WHether it be certain by God's Word that Infants Baptized dying before Actual Sin be undoubtedly saved § 1. I expected your Work had been to Convince Men of the good of Conformity But seeing it is to save Men from being seduced by my Directory you may doubt whether you will not rather tempt some impartial Men to read the words And then your work is spoiled when they compare them with your Accusation § 2. I lookt for some plain Text of Scripture to prove this both certain by God's Word and undoubted But finding none such I humbly beseech you hereafter when you have mind to shew your Argumentative strength leave out the abusive pretence of the Word of God Holy things must be holily used § 3. Your first Argument is that A Carnal Christian hath propriety in his Child and therefore may devote him to God as he may his Goods Ans. It had been more piously prudent to hear what could be said to such pretty new Knacks before you had tempted the Church by publishing them 1. Your first Proof is 1 Sam. 26. 26 27 28. and there are but 25 Verses in the Chapter and none to your purpose The next is Lev. 27. 28. Did you ever consider the Text Ainsworth and the Rabbies suppose from the Notation of the word and from the express words ver 29. that it is devoting of Slaves or Malefactors to death that is here spoken of Others better That it includeth both the absolute dedication of acceptable Persons to Service and of odious Persons to Death Therefore all are not saved that are here called holy as devoted Neither the Cursed nor the Levites that by dedication obliged to Service are hereby saved For more than Obligation is necessary to the reward The First-born were specially to be given to God and yet that implied not their certain Salvation 2. A Dissembler may by his Covenant obtain a right with Man that knoweth not his Heart and he may be received into the outward Communion of the Church by God's Approbation who Commissioneth Ministers who know not mens Hearts to receive Men according to their Profession And these are holy to the Lord as the Iews were but not therefore under a promise that they shall be undoubtedly saved Were all the Iews saved because they were a holy Nation 3. Not only his Child but the grossest hypocritical Lyar himself who is Baptized and cometh into the Church in Malice to betray it is yet holy as a Visible Member and hath obliged himself to real Holiness and yet is far from a state of Salvation 4. Nothing is holy and accepted by the Devoters Act alone without God's accepting Act Nor any further or to any other uses than God accepteth it to Some he accepteth unto Visible Membership and Communion and some to the Sacred Ministry and some to Magistracy c. who are not accepted to Salvation 5. Doth Lev. 27. prove that all Nations in the World might devote their Children unto God with the same assurance of acceptation as the Israelites 6. The Jewish Mosaical Law is abrogated and neither bindeth us as such nor secureth us of acceptance for obeying it 7. All Heathens and Infidels have some propriety in their Children and yet if in unbelief they devote them with the Tongue alone to God that will not make their Salvation undoubted 8. Few God-Fathers have propriety in them How then will their devoting prove their Salvation 9. God hath made no promise of his acceptance which you can shew therefore you cannot by his Word be certain of it 10. God saith that the Sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Him much more when he doth it with an evil mind And he expressly saith Else were your Children unclean if one Parent were not a Believer but now are they holy Therefore when both Parents are Unbelievers the Children are not accepted of God as holy 11. The question is of all Baptized Children For it is Quatenus Baptizati that they are said to be saved and à quatenus ad omne valet consequentia And it 's an Indefinite in re necessariâ But we have too many scorners at Christianity followers of Hobbes Spinosa Pomponatius and Vaninus who for fashion sake will bring their Children to Baptism And certainly such are far worse than Heathens If one believeth not in Christ tell a wilful Lye and say he believeth can any Man think that his Child shall be ever the more saved for his Wickedness and Hypocrisie § 4. You gather Christ's acceptance from Mat. 10. 13. c. It is not said of the Infants of the Godly only is the Kingdom of Heaven Ans. Nor is it said that of all Infants or of all Baptized Infants is the Kingdom of Heaven The Text will prove indeed that the Infant state is capable of Christ's acceptance into the Kingdom of Grace and of Glory But not that nothing is necessary thereto but that they be Infants If all Infants be saved bringing them to Christ was not necessary to their Salvation If all only that were brought to Christ were saved it seems they were very few 2. Is it like that any would bring their Children to Christ to be Blessed who did not believe in him And what reason have we to surmise that they were not sound Believers 3. As Christ healed some blind Men and not all and some Lepers Sick c. so if as a Specimen to shew that Infant state is capable of Grace he took up some Infants of Hypocrites or Infidels or impious Parents which can never be proved it will not follow that all such shall be received and that to Salvation 4. If by verbal profession Parents and their Children are taken into the outward Covenant and Church and by Water Men are born into the Visible Kingdom of God it followeth not they need not to be born of the Spirit for admission into the Invisible and Heavenly Kingdom or that the Spirit always goeth with the Water and that the Parents answer of a good Conscience to God is not necessary to his Child 's Covenant-right to Salvation as well as to his own 5. I deny that any wicked Man much more every one doth yea or can univocally and truly devote his Child to God according to the sense of the Baptismal Covenant Though I grant that the love of his Childs Lust do not hold him so strongly as the love of his own yet he that never so knew God in Christ and so believed in Christ and so believed in him as to perceive him practically to be better for himself than all the World and sinful Pleasures cannot with a true and practical Affiance so take him for his Child 6. And God no where commandeth or accepteth the devoting of our Infants to him primarily or as seperated from our selves but only as Appendices or Conjunct with us that is that we devote our selves and ours And so not without us but with us doth he accept them § 5. Your
dare or if his saying he repenteth satisfie the Judge that knoweth him not while the Minister that is his neighbour heareth no sign of it but contrarily of his malice against him for accusing him he must still give him the Sacrament if the Chancellor acquits him VII Nay if he be excommunicated first and by friends fees or saying I repent get the Chancellor's Absolution he must be received to Communion though the Minister see not the least sign of his repentance but the contrary VIII If Ignorance be so common in the Parish that we have reason to judge that of twenty or thirty thousand Parishioners more or fewer one half of them understand not the very Essentials of Christianity and of the Sacrament yet the Minister must refuse none I that have but three servants can seldom have all three such as with my plain teaching will be brought while they are with me to understand all the Essentials and be capable of the Sacrament And though in general experience telleth us of the great numbers of such yet the Minister cannot know them He that knoweth not their faces much less ever catechized half And commonly children and ignorant people will say the words of the Creed and Lord's Prayer when they are grosly ignorant of the sense 2. And if the Minister know such an one to be so grosly ignorant the Law giveth him not power to deny him the Sacrament IX How should the Minister have power to excommunicate one out of a particular Church when his Parish is not a particular Church but a part of a Diocesan Church only It 's known now it is maintained by Bishops That the Diocesan is the particular Church That it is no Church that hath not a Bishop of its own That Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata and therefore the name of Pastor is usually appropriated to the Bishop and in most places of the Liturgy where Bishops Pastors and Curates were joyntly named one of the two first is put out of the New Book and only Bishops and Curates or Pastors and Curates mentioned And who can cast out of a Church that is no Church in the Rulers sense X. I have had many Parishioners that have made me know that they take me for none of their Pastor nor will do nor themselves for any of my Flock and yet to satisfie the Law or fame or humour they will demand the Sacrament A Minister cannot refuse such a one but must do the one part of a Pastor's Office to them that disclaim the relation XI If I upon strong suspicion of gross Ignorance would desire my neighbours aged or young to come and speak with me and would try them and instruct them or if I desire to confer with them on a just private suspicion of Heresie or Atheism or accusation or fame of wicked living and if they refuse to speak with me or give me any answer or account but shut their doors against me and bid me meddle with my own business I have no power to refuse them the Sacrament XII I have known many persons that for fear of being guilty of the body and blood of Christ would be in danger of desperation or distraction should they receive it Yet if for fear of an Excommunication such unwilling ones come I must give it them And I know too many that let me know that though they will have the Sacrament they do not consent to the Essentials of the Sacramental Covenant but think Christ's terms too hard till they have sinned longer yet these must I admit to the Sacrament XIII On the other side I must give it none that dare not take it kneeling nor any that think Conformity unlawful nor that the Canon calleth Schismaticks XIV I must give it to none of the most worthy of my Flock whom the Bishop or Lay-Chancellor will excommunicate if it be but for not paying fees or not appearing at his Court. XV. The Priest must publish the Chancellor's or Bishop's Excommunication if against the most conscionable of his Flock XVI And he must publish the Chancellor's or Bishop's Absolution though he know the party to be most unworthy XVII He hath no power to judge whom to take into the Church by Baptism but must Baptize any Child of Atheists Brutists Heathens Infidels or Hereticks that have but God-fathers who never take them for their own though his conscience be against it as is aforesaid XVIII He hath no power to forbear pronouncing Absolution from all sin in absolute terms to any sick man that will say he repenteth and desire it though by never so much evidence the Priest judge it to be either counterfeit or from meer attrition or fear without love XIX I have proved that he hath no power to forbear pronouncing all Atheists Infidels Brutists Adulterers Drunkards worldlings c. saved at their Burial except the unbaptized excommunicate and self-murderers XX. In a word the Priest is so far from having the power of excommunicating out of a particular Church that he hath no power to do the necessary previous acts 1. If he would tell him his fault privately the sinner may refuse to speak with him as is said 2. If he would take two or three witnesses he may refuse yet to speak with him or hear him 3. If he would tell the Church where he hath Communion and would publickly admonish him before them all and pray for him by name that he may repent he doth more than he can answer and the man may have his Action against him accordingly at Law XXI If a Minister will prosecute at the Bishops Court all that he hath cause to keep from the Sacrament as he must do within fourteen daies 1. It will take him off all his Ministerial studies almost in many great and wicked Parishes It will be work enough to travel long journeys as an Informer 2. It will spend all his Benefice in the charge of journeys Proctors and bringing witnesses so far 3. He shall but get the hatred of sinners and never be like more to do them good Whereas had he power to use true Pastoral Discipline with them his love and tenderness might possibly melt them into repentance which a Chancellor's Court so like a Civil Judicature and putting them to great expences and danger is unlike to do Nor did I ever in my whole life know one sinner brought to Repentance seemingly serious by their Courts XXII To conclude If the Minister have power to keep any from the Sacrament for fourteen daies till he prosecute them they will as members have all other Communion with that Church even in Prayer Praise and Thanksgiving and the Baptizing of his Child c. Albaspineus that great and notable describer of the Churches Customs tells us that the Old Excommunication did shut them out of all other Church-Communion as well as the Sacrament even their oblations were not accepted If I understand the Case of the Parish-Priests and their Power of Discipline this
know any thing of their peoples gross Ignorance Infidelity Atheism yea or Scandal who can know so few of the persons much less can the Bishop 10. Do you think that it is exercise enough of this Discipline when about 5000 in a year only communicate to leave 20000 or 30000 more as members of the Church in that Parish that use not to communicate or else may come when they will extraordinarily to save them from the Law though utterly unknown to the Minister And so proportionably in Parishes half as big And how is it possible this can be amended rebus sic stantibus And would not so many good men amend it were it possible Oh draw not the guilt of so many and such things on your self without cause Were it as small a thing as the Israelites High Places if you cannot amend it do not become the open defender of it Iudas himself at last accused the Pharisees and High Priests and justified Christ. I do not think he would have written a Confutation of Christ's reproofs recited in Matt. 15. and 23 c. How can you pray for a Reformation of that which you think needeth none And hath the Church and Cause of holy Discipline lost so much of your prayers too If you say to God as you do to us What more would we have I am glad that God hath a firmer people that will pray for more § 4. You say As to the Chancellor and his Office it is less matter by whom Excommunication be done so it be honestly and soundly done He is a Christian he is a man of Knowledge and Learning he is authorized by the Laws of the Kingdom his Office is incorporate into the Government of the Nation Though he may not bind and loose as a Pastor he may as a Christian authorized by the King See Matth. 18. 15 c. Ans. This is a great business 1. Why said you before that the Power of the Keys belongs to the Pastors c But you meant not only to them 2. Is it the same sort of Excommunication and Absolution which belongs to the Pastor and to a Lay-man If not you say nothing to our business For our Laws Canons and Church pretend here no difference I confess that there are three acts of separation which the Magistrate may do 1. He may command Bishops and Pastors to do their Office faithfully in excommunicating notorious impenitent criminals 2. When they are excommunicated he may forbid them intruding into the Church 3. He may judge the flagitious to be stigmatized or be taken as out-lawed and forbid men to be familiar with them But the Power of the Church is a power of judging what individual persons are fit or unfit for Baptism the Eucharist Church Entrance and Church Communion is the Church is the Porch of Heaven and as a preparation to the final judgment And it is not another sort but this sort which the Lay-Chancellor pretendeth to exercise in the Bishop's name I have been thought by some to give my self too much to Magistrates in Church-matters But I am far from your mind for the reasons following 1. It is notorious that in Scripture Christ hath instituted a special Office to use these Keys and do this work which he would not have done had he left it common to any others 2. The Power of the Keys is so much of the essential comprehensive title of that Office as that it is nullified when it is made common 3. If this part may be done by the Lay-men or Magistrate no man can give a reason why any of the rest may not even not only to be the stated Teachers of the Church and their Guides in Worship but also Baptizing and administring the Lord's Supper As it is more to be the Law-makers than the Cryers and the Judge than the Marshal so it is more to decree who shall have the Sacraments than barely to deliver it them which the Deacon may do And so we shall have not only Lay-Baptizers but Lay-Preachers Lay-Administers of the Lord's Supper or by contradiction Lay-Priests 4. You plead for Conformity and may easily know that the Church of England abhorreth this Opinion 5. When King Henry the Eighth was called Head of the Church to avoid the Papists calumnies Queen Elizabeth and King Iames have published their disclaiming of that power of Word and Sacraments called that of the Keys and if my Ears deceived me not I have heard our present King profess the same 6. The judgment and practice of the Churches of all Ages and places since Christ is against you I think Helvetia it self not excepted And should this be nothing to you who call on us to reverence the Old Conformists 7. The reason of the Institution fully satisfies me It was not meet so great a trust should be placed in unfit men As in case of Ordination it must be men that are able to try the persons as to skill and life that must be trusted with so weighty a business and also such that can have leisure to attend it and therefore as an Office are empowered for it and separated to it lest it miscarry so as to Baptism Absolution Excommunication it must be done by men 1. That are capable of full acquaintance with the person witnesses and cause 2. And that can try and judge of it 3. And especially of the persons Faith and Repentance for it is on these that the sentence must pass No Baptism without Faith No Excommunication without obstinate Impenitence No Absolution without Repentance 4. It must be by men fit to exhort them to Faith and Repentance and confute their Errours and pray for them that God would give them Faith and Repentance 5. And it is so great a part of the world and all the Church of Christ that this or much of this must be done for that reason shewed it needful that it be made the work of a great and special Office And if so then those men that do it 1. Must be tryed as Ordained Ministers be 2. And Ordained to the Office of doing it 3. And profess to do it as such Officers 4. And not lacerate that Office and change it by taking a part of it and leaving the rest And so they must be no Lay-men I could with that you had studied and consulted better before with such more than Erastian singularity you had pleaded for so dangerous a thing as Church-Levelling or so much overthrow of the necessary sacred Office and set your self against the judgment and practice of the Christian Church But all men have their hour of temptation and all do not overcome § 5. You say The Excommunication is of no force till published by the Parish-Minister who hath power if he please to make it his Text and declare the nature use and ends c. Ans. 1. I had rather have a better Text. 2. It is of force if another publish it 3. It 's part of the true Charge of the Minister himself
and the English sort of God-Fathers you may refuse to say the words of Prayer which imply his Salvation over the Dead who were Excommunicable though not Excommunicated You may understand the Article which professeth the certainty of Baptized Infants salvation of those only that are the Children of faithful Parents or Pro-parents you may say you Assent to all in the Book and mean not all but some part and that not as true but as usable You may profess Consent to use it all and yet not mean to use the Calendar or Rubricks or to Administer the Sacraments otherwise than as aforesaid You may Say or Subscribe or Swear that it is on any pretence whatsoever unlawful to take Arms against any Commissioned by the King and mean only such as are lawfully Commissioned You may subscribe that no one in England that sware it is bound by the solemn Vow and Oath to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State and mean only that he must not endeavour it by Sedition or Rebellion And so on to the end But other Bishops will say the clean contrary viz. That the Bishop is the only Pastor and the Parish Priest hath none of the power here named and so of all the rest And what Uniformity then will there be Know you not how they write against such different Administrations as destructive and intolerable 7. And know you not that a Bishop hath no power against the Canons The Canons are their own Laws and Judgment and bind them And when the Canon saith e. g. He shall be suspended that giveth the Sacrament to one that kneeleth not or that the Non-conformists are ipso facto Excommunicate c. Hath the Bishop authority to say the contrary 8. And you know that I wrote not to accuse you or any Man for Conforming but to tell them that judge us worthy to be Silenced and Ruined what our Non-conformity is And what use then is your own Latitude to me or such as I though I went your own way For I have askt and heard the Opinion of divers Bishops already and they have said clean contrary to you I have heard him that first forbad me Preaching in his Diocess say that The Liturgy forbiddeth delivering the Sacrament to any that Kneel not I can shew it you under his Hand that the Priest must not be Judge when to omit the forementioned words at the burial of the Dead nor tolerated in such Liberty as you presume on I have been told by a Bishop That seeing Christ died for all the Children of any Parents in the World have right to Baptism and any Man hath as good right to present to it an Infidel's Child as to take in an exposed Infidel's Child to his House in Charity I told you that Bishop Sanderson publickly before the Bishops Nemine contradicente told me That I need not question Baptizing any Infidel's Child if God-Fathers presented him according to the Order of the Church of England Are we not then concluded against Conformity by the Bishop's judgment by your own Rule And must not you be a Non-conformist in the Diocess of any such Bishop as these 9. And by your Rule a Man must be a Conformist in one Bishop's Diocess and a Non-conformist in another's and change his mode of Religion as he Travelleth or doth change his Dwelling I imagine that by your Rule I might partly Conform in the Diocess of London or Lincoln Hereford or Carlisle but I should be as Non-conformable as I am in the Diocess of Winchester Ely York Norwich and any other as far as I yet know I conclude that your Catholicon may purge your self from all Non-conformity but it is utterly unprofitable to me Facile credimus quod volumus I have had as much reason as you to be willing to find Conformity lawful if it be so I have lost many thousand Pounds more by Non-conformity than you have got by Conformity But I have no such Byas on my Will as should set all my Wit on work to find or buy a Rope for my Conscience And I find nothing better that you offer me herein § 4. When you have told us Where no God-Fathers can be had we must Christen without and such like You say And this is the common sense put upon the Law by the Law-makers themselves that is by the Bishops Ans. What reason did you think we have in such an Historical Assertion to believe your bare word In what Synod did they declare it Why did you neither name the Bishops nor the Time or Place or Witness by which it might be proved the common sense But could you think this should convince me that know it to be false § 5. You tell us pag. 119. If it were a part of Assent and Consent that Ordination by good and substantial Presbyters were null it would be a hard point indeed to Unchurch Churches and Unbaptize the Baptized and plead the cause of Satan the Pope and all Malignants of the Ministry in the Name of Christ. Ans. Excuse us then for not Conforming I before gave you this Proof that it is the sense of the Law-makers or Bishops They that abhor Reordination or twice ordaining to the Priesthood and yet require those to be ordained by Bishops who were before ordained by Presbyters must be judged to hold the said Ordination by Presbyters to be null But c. Ergo. § 6. 1. You say No Man that I know of takes the Silenced Ministers and those ordained by Presbyters only for no Ministers at all unless one Mr. Dodwel a high-flown Man whom Conformists themselves do utterly dissent from in this Ans. Your ignorance is no good reason for my Conformity If you know of no more I do Read Mr. Thâ—rndike of Forbearance of Penalties Ask Bishop Gunning his judgment c. If your acquaintance be so small you should not write of that which you know not § 7. 2. But you say All both Rulers and People Conformists themselves do own them for Ministers otherwise they would take some course for the Rebaptizing of all Baptized by them Ans. Did you ever read the Conference at Hampton Court Did you dream that all these take Laymens Baptizing for null Or do you conclude that all think what you think § 8. 3. You prove it from the toleration of the Foreigners Churches in London Ans. How will you prove that they judge all true Ministers whom they Tolerate § 9. 4. You say the Acts against Conventicles and the Five Mile Act prove it 5. The King's Proclamation for Indulgence proveth it 6. The Fines and Imprisonments for Conventicles prove it 7. The allowing four Persons to meet in private proveth it 8. The common sense of Bishops Divines and People of the Church of England prove it Ans. You may next say That any thing that you see or hear proveth it It 's liker these prove the contrary than this By this Men may see how little satisfaction we may expect