N00149:88
A discourse concerning the subject of baptism wherein the present controversies, that are agitated…A discourse concerning the subject of baptisme wherein the present controversies, that are agitated…
A discourse concerning the subject of baptism wherein the present controversies, that are agitated in the New English churches are from Scripture and reason modestly enquired into / by Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Sixteen lines of quotations]A discourse concerning the subject of baptisme wherein the present controversies, that are agitated in the New English churches are from Scripture and reason modestly enquired into / by Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Sixteen lines of quotations]
printed by Samuel Green, 1675
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.
4. God hath owned and blessed the application of Church discipline, towards the Children in Question, for much, yea, for saving good. Instances are not rare amongst us, that when some of these Children have been left to scandalous miscarriages, and thereupon in the Name of Christ Censured, the Lord hath blessed those Censures, even to the Conversion of their Souls, the fl•sh hath thereby been destroyed, and the Spirit saved; this proveth that the practice we argue for is no humane Invention, but a a•vize Institution. Doth not the Apostle prove, qthat his Calling was divine, because God owned it and succeeded it with a blessing, 1 Cor. 9. 1, 2. with Chap. 4. 15, 16? And is not Peters call to the work of the Ministry amongst the Jews evinced from the very same Argument, Gal. 2. 7 8, 9. Was not Gods blessing of Aaron's Rod an effectual demonstration of the divine approbation of his Ministry? The like may be said in this Case, concerning the Rod of discipline. Its true, that the Lord may, [and many times doth] own an Ordinance of his own, though attended with many humane mixtures and Superstitions; but that which is merely an Invention humane in divine worship, God hath cursed it, and he will never bless it, should Churches go about to Censure the Children of unbelieving Indians, the Lord Jesus would never own such proceedings, but he hath, and doth, and will own them, as to those that are the Children of the Church.
4. God hath owned and blessed the application of Church discipline, towards the Children in Question, for much, yea, for saving good. Instances are not rare amongst us, that when some of these Children have been left to scandalous miscarriages, and thereupon in the Name of Christ Censured, the Lord hath blessed those Censures, even to the Conversion of their Souls, the fl•sh hath thereby been destroyed, and the Spirit saved; this proveth that the practice we argue for is no •umane Invention, but a a•vize Institution. Doth not the Apostle prove,