N00045:234
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 and their seed after them, in their generations: cleared up in a letter, sent unto a worthy friend of the author, and many years ago written touching that subject; / by Thomas Shepard, sometimes Pastor of the Church of Christ at Cambridge in New-England. ; Published at the earnest request of many: for the consolidation and encouragement [sic], both of parents and children in the Lord. ; [Twelve lines of Scripture texts]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 and their seed after them, in their generations: cleared up in a letter, sent unto a worthy friend of the author, and many yeares agoe written touching that subject; / by Thomas Shepard, sometimes Pastor of the Church of Christ at Cambridg in New-England. ; Published at the earnest request of many: for the consolidation and encouragemenr [sic], both of parents and children in the Lord. ; [Twelve lines of Scripture texts]
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.
Answ. Churches at first (by your own confession) were in families, where therefore God's grace did the more abound, by how much the less it did abound abroad: And hence Abraham's family and household was a Church of God; but yet consider withal▪ that all were not of this Family-church, merely because they were of the family or household, but because they were Godly, or the children of such as were godly in the family; for Abraham's servants and household, were such as he could and did Command to keep the way of the Lord, and so were obedient to God in him▪ Gen. 18. 19. and we see they did obey, and did receive that new, strange, & painful sign of Circumcision: about the nature and use of which, no doubt he first instructed them, and in the place you mention, Gen. 35 4. they gave to […] all […], & […], to worship God more pu••ly And it's evident, Ex••. 12. 4• that every one in the family had not to do with the […] of the Church, & therefore •ow not of the Church though of the finally: for […] was not to eat of the […] was every one who was bought with money to eat of •t ⟨p. 12⟩until they were Circumcised, ver. 44. nor were any such to be circumcised, until they were willing & desirous to eat the Passover, & that unto the Lord; then indeed they, & theirs were first to be Circumcised, ver. 48. and although this be••ot expressly set down, Gen. 17. in Abraham's family; yet I doubt not, but that as one Scripture gives light unto another, so, this Scripture in Exo. shows the mind of God in the first beginning of the Church, as well as in these times: if therefore the servants who were godly in the family, were only to be circumcised, and their children born in the house with them, then this example is no way leading to corrupt Churches, as you fear it will; but rather the contrary, that if […] servants then, were received into the Church together with their seed, much more are they received now: And if they did not defile the church then, neither should we think that they will do so now. And I beseech you consider of it, that God as then as careful of keeping his Church holy as in these days, especially in the first constitution of it, as in this of Abraham's Gen. 7. And hence God was as much provoked by their unholiness then, as by any unholiness now,