Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending…

Had our people but well considered, what Interest the Ministerial Office hath in their very Baptism and Christianity, and that they cannot be New-born into the Kingdom of God, without the help of these Midwives, at least, (and Scripture gives them also the Title of Parentage) they would then have discerned that by their very Baptism they are engaged to the Ministry subserviently, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to whom they are principally engaged: For, as the Liturgy speaks, they are Dedicated to God by our Office and Ministry, and they have their visible state in the Christian Church and Possession of its Privileges, delivered to them by our Office and Ministry; and therefore, me thinks, they should well bethink themselves before they renounce it and despise it, till they dare renounce and despise their Baptism: and those that do that, I do not much wonder if they renounce our Ministry.

Had our people but well considered, what Interest the Ministerial Office hath in their very Baptism and Christianity, and that they cannot be New-born into the Kingdom of God, without the help of these Midwives, at least, (and Scripture gives them also the Title of Parentage) they would then have discerned that by their very Baptism they are engaged to the Ministery subserviently, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to whom they are principally engaged: For, as the Liturgie speaks, they are Dedicated to God by our Office and Ministery, and they have their visible state in the Christian Church and Possession of its Priviledges, delivered to them by our Office and Ministery; and therefore, me thinks, they should well bethink themselves before they renounce it and despise it, till they dare renounce and despise their Baptism: and those that do that, I do not much wonder if they renounce our Ministery.

Furthermore, It is here supposed that a Profession is necessary, before we may admit men to Baptism; and that this must ⟨p. 4⟩be a profession of the true Christian saving faith, and not only of some other sort of faith. And we take it for granted, that the aged are admitted upon their own profession, and the Infants upon the profession of the Parent, by whom he hath his Title to the Covenant, even as he is the seed of a believer.