Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	church_n	invisible_a	visible_a	2,874	5	9.2871	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39697	Vindiciæ legis & fœderis: or, A reply to Mr. Philip Cary's Solemn call Wherein he pretends to answer all the arguments of Mr. Allen, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Sydenham, Mr. Sedgwick, Mr. Roberts, and Dr. Burthogge, for the right of believers infants to baptism, by proving the law at Sinai, and the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, were the very same with Adam's covenant of works, and that because the gospel-covenant is absolute. By John Flavel minister of the gospel in Dartmouth	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1690 (1690)	Wing F1205A; ESTC R218689	64,584	175

shall for ever remain immoveable though the outward Form and Administration be not so Well then from hence we have gained two things 1. That the Church of the Jews and Gentiles are essentially and substantially the same Church 2. That the Jews were not broken off from the invisible Church or from Faith and Election for these you truly say are invariable and immoveable and if you had deny'd it the Apostle assures us that the foundation of God stands sure and that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance But what then was their breaking off and the Gentiles grafting in which made this great alteration in the Church Can it be any thing else but our ingrafting into the Visible Church by the Profession of our Faith from whence the Jews were broken off from their unbelief For certainly from the Invisible Church they were not broken off and into the Invisible Church multitudes of professing Christians are not ingrafted 'T is evident therefore by grafting us into the Olive-tree he means the Visible Church and by the Fatness thereof the Ordinances and Priviledges of that Church Though we deny not but all sincere Professors are Members of the Invisible Church also and do belong to the Election of Grace but that 's not the breaking off or grafting in here spoken of And now having given up Mr. Tombes his Notion of the Invisible Church and Election you are again put to your Shifts and must either shuffle and seek to hide your self in an heap of strange and unintelligible Distinctions or which had been much fairer honestly have yielded the Cause and where-ever you met with them I find a whole Troop of distinctions rallied together for this purpose pag. 23 24. This grafting in say you may be either into the visible or invisible Church either by Faith or profession of Faith or by some outward Ordinance Children may be either grown Men or Infants The ingrafting ●…n may be either certain or probable Certain either by reason of election or their natural Birth being Children of believers Probable as being likely either because frequently or for the most part it happens so Though necessary and so not certain the thing to be prov'd is That the Children of believers are in the Covenant of free grace in Christ and by vertue thereof to be Baptized into the communion of the visible Church Reply Words enough and distinctions enough to reduce the Text to an indivisible point But whither doth all this tend I will ask you Two or Three plain Qestions and then make what use you please of your distinctions 1. Whether the Breaking off of the Jews and the ingrafting of the Gentiles here spoken of have Relation to the invisible Church by election or to the visible Church by profession of Faith and some outward Ordinance 2. Whethether if it were into the visible Church by profession of Faith that the Gentile believers were grafted in as doubtless it was and by relinquishing the former sense you here seem to yield it saying this ingrafture may be certain upon the account of natural Birth being Children of believers then I would fain know why you so state the Question as to make the certainty of Believers Childrens interest in Christ to be the only ground of their admission into the Communion of the visible Church This say you must be prov'd or no Baptism for them Alas poor Infants to what hard terms are they here tyed up Very much harder than the terms any of your one Society are tyed to and if Baptism must be suspended till this point can be clear'd that the person to be Baptized be first in Christ and in the Covenant of free grace as to the saving benefits thereof Then farewel to all Baptism both of Infants and adult prof●…ssours too For how can you prove that the persons you Baptiz●… are all or any of them really in Christ May they not deceive you as Simon Magus did Peter I did not think you had proceeded in this matter upon a Certainty but a Probability and if you proceed with yours upon the grounds of Probability how come you to tie up the Children of Believers to a certainty of their Interest in Christ as the antecedent suspending condition of their Baptism We need dispute no more about the proper Subjects of Baptism for by this account we have lost the Ordinance of Baptism it self We thought Sir that our Childrens Title to Baptism was derived to them from their believing Parents as the Children of the Jews was to Circumcision from their circumcised and professing Parents and that the same Promise which conveigh'd their Childrens Priviledge to them Gen. 17. had conveig'd the right of Believers Children to Baptism unto them also Acts 2. 38 39. and that the root being holy the branches are holy also that is federally holy Rom. 11. 16. But to this you make such an Answer as astonishes me to read pag. 26. where allowing Abraham to be the Root you say The Holiness here spoken of is first in respect of Gods Election Holiness personal and inherent in God's intention Ephes. 1. 4. He hath chosen us in him that we should be holy 2. 'T is also Holiness derivative but not from any Ancestors but from Abraham only and that not as a natural but a spiritual Father wherein he is a lively Image or Figure of Christ and is derived from the Covenant of Grace which passed in his Name to him and his Seed And lastly It shall be inherent being actually communicated by the Spirit of God when they shall be actually call'd Reply Here we see into what Brakes and Pits Men run themselves when they depart from the plain and safe Path in Explications of Scripture Here is such a tripartite Distinction of Holiness as I never met with before 1. Here is personal Holiness inherent in Gods intention By this you must either mean Sanctification decreed for them and to be bestowed on them at the time of their Calling and then it is coincident with the third Member of your Distinction Or else you mean that it is Holiness inherent in the Intention of God as an Accident in its Subject and then the Simplicity of Gods Nature resists your incongruous Notion But it would be a less Crime to confound the first with the last Member of your vain and self-created Distinction than to speak things so repugnant to the simple and uncompounded Nature of God Or if your meaning be That this Holiness is in God by way of Intention but in them by way of Inhesion that will not deliver you out of your Confusion neither but run you into greater for then you confound the immanent with the transient Acts of God and make the same thing at the same time to be purely in Intention and in Execution or to be only in Gods Purpose to bestow hereafter and yet at present inherent in the Persons he intends it for so that I must leave your strange Notion of