Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A61127
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A treatise concerning the lawfull subject of baptisme wherein are handled these particulars : the baptizing of infants confuted, ... the covenant God made with Abraham and his seed handled & how the same agrees with the Gentiles and their seed, the baptism administered by an Antichristian power confuted ... / by me, J.S.
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J. S. (John Spilsbery)
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1643
(1643)
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Wing S4976; ESTC R23657
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75,483
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50
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was come to Ierusalem be assayed to joyne himselfe to the disciples Act. 9 26. And the whole body fitly joyned together c. Eph. 4 16. And a fitly framing of matter together for a house or habitation of God as Eph. 2.21 22. All which is the Saints entering covenant with God which covenant is their forme that gives them a being in such a relation or fellowship Isa 43.21 1 Pet. 2.9 And so much in briefe of the constitution of a Church or of the Saints entering into Church-fellowship and the causes producing the same And now being come into her own land as of old was signified Ezek. 36.24 25. which is into a visible covenant with God or union with Christ and so become his own shee is now to be washed with water in Baptisme as Ezek. 16.8 9. Mat. 28.19 Eph. 4 5. And thus being in covenant with God by faith in Jesus Christ in which their state consists and so the agreement made the covenant passed between them now the seale is see to which is the outward ordinance of Baptisme to confirme the same which being done she is then to enter upon her holy communion in all the rest of Gods holy ordinances thereunto belonging for her comfort and well-being And thus I have by Gods gracious assistance done with this subject charged upon me partly by such as feare the Lord in a far Countrey beyond the Seas and partly by my own conscience for the truths sake at home And good Reader confider well before you judge and what I see not teach thou me c. Job 34.31 But let not my unweary Readâ—â— be offended with me though I speake a word or two more It may be some will aske me if I condemne all Churches but onely such as I have here described To which I answer that I condemne no Church which God approves of in his word secondly I condemne no Church at all for I goe not about to shew who are false but what is true and it is enough for me if such a Church as hath been spoken of be granted to be true and let all others alone to stand and fall to their own Master and in regard of those reproachfull clamours cast upon all without exception that seem to be of my judgement about Baptisme I shall yet make bold with my Reader briefly to declare a word of my faith what I beleeve and hold to be truth and desire to practise the same and so leave all to God for the godly Reader to judge what difference there is between him and me in the maine that men should be so incensed against me as to seeke my life as some have done the Lord in mercy forgive them and lay it not to their charge And now for my faith First I doe beleeve that there is onely one God who is distinguished in three persons God the Father God the Sonne and God the holy Ghost yet but one in nature or essence without division and uncommunicable who made the world and all things therein by the word of his power and governes them all by his wise providence Secondly I beleeve that God made man in his own Image an upright and a perfect creature consisting of soule and body which body God framed of the earth and breathed a soul into the same To whom God gave a law upon his keeping of which depended all his happinesse and upon the contrary attended his misery which soon took effect for he breaking that Law he fell under the curse and the wrath of God lay upon him all his posterity By which fall Man lost the knowledge of God utterly disabled himself of all ability ever to recover the same againe Thirdly I beleeve God out of the counsell of his own will did before he made the world elect and choose some certain number of his foreseen fallen creatures and appointed them to eternall life in his Sonne for the glory of his grace which number so elected shall unavoydably be saved and come to glory and the rest left to themselves in their sinne to glorifie his justice Fourthly I beleeve that God in the fulnesse of his owne time did send his Sonne the second person who in the wombe of the Virgin Mary assumed mans nature and in the same he suffered death upon the Crosse onely as he was man to satisfie his Fathers justice for the sinnes of all his elect and them onely and that he lay three dayes three nights in his grave from whence he arose the third day by the power of his Godhead for the justification of all for whose sinnes be dyed and that in the same body Christ dyed be arose from tho dead and afterwards ascended into heaven the place of glory where he was before and there to remaine untill he comes at the last day to judge the world in righteousnesse Fifthly I beleeve that God of his grace in his own time effectually calls such as shall be saved to the knowledge sive as a childe in the parents begetting of it and so God by his Spirit works faith in the hearts of all such to beleeve in Christ and his righteousnes only for justification And thus they are made righteous before God in Christ and so conformable to the will of the Father through the Sonne and also made holy through the worke of regeneration and the holy Spirit of grace dwelling in them yet all such have still as long as they live here in the flesh remaining in them an old man that originall corruption the flesh that warres against the Spirit which hinders them in their obedience both to God and man and many times draws them to that which is evill and contrary to their intentions yet all of them shall through Christ overcome and safely be brought to glory at last Sixthly I beleeve the holy Scriptures to be the word of God and have the onely authoritie to binde the conscience to the obedience of all therein contained and are the allsufficient Rule by the Spirit of God to guide a man in all his obedience both to God and man Seventhly As for the absence of originall sin and power in the will to receive and refuse grace and salvation being generally offered by the Gospel and Christs dying for all persons universally to take away sinne that stood between them and salvation and so laid downe his life a ransome for all without exception and for such as have been once in Gods love so as approved of by him in Christ for salvation and in the covenant of grace and for such to fall so as to be damned eternally and all of the like nature I doe beleeve is a doctrine from beneath and not from above and the teachers of it from Satan and not from God and to be rejected as such that oppose Christ and his Gospel Eightly I doe beleeve the resurrection of the dead that all shall rise and come to judgement and every one give account of himselfe
Commission the subjects of Baptisme are expressely set downe who they should baptize and they are onely such as first were to be taught and had faith to beleeve the same as I have sufficiently proved And now having these expresse commands so fully held forth by Christ himselfe to gether with the whole practicall order of the Apostles others following the same in their administracions and to goe about to bring authoritie or command from the commandement of circumcision for the baptizing of Infants in more then ignorance and for to plead the baptizing of Infants because that command is not repealed which injoyned Infants to be circumcised is too weake for faith to build upon But now I hope the removall of the same appears in that there is not onely a command in the new Testament directly against the same but also a new command and so a law from Christ the King of Saints and Lord of the new Testament for the ordinance of Baptisme and all the circumstances of the same And yet for the further repealing of that law which injoyned Infants naturally borne and so from the wombe to be circumcised without minding any other sprituall birth but onely that which brought forth the childe in the world for 8 dayes after it must be circumcised by command from God which order is opposed by the Gospel as Joh. 3.3 5 6. Where Christ opposeth the two births the spirituall to the naturall birth and excludes the naturall from any admittance into the Kingdom of God without the spirituall birth And that he might not be mistaken he further explains himself saying That which is borne of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit And further to know Christs meaning in these births which he opposeth the one to the other he fully holds forth Joh. 1.13 in these words of such as received him which were borne not of blond nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God This way and order the commandement of circumcision speaks nothing of neither required the same but onely the first birth for no childe of 8 dayes old was capable to be borne againe of the Spirit in our Saviours sense And thus the Gospel excludes that which the law of circumcision commanded even the first birth which is naturall without the second birth which is spirituall And it is in vaine for any to say that Christ speakes here of men of yeares for he opposeth the two births as aforesaid and not the age of any and so the whole universe of mankinde for this place is generally taken for the doctrine of regeneration from whence many hold that children are regenerated in Baptisme But generally those that baptize their Infants hold that they are regenerated before for they baptize them as being holy before And if any shall say that the Kingdome Christ speaks of is meant the Kingdome of glory and not of grace and therefore though he excludes such out of the one yet not out of the other The answer is that it is no where found in the Gospel that any are excluded the kingdome of glory and yet are admitted into the kingdome of grace The doore of grace in this sense is no wider then the gate of glory by Gods appointment and what men doe through ignorance that alters not the truth of God as Rom. 8.30 And if any say that Christ at this time had opposed Gods ordinance of circumcision if such a truth had been put in execution as is gathered from his words to exclude and put by an Infant of 〈…〉 To this I answer and say that Christ speaks of many things before his death which did not concerne the time present but of the order and government of his Church under the new Testament And so he speaks here of the qualification of his subjects and worshippers in his new kingdome that was at hand all which was to be spirituall and therefore to be borne of the spirit as Christ affirmed In which sense circumcision in the flesh ceased and that of the heart onely remaines as Rom. 2. Adde to this the words of the Apostle Eph. 2.3 We are saith he all by nature children of wrath Now if this be true then so long as nothing else appears how can we judge otherwise without gainsaying the holy Ghost and by the words of Christ we are first borne of the flesh and so in an estate of nature untill grace recover us and the effects of Christs redemption takes hold upon us Untill which time we are judged of the Apostle to be children of wrath and of the flesh and so uncleane and no uncleane thing must come into the holy Citie of grace and glory Rev. 21. All which being well considered I thinke will put a stop to the commandement of circumcision from having any footing in the ordinance of Baptisme or for any to take a ground from thence to justisie their Infants in their Baptisme untill some evidence appeares of their being inwardly washed in the bloud of Christ that so the same may be confirmed unto them by that outward washing with water otherwise the ordinance is no way availeable to them but sinne in such as impose the same upon them who doe neither desire it nor know what is done unto them which is to set a seale to a blanke a thing condemned in nature And so I passe from this subject of Infants Baptisme desiring the Lord abundantly to extend his saving grace unto as many as belongs to him that the praise may ever abound to his glory and their everlasting comfort in all happines and safetie here and glory hereafter We know no man after the flesh 2 Cor. 5. We are the circumcision that worship God in the spirit and rejoyce in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh Phil. 3. Marvell not that I say a man must be borne againe before he can enter into the Kingdome of God Joh. 3. And thus I desire to have Infants ever in honourable and reverent respect so farre as honour and reverence belongs unto them and so leave them to the grace and good pleasure of the God of all grace who onely knows who are his and hath the disposing of them and all his creatures to his own glory so be it Amen And now having examined the visible right that infants have to baptisme and finding none by the Word of God but the contrary I come now to a second sort and they are such as have been baptized in a false Antichristian estate as they say and so challenge right to enter upon or assume a true Church with the same baptisme they received of the man of sin So that the thing I deal with now is onely that opinion which holds a state to be false and Antichristian and yet Baptisme there administred by an Antichristian power to be the true ordinance of God and so leave the state as false and retain their baptisme