Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	church_n	salvation_n	visible_a	2,151	5	9.7825	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58206	Anabaptism routed: or, a survey of the controverted points: Concerning [brace] 1. Infant-Baptisme. 2. Pretended necessity of dipping. 3. The dangerous practise of re-baptising. Together, with a particular answer to all that is alledged in favour of the Anabaptists, by Dr. Jer. Taylor, in his book, called, the liberty of Prophesying. / By John Reading, B.D. and sometimes student of Magdalen-Hall in Oxford.	Reading, John, 1588-1667.	1655 (1655)	Wing R443; ESTC R207312	185,080	220

we say further 1 That believers may be taken two ways first for such as do in heart believe unto righteousness this God alone can judge of and therefore man is not to expect his rule and direction for his ministration from hence Secondly for such as profess faith or shew good and probable signs and symptoms thereof as those hearers of Peter did for they received the word gladly and were baptized and before that there appeared an excellent sign of faith in them in that the word which they heard profited them to compunction of heart and repentance with desiring remedie but where the Word of God is not mixed with faith in the hearers it profiteth not as appeareth Heb. 4. 2. Therefore that assumption is irrational where you say they to whom the Apostle spake were not believers 2 There may be an amphibologie in the major believers being either such only in profession and bearing the external seal of the righteousness of faith or for such in the heart and so the sequel is unsound for the promise of Gods covenant was to all Israel● as being the seed of Abraham within that covenant although many of them through unbelief obtained not remission of sins and eternal life held out to them in the same which made not the promise of nose effect to them who believed and many unbelieving parents had and have believing children but a covenanted Parents unbelief barreth not his Infant born within the Church from the external seal of the covenant so that the promise did belong to them though their Parents had secretly been unbelievers and impious persons much more seeing they so expressed and professed their faith repentance and care to be saved If those children Act. 2. 39. were entitled to baptism in their infancie then they were or must have been baptized in their infancie but they were not baptized in their infancie but their fathers only who received the word gladly therefore they to whom the promise is Act. 2. 39. were not entitled to baptism in their infancie We deny your minor and you can never prove it their fathers were first baptized but it appeareth not that they only were baptized 1. It hath been often said and you need still to hear it it followeth not that it was not done because it is not written Christ spake and did many things which are not written 2 If you could from Scripture prove that de facto they were not baptized in their infancie yet that would not prove that de jure they might not be baptized The parents neglect of their duty or any other intercident obstructions could not make void the childrens interest Moses son was not circumcised on the eighth day nor many thousand Israelists Infants in the wilderness for 40 years yet we cannot hence conclude that they ought not to have been circumcised had there been no let or that they had no interest in the seal because there were lets Only Abrahams spiritual ●seed are to be baptized but Infants are not the spiritual seed of Abraham therefore Infants are not to be baptized We answer 1 This is the same argument under another synonimical dress to which we have answered there you said only believers are to be baptized here you say only Abrahams spiritual seed are to be baptized whereas believers and Abrahams spiritual seed are one and the same in the Apostles account Gal 3. 7. 2 Many thousands which were Abrahams carnal seed were baptized which were indeed not his spiritual seed that is true believers See Mat. 3. 5 6. Act. 2 41. which being done by John Baptist and Christs disciples and so precedentially to us shews the falshood of your major 3 If Abrahams spiritual seed by your own confession be to be baptized then Infants of believers within the Church must be baptized they being Abrahams spiritual seed except you will say that Gods promise was to some who were not within the covenant made with Abraham and indeed the whole mystical body of Christ is the spiritual seed of Abraham of which none can rationally deny Infants of covenanted Parents to be a part who acknowledge Christ to be their Saviour See Eph. 5. 28. and that out of him and his body the Church is no salvation So that by the way we may note that to exclude Christian Infants from being a part of Christs visible Church in general is to exclude them from the ordinary state and way to salvation and so to deny them to be Abrahams spiritual seed is to exclude them from the same and to leave them to an extraordinary means thereto in which some Pagans Turks and obstinate Jews c. by the mercie of God illuminating converting them to the faith of Christ by extraordinary means may be saved and this is to suppose Infants of Christian Parents as bad as Heathens without Christ aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel strangers from the covenants of promise-without God in the World Add hereto that if parents may not sorrow as men without hope for their deceased Infants they cannot have sound hope without faith nor faith without a promise or word of faith that is Scripture-promise to confirm ground it on and that not in general but such as properly concerns their children as that Gen. 17. 7. Act. 2. 39. Luk. 18. 16 17 c. Now to deny childrens interest herein or that they are the spiritual seed of Abraham is to leave afflicted Parents hopeless of their childrens salvation in that by such an an uncharitable impious tenet Parents must not believ those comfortable promises belong to their children and that God will not so much as by an external seal assure them that he is by covenant a God unto their Infants Nor can we think that ever any were saved ordinarily if at all touching whom God never made any promise neither in respect of internal and saving faith nor so much as in respect of external right to sealing thereto so that to avoid this we must say that Christian Infants are Abrahams undoubted spiritual seed therefore they have at least an ecclesiastical right as to the covenant made with Abraham so to the Church-priviledges respectively that is to baptism which is now the seal of Gods covenant in Christ exhibited CHAP. III. Infant baptism asserted and justified by sundry arguments by the Church of Christ alledged 1 ALl they who are members of Christs body the Church are to be baptized that they may be admitted into the same by the initiatory seal thereof which is baptism that they may be externally known to be of the Church but Infants of Church-priviledged persons are members of Christs body the Church ergo they ought to be baptized that they may be admitted into the same by the initiatorie seal thereof which is baptism c. The major is thus confirmed such persons as were circumcised under the Law that they might be known to be of the Church ought to be