Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A62091
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Primitive baptism, and therein infants and parents rights
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Sylvester, Matthew, 1636 or 7-1708.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing S6332; ESTC R220779
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19,616
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43
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the 8th as many it may be make it to be nor a Charge to be taken so rashly and inconsiderately as we may fear is done by the most What Parents may do for their own Children who are taken into Covenant with them is one thing and what they may do for the Children of Others who stand not in that relation with them is another Every Christian is obliged more or less if not as a Witness yet as a Monitor to help each other in their Faith and Manners but for any to Covenant with God to Promise and Vow in the presence of God and of his People solemnly assembled to be such or such an one 's particular Christian Monitor and in their own capacity to promise as a Surety to take care of their good Education in the Principles of the Christian Faith not being their Parents or where the Parents may be had is a thing of an higher nature and not without absolute necessity to be either required or undertaken And though the use of Sureties should be so early in the Christian Church as some pretend that it is not easy to fix the time of its beginning or that it should be so ancient as some think among the Jews as the time of Isaiah who took unto himself Witnesses to record Isaiah 8.2 Yet what are Sureties The time of whose beginning it is not easy to fix to those made use of from the beginning Or what are Witnesses to Sureties Were Witnesses anciently Sureties Or must we use Sureties because the Prophet took unto himself Witnesses And as to the Reason of the thing Is it to offer up dedicate and devote Children unto God by their Ministry whose Office it is and represent them in Answers to be made in Baptism Who are more proper for these than the Parents whose they are who are Parties with them and who must answer in some respects to God for them Is it to Promise Vow and Covenant on their behalf Who are more fit for this than the Parents themselves with whom the Covenant is made for themselves and theirs and without which Sureties and all their promising vowing and covenanting would signify nothing Children having no right to Baptism from the promising vowing and covenanting of Others for so the Children of Infidels might have right but as the Parents themselves promise vow and covenant for them And if other Sureties do challenge but upon the Parents right why may not the Parents themselves challenge upon their own Is it to undertake for the Childrens good Education in the Principles of the Christian Faith who are laid under such strict Commands bound in such indispensible Obligations Psa 78.5 6. Prov. 19.18 and 29.27 charged with that care and trust and furnished with those fair and advantagious opportunities for the discharge thereof as the Parents Doth not even Nature it self teach us And unto whom hath God said at any time concerning the Children of Others as unto Parents concerning theirs Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy Children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy House and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up Deut. 6.7 And when the Apostle saith Ye Fathers provoke not your Children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Eph. 6.4 Of whom principally saith he this of the Fathers of their Flesh or of some others And for the security of the Church that the Children may be brought to Confirmation and own their Covenant Wherein are the Parents less responsible or more insufficient than the Sureties It is the Parents that God looks after and if they bring up their Children for him do they not bring them up for the Church What needs the Church then any other Sureties Or wherein is it better secured by them As for Sureties it is well known that any are generally accepted of besides some do but stand for other Sureties and some are Sureties for the Children of several Families And what more common than for the younger sort of Sureties to be removed into other Habitations and Abodes And for those of greater years to have Charges of their own sufficient to take up all their care and endeavours Moreover are not Families very often flitting and changing their Dwellings How then it may be again asked Is the Church more or better secured by Sureties than it would be by Parents whose Security was it taken would be something whereas that of Sureities is besides the uncertainty of it usually but in complement having a Form of Godliness but little or nothing of the Power of it so that if it should be demanded What advantage as to these things hath the Church Or what profit is there by them unto the Parents or their Children Or what Glory unto God it would be hard to say Much every way Besides is not Filthiness and Uncleanness hereby covered and masked which it may be hoped would be shamed out if Parents only were required personally to present their Infants To sum up All Are any proper and competent to represent the Children of others to offer them up in Baptism unto God to promise therein for their vertuous and religious Education to covenant with God for them secure the Church and receive the Charge and Exhortation given in their behalf and must they not be much more proper and competent for their own Or if they be not proper and competent for their Own how come they to be proper and competent for the Children of Others Yet this hinders not but that Others may hand Children from the Parents to the Minister or stand as Witnesses of their Baptism so they proceed not to serve in things appertaining to the Parents For the Service and Worship of God requiring personal Attendance and it not being in the power of any to require the performance of one Man's Religious Duty of another or of one Man to perform another Man's Religious Duty for him So that if any should require One man to go to the Church serve God partake of the Lord's Supper for another Or if any should pretend that he doth all these things by another's doing it for him it would be nothing Even so to offer up devote and dedicate Children unto God in Baptism to Covenant for them and therein solemnly to promise and vow the Religious Education of them all which are part of the Christian Religion and Divine Worship is no discharge to the Parents whose Part and Duty it is let them pretend what they will of doing it by others unless they themselves do perform it And therefore that Parents should be required and necessitated to do it by others or it must not be done at all when they themselves may do it is a matter that deserves the most serious consideration of those who challenge not a dispensing or infallible Power If any should think that Parents therefore may not answer promise vow or covenant for their
Children in Baptism because this would be to serve God for them It follows not For when Parents answer promise vow and covenant in their Childrens Name they do not perform their Childrens Duty for them but thereby engage them to it and perform their own And so far as the Parents Act of giving up and dedicating their Children unto God in a way of Covenant and therein answering for them is a Work of Necessity and Mercy it is no more a performing of their Childrens Duty or a serving of God for them than praying to God for them or being their Mouth to God in Praise is To conclude Since Suretiship and making Vows for others is no light and easy matter that this for Children being in things of the greatest moment and unto God who will not be mocked is none of the meanest and that it is not in our Power to substitute one for another or others in our stead to serve God for us nor safe to trifle with sacred things how well would it be if that Suretiship which is founded upon Covenant-Right accommodated with the greatest Advantages most expedient in it self most competent for all the good Ends of Suretiship most unquestionable and which was from the beginning to wit the Parental was always required unto the discharge of which if such whose Ministerial Calling and Emploiment it is would superadd their Endeavours by a frequent assisting of the Parents upon all convenient Occasions remembring them always that he is not a Christian which is one outwardly Rom. 2.28 29. neither is that Baptism which is outward in the Flesh but he is a Christian which is one inwardly and Baptism is that of the Heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter whose Praise is not of Men but of God How useful might this be and more religious than for them waving the Parents to bind heavy Burdens and grievous to be born and lay them on other Mens Shoulders and they themselves not move them with one of their Fingers Now the God of Patience and Consolation grant us to be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus that we may with one Mind and one Mouth glorify God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 15.5 6. Amen FINIS An Appendix AS to Christ his being baptized when 30 Years Old at the beginning of his Ministry mentioned here pag. 26. and also about the Differences and Agreements of Christ his Baptism and John's let the inquisitive Reader peruse and pause upon those brief but excellent touches hereupon which that diligent Reader of the Sacred Scriptures Mr. Samuel Clark hath lately given us in his Notes on Matth. III. 6 16. Tho I confess that Christ's Plea for his being baptized by John Thus it becomes us to fulfil all Righteousness I cannot yet say that I understand it in its utmost reach and force to my full satisfaction That Christ was bound to and so must fulfil the Law of Moses and John's Prophetic Mission and the whole Law of Mediation which his Father laid him under and he so voluntarily obliged himself unto admits no Doubt and needs no Proof But what particular Law Christ here respected as to this Instance I cannot say I yet fully know As to Sponsors God-fathers and God-mothers 1. Let them be serious and devoted Persons unto God and Christ themselves 2. Capable of Receiving and likely and willing to fulfil this Trust And 3. then appear and stand as the Substitutes and Representatives of Absent Parents through Necessity or Pro-parents where Parents are dead or manifestly give their Children wholly to them or as in Conjunction and Concurrence with the Parents for the more effectual Christian Education of the baptized Children And then less may be said against them and more for them than otherwise And then their Testimony will be more credible that Persons offering their Seed to God are such as very probably have a right thereto That the Persons offered are baptized and that in case the Parents die or deny the Faith or prove grosly negligent as to the performance of their Trust care will yet be taken about the fit Christian Education of their baptized Seed But why Parents where they can should not Solemnly and Personally offer their own natural Seed to God and personally profess and promise I know not Seeing this renews their Christian Profession reinforces their Christian Obligations and Advantages upon themselves hands down the Essentials of Christianity from Age to Age calls other Parents to reflect upon themselves as to their Christian Advantages Performances and Concerns and quickens all the Baptized to their Work and Hope I will not vouch for every Word and Thing in this or any meer humane Book but I think it no lost time or labour to read this small Tract M. S. Mr. Joseph Whiston hath published these Treatises about this Subject viz. 1. INfant Baptism from Heaven and not of Men or a moderate Discourse concerning the Baptism of the Infant-Seed of Believers 2. Infant-Baptism from Heaven and not of Men the 2d Part Or an Answer to Mr. Danvers's Treatise of Baptism Wherein Infants Right to Baptism is further confirmed 3. An Essay to revive the Primitive Doctrine and Practice of Infant-Baptism in the Resolution of Four Questions 1. What are the Reasons of God's appointing the Token of his Covenant to be applied to the Infant-Seed of his People 2. What is the Good or Benefit they receive thereby 3. What is the Duty of Parents towards their Children as bearing the Token of the Covenant 4. What is 〈◊〉 Improvement that Children as grown up to Years of Mâ—…rity may and ought to make of the Token as applied to them in their Infancy 4. Infant-Baptism plainly proved A Discourse wherein certain Select Arguments for Infant-Baptism formerly syllogistically handled are now abbreviated and reduced to a plain Method for the Benefit of the Unlearned With a large Epistle to the Pious and Learned among the Antipaedobaptists especially the Authors of the late Confession of their Faith 5. A brief Discourse concerning Man's natural proneness to and tenaciousness of Errors Whereunto are added some Arguments to prove That that Covenant entred with Abraham Gen. 2.7 is the Covenant of Grace 6. The Right Method for the proving of Infant-Baptism With some Reflections on some late Tracts against Infant-Baptism All sold by Jonathan Robinson at the Golden-Lion in St. Paul's Church-Tard Together with several other Treatises in Defence of Infant-Baptism by Mr. Baxter Mr. Wills Mr. Barret c. An ADVERTISEMENT Decemb. 2. 1689. THere is newly Published A Large Folio Bible of a fair new Roman Letter with Annotations and Parallel Scriptures or References some Thousands more than are in the Cambridg Oxford or any London Bibles yet extant To which is annexed The Harmony of the Gospels As also a Reduction of the Jewish Weights Coins and Measures tâ— our English Standard And a Table of the Promises in Scripture By Mr. SAMUEL CLARK In â—…e entire Volume containing Three hundred twenty five Sheets in Good Demy Paper Proposed By thâ— Booksellers undermentioned on these Terms viz. I. He that Buys only one Book to pay Twenty five Shillings Unbound II. He that Buys Six Books shall have a Seventh Gratis which reduces the Price to a Guinea Unbound Which Terms are to continue until the First of May next But after that no Seventh Book will be allowed nor a single Book Sold under Twenty seven Shillings Unbound By Richard Chiswel and Jonathan Robinson in St. Paul's Church-yard And by Brabazon Aylmer in Cornhill