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Selections From the Fifth Book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity [ed. by J. Keble].
Selections From the Fifth Book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity - ed. by J. Keble Author:Richard Hooker General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1839 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: TOUCHING FAITH AND OBEDIENCE 219 days did baptize, made profession of Christian belief, and undertook to live accordingly. Neither do I think it a matter easy for any man to prove, that ever baptism did use to be administered without interrogatories of these two kinds; whereunto St. Peter, as it may be thought, alluding, hath said, that the baptism which saveth usd is not, as legal purifications were, a cleansing of the flesh from outward impurity, but an interrogative trial of a good conscience towards God. SECTION XLVIII. OF INTERROGATORIES TO INFANTS. We are then believers, because we then begin to be that which process of time doth make perfect. And till we come to actual belief, the very sacrament of faith is a shield as strong as, after this, the faith of the sacrament against all contrary infernal powers; d 1 Peter iii. 2t. 220 OF INTERROGATORIES TO INFANTS. which, whosoever doth think impossible, is undoubtedly farther off from Christian belief, although he be baptized, than are these innocents, which at their baptism, albeit they have no conceit or cogitation of faith, are notwithstanding pure and free from all opposite cogitations, whereas the other is not free. If therefore without any fear or scruple, we may account them and term them believers only for their outward profession's sake, who inwardly are farther from faith than infants; why not infants much more at the time of their solemn initiation by baptism, the sacrament of faith, whereunto they not only conceive nothing opposite, but have also that grace given them, which is the first and most effectual cause out of which our bel...« less