A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian EcclesiasticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
And withal reading that we are made kings and priests to God, and a
royal priesthood, they thought this might be signified by the usual
honorary signs of such, as well as by words to be called such. So that
they took it as if, in our age, the baptized should be set in a chair
of state, and sumptuously apparelled, and a feast made to solemnize
it, as they do at weddings, and the baptized person set at the upper
end, &c. which are significant actions and ceremonies; but they
intended them not as new sacraments, or any part of the sacrament, but
as a pompous celebration of the sacrament by such additional
ceremonial accidents.
5. And you must remember that they lived among infidels, where their
profession was made the common scorn, which tempted them by such
ostentation and pomp to seek to make it honourable, and to show that
they so accounted it, and to encourage those who were discourageable
by the scorn. On which account also they used the cross, and the
memorials of the martyrs.
6. Yet some, yea, many afterwards did seem to take the anointing for a
sacramental action. When they read that the laying on of hands was the
sign of giving the Holy Ghost, as distinct from baptism, and that the
Spirit is called in Scripture the anointing, they joined both
together, and made that which they now called the sacrament of
confirmation.
7. Whether the anointing, milk and honey, and the white garment, were
then sinful in themselves to the users, I determine not. But certainly
they proved very ill by accident, whilst at this door those numerous
and unlawful ceremonies have entered, which have so troubled the
churches, and corrupted religion; and among the papists, Greeks,
Armenians, Abassines, and many others, have made the sauce to become
the meat, and the lace to go for clothing, and turned too much of
God's worship into imagery, shadows, and pompous shows.
[297] Psal. xxiii. 5; xcii. 10; Luke vii. 46; Matt. vi. 17; Amos vi.
6; Psal. lxxxix. 20; Lev. xvi. 32; Luke xvi.
[298] Rev. iii. 4, 5, "They shall walk with me in white."
[299] Jam. v. 14; Mark vi. 13.
[300] 1 Cor. xi. 16.
[301] Rev. i. 6; v. 10; xx. 6; 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9.
Quest. LI. _Whether it be necessary that they that are baptized in
infancy, do solemnly at age renew and own their baptismal covenant,
before they have right to the state and privileges of adult members?
And if they do not, whether they are to be numbered with christians or
apostates?_
_Answ._ 1. Church membership is the same thing in infants and in the
adult.
2. Infants are naturally uncapable of doing all that in baptism which
the adult must do; as to understand, profess, &c. themselves.
3. The baptism of the adult, being the most complete, because of the
maturity of the receivers, is made the standing pattern in Scripture;
for God formeth his ordinances to the most perfect ordinary receivers.
4. Though an infant be devoted acceptably to God by his parent's will,
yet when he is at age it must be done by his own will.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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