A59660:73
The church-membership of children, and their right to baptism according to that holy and…The church-membership of children, and their right to baptisme according to that holy and…
The church-membership of children, and their right to baptism according to that holy and everlasting covenant of God, established between Himself and the faithful ... cleared up in a letter, sent unto a worthy friend of the author ... / by Thomas Shepard ...The church-membership of children, and their right to baptisme according to that holy and everlasting covenant of God, established between Himself and the faithfull ... cleared up in a letter, sent unto a worthy friend of the author ... / by Thomas Shepard ...
Cambridge: printed by Samuel Green, 1663Cambridg: printed by Samuel Green, 1663
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.
These things thus premised, to clear up the ensuing discourse, I shall now do two things. 1. Leave a few grounds and reasons to prove, that Children are in Church-Covenant, and so enjoy Church-Membership by their parents. 2. I shall then Answer your scruples.
To the first; The truth of it is manifest, by clearing up this proposition; viz: 1That one and the same Covenant which was made to Abraham in the old Testament, is for substance the same with that in the New; and this under the new-Testament, the very same with that of Abraham's under the old.
- 1Argum: 1.
I say for Substance the same, for it is acknowledged that there was something proper and personal in Abraham's Covenant, as to be a Father of many Nations, but this was not of the Substance of the Covenant, which belong's to all the Covenanters, and unto which the Seal of Circumcision was set: for all Abraham's seed, neither in those, nor these days, are the fathers of many nations, nor did Circumcision seal it.
I say for Substance the same, for it is acknowledged that there was somthing proper and personal in Abraham's Covenāt, as to be a Father of many Nations, but this was not of the Substance of the Covenant, which belong's to all the Covenanters, and unto which the Seal of Circumcision was set: for all Abraham's seed, neither in those, nor these dayes, are the fathers of many nations, nor did Circumcision seal it.