Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	apostle_n	doctrine_n	receive_v	1,639	5	4.9836	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33967	The improvableness of water-baptism, or, A discourse concerning the gravity and seriousness of the action and the usefulness of the sacred institution of baptism instructing all parents how great a thing they do when they bring their children to that holy ordinance, and all persons, whether young or old, what obligations their baptism hath brought them under, what wrath it hath exposed wicked and impenitent persons to, and what use they may make of their baptism for confirmation of their faith, and quickening them to repentance and an holy life : discoursed from Rom. 6:3,4, by way of sermon / by John Collinges ...	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1681 (1681)	Wing C5321; ESTC R5112	38,449	47

them Friends I cannot I am ingaged Every baptized person as you have heard is an ingaged person because he is baptized into Christ When Nehem. 6. 2. Sanballat and Geshem thinking to do Nehemiah a mischief sent to him saying Come let in meet together in the Villages he sent back messengers to them saying I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down why should the work cease It was Nehemiah's advantage there that he was engaged at that time every tempter to sin intends to do the soul a mischief and tempters are ever and anon treating and sending to the best of souls Baptism furnisheth the soul with a weapon to repel the fiery dart The soul hath this to say I am pre-ingaged in the service of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ I am dedicated to him I am bound over to his service Mark how Joseph resisted the temptation of his Mistris Gen. 39. 9. How shall I do this great Evil and sin against God So should the soul say I am baptized I am listed in the service of Christ How should I do this thing and break my vow break my ingagement in Baptism to be the Lords steal away my self from God to whom I long since was dedicated 2. A second thing which I shall insist upon to shew you the exceeding usefulness of this sacred Institution is the advantage the soul may have from it to quicken it in and to the exercises of some habits of grace and the performance of some duties I shall instance in four 1. The first I shall instance in stedfastness in the faith of the Gospel To quicken the soul to the exercises of Grace It is an exercise of grace very often called for in holy Writ We have indeed a liberty and it is our duty to prove all things but we must hold fast that which is good My beloved brethren saith the Apostle be you stedfast 1 Cor. 15. 58. 1 Pet. 5. 9. Whom resist stedfast in the faith and in many other texts Now I say our Reflection on our Baptism must needs have a great force in it to oblige us to this stediness which it must needs have if we consider it as an Oath or solemn Covenant and ingagement under which it brings us to God Religion hath little force upon that man or womans conscience whom an Oath will not oblige to do that which he hath sworn to do It is said of Herod after he had sworn to give Herodias what she should ask though she asked John Baptists head in a Charger which Herod had no mind to give her nevertheless for his Oath-sake he commanded it to be given her It is true in that case Herod was under no obligation for the Rule is That an Oath cannot be a bond of iniquity But where the thing we have sworn to or engaged for is such that we may do or are otherwise bound to do an Oath layeth a great hold upon the conscience and makes the soul to see a further obligation to it than what it before lay under to the doing of it Hence you shall observe that Paul both to the Churches at Corinth Ephesus and Galatia argues to stedfastness from this Topick There were in the Churches of Corinth some giddy-headed persons of which one said I am of Paul another said I am of Apollos another I am of Cephas How doth St. Paul endeavour to reduce them 1 Cor. 1. 13. Is saith he Christ divided was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul I pray saith he consider your baptism Were you baptized into the profession of my Doctrine or into the profession of the Doctrine of Christ Are you under Temptations to waver in the profession of the great Truths and Doctrines of the Gospel Think with your selves Into what Doctrine or into the profession of what Doctrine was I baptized Was it not the Doctrine of Christ Doth this appear to me from holy Writ to have that stamp upon it So in Gal. 3 2 3. This only saith the Apostle I would learn of you Received you the spirit by the works of the law or by hearing of faith Some of that Church were at that time running away from their profession of the Gospel being seduced by those who in those days insisted upon Justification by the works of the law The Apostle is attempting to reduce them he doth it by this argument Received you the spirit saith he by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith I shall not dispute whether the Apostle there intends by receiving the spirti the receiving peculiar to those times in the extraordinary gifts or manifestations of it Or such a receiving of the spirit as is common to all believers either of which were then generally received or appeared to be received about the time of their Baptism Now saith the Apostle in all reason you ought to receive that Doctrine upon the imbracing of which you had such an eminent evidence of the truth of it that you received the spirit as a seal of it and were baptized into Christ upon your first profession and owning of it So as I say our Baptism and reflections upon it will and must engage us to stedfastness unless it evidently appeareth to us that that Doctrine was false and erroneous 2. A second thing which our Baptism is useful to quicken us to is The keeping of the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace A Keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace duty mentioned in Ephes 4. 3. and mark by what argmments the Apostle perswades it v. 4 There is one body and one spirit as you are called in one hope of your calling One Lord one Faith one Baptism There is but one body compare that with that 1 Cor. 12. 10. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body That one body is the universal Church as appears by the next words Whether Jews or Gentiles and upon this argument which the Apostle would not have used if he had not judged there had been a force in it the Apostle perswades Vnity an unity of Doctrine and Affections for an Vnity in words and syllables and in rites and ceremonies is a stretching of that text beyond the staple there having never at that time been such a thing in the Church of Christ and it being what can never be attained nor was ever commanded by the Apostle But to perswade an unity in faith and love he minds them of the Oneness of their Baptism by which they were united to the Church which is but one body Those that you divide from or quarrel with are of the same body with you and you as well as they were baptized into one and the same body Divide not therefore nor quarrel each with other fall not out by the way for you are brethren It will sometimes put us upon agreeing with and loving of one another to consider that we are fellow

Citizens and fellow-Soldiers so it ought to engage us to endeavour unity that we are fellow-members of the same body and fellow-Citizens of the same City There is but one body and we were all baptized into that one body 3. It is useful to quicken us both to the exercises of faith and To the Exercises of faith and of repentance repentance The force of this lyeth in the solemn dedication of the person to God and the Souls solemn engagement in it to be the Lords both which inseparably attend this holy Institution The soul thus reasoneth with it self I was by nature a child of wrath a great sinner blind unbelieving when I was baptized I was dedicated to God I solemnly engaged my self to the service of God I cannot be the Lords without repenting and believing his word and also a receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ whom God hath revealed to be the Saviour of them that believe Had I been an Heathen I ought not to have been baptized until I had given an evidence of my repentance my hearty imbracing the Doctrine of the Gospel and as hearty closing with the Lord Jesus Christ as my hope and my Saviour Now though I was baptized when a child in my parents right yet if I ever hope to be saved this cannot excuse me from those great duties of Repentance and Faith which God hath made inseparably necessary to salvation As Circumcision availeth nothing to those who did not keep the Law so Baptism availeth as little to those who perform not the terms of the Gospel Besides when I was baptized though an Infant I could not indeed engage for my self but my parents engaged for me that so far as lay in them I should repent and believe they have fulfilled their parts to me in calling upon me for it and pressing these things upon me or if they have not yet the Covenant of God is in my flesh and I am ingaged to do these things not only because they are the necessary terms of my salvation but in regard I have covenanted in Baptism to do it It is true it is not in my power without the special efficacious grace of God to repent or to believe but I am under the Oath of God to do what in me lyes to do it to avoid those gross sins which it is in my power to avoid by vertue of the common grace of God denied to no man Wherein I have offended to set down sadly to reflect on them and to beg of God a broken heart for them to wait upon all holy Institutions which may be conducive to these ends c. 4. To name no more It is useful to quicken us up to Holiness and that part of it especially which lyeth in the mortification of our To the exercise of Mortification members Why because saith the Apostle we are Baptized into his death and buried with him by baptism into death We are not only baptized into a belief and a profession of a belief of his death but into a fellowship with his death a part of which lies in a dying to sin as he dyed for sin For saith the Apostle Peter 1 Pet. 4. 1. He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God Observe the words which go before v. 2. For as much therefore as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh arm your selves likewise with the same mind c. From whence I infer That our fellowship with Christs suffering in the flesh lyeth in our cessation from sin Now I have shewed you that in Baptism a Sacramental representation of Christs suffering in the flesh and our submission to that holy Institution engageth us to a conformity to the death of Christ and to a fellowship with it that is to a ceasing from sin For saith my text we are buried with him by baptism into death and it followeth That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the father even so we also should walk in newness of life And again v. 6. Knowing that our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin For he that is dead is free from sin The meditation of this is of great use to ingage us to Holiness as there is in this Ordinance an ingagement upon us to dye unto sin and to maintain that as well as other parts of the spiritual fight Thus I have shewed you the usefulness of this Ordinance to quicken the soul 3. It is useful likewise to corroborate and strengthen the soul Baptism how it is useful to help and strengthen the Soul and that both in the Exercises of faith and of holiness 1. In the exercises of faith Faith either respects the Proposition of the word which faith agreeth to as truth Or 2. The person of the Mediator who alone is the object of saving justifying faith the primary and more remote object though the promises of the Gospel be the proximate and mediate object in and by which the soul receiveth Christ and by means of which through the assistance of the Spirit the soul committeth it self to him as to all its spiritual concerns respecting eternal life and salvation As to both these Baptism is if made use of a great help Indeed all Sacramental signs are so and given for that end I remember when God instituted the Jewish Passover after the describing the rise of it Exod. 12. from v. 3. to v. 26. he addeth v. 26 and 27. And it shall come to pass that when your children shall say unto you What mean you by this service you shall say It is the sacrifice of the Lords Passover who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses God foresaw that that great deliverance would in time be forgotten or not believed that God should shew such favour to a small oppressed number of people as to bring them out of slavery to slay one in every family of the Egyptians might be questioned especially considering the world was never very apt to believe stories of distinguishing Grace or Providence therefore God instituted the Passover to continue the memory and revive the faith of so great a salvation But how much greater a salvation was here For God to send forth his own Son the Antitype to that Paschal lamb to take upon him our flesh and to dye in our nature for sinners upon the Cross to agree to this was like to be a much harder exercise of faith To revive the memory and keep alive the exercise therefore of faith as to this miracle of salvation God instituted two Sacraments of the New Testament ordained two sacred Actions to be done that when our Children should say to us Father or Mother What is the meaning