Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	law_n	life_n	sin_n	22,698	5	5.7840	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57682	Infant-Baptism; or, Infant-sprinkling (as the Anabaptists ironically term it,) asserted and maintained by the scriptures, and authorities of the primitive fathers. Together with a reply to a pretended answer. To which has been added, a sermon preached on occasion of the author's baptizing an adult person. With some enlargements. By J. R. rector of Lezant in Cornwal.; Infant-Baptism.	J. R. (James Rossington), b. 1642 or 3.	1700 (1700)	Wing R1993; ESTC R218405	76,431	137

yet we do not continue in it but repent and turn from it But how shall we you 'l say thus mortifie our Sins Why we must fetch our Weapons against our prevailing Lusts from our Baptism As David took the smooth Stones out of the Brook of Water with which he slew Goliah 1 Sam. 17.40 So ought we to draw help and directions from the Water of Baptism to deaden the force of the most Giant-like Sin and to lay it at our Feet Yea our Baptism doth not only direct us herein holding forth the conditions on our Part what Duty is incumbent upon us and likewise impower and enable us for the Encounter as it conveys unto us the Grace of God and the assistance of his Spirit but moreover it obligeth us thereto in the highest nature by the most solemn and the strongest Bonds that may be in that we Vow to God through Christ to perform it The firmest Obligation imaginable upon the deepest penalty as ever we hope to have an interest in Christ or in the Death of Christ q. d. we disclaim all hope and interest in Christ and his Death if we be not the Death of every ruling Sin in us This surely is enough to make us bestir our selves and set upon it and even to compel us to it When the forty Jews Act. 23.12 bound themselves with an Oath that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul how did the consciousness of this Oath urge them to lie in wait for him v. 16. and how resolved were they upon his Death with all suddenness And we saith they e're he come near are ready to kill him v. 15. We are under such an Oath to God by our Vow of Baptism to mortifie and kill our prevailing Sins as these were to kill Paul theirs was unjust to murther an Innocent ours most just and necessary to Execute the greatest Traytor in the World And therefore let us remember when our hearts would fain spare our Sins and any way indulge them That this sacred Vow is upon us What was the Reason Jonathan durst venture to tast of the Hony in the Wood when the Israelites durst not touch it 1 Sam. 14.27 He considered not the Oath by which he and they were obliged not to eat of it So why do you thus follow and pursue such and such a pleasing profitable Sin You mind not the Oath the Sacrament the Vow in which you are obliged not to tast such forbidden Fruit but on the contrary to renounce the devil and all his works the pomps and vanities of this wicked world and all the sinful lusts of the flesh But to come more near and home in the way of Application Is Baptism an Ordinance that engages us to Duty and that as the Condition of the continuance of the Benefits contained in the Promises and Covenant to which it is the Seal We see what a Foundation of loose vain hope a bare Baptismal Christianity is What slight tinctured Christians those are that have only the outward washing of Baptism but abandon the practice of a Christian Life Who please themselves in a Sign without the effect and boast themselves in a Figure and Shadow without the Substance and Grace of it The Baptism of Water howsoever it may avail us in the state of Infancy in which state God requires no actual Performance of Duty Yet when we grow up to Years of Knowledge and Reason and come under the Law of Duty it availeth nothing without the Baptism of the Spirit in actual Regeneration and Sanctification I mean without an actual Repentance and Abrenunciation of Sin and Satan and the practice of a Holy Life Our Baptism will but remain as a Testimony against us of our perfidious violation of the Covenant of God and of the falseness and treachery of our evil Hearts who pretend to be and own our selves the Subjects and Servants of Jesus Christ and yet basely revolt from and disobey him This is to speak Christ fair and then to betray him Mens receiving the name of Christ's Disciples and Servants in Baptism makes the Disobedience of their sinful Lives more hateful and abominable In this respect some had an erroneous conceit of Old which made them defer their Baptism thinking they had a greater Liberty before than after their Baptism and therefore were wont to say in St. Austin's time Sine illum facere nondum baptizatus est let him alone he is not yet baptized implying the strict Obligation that lies upon Men by Baptism unto Holiness of Life What is Christian Baptism without a Christian Life 'T is not this external Badge or Cognizance 't is not a common profession that follows it that will be a Title to Heaven 'T is in vain to pretend that we have been baptized into Christ or are buried with him in Baptism and have made profession of his name if we be workers of iniquity our doom at last will be to depart from him That which is most material and considerable in our Baptism and which most contributes to our eternal Interest and Salvation is not as at first I noted from St. Peter the putting away the filth of the Flesh But the Answer of a good Conscience towards God What then doth our Conscience answer touching the performance of the Conditions on our Part We build our hopes and confidences upon the Sands unless we keep the Faith whereinto we are baptized and perform the Duty to which our Baptism obligeth How vainly do Men bear themselves up upon the Title of an outward Baptism as if thereby they were good Christians though the course of their Lives be a flat Contradiction to the holiness and purity of the Christian Religion and in effect the renouncing of it The truth is there is a sad answering of this Engagement in the generality of those that are baptized What backsliding from and violations of the baptismal Covenant From the observation of whose Lives a Heathen might conclude as Salvian complained of old Si Christus sancta docuisset if Christ had taught holiness why don't Christians practise it Either as he goes on your Christ is no God who allows such evil Lives or you are no Christians who practise such Things Are they Christians are they dedicated to the honour and service of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost who lead such impure Lives who slight the ways of Religion and set at nought the Laws and Commands of Christ and are so devoted to the ways of their own evil hearts Would Men but consider how they have performed their Covenant with God into which they were entered by Baptism and what an aggravation of the Sin of their unholy unchristan Life ariseth hence this must needs give a check to their sinful Carreer If Infidels and they that know not God do Blaspheme his holy Name and fight against Heaven by their open Impieties this is no such great Wonder but for you that have given up your names unto

Christ that have dedicated your selves by Covenant to his Honour and Service to break those sacred Bonds and to stand it out in your Impenitency and Rebellion against God and to live like Gentiles his professed Enemies to forsake him and his ways and to wallow in the impurities of an evil Conversation is unaccountable How dreadful will the Day be when the Lord shall come to avenge him of his Adversaries You shall not perish under such easie Circumstances of Wrath and Vengeance as do the Gentiles The Aggravation of your Sin and Judgment will be the treading under Foot the Blood of the Covenant Thus far in general But to proceed to some particulars and so to make some further improvement by way of use of what hath been delivered on this Subject Doth holy Baptism admit us to a state of such high Priviledges and Advantages as I have observed Then we may see how injurious they are who deny Baptism to Infants and so as much as lies in them keep them from Christ I mean in the visible way in which we are brought unto Christ from that Grace which is the internal mystery of this sacramental Ordinance In which respect we are said to be baptized into Christ if they have any right to the grace and spiritual Benefits which are the Mystery the Spirit and Life of this Sacrament why not to the external Symbolical signification and Seal of it Shall Men hinder them from this visible application of the Grace of Baptism If we affirm they have no right to this Grace what greater uncharitableness and presumptuous straightning the favour of God and Christ For where has he debarred and excluded them from his Covenant and Promises and cast them out of that Body whereof he is the Head and the Saviour Certain it is this was one of the great Blessings of the Covenant with Abraham I will be thy God and the God of thy Children after thee Thus ran the Promises of old He sheweth mercy unto thousands of generations of them that love him and keep his commandments the seed of the righteous is blessed Children are the heritage of the Lord. They had the Seal of the Covenant Circumcision externally applying the Promises And are the favours of Christ more narrow under the Gospel who is yet the Mediator of a better Covenant Has Christ only a love for the Parents and none for the Children and yet hath told us if the root be holy so are the branches Is not Christ the Redeemer of Infants Did he purchase no Pardon no Grace or remission of Sins for them How abominably injurious would this be to Christ and the fullness of his Oblation and Merit Will Christ give them no place in his mystical Body in his Church and Kingdom And yet when he was upon Earth commanded the little Children to be brought unto him and took them into his Arms and blessed them declaring that such did belong to his Kingdom of such is the kingdom of God Mark 13.14 If the Infants of Believers under the Gospel be not capable of the Grace signed and sealed then there will follow many sad unscriptural Consequences Then they belong not to the Church and Body of Christ they are in the same Case with the Children of Infidels left without as common and unclean This Principle mingles the holy Seed with the Heathens and renders the favours of the Gospel more narrow than those of the legal Covenant and the Christian Seed in much worse Circumstances than the Jewish Yea they would not only be without the Church but without the Covenant and so without Christ or any special relation to him So far without as are the Gentiles Dogs and Strangers While they are disputed out of the Covenant all well grounded hopes of their Justification and Salvation are disputed away dying in that State 'T is vain to recur to the secret Election of God for the grounds of this Hope Faith and Hope must be grounded upon some Word of God If God have excluded them from the Covenant of Salvation how shall we conclude that they belong to the Election of God And if the Case were so well may the Parents of dying Infants mourn over them as those that have no hope All those then are rash groundless uncharitable Conclusions highly derogatory to the Love of God to the infinite riches and freeness of his Grace But on the other hand if God and Christ have not excluded them from the Grace of Baptism the Mercy and Grace which is there signified who shall forbid Water the external sealing Application If God have not denied the greater who shall deny the less if God have not excluded them from the Substance and Mystery why shall they be denied the external Rite and Symbol Either then they must be highly uncharitable in denying Infants the Grace of Baptism and so leave them in an evil Case or else be very unjust in denying them the Seal where God grants them the substance Thirdly Let this serve to humble those that walk unworthy of this Priviledge of being baptized and thereby admitted into the fellowship of Christ's Religion initiated Members of his Church Can it seem a light thing in our Eyes that when God has passed by the greatest part of the World as strangers from his Family and Kingdom and hath left them under the Kingdom of Satan and taken us no better by Nature than they are to be his peculiar ones into Covenant with himself and to train us up under such heavenly Ordinances We should notwithstanding walk as Rebels and Enemies unto him like the unbaptized World Do we know into what a Covenant he hath taken us what he hath done for and expects from us What means then our Conversation so repugnant to our Profession Is it because we renounce the Covenant as being made when we understood it not If there be any such Apostates let them take their Course serve the God they have chosen But say what iniquity what ill is there in this Covenant of your Baptism what disadvantage have you met withal Or how or where do you hope to find better things than what are here exhibited and ensured Than for instance for God to be your Father Christ your Saviour the Spirit your Comforter than to have your Sins pardoned and remitted than to be adopted justified sanctified and every way comfortably provided for here and in the end eternally saved Do the Gods you have chosen to serve provide better things than these that you renounce Christ for their sake If you say God forbid you should so do you hope to be saved by him as well as any other then tell me seriously do you expect that Christ should stand bound to perform his Part of the Covenant and you left at liberty whether you discharge your part or no That he should love you and you hate him That he should be your God and you remain the Devil's Servants That he should provide Heaven for you and you