E. Hickeringill ...	Hickeringill, Edmund, 1631-1708.	1689 (1689)	Wing H1799; ESTC R20364	90,871	81

but Hell by another Man's Graces of Faith and Repentance by relying thereon as Church of England holds then much more Nonsense it is for Church of England on such idle and false Principles to talk of Faith and Repentance to be performed tho never so much promised to be performed by Proxy or by Sureties If God Almighty would like some Creditors take Sureties and quem pro quo that if Child could not perform and pay Faith and Repentance then fall upon the Sureties and make them smart for it then you speak to purpose But God is Just the Soul that sinneth it shall die and the Soul that believes and repents shall be Saved but I fear the best Protestant has nothing to spare for a poor Insolvent Child Fourthly Suppose which is possible that the Sureties are Insolvent and have not Faith and Repentance for themselves then all this great Fat is in the Fire they can never perform nor pay a Debt for another that have not wherewith to discharge their own Debts let them promise and vow and be Bound in as many Bounds as they please for other People any Fool or Beggar can promise to pay a Thousand pounds for another but what signifie Promises Vows or Oaths made only to be broken and forsworn Lastly Which is the saddest Case of all or not a Pin to chuse suppose that poor Child is baptized without Sureties as are the greatest number by far in this populous own and in private Baptism neither Sureties nor the Sign of the Cross is required then they must bring Sureties afterwards to Church and then it shall be signed with the Cross But half the Parishes in this Town have no Churches and they are not obliged to carry Child to another Church Now you are gravell'd Mr. Ceremony-monger and you do not know what to do or say Again those that have Churches will not nor cannot for Love nor Mony get such good patur'd and kind Sureties to promise vow or swear for the Child What will you do now now you are worse gravell'd For either the Child in private Baptism without Sureties and the Sign of the Cross is baptized aright truly and fully or no If not then half of the Kingdom are unchristned Infidels there 's one of the two Sacraments half lost by your foolish Reasonings and fond Doctrines except you confess that the Child is rightly baptized without Sureties or the Sign of the Cross Which if you do I have conquer'd thee and thy silly Doctrine of making Faith and Repentance requisite before a Child be capable of Baptism And when you had made so great a Flaw in Divinity you sodder it worse with a nonsensical Whimsey of Sureties performing Faith and Repentance for poor Child by promising both Sureties Sponsores Customers not more silly than Ancient even in the 2d or 3d. Centuries as I remember but have no time to turn to it but an Error not so old as that of Papias viz. Christ's reigning here upon Earth a thousand Years personally as the Millenaries hold and a hundred more Errors of older Stile Besides the Vow and Promise of Sureties gives either true Faith and Repentance or not If only false it is nothing worth 't is false Coin it cannot shall not pass current any longer If true Faith and Repentance come thereby then is this believing and penitent Child capable also of the other Sacraments of the Lords Supper for no other Qualifications can be requisite Faith and Repentance fits them for Heaven and Glory and if so it must needs fit them for the means of Grace in the way to Glory St. Augustine good Man. was thus run to the Wall with this Argument and so must Church of England 'till they get a better Reason for Infant-Baptism than they tell us in their Catechism and Common-Prayer-Book and must rationally fall into the Error of St. Augustine who put the Holy-Supper like Spoon-meat down the Childrens Throats thus prophaning because not discerning the Lord's Body But the Sureties do it for them then let them eat and drink also for them take both the Sacraments in their Name and stead and go to Heaven also in their Names and stead And what will poor Child get by all this He will never know any thing of those Heavenly Joys which his Proxy and Surety enjoys Therefore to salve this Sore make room then for Confirmation a Romish Sacrament Well you 'l say you can expose Mother-Church and shew her Nakedness but can you cover it Yes that I can and have done it many Years ago in my printed Book called Gregory Father Gray-Beard If I be forc'd to lance my poor Mother's Sores I always sprinkle sympathetick pouder on my Lancet that it may heal the Wound It is forc'd to make to let the corrupted Quitter out But if she be so wilful and proud that she scorns my Hand my charitable Hand and Help march on let the Blind lead the Blind when you are in the Ditch we shall hear you cry for help though now like the wild Ass in the Wilderness she tosses up her head and runs snorting away in her month we shall find her CHAP. II. Of Escapes in the Common-Prayer-Book in reference to the Act of Uniformity WHat shall we have no Ceremonies at all then Oh! yes your fill so you 'l be content and not impose your small sense upon others in Canons and Acts of Uniformity which are not only vain Attempts hitherto even since the first General Council of Nice but all the great Wars in Christendom upon the score of Religion the Innocent Blood spilt betwixt the Arrians and Athanasians the Papists and the Protestants the Conformists and Non-conformists the Animosities Jalls Ruin Fines Imprisonments Smithfield Friers and Bloody Inquisition must all be charged at the foot of this Account It is very strange that Christians will not be content with the Imposition and Acts of Uniformity which God the Holy Jesus and his Apostles have provided Hast thou Faith saith the Apostle have it to thy self Hast thou a ceremony thou art fond on it may be good it may be bad make much on 't keep it to thy self to thine own Master thou 〈◊〉 or fallest We have general Rules as to honour God with our Substance or Estates in Works of Charity which is the greatest Thing in Religion and without which all thy Faith and Hope is nothing as saith St. Paul or is a dead Carrion as saith St. James because Charity the Soul of Faith is de●ed when thou evidences thy Faith to be a nothing Faith a dead Faith by destroying Charity in killing and imprisoning thy Brother for Faith's sake and perhaps thy weak Brother for whom Christ died through thy Imposition and Penal Acts of Uniformity Acts that are not only mischievous in breaking the Peace and Unity of the Brethren not only uncharitable in beating thy Son or thy Brother because he is blind restore him to his Sight in the Spirit of Meekness is the Apostle's

in the Common-Prayer-Book and therefore against Uniformley against his Act of Uniformity with which he does 〈◊〉 Mouthe crying One Mouth one Mouth why not one Sound one Sound as well in all Churches My Ceremony monger pretends to a have wonderful zeal for knowledge and against ignorance and would have the Youth instructed in the Catechisms to admiration like the Pharisee of old and yet to his utmost takes away the Key of Knowledge from the people getting the Press Monopoliz'd to himself many times and stopping the Press and the Pulpit-doors and Silencing those to chuse that Discover his Buffoonery in Religion taking a pride in a Tyranical prchemins●●● like the Pharisee too and saying That these same People who know not the Law are accursed He would gladly be accounted the Domine sac Totum and yet does nothing at all that good is nor permitting others to do it he neither enters in himself and they that would enter in he hinders except he may be the only Authentick Porter or Door-keeper scorning that Almighty God should give any Man better Lyes than his own though he poor Soul sees but gl●●nerlogly and by Spectacles in a Glass darkly and all to uphold the high Seat he has got in the Church I know not how and yet I do too in part though not so well perhaps as the Popes Nuncio or the Ambassadour Castlemain or Father Petres The CONCLVSION CHAP. I. Of Sureties in Baptism AND now you may see by the Picture I have drawn that a Ceremony-monger's Soul and Conscience is neither rul'd by Holy Scripture Right Reason nor by the Law of the Land but in despight of all these some of them are such only through Custom Ignorance blind Devotion implicite Faith and apish Imitation others and those no small Fools upon design duckoy'd by Avarice and Ambition But Custom is a second Nature even in Religion too or more properly Superstition Custom is the Father and Ignorance is the Mother of their Devotion As soon may an Ethiopian change his Skin or a Leopard his Spots as a Ceremony-monger his foppish Superstition he is so accustomed to it Custom can beget nothing upon a Man of Reason a Man whose Reason is not clouded and yet Custom has a Brood in the World far more numerous than Truth could ever beget because Truth the Father of wise men can never beget any thing but upon Reason the Mother of true Devotion But these Mothers are but few and therefore there are but few of the Breed very few rational Men and rational Christians in comparison of the Numbers of those that go the broad Way and go in at the broad Gate that leadeth to Destruction and many there be that go in thereat namely all those whose Religion and Worship has no other Ground except Custom in Conjunction with Mother Ignorance for their foppish Devotion and Covetousness for their Knavish Superstition Thus the poor silly naked Indians In America I have catechized them and ask'd them the Reason Why they did bow to such an Idol that was nothing more than other Wood and Trees of which it was made They had all one and the same Answer namely Custom and their Peel's Peel's What are they but a certain crafty sort of Men amongst them that lead the rest of the Fops by the Nose by some Superstitions of their own Invention Peel's that is Priests of the Devil whom they worship in that ●owing Idolatry for they never worship God whom they acknowledge in dark apprehension for they say God is good and some of them will say God is a good Man and will not hurt them and therefore they worship the Devil to asswage his mischievous Wrath. Even so our English foppish Ceremony-mongers answer when I catechize them and ask them the Reason of their bowing to the Altar when there is no Idol and to the East when there is nothing Divine more than in the South and North and the Altar nothing but a piece of Wood made of the same Wood and Trees with the Pues the Stools and the Pulpit then just like the naked Indians that are but just one degree if they be so much remov'd from a Monky answer that it is a Custom and their Peel's or Priests do so and therefore the poor Apes imitate that 's all Oh! but the Priests are crasty and have some more Reason though a wicked One to bow to nothing they do not bow for nothing they get a Place by it and Preferment and therefore are forc'd to get as many Fools as they can to be their Disciples and Followers for when Owles are alone they are houted at but not Birds that fly in Flocks tho they be Jack-dawes I have ask'd some of them a Reason for their confus'd and profane irrational and unscriptural babling together the Reading Psalms and all their Answer is that It is granted that It is a confus'd Noise and therefore unintelligible but their priests do so and the Singing Boys and they are accustomed to it It is a very honest Confession but is this Man-like or Baboon-like I have ask'd some account also of others how the Organs got into Church to make such a Noise and at so great a Charge and Expence In the first purchase and continuance Judas his Question is proper here To what purpose is this waste Had they not better be sold and the Organist's Sellary retrench'd and given to the poor They answer that Mr. Alderman was willing withal and that he could not stay a long Hour or two out of his Counting-house at Devotion without sleeping and therefore how clunch-fisted soever he used to be at other times yet on this occasion he nimbly opens his Purse to pay the Musick for that it either keeps him from sleeping or joggs and awakens him and makes him stare and look up therefore c. Ay say no more you have said enough and you deserve to be a Laureat as well as Sir John Suckling's Alderman come clap the Lawrel upon the Alderman's Head. But of all the brisk Reasons of my Ceremony-mongers that of a She Ceremony-monger was very surprizing when being ask't why she in defiance of plain Scripture spoke in the Church answered nimbly That her Tongue was so us'd to wagg at home that it could not lie still in the very Church and yet the same Church-pratter was silenc'd when questioned why she in imitation of the Doctor 's bowing his Noddle to the Altar Madam Limberham made a Courtesy and bow'd both her Knees no Reason could be got for that Mimickry that is no more like than an Apple is like an Oyster And all the Reason that some Bishope can give why they ordain many times rude illiterate unthinking Don 's to the Pulpit to teach others and know nothing of the Matter nothing of their own Knowledge no Divinity is concocted or digested and made their own and in their Head and Heart the Body of the Law is digested by a Lawyer before he is

fit to come to the Bar and the Body of Physick by Physitians before they are fit to feel the Pulse or be Licensed His Answer is That he trust to his Deacon or Arch-deacon by implicite Faith He believes as the Arch-deacon tells him and that the form and manner of ordaining Deacons Priests and Bishops requires no more well it is well 't is very well answer'd and most Episcopally And why do you Confirm and lay Hands suddenly upon so many ignorant Persons that understand not one Article of Faith nor can so much as say the Creed The answer is The Common-prayer Book requires no more than to believe oy Implicit Faith the fitness of all that the Parish Priest says is fit he must take it for granted and believe as the Priest believes and see with other Mens Eyes but that is the Fault Brother of your Constitution that obliges you no more Work and Inspection than any Mortal can perform Besides where do we read except in the Mass Book and Common-Prayer Book of such a thing in Scripture as Confirmation by a Bishop That Scripture of little Children coming to Christ and he laid his Hands upon them and blessed them is in the Common-Prayer Book apply'd to infant Baptism in the Office of Publick Baptism and most incongruously too for that purpose for Jesus baptized none neither Men Women nor Children but his Disciples did that Nay the great Apostle of the Gentlies went about confirming the Disciples by sound Preaching but he baptized very few one or two or three he confeiles that he did baptize and if he had baptized any more he had forgo● therefore he did not make such a business of it in his own Person And as for laying Hands upon any Children or other there is not the least mention of any such Matter How came it then into the Church I 'le tell you Infants being not able to make a Confession or Profession of Faith and Repentance which two are required of all persons before they be baptized as saith the Church of England in her Doctrine Catechistical in the Common-Prayer Book and so said St. Augustine but I believe neither of them But because that Infants by reason of their tender Age cannot perform them therefore they do perform th● by Proxy 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 because the Sureties do promise a wise Reason for ●ises may be broken they shall perform both Faith and Repentance when they come to Age. Ay! Here 's a wise Reason for a Learned Church and enough to make all Rational Men that have not lost their Reason be Anabaptists or at least like Witches to deny their Baptism so Infancy For all Promises and Vowes are either broken or kept but the Promises and Vowes of God-fathers and God-mothers in infant Baptism are seldom or never kept but are broken Vows and broken Bonds and Promises The Sureties Promise and Vow that the poor Insolvent Child that cannot speak for it self shall when it can hear for Faith comes by hearing have Faith and when it can speak and gets Wit then it shall have Grace to confess and repent But suppose the Child live to have Wit enough to be a Ceremony-monger Had ever any Man or Woman of them the Grace to confess recant and repent And then the Promise of the Sureties is not worth more than some Lord's Promise nor worth a Farthing Again suppose the Child prove Deaf or Dumb or a Fool the Sureties Vow they do not know what nay if it live to be hang'd as many are for Thieves Witches Murderers Hlow is the God-fathers and Godmothers Vow and Promise perform'd when they vow'd and promised for poor Child in Baptism that it should forsake the Devil and all his Works the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked World and all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh 2dly They vow and promise that Child shall believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith do they not break their Vow If poor Child prove to be a sceptick a Hobbist or an Athlest 3dly They vow that the poor Child shall keep God's Holy Will and Commandment and walk in the same all the days of its Life Do they not break their Vow if poor Child for whom they swore a solemn Vow and Promise in the presence of God being an Oath happen to turn Apostate Papist Mahometan or Infidel are not the Sureties all forsworn And though they be or be not there 's the mischief no good can possibly come of it but that which is lucumbent upon Parents and which Sureties seldom or never mind namely Christian Education and if so they should not Swear and Vow in the Child's Name that the Child does or shall believe and repent It is enough to promise good Education if the God-fathers and God-mothers be barren or old and past Children in such case it is enough to 〈◊〉 kind and careful of another Man's Child But if they have Children of their own or likely to have any it is too much because Charity should begin at Home And therefore the said Vow and Promise is but usually like the common Discourse of Hectors and Bullies I swear and Vow they cry on all Occasions when they intend nothing by Vowing and Swearing but forswearing and adding a Lye to the Promise and Vow First Then the Sureties promise that which no honest Man can honestly promise who makes Conscience of a Vow because he promises that which is impossible for him to perform Secondly If the Insolvent Child be bound by Sureties and good Bayl if he leave them in the lurch he wrongs them not he gave them no such Commission Power Deputation Authority or Request to promise and vow in his Name And therefore that talk of a Vow in Baptism it non-sense idle and vain How can a Man break a Vow or a Bond that he never made but his Sureties made it in his behalf Ay without his order knowledge care or desire How is Child concern'd therein any more than other Children in the World I have to hear Non-sense much more to preach it except I were sure I was to preach to none but Fops that swallow every thing that the Priest puts in their Mouth like the Wafer God without chewing Thirdly Suppose another Man's Faith or Repentance that has enough of both for his own Salvation and also Merits called Works of Supererogation by the Papists to spare heaped up and running over which the Saints departed St. Bridget St. Winifred St. Francis St. Ignatius Loyola St. Coleman c. has left at their Departure as a last Legacy to the Pope as the Papists hold Faith and Repentance enough to save all the Whores and Rogues in the World to whom the Pope gives no Sells to any that has Money and is willing to Buy If Works of Supererogation be true it is the first Market I would make I had rather buy Heaven than a Knight-hood or a Bishop●ick But suppose the Fool and his Money be soon parted and a Man get nothing