Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	abraham_n	covenant_n	seed_n	2,017	5	9.1132	5	false

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

Baptisme we know the answer that he had If thou beleevest with all thine heart thou maist And Calvinists denying actuall faith to be found in Infants their Adversaries the Lutherans come in with their argument ad hominem making against us say they though not against the thing it selfe Every Sacrament without faith in him that uses it is a vaine Ceremony But the Baptisme of Infants is a Sacrament without the faith of him that useth it A speech directed to a man of yeares and without any title to the Covenant other then his actuall faith did confer upon him is ill applyed to Infants within Covenant that otherwise have title to it Answ 1. This exception carries equall strength against Infants circumcision Answ 2. There is no more faith in the Infauts of Iewes then there is in the Infants of Christians And faith is no lesse necessary in the circumcised then in the baptized There was an equall necessity of the ingrediency of faith in every one in that age as in this yea in the ages more ancient then that of circumcision as appeares by the Apostles argument Heb. 11.6 Their capacity to receive the signe answers their capacity to receive the thing signified they are passive in the receiving of Christ and any interest in him and so also they are and circumcised Infants were in taking the signe And so the Lutheran proposition being understood of any thing wherein we are active is a truth but applied to Infants uncapable of action in the Sacrament where they are only passive it is to be denied If Infants have the like gift intitling to and interesting in the priviledge of baptisme with beleevers then they withstand God who deny their baptisme This is the Apostles argument brought for his own defence Acts 11.17 which I wish were more seriously considered And let it not be objected that the gift there specified is a gift extraordinary peculiar to those times It is enough to make the argument of force that it is alike in them with that which now intitles growne beleevers Now the want of those gifts extraordinary doth not disable grown beleevers The want of these doth not then disable Infants And that they have the like gift intitling to and interesting in the Sacrament of baptisme is plaine A Covenant-holinesse unquestionable Inherent qualitative holinesse hopefull is a like gift to that which growne beleevers are able to produce But Infants have Covenant-holinesse unquestionable inherent qualitative holinesse hopefull A beleever by the profession of his faith is able to make good his title to the outward Covenant and so can the beleeving parent the title of his Infant A beleever can make good such a title to the inward Covenant that none can say thou hast no part or portion in this thing And because it cannot be denied though absolutely and infallibly it be not affirmed it is to be presumed This a beleeving parent can make good in the behalfe of his Infant and this is sufficient this is a like But it will yet be said Object An institution is wanting we have no precept we have no president of the baptizing of Infants The institution is Goe teach all nations Mar. 28.19 baptizing them c. We must baptize those whom by teaching we have discipled to the word signifieth I answer First That which hath beene said doth conclude that they are within the verge of an institution being such that have so full title I have heard one of the most learned and reverend that ever I knew or heard of that was of that way more then once professe with no small solemnity that if he knew an Infant to be sanctified as he acknowledged John Baptist was such a one he would baptize And that the particular infants whom Christ was seene for to blesse might have beene baptized Those then that are thus intitled through want of an institution are not to be excluded and how farre and fully Infants of beleeving parents are intitled we have heard 2. The place quoted hath not in it the Institution of that Sacrament Baptisme was appointed of God before those words were uttered He that spoke them was himselfe before baptized Mat 3.16 Ioh 4.6 Mat. 10.5 They to whom they were spoken had baptized others It is only an enlargement of their Commission for the exercise of their Ministery being before confined unto one Nation now it is enlarged to all Nations 3. The words there comprize infants they are no more excluded then men of yeares serving to make up a Nation as well as parents The Infants of Niniveh did make a considerable party of the City of Niniveh The Infants of any Nation make up a part of the Nation and the Nation where they came was to be discipled And that Infants are here comprehended further appeares by this argument * This argument hath strength frō that of the Apostle Act. 3.25 As it was with the kindred of Abraham in respect of covenant holinesse so it is with all kindreds of the earth they iointly make one party in the Covenant But infants of Abrahams kindred were in the Covenant and of the nation in respect of Covenant-Blessednesse Ergo c. In the same sense and latitude as Nation was taken in respect of the Covenant of God when the Covenant and Covenant-initiating-Sacrament was restrained to that one only Nation where their Commission was first limited In the same sense it is to be taken unlesse the text expresse the contrary now the Commission is enlarged This cannot be denied of any that will have the Apostles to be able to know Christs meaning by his words in this enlarged Commission But Nation then as is confessed did comprehend all in the Nation in respect of the Covenant and nothing is expressed in the text to the contrary therefore it is to be taken in that latitude to comprehend Infants Object Will it be said that an exception of Infants is implied in that all of the Nation must be discipled before they be baptized but Infants are not capable of being discipled and so they are made uncapable of Baptisme I answer 1. Here is rather implyed that they are of capacitie to be Disciples Answ 1. in that Christ sends to disciple Nations and they serve to make up the nation 2. It is the way of the Scripture Answ 2. speaking of an universality of a people in a land expressely to except infants in case they be to be excepted As we see in the judgement that befell Israel in the wildernesse to the cutting off of those that came out of the land of Egypt Numb 14.31 And in the Covenant entred by the body of the Nation of all degrees and sexes at their returne from Babylon Nehem. 10.28 and an exception could be no where more usefull and necessary then here to let us know that it is otherwise with Gentiles in this particular then it was with the Iewes that the Nations

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