1. Whether a Church may not, ought not, to take under its Conduct, Inspection and Rule, such as are not yet meet to be received into full Communion; such as are the Children and Servants of those who are complete Members of the Church. Answ. No doubt the Church in its Officers, may and ought so to do; and it is a great evil when it is neglected. For, (1.) They are to take care of Parents and Masters as such, and as unto the discharge of their Duty in their Families; which, without an inspection into the condition of their Children and Servants, they cannot do. (2.) Households were constantly reckoned unto the Church, when the Heads of the Families were entered into Covenant, Luk. 19.9. Act. 16.15. Rom. 16.10, 11. 1 Cor. 1.16. 2 Tim. 4.19. (3.) Children to belong unto, and have an Interest in their Parents Covenant; not only in the promise of it, which gives them Right unto Baptism; but in the Profession of it in the Church Covenant, which gives them a Right unto all the Privileges of the Church, whereof they are capable, until they voluntarily relinquish their claim unto them. (4.) Baptizing the Children of Church Members, giving ⟨p. 17⟩them thereby an Admission into the visible Catholic Church, puts an Obligation on the Officers of the Church, to take care, what in them lieth, that they may be kept and preserved meet Members of it, by a due watch over them, and instruction of them. (5.) Though neither the Church nor its Privileges be continued and preserved as of old, by carnal generation; yet, because of the nature of the Dispensation of Gods Covenant, wherein he hath promised to be a God unto Believers and their Seed; the advantage of the means of a gracious Education in such Families, and of conversion and edification in the Ministry of the Church, ordinarily the continuation of the Church, is to depend on the addition of Members out of the Families already incorporated in it. The Church is not to be like the Kingdom of the Mamelukes, wherein there was no regard unto natural Successors; but it was continually made up of Strangers and Foreigners incorporated into it: Nor like the beginning of the Roman Common-weal, which consisting of Men only, was like to have been the matter of one Age alone.
1. Whether a Church may not, ought not, to take under its Conduct, Inspection and Rule, such as are not yet meet to be received into full Communion; such as are the Children and Servants of those who are compleat Members of the Church. Answ. No doubt the Church in its Officers, may and ought so to do; and it is a great evil when it is neglected. For, (1.) They are to take care of Parents and Masters as such, and as unto the discharge of their Duty in their Families; which, without an inspection into the condition of their Children and Servants, they cannot do. (2.) Housholds were constantly reckoned unto the Church, when the Heads of the Families were entred into Covenant, Luk. 19.9. Act. 16.15. Rom. 16.10, 11. 1 Cor. 1.16. 2 Tim. 4.19. (3.) Children to belong unto, and have an Interest in their Parents Covenant; not only in the promise of it, which gives them Right unto Baptism; but in the Profession of it in the Church Covenant, which gives them a Right unto all the Privileges of the Church, whereof they are capable, until they voluntarily relinquish their claim unto them. (4.) Baptizing the Children of Church Members, giving ⟨p. 17⟩them thereby an Admission into the visible Catholick Church, puts an Obligation on the Officers of the Church, to take care, what in them lieth, that they may be kept and preserved meet Members of it, by a due watch over them, and instruction of them. (5.) Though neither the Church nor its Privileges be continued and preserved as of old, by carnal generation; yet, because of the nature of the Dispensation of Gods Covenant, wherein he hath promised to be a God unto Believers and their Seed; the advantage of the means of a gracious Education in such Families, and of conversion and edification in the Ministry of the Church, ordinarily the continuation of the Church, is to depend on the addition of Members out of the Families already incorporated in it. The Church is not to be like the Kingdom of the Mamalukes, wherein there was no regard unto natural Successors; but it was continually made up of Strangers and Foreigners incorporated into it: Nor like the beginning of the Roman Common-weal, which consisting of Men only, was like to have been the matter of one Age alone.
