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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A26959 More proofs of infants church-membership and consequently their right to baptism, or, A second defence of our infant rights and mercies in three parts ... / by Richard Baxter. Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1675 (1675) Wing B1312; ESTC R17239 210,005 430

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Donative Instrument of God which saith He that believeth shall be justified may effect my Justification when I believe and not before though my faith effect it not at all but dispose the recipient But I deny that the Parents faith being put all the capacity of the recipient is put even when he is born For if it be possible for the Parent to consent for himself and not for his child and to devote himself and not his child to God part of the condition of reception is wanting As far as I perceive could I but hope to be so happy a disputant as to convince Mr. T. that Church-membership visible is any benefit at all it self or was to the Israelites he would grant me all that I plead for of the conveyance of it by Covenant And if I cannot it is a hard case SECT LXXXVI R. B. THe second Commandment Exod. 20.5 6. Deut. 5.9 10. I think is a law and containeth a promise or premiant part wherein he promiseth to shew mercy to the generations or children of them that love him and keep his Commandments of which I have also spoken elsewhere to which I refer you I see no reason to doubt but here is a standing promise and discovery of Gods resolution concerning the children of all that love him whether Jews or Gentiles to whom this Commandment belongs nor to doubt whether this mercy imply Church-membership And that this is fetcht from the very gracious nature of God I find in his proclaiming his Name to Moses Exod. 34.6 7. Mr. T. If this mercy here imply Church-membership to the Infants of them that love him to a thousand Generations then it implieth it to all the Infants in the world But there is nothing to prove that this mercy must be Church-membership or that it must be to all the children of them that love God or that it must be to them in Infancy I incline to conceive this a promise of temporal mercies chiefly to the Israelites Reply 1. That it is not only of temporal mercies the words Love and Hate as the qualification of the Parents seem to prove and the joyning the children to the Parents in the retribution And all the terms seem above such a sense It is the revenge of a jealous God on Idolaters and mercy to his Lovers that is spoken of And the joyning this Command to the first which setleth our relation to God with the Laws annexed in Deut. for the cutting off whole Cities Parents and Children that turn from God to Idols sheweth that it reached to Church-Communion and Life 2. And that it was not only to the Israelites whatever you chiefly mean is proved both in that it is in the Decalogue and the proclaimed name of God Exod. 34.5 6. and exemplified throughout the Scripture and in the Gospel 2. As to the extent we can hardly expect that the world should endure a thousand Generations Therefore it can mean but that God who boundeth the punishment to the third and fourth generation will set no bounds to the succession of his mercies while our capacity continueth And whatever the mercies be the exposition of this continuance concerneth you as much as me 3. As to the conditions I doubt not but it supposeth that the child at age imitate the Parents in their Love or Hatred duty or sin And that if on Repentance the Parent be forgiven his sin may not be visited to the third and fourth And if a child of Godly Parents turn wicked the right is intercepted 4. But the Commandment with the foresaid exposition shews that God meaneth that his Retribu●ion to Parents that Love or Hate him shall extend to their children as such unless they interrupt it at age by their own acts And if to their children qua tales then to Infants And it speaketh such a state of mercy as cannot in reason be conceived to belong to them without and can mean no less than Gods visible favour by which the Church is differenced from the world when Lovers and Haters are distinguished sides And when God hath Recorded this decreed granted distinguished mercy to the children of the faithful as such in the Tables of stone sure it is a visible notification which will make them visible favorites and Church-members as soon as they visibly exist And the quatenus seemeth to me to prove that it extendeth to all the children of the faithful because it is to them as such But it followeth not that it must extend to them all alike as to equal mercies nor yet that the sin of Parents after may make no kind of forfeiture But of this I have said more in my Christian Directory SECT LXXXVII to XCIV R. B. IN Psal 102.28 It is a general promise the children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee It is usual in the Old Testament to express Gods favour by temporal blessings more than in the Gospel but yet still they secure us of his favour As I will not fail thee nor forsake thee might secure Joshua more than us of temporal successes and yet not more of Gods never failing favour There is a stable promise to all Gods people in general that have children Psal 103.17 But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto childrens children And to be secured by promise of Gods mercy and righteousness is the state of none without the Church And if they were all to be kept out of the Church I scarce think that Children would be called an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb his reward Psal 127.3 nor the man happy that hath his quiver full of them Nor would the sucking children be called as part of the solemn assembly to the humiliation Joel 2.16 2 Chron. 20.13 There is a standing promise to all the just Prov. 20.7 The just man walketh in his integrity his children are blessed after him There is no sort of men without the Church that is pronounced blessed in Scripture A blessed people are Gods people and those are the Church separated from the cursed world One lower blessing will not denominate a man or society a blessed man or society If it were a good argument then Deut. 4.37 because he loved thy fathers therefore he chose their seed after them then it is good still as to favour in general So Deut. 10.15 Psal 69.36 Prov. 11.21 The seed of the righteous shall be delivered In Psal 37.26 there is a general promise to or declaration of the righteous that his seed is blessed and then they are Church-members In Isa 61.8 9. it is promised I think of Gospel times I will make an everlasting Covenant with them and their seed shall be known among the Gentiles and their off-spring among the people all that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed And cap. 62.12 They shall call them the