A65285:2818
A Body of Practical Divinity
A body of practical divinity consisting of above one hundred seventy six sermons on the lesser catechism composed by the reverend assembly of divines at Westminster : with a supplement of some sermons on several texts of Scripture / by Thomas Watson ...
London: printed for Thomas Parkurst, 1692
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.
2. It blames those Parents who forbid little Children to be brought to Christ; they with-hold the Ordinance: By denying their Infants Baptism, they exclude them from having a Membership in the Visible Church, and so their Infants are sucking Pagans. Such as deny their Children Baptism, make God's Institutions under the Law more full of Kindness and Grace to Children, than they are now under the Gospel; which how strange a Paradox it is, I leave to you to judge.
Use. III. Exhort. 1st. Branch. We that are Baptized, let us labour to find the Blessed Fruits of Baptism in our own Souls: Let us labour not only to have the Sign of the Covenant, but the Grace of the Covenant. Many glory in this, that they are Baptized. The Jews gloried in their Circumcision, because of their Royal Privileges: To them belonged the Adoption, and the Glory, and the Covenants, Rom. 9.4. But many of them were a Shame and Reproach to their Circumcision. Rom. 2.24. For the Name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you. The scandalous Jews (tho Circumcised) were in God's Account as Heathens. Amos 9.7. Are ye not as Children of the Ethiopians to me, saith the Lord? Alas! What is it to have the Name of Christ, and want his Image? What is Baptism of Water, without the Baptism of the Spirit? Many Baptized Christians are no better than Heathens. O, labour to find the Fruits of Baptism, that Christ is formed in us! Gal. 4.19. That our Nature is changed, we are made Holy and Heavenly; this is to be Baptized into Jesus, Rom. 6.3. Such as live unsuitable to their Baptism, may go with Baptismal Water on their Faces, and Sacramental Bread in their Mouths, to Hell.
Vse. III. Exhort. 1st. Branch. We that are Baptized, let us labour to find the Blessed Fruits of Baptism in our own Souls: Let us labour not only to have the Sign of the Covenant, but the Grace of the Covenant. Many glory in this, that they are Baptized. The Jews gloried in their Circumcision, because of their Royal Priviledges: To them belonged the Adoption, and the Glory, and the Covenants,