Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostolical_a	church_n	tradition_n	4,989	5	9.5918	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28341	The birth-priviledge, or, Covenant-holinesse of beleevers and their issue in the time of the Gospel together with the right of infants to baptisme / by Thomas Blake ...	Blake, Thomas, 1597?-1657.	1644 (1644)	Wing B3142; ESTC R12167	41,905	40

where their Commission is thus enlarged were herein differenced from the Nation to which their Ministerie was first limitted 3. Let that text of the Prophet be well weighed where speaking by the spirit of prophecy of the rejection of the Jewes and the glorious call of the Gentiles in their stead in that ample way as it is there set out hath these words Behold I will lift up mine band to the Gentiles Isai 49.22 and set up my standard to the people and they shall bring thy sonnes in their armes and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders If there were but such an hint as that by way of prophesy to have left them behind we should from some have heard of it with a noise 4. In the Lord Christs Dialect who is best able to expresse his own meaning they are Disciples To belong to Christ is to be a Disciple of Christ This is plaine from our Saviours owne mouth comparing his words recorded in Matthew and Mark Matth. 10.42 Mar. 9.41 To give a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple it is in the one To give a cup of water to drink in my Name because ye belong to me it is in the other To belong to Christ to be a Disciple of Christ and to beare the Name of Christ is one and the same thing with our Saviour Now that Infants are of the number of those who as Disciples in Christs account doe belong unto him and beare his Name is yet further plain by another text of St Matthew where Christ setting a little childe in the middest of his hearers saith Who so shall receive one such little child in my Name Matth. 18.5 receiveth me By all which it appeares that which is done to Infants is done to Disciples hath a glorious reward as done to Disciples Infants therfore are Disciples of Christ are of those that doe belong unto him and beare his Name who then is not afraid to refuse them who will receive Christ who will not baptize them that is willing to baptize Disciples in the Name of Christ For Examples which they say we want of the Baptisme of Infants 1. I answere first we walke by Rule rather then President the Rule hath been examined 2. Examples are often very rare where the rule is unquestionable and undeniable we have no Example of any triall of the suspect wise by the water of jealousie For womens right to the Lords Supper we have no particular institution no particular President more then for this of Infants Baptisme 3. We have Examples not to be contemned of the Baptisme of whole housholds and whether Infants were there or no as it is not certaine though probable so it is not materiall The President is an Houshold he that followes the President must baptize housholds It appeares not that any wife was there yet he that followes the President in baptizing of housholds must baptize wives and so I may say servants if they be of the houshold Objections are yet brought from humane authoritie Object which I have reserved to the last as accounting them the least And if this dispute might this way be determined that plurality of votes might carry it the adversaries know how it would fare with them in it Origen is vouched calling it a ceremonie or tradition of the Church Hom. 8. in Levit. in Epist ad Rom. lib. 5. Gregorie also in decret distinct de conse One of those traditions which the Apostle charged the Thessalonians to keep Answ 2 Thess 2.15 which I speake not by guesse but we have it in the same Epistle cap. 6. from his own mouth The Church saith he received Baptisme of Infants from the Apostles The greatest points of Faith as is well known are ordinarily called by the name of traditions by the Antients Traditions being onely such things that are delivered from one to another they are as well written as unwritten And we have cause willingly to embrace this testimonie Origen lived 226. yeares after Christ in the beginning of the third Century Alsted Chronol he cals it a tradition of the Church it was therefore delivered over to the Church in his time and of antient use before him Austin cals it a custome of the Church de Baptis contra Donat. lib. 4. cap. 23. And so doe I also call it Answ and the observing of the first day of the weeke the imposition of hands on Church-officers the giving of the Lords Supper to men of growth is a custome of the Church likewise Erasmus saith they are not to be condemned that doubt whether the Baptisme of Infants were ordained by the Apostles Lib. 4. de ratione Concio His words evidently imply that it was their errour Answ and it seemes his thoughts were other of those who openly did oppose it and refuse it Papists openly professe that the Baptisme of Infants is grounded upon tradition and not upon Scripture for which Eckius and Bellarmine are brought in This they doe not really and cordially but for their owne advantage Answ to make good unwritten traditions against Protestant adversaries They know that we maintaine Baptisme of Infants and disclaime these traditions and if Baptisme of infants doe appeare to be one then they have us building what we have destroyed Bellar. indeed in his book de Verbo Dei standing for unwritten traditions as a part of the Word of God will have Baptisme of infants to be one but when he disputes for Baptisme of Infants against Anabaptists then he can heape up texts of Scripture de sacra Baptis cap. 8. So also cap. 9. in the entrance of it Satis apertè colligitur ex Scripturis the Baptisme of Infants is evidently enough gathered from Scriptures The like fetch of his I could shew in other particulars It appeares to be forced on the people by authority of Councels out of the Councell of Milevitanum this Canon is urged It is also our will that those that will not that children be baptized that are new borne from their mothers wombe be excommunicate So in the Nicene Councell it was decreed that we should beleeve that there is one God Maker of all things visible and invisible Answ The greatest points of faith we know under Anathema's are decreed in Councels This Councell was in the fifth Century 200 yeares after Origen who stiles Baptisme of Infants as we have heard a tradition of the Church in his dayes And Austin who was not onely present but as is said President of that Councell returning answer to those that desire divine authority for the Baptisme of Infants for satisfaction first produceth that rule Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi authoritate Apostolica traditum rectissimè creditur That which the whole Church holds and was not ordained by any Councels but hath ever been held that is rightly beleeved to be by Apostolicall

authoritie This he takes to be sufficient yet for more full satisfaction he goes on to dispute for it from the Scriptures whence we see what himselfe meanes by the custome of the Church And by what authoritie that Councell did appoint the Baptisme of Infants Augustinus de Bapt. contra Donatist lib. 40. cap. 24. ad initium By all this that hath been said it more fully appeares what regard is to be given to that which is cited out of Luther and Cassander concerning the time that Baptisme of Infants was brought into the Church Luther as it is said affirmes that it came into the Church a thousand yeares before his time which must be one hundred yeares after Austin and three hundred yeares after Origen Cassander affirmes that it was brought in three hundred yeares after Christ and his Apostles which must be an hundred yeares after Origen at least If this had been true these fathers must have said as St Paul of contentions 1 Cor. 11 16. We have no such custome neither the Church of God and could not have said that it was a custome or tradition of the Church Origen then had never knowne it and Austin might have called it an innovation Those conjectures of Tuicencis Iohannes Bohemius cōcerning the occasion of the first in-let of Infants Baptisme into the Church fals to the ground likewise when men heare of a beginning they will be bold to assigne some reason of it If my conjecture may be heeded I suppose it was in some dis-use with many not long after the Apostles times and that by reason of the superstitious conceit that too soon prevailed of the opus operatum in Baptisme that it cleanses all sinnes that are past whether originall or actuall And therefore many that were converted at ripe yeares deferred their Baptisme as neere the houre of death as might be to have all their sinnes cleansed by that water against which custome Bellarmine at large disputes by reason of the absolute necessity of Baptisme though both his grounds and theirs are on a false bottome May we not then beleeve that parents upon the same ground did put off the Baptisme of their children and after did re-assume it upon the necessity of it And this is that which the authour produced viz. Iohannes Behemius speaks of But Mr Daniel Rogers above all is stood upon in his Treatise of the Sacraments he hath these words I take the Baptisme of Infants to be one of the most reverend generall and uncontrolled traditions which the Church hath and which I would no lesse doubt of then the Creed to be Apostolicall although I confesse my selfe yet unconvinced by demonstration of Scripture for it I wish the Reader to consider what the adversary gaines by this testimony Answ It is generall uncontrolled he saith and so he knowes unwritten traditions never were Orthodox Divines antient and moderne have ever opposed them In gaining a peice of a witnesse such an one that hath his reasons to beleeve Baptisme of Infants to be Apostolicall they have the Church unanimously in all successive ages their adversatie And as the Infants of beleeving parents are to be received to Baptisme The consectarie enlarged so no Infants that descend from those that make Profession of the faith of Christ are to be refused Any solid reason which will lye against any for ought can be said may be a ground of the challenge of all The promise made to those that professe Christ and their seed takes in the seed of all that make profession Some that doe not withstand but maintaine and practise the Baptisme of Infants have found a middle way as betweene rigid Brownists and Presbyterians so between Anabaptists and as I may say Paedo-baptists All Infants they will not have to be refused confessing them to be within the verge of the promise yet they will not have all promiscuously received The parents by solemne Covenant must first be made members of some particular congregation and so their Issue is to be admitted their children baptized otherwise both parents and children are to be accounted as without by nature unholy and only the Godly regenerate so farre as men can judge no one of loose life to be admitted But this middle way under correction I cannot but take to be a step out of the way I will here dispute it no further then as it concernes this particular Either the vicious and scandalous life of such a parent or his non admission into Covenant in a Congregationall way is the barre of the Infant that he is not admitted unto Baptisme but neither of these may be a barre First not the vicious life of his parent If the ground of a childs admission to baptisme be not the faith of his immediate parent but the promise made to Ancestors in the faith whose seed he is though at the greater distance Then the loose life of an immediate parent can be no barre to his baptisme This is plaine if Iosiah have no right from his father Ammon yet he is not to be shut out in case he have right from his father David or his father Abraham And though the immediate parent were not wronged when his child is so shut out and denied yet such Ancestor in distance is wronged out of whose loynes the Infant is descended If Phinehas were not wronged in case Ichabod had been debarred yet Eli yea Aaron had suffered But the ground of a childs admission is the promise to Ancestors whether at neerer or greater distance The promise is to beleevers and their seed Now Iosiah was the seed of David Christ was the seed of David An Ancestor at distance and not alone immediate where the race within the Church may be derived in a continued succession gives right of admission therefore unto baptisme 2. There is nothing that can exclude the seed of him that is a beleever as beleever is opposed to an Infidell the seed of one that is of a dogmaticall or historicall faith This we have before made good and from 1 Cor. 7.14 may be further cleared He that is no Infidell is there a beleever whose seed is holy But a man of a vicious life is in that sense a beleever Simon Magus Acts 8.13 Luk. 8.13 the hearers compared to the rocky ground were beleevers therefore a loose life will not exclude the Issue His seed who is a member of a particular Church society must be admitted unto baptisme a Church member and all that are his must have their priviledges But it often falls out that men of loose lives are members as the Church of Corinth yeelds many proofes 2 Cor. 12.20 21 c. Therefore vicious life excludes not the Issue Secondly The non-admission into Covenant is no barre in the parent 1. It was no barre when themselves who now are members were admitted in their infancy their parents for the most part being no members in such a way Therefore now it is no barre though