Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A26309
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Dying infants sav'd by grace proved and the blessd man with his blessedness described in a sermon preached near Namptwich in Cheshire at the burial of a deceased infant, July 25, 1695 / by S.A.
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Acton, Samuel, d. 1740?
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1699
(1699)
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Wing A452; ESTC R28175
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24,873
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32
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Dying Infants SAV'D BY GRACE PROVED And the Blessed Man with his Blessedness Described In a SERMON preached near Namptwich in Cheshire at the Burial of a deceased Infant July 25. 1695. By S. A. Matth. 18.3 Verily I say unto you Except ye be converted and become as little Children ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven 1 Cor. 13.7 Charity hopeth all things LONDON Printed for the Author and sold by M. Fabian at Mercers Chappel in Cheapside 1699. To the READER AMong all things knowable I think nothing more necessary for you to endeavour the sound knowledg of than this That you and yours are and shall be blessed as a means thereunto this is intended But What entertainment these Lines may meet with in the World I know not neither am I over-thoughtful being resolved chearfully to undergo whatever Censures shall be my lot to meet with from the differing Sentiments of my Readers But since I have satisfaction that my good meaning will be acceptable with many I shall under their favourable acceptance take repose and shelter from the sharp and undue reflections of others For as the most ingenious Cook cannot prepare a Dish to the good liking of all but some or other from the weakness of a vitiated Palat or something contrary to their affection will disgust the same So 't is believ'd the most learned Man that ever wrote could not so temper his Matter as to obtain universal Approbation but either the ignorant or prejudiced would quarrel with it Yet this advantage the Learned have if judicious that their known Learning and acquired Aptitude carries an Authority sufficient to still the Noise of the simple and to command the Minds of all first to read and then to judg Whereas the Illiterate have not any thing to render their Labours acceptable but the Goodness of their Design and the Blessing of God which I sincerely wish may attend thee in reading these Papers in order to thy Blessedness This Sermon was preached more than three Years since at the Funeral of my Friend's Infant Child and at his request and from this Text by the intreaty of another of my Friends and with design to administer comfort to some sorrowful Women who through the weakness of their Faith had long grieved under tormenting Fears not knowing what the State of their deceased Babes is after Death From hence I took occasion to display according to my measure and time the Immensity of Divine Goodness and to free it from those Restraints that cast dishonour upon it and are no way coherent with Immensity The Arguments as now presented are the same I then offered tho a little inlarged in transcribing with some small Additions in other parts of the Discourse The Salvation of all dying Infants is a Subject innocent in it self and consistent with Nature And were the vilest of Men free from the Obligation of Divine Laws they would not out of their mad fits and in a sedate mind do any thing injurious to their natural Issue but foster tenderly and minister all they could to the advantage of their Young I therefore believe my self under the advantage of all Mens wishing me good luck from the desirableness of the thing and if in this undertaking it be not cleared to general satisfaction it arises not from any doubtfulness of the Matter but from want of skill in the management of it and might my inability excite fitter Instruments to hit the Mark I have aimed at and offer Evidence as undeniable as the Fact is I should be glad In the mean time let none suppose that God in his Nature is more cruel and less tender of his Offspring than Man and the manest Animal is of theirs who as our blessed Saviour teacheth Matth. 7.11 from his superabounding Goodness is much more ready to shew kindness than the most tender Parents on Earth can be Neither is there any thing in all the Sacred Records that I know of which looks like an instance of Severity in God to the damning of one dying Infant in the World It there be 't is surely that of the Infants that perished in the flames of Sodom and Gomorrah which Jude stiles the Vengeance of Eternal Fire v. 7. Yet I think none will imagine that Fire was Eternal whereby those wicked Persons were punished from Heaven but rather a Figure and Representation of the astonishing Misery they must suffer in the other World as 't is often compared to Fire from the sharpness and violence of it Neither can any conclude hence that the Infants which perished in Sodom for their Fathers Wickedness shall so perish in Hell for ever To say so as the Learned * In his Sermon on Ames 4.11 Dr. Stillingfleet has it would be a harsh term no way sutable to the nature and proceedings of God who is so far from punishing Children eternally for the Sins of their impious Parents that sometimes he spares them and their Cities from the flames and ruins of temporal Judgments for sake of their innocent Babes as in the case of Ninive Jonah 4.10 11. I had contented my self in taking a view of these Lines and therein have pleased my self had it not been for the importunity of Friends dear to me to yield them a revival of that pleasure in reading which they had in hearing of ' em And that they and all into whose hands they shall come may have them blessed to their present and eternal Happiness is the unfeigned desire of S. A. ROM 4.8 Blessed is the Man to whom the Lord will not impute Sin THIS Epistle of which our words are a part was written by St. Paul to the Church at Rome the greatest part of which is spent in labouring the decision of many considerable points of Doctrin to clear up the Truth of things which lay disputable among them and for the settling of the Saints there in a stedfast belief of the truth of things necessary to be received and believed by them one of which Doctrins if not the most considerable is that of Justification the knowledg of which is necessary to our cherishing right Sentiments of it in our own Souls for the yielding us hope and strong Confidence of a sure and certain security from Sin and Wrath being thereby encompast with a Wall invincible not to be shaken by the most furious Efforts that Men or Devils the Flesh or the World can make against us In this and the foregoing Chapter the Apostle shews by many Arguments that Man guilty of Sin and justly condemned by the righteous Law of God to death is justified by Faith in Jesus Christ and by Faith only as Chap. 3. from verse 20 to the end where the Apostle is refuting the Error of every Justiciary in the World whether Pharisaical Papal or others who plead for Justification by Works but it 's certain that by Works no Flesh can be justified no tho they be the Works of the Law Rom. 3.20 By the deeds of
our Fourth Consideration is taken from the capacity and fitness of little Children for Heaven and Glory Our Lord Jesus Christ had so high an opinion of them and their fitness that he sets them before his Disciples as a Copy to write after an Example to imitate and as Persons not only worthy but necessary for them to resemble as appears by his taking and setting a little Child in the midst of them and with a solemn asseveration asserting That except they be converted and become as little Children they should not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven If little Children dying such do not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is it not most absurd that our Lord should so solemnly and expresly injoin his Disciples to become like them in order to their entring into his Kingdom Were it not so that little Children have a sitness for Heaven Disciples and Christians in becoming like them whereunto they are most strictly obliged would thereby become unfit for Heaven and Glory But Fifthly and lastly That dying Infants are blessed appears from as good Reason as we have to believe any thing for truth that is contain'd in all the Sacred Records for more plain and positive proof we have not for the belief of any Article of the Christian Faith The Evidence I here offer you is Christ's own Testimony who without scruple tells us they belong to the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 19.14 Suffer them says Christ to come unto me they are the undoubted Heirs of it they have an unquestionable Right to it by the Grace of God their 's it is and into it they enter when they die If we will not believe Christ who shall we believe Take away the credit of his Evidence and what shall we receive for Truth Had we no other Testimony in all God's Book asserting the blessedness of dying Infants this is sufficient to resolve all Doubts about it they being such as is apparent from what hath been said to whom the Lord will not impute Sin I once more say to their Eternal Condemnation And if so to conclude I account it highly unreasonable that Man should attribute the Salvation of dying Infants to any person or thing short of the Grace of God in Christ Jesus upon which Foundation alone the Salvation and Blessedness of dying Infants standeth and that most fure Most unworthy therefore of God and Christ do they speak who talk of a Foederal Holiness making the Faith and Holiness of Parents the Basis on which they build the Blessedness of their Infants What is this less than to set themselves up for Saviours or at least to make themselves Partners with Christ in the Work of Salvation Is not this apparently to charge the Grace of God as deficient to save dying Infants without the Faith and Piety of Parents concurring At this rate of arguing what must become of those Children who have not the advantage of the Faith and Holiness of Parents who may either be taken away by Death leaving their little ones behind them or else if they live they may be wholly void and destitute of Saving-faith and manifest Slaves to Sin and the Devil as too many in this professing Nation are And in either of these cases which be very common what must become of their poor dying Infants if the Grace of God in Christ be not sufficient to save them without the Holiness of Parents But as this Pretence reflects unworthily on God so it is very false in it self as we could shew were that our business We confess that the Children of Believers have a great advantage of others in point of a pious Education but not one jot in point of Salvation their Infants dying before they come to reap the advantage of such Education to say otherwise is to assert that which is not many degrees short of Blasphemy But Secondly If dying Infants are blessed upon God's not imputing Sin unto them then how vain and fruitless is that pretence and practice of Baptizing Infants as they call it in order to their making them Members of the Church Children of God and Heirs or Inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven But if before they be baptized they are in truth the Children of God what doth their Baptism avail them are they afterwards any more the Heirs of God's Kingdom than they were before Or can it be rationally supposed that God hath left it to the liberty choice and within the power of a Priest to save or damn Souls by complying or refusing upon every Summons given him on the weakness of a languishing and dying Infant to come and baptize it O no their Salvation is secured upon a better Bottom altho the generality believe that if their Infants die before they be baptized or sprinkled they be not much if one whit better than Beasts in their death nor must by any means have a Christian Burial with our Parson's Vote but be cast into a Hole behind the Church or some other place where they bury the Excommunicated Self-murderers and the like without the usual Solemnities appointed for the burial of the dead and therefore when a weak Child is midwif'd into the World what running and scouring there is to call the Parson as if a few drops of Water out of his hand were enough to quench the Flames of Hell This well considered must be judg'd highly ridiculous in the Sentiment of every wise Man ten thousand pities it is that God's Ordinance is so changed that poor people are so amused and that our Learned and pious Doctors of the Church do not rectify this prevaling Mistake the People are under by their sincere and devout labours to restore Sacred Baptism to its Primitive Purity at whose door it lies that their Priests in administring of that Ordinance may in point of practice as apparently agree with that of the Apostles as 't is evident they desire to be accounted their Successors But Thirdly and to conclude If dying Infants are blessed upon God's not imputing Sin unto them then here is comfort to sorrowful Mothers who have been long afflicted refusing with Rachel to be comforted for their Children If this will not relieve you under your Distresses what will Here 's enough to remove all your Fears and to satisfy your Minds with reference to the Eternal State of your deceased Babes Let this stop the Springs that have been opened and wipe away all those trickling Tears which have been as so many Evidences of your compassion and passionate concern to and for your beloved tho deceased Infants Fear not dear Souls God who hath a better right to them than you had has more tender compassion of them than you can have If you have who are evil Mat. 7.9 10 11. so much goodness as to wish them Heaven God is much more good and will give them Heaven Therefore give no longer way to needless scrupulosity and fear on their account whose happiness renders them capable of exhorting you to spend your Cares Fears and Tears on some other Subject saying as Christ to the Daughters of Jerusalem Luke 23.28 Weep not for me but weep for your selves and your Children that is your sinful and miserable Posterity nay rather rejoice and comfort your selves for 't is better with us than you have imagined being such unto whom the Lord imputes no Sin Nothing remains now but that we who survive our deceased Babes do give all diligence in the practice of Vertue whereunto we are called to make our own Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 11. that so an abundant entrance may be given us into Glory there to rejoice not only in our own Blessedness but in a more certain assurance of our Childrens also if such a thing can be since our Apostle so expresly says Blessed is the Man unto whom the Lord will not impute Sin FINIS