to his arms: q, d. Bleffed Lord, thou haft given us in mere, cy thefe tender babes, and now we fee them perfect in limbs, and like thee in their fouls, (for which we everblefs thy name) we defire now to throw them into the hands of thy fatherly providence, and to caft them into the arms of thy everlafting mercy: Own them we humbly pray. thee as thy children in Jefus Christ. 2. Let parents tender them to the ordinance of baptifm, that they may receive the fign and feal of regeneration. But what needs (fay fome Phanatics) is not the pro-. mise itself sufficient? and cannot God make it good unto our children without this facrament? I anfwer, Yes, he can; but fecing God so far condescends to our weakness, as to give us a fign and feal for the confirmation of our faith, in this cafe to flight it, to neglect it, to refuse it, what is it but to tempt God? This facrament is a fign-or- . dained by God, and fhall we refufe it? This was Ahaz's cafe, the Lord bids him afk a fign for confirmation of his faith in the promise, but he refused it as a thing needlefs; I will not ask a fign, neither will I tempt the Lord, Ifa. vii. 12. Nay, Ahaz in not afking it at God's command, therein thou didst tempt the Lord. Indeed not to believe without a fign, were in fome fenfe to tempt the Lord: Master, we would fee a fign from thee, faid the Scribes, and Pharifees to Chrift, for which he calls them an evil and adulterous generation, Mat. xii. 38, 39. But where. God affords a fign for the help of our infirmity, there to refuse it, is both prefumption and rebellion. Nor is this facrament only a sign, but a feal; and howsoever the promife be made good without a feal, yet cannot we urge the promife, with the fame evidence and ground of assurance, when the feal is added to the promise, otherwise it must needs follow, that the facraments add nothing at all to the covenant, in point of certainty and evidence. Away, away with these heterodox doctrines, and let all that fear God take heed of contemning or neglecting this ordinance of God. Chriftians, bring your children to baptifm; and when you bring them, endeavour to affect your hearts with fuitable difpofitions to that action. As, 1. Have a high thankful efteem of the rich mercy of God God in Chrift to you and yours. Is it not an honour that God fhould make your iffue the nursery of the visible church, that Chriftianity through a covenant of grace fhould defcend in your line, and become in a fort (as we may fay) hereditary. Surely the trueft nobility is to be made a Chriftian. Theodofius was more glad to be made a Chriftian than to be made the emperor of the world. You would think it à great honour if you could but make your children heirs of the world, but what honour is this, that God makes them by covenant and feal heirs of heaven? Oh for an heart raifed up and enlarged in thankfulness for this! 2. Rejoice in the Lord, and again I fay rejoice. Is there not caufe? What is this day of baptifm but the day of your children's efpoufals to Jefus Chrift? Now they have his name put upon them, and he makes them a jointure beyond the abilities of all the monarchs in the world. Now they are his (a) foldiers, his fons and daughters by a fpirit of adoption fealed in baptifm. I remember when. Jacob bleffed the fons of Jofeph, Ephraim and Manaffeh, he bleffed them thus, Let my name be named upon them, and the name of my Father Abraham and Ifaac, Gen. xlviii. 16. He adopted them for his fons, they must be two of the twelve tribes of Ifrael, to have an inheritance with them in the land of Canaan: So when God puts his name upon your children, he fignifieth and affureth that they are his fons, Gal. iii, 16, 17. 'Ye are all the children of God by faith in Chrift Jefus, for as many of you as have been baptiz'ed unto Chrift, have put on Christ.' SECT. VI. Of the Duties that concern Children in this respect. FOR 1. Let them bewail their own original fin. Oh (a) Cautum erat apud Romanus, ne quis ad bellum prius accederet. quam juraffet omnia fe ftrenue facturum quæ præceperat imperator, juramentum hoc fub Augufto nomine facramenti venditabant. Idem vocabulum mutuata et Ecclefia, fuo baptifmo applicatum voluit, ut oftenderet omnes et fingulos, qui facro fonte abluti funt, ipfo fatto confcribi in milites. D. ARROUSMITH Tactica Sacra. that that as this is the firft fin, fo it might be first taken notice of! Oh, that as soon as children come to ripeness they will confider thus: Bleed Lord, how comes this to pass? the Pfalmift tells me, I was shapen in iniquity, and in fin hath my mother conceived me, Pfal. li. 5. Oh, I am a child of Adam, the fon or daughter of a finful brood: He was the rock whence I was hewn, and the hole of the pit whoce I was digged, and who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. Affoon as ever I lived, I was polluted, and for that one fin if I had never finned more, the Lord might juftly have condemned my foul long fince to hell, and I am yet alive? Why Lord, what a long reprieve have I enjoyed? How many years have I lived in a condemned condition? Oh, that I had been a child of a toad, or ferpent, or venemous creature; for surely God doth not lothe and abhor their young ones, they are not by nature objects of God's wrath, neither doth Satan rule in them, nor are they exposed to eternal torments, but thus is he finful offfpring of all mankind. Now I wonder not that Luther in the depths, and troubl s, and forrows of his heart, becaue of this fin, cried out fo pitifully, Oh that I had never been a man! Now I wonder not that Paul, befet with this ori ginal fin, was forced to fay, Oh wretched man that I am, who fhall deliver me from this body of death? In this, ro the like manner, fhould they bewail themselves. Many are apt to mourn for actual fin, but few mourn for this fin that first made the breach, and began the controverfy be. twixt God and man. Surely the horrible nature of this firft fin is not well underfood: Chriftians, let me tell you, next unto the fin of the Holy Ghost, and contempt of the gofpel, this is the greatest fin that cries loudeft in God's ears for vengeance day and night against a world of men. Oh then let children grown take notice of this, and bewail this fin. 2. Let them urge the covenant of God made to them in their fathers. 9. d. Lord we are finners from the womb, and yet by good providence we are fprung from a believ ing race: Was there not a league of old betwixt thee and our fathers? and wilt thou not remember thy gracious promile to them and us? Should David do kindness to Mephibofheth D Mephibofheth for his father Jonathan's fake, and are there no remains of love in thy breaft towards the posterity of thy old dear friends? Why, remember Lord, the unfeigned faith that dwelt in our grandmother Lois, or in our mother Eunice, or in fome other of our godly progenitors; and remember how often they acted their faith upon that promife, that thou wouldst be the God of them and theirs ; did they not prefs thee with thy promife on our behalf? Did they not pray to thee once and again to be good and gracious unto us their children? Why, dear Father, the God of our fathers, and our God, wilt thou please to read over the petitions which are yet on file in heaven on our behalf, nay, wilt thou please to read over thy answers to them, when as yet our bones were only written in thy book! Oh let it never be said that children descended of fuch a prayerful race are caft out of thy favour, or that the prayers of that race should become unsuccessful unto us, on whose behalf they were put up. What tho' we were conceived and born in fin? And what tho' Satan doth claim and challenge us for his own, yet thou waft pleafed to enter into a covenant of grace, and thou hast stiled thyfelf to be the God of Abraham and his feed: O now remember thy word, and remember thy promife, and remember thy covenant, and remember our fathers in covenant with thee for thy mercies fake. 3. Let them fue out the grace and benefit of their former baptifm: They had the outward washing before, but not the inward washing till now: Why now let them prefs hard for this. Now Satan wrestles, and now should they wrestle, (as we shall hear more particularly another time) now should every fuch a one cry to God, Come Lord Je fus, come quickly; O refcue thy creature out of Satan's flavery fee he holds me faft in his net, and gins, and fnares, and he will not let me go; he tells me, I am one of his fubjects, a goat of his fold; but Lord, doft thou not know that I have had thy fheep-mark upon me from a lamb? Was not I born in thy family? and did not I in baptifm put on Christ facramentally? O that now I may put him on favingly! It is true, the facramental washing in water is not enough, and is it not high time for me now to to make out after facramental graces, to cleanse my filthy nature? Lord I come to the fountain opened in the gospel for fin, and for uncleannefs; O fprinkle clean water upon me, regenerate me, as thou haft already with water, fo now with the Spirit; beflow on me the inward and fpiritual part of my baptifm, fanctify me in pursuance of thy promife fealed therein by thy word, and prefent my foul to thyself without fpot or wrinkle, or any fuch thing. 4. Let them repent of their apoftacy, and breach of Vows, fince they were admitted into covenant with God. This brings into their remembrance all their actual fins, and feasonably are they to be remembred, and repented of when they mind converfion. The Spirit's firft work is to convince of fin; of fin original, and of fin actual, and amongst other aggravations of actual fins, this is a great and mighty aggravation, the breach of vows. But what vows were made by them while they were infants? I an fwer, they vowed to be God's and Chrift's; they vowed to forfake the world, and flefh, and devil, and to manage war against them all their days: They vowed to fight under the banner of Chrift, and to be his foldiers, and to maintain his caufe, and to promote his kingdom. For underftanding whereof, we must take notice of a double vow : The first is a virtual vow, when we vow legally, though in our own perfons we promife nothing. The fecond is a formal vow, when in exprefs terms we take upon us any obligation: Infants while infants cannot vow formally, but they do virtually; their fathers ftand inftead of themfelves and infants, and privately at their firft quickning in the womb, but folemnly at their baptifm in the church, they bind themselves and their feed to God in this manner, Know all men by thefe prefents, that I. A. do hereby oblige myfelf, and my beirs, and pofterity, from me defcending, to the great God of heaven and earth, in all the duties required in the law and gofpel. Now this vow is it that vertually was made by infants. They could not do it in their own perfons; and therefore by a gracious prolepfis God accepts it on their behalf, thus made and figned, by their mediate or immediate parents. And have they not many and many a time broken thefe facred vows? Have they not |