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THE MINISTRATION

OF

PRIVATE BAPTISM OF CHILDREN

IN HOUSES.

The curate of the parish shall often admonish the people, that they defer not the baptism of their children longer than the first or second Sunday next after their birth, or other holy day falling between, unless upon a great and reasonable cause, to be approved by the curate.

And also they shall warn them that, without like great cause and necessity, they procure not their children to be baptized at home in their houses. But when need shall compel them so to do, then baptism shall be administered on this fashion:

First; let the minister of the parish (or, in his absence, any other Jawful minister that can be procured] with them that are present, call upon God, and say the Lord's Prayer, and so many of the collects appointed to be said before in the form of public baptism, as the time and present exigence will suffer. And then, the child being named by some one that is present, the minister shall pour water upon it, saying these words:

N., I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Then, all kneeling down, the minister shall give thanks unto

God, saying,

WE yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy church. And we humbly beseech thee to grant, that as he is now made partaker of the death of thy Son, so he may be also of his resurrection; and that finally, with the residue of thy saints, he may inherit thine everlasting kingdom, through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And let them not doubt but that the child, so baptized, is lawfully aud sufficiently baptized, and ought not to be baptized again. Yet, nevertheless, if the child which is after this sort baptized, do afterward live, it is expedient that it be brought into the church, to the intent that, if the minister of the same parish did himself baptize that child, the congregation may be certified of the true form of baptism by him privately before used.

THE END.

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