A26892:6297
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
I told you before that there are three things distinctly to be considered in the title of Infants to baptism and salvation. 1. By what right the Parent covenanteth for his child? 2. What right the ⟨p. 814⟩child hath to baptism? 3. What right he hath to the benefits of the Covenant sealed and delivered in baptism?
To the first, two things concur to the title of the Parent to Covenant in the name of his child: One is his Natural Interest in him, The child being his own is at his dispose. The other is Gods gracious will and consent that it shall be so; that the Parents Will shall be as the child's for his good, till he come at age to have a Will of his own.
To the first, two things concur to the title of the Parent to Covenant in the name of his child: One is his Natural Interest in him, The child being his own is at his dispose. The other is Gods gracious will and consent that it shall be so; that the Parents Will shall be as the childs for his good, till he come at age to have a Will of his own.
To the second, The child's right to baptism is not merely his Natural or his Birth relation from such Parents, but it is in two degrees as followeth, 1. He hath a Virtual Right, on condition of his Parents faith: the Reason is, because that a believers consent and self-dedication to God doth Virtually contain in it a dedication with himself of all that is his: And it is a contradiction to say that a a man truly dedicateth himself to God, and not all that he hath, and that he truly consenteth to the Covenant for himself, and not for his child, if he understand that God will accept it. 2. His Actual title-condition is his Parents (or Owners) Actual Consent to enter him into Gods Covenant, and his Actual mental dedication of his child to God, which is his title before God, and the Profession of it is his title before the Church. So that it is not a mere Physical but a Moral title-condition, which an Infant hath to baptism, that is, His Parents Consent to dedicate him to God.