more was said then It is a meere Calumny that he saith I chose out the weakest arguments or urged some that were strong in a way of my own and then triumphed and answered as weakely in my Sermons To my best understanding I chose out the best arguments I found in Mr. M. Mr. G. Dr. H. M. Drew Mr. Blake Mr. Cobbet and some others and that for the most partin their own words which that I might not mistake I read in the pulpit therefore what ever my answers were I am sure it is an untruth that I chose out the weakest arguments and urged some that were strong in a way of my own When I threatned Mr. B. with the danger he went in or opposing me unlesse it were from God for opposing truth I know not and therefore take this supposed threatning of mine to be either his or his tale-tellers fiction SECT XVII The grosse absurdities to which Mr. B. vaunted I was driven in the dispute were not so as he imagined PAge 207. He makes a catalogue of my absurdities at the dispute to which being the chief thing he charged me with in the Epistle to the people of Kederminster I answer The first and second will be shewed to be no absurdities in examining the first part of his book chap. 6. The third is no absurdity understanding it of visible membership by profession of their own in which notion I said in the dispute I understood visible Church-membership as commonly Protestant Divines do Upon what occasion the fourth and many other of them were spoken by me if they were spoken by me I cannot remember nor what limitations or explications I then used but this I conceive was my meaning that infants of the Jewes were not visible Church-members in the wildernesse in that manner they were when they had circumcision that is by their visible particular note or mark and yet then they were visible in the lump the whole congregation being then Gods visible Church in which sense they were then visible and so the women too who were not circumcised And when I said no infant can be said to be a visible church-Church-member without some act of his own I meant it of visibility according to the note of visibility in the Christian Church Which things being rightly understood there was neither absurdity nor contradiction in my speeches nor any thing against conscience nor deserving such derision as was in Mr. B. and his collegues though perhaps through distraction of thoughts chiefely occasioned by Mr. Bs. concealing the notion in which he used the terme visible which I often in vain assayed to understand from him or forgetfulnesse or scantnesse of words I did not expresse my self clearly This is answer sufficient about the fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth nineth sixteenth pretended absurdities The tenth a candid man would have conceived rather to have been lapsum linguae a flip of speech then errorem mentis a fault of mind and that however a mistake might slip from me a thing very incident to the most learned in the heat of dispute yea sometimes in preaching conference and writing yet I meant visibility to be the adjunct and the persons visible to be the subject The eleventh twelfth thirteenth I conceive no absurdities the Church-visibility of infants then being from that imperfect Church-frame which was to continue onely till Christ came and was clogged with many burdens which by Christs coming all were mercifully freed from as to go up to Jerusalem thrice a year c. without any losse of mercy to infants though it were for a time a mercy to them which will be morefully cleared God assisting in answering Mr. Bs. argument p. 1. chap. 6. The fourteenth is no absurdity as I then to my best remembrance expressed it though Mr. Bs. juvenility thought fit to make sport with it that the elect people of the Jews were natural not as Mr. B. sets it down naturally that is according to nature in that they were descended from Abraham the roote of the Church of believers by natural generation and so natural branches yet not by nature that is natural abilities or works of their own but by grace as the efficient cause Rom 11. ver 5 6. To conceive it the olive there notes a race of men who were the Church of believers which because after Abraham the roote it was first in the Jewish Nation is called their own olive ver 24. Of which Abraham is ver 16 18. made the roote bearing two sorts of branches some ingraffed who were the Gentile believers some natural the Jewes and he is a roote under a double habitude one as a natural Father and another as Father of believers Both sorts of branches are by the Apostle made to stand in Abraham the roote as branches of the Church of believers or the invisible the one natural in that they were not proselyted or ingraffed but came of Abraham by natural generation the other proselyted or ingraffed by believing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the natural way of descent from Abraham yet both united in Abraham the common roote of believers and in the olive-tree the Church of believers as particular branches thereof yet neither by nature that is by vertue of natural generation as the Apostle determines Rom. 9. 8. but by election of grace Rom. 11. 5 6. And whereas Mr. B. tells me Rom. 11. 24. sayes both he is mistaken For 1. it is not said that any was a branch of the roote Abraham by nature but that the ingraffed branches were antecedently to their ingraffing in the olive wild by nature nor is it said of the branches from the roote that are called natural that they were branches in the true olive by nature as Mr. B. would have it to prove them of the visible Church by nature but that they were branches of that olive or race of men who were not wilde by nature that is Gentiles bringing no fruit to God but of that olive which was descended from Abraham by natural generation which was the Church of God till broken off 2. Whereas the translation turnes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 21 24. by natural and once ver 24. by nature yet it is the same terme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all 3. It is not true that the Jewes in the translation of ver 24. are said to be branches by nature And for the fifteenth absurdity it is no absurdity they are called natural onely in respect of their descent as men from Abraham but not as branches in the olive-tree And this is clear For the ingraffed branches can be said to be no otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides nature but in that they were not descended from Abraham by natural generation and therefore on the contrary the Jews are natural branches not as believers but as men descended from Abraham by natural generaration The seventeenth absurdity is a relation of a speech of mine that Mr. B. cannot finde one Author expounding 1
doth not shew my words are there all assertory of what I conceive infants cannot do in their own persons not a word of perswasion or disswasion to the parents or any other And for that which is added then it seemes you know not how a Father should engage his child by covenanting in his name and after you would have no parents to engage their children solemnly to God in Christ by Covenanting in their names there is not a word of it in that place 'T is true in my Sermon intituled Fermentum Pharisaeorum I gave a little touch against the use of sureties at baptisme according to the Doctrine of the catechisme in the common prayer-book that they did promise that they should believe c. which I conceived onely belongs to Christ as surety of the better Covenant Heb. 7. 22. But I never denied that the Elders of a Nation may engage solemnly the posterity even the unborne to take the Lord for their God but this I rather take to be an adjuration under a curse if they do not then a promise for them that they shall nor that a parent may engage his child by a promise of his own endeavour that he shall and that the child is engaged thereby but not by vertue of the Fathers promise but by vertue of the obligation of the thing promised the Fathers promise is an incitement to do it the rather but makes not the child bound to do it of it self but onely because the thing is a duty which he were bound to did the Father promise for him or not But I deny that this makes a visible Church-member or that in nature or law as his childs act according to the Gospel for his being admitted a visible church-Church-member Now Mr. B. hastily answering me jumbles things together and as one impatient of considering what I say chargeth me with what I avow not and then concludes scoffically And I pray you how well do you free your self from this charge Should I imitate him I should cry shamelesse foul dealing c. But I am resolved to examine his writing not to follow his fashion Pag. 179. He saies I did not distinguish of disciples or yield infants disciples in any sense If I acknowledge them disciples in any sense I should speak out To which I say I put in those words in my Sermon in that sense Christ appointed disciples to be baptized to intimate that I did not deny but infants might be disciples by the immediate secret work of Gods spirit though not in the ordinary mediate way of preaching the Gospel about which the rule Mat. 28. 19. is set As for Mr. Bs. sense of a disciple of Christ without learning Christs doctrine of a servant of God without service actively or passively a disciple remotely by the Fathers being a disciple it is nothing like the use of the word disciple in the New Testament or the terme servant of God as equipollent to a disciple and no marvel I should mistake Mr. B. who used termes in a sense I never met with in the New Testament and I still conceive to be a piece of new gibberish And when he saith he took servant and disciple according to their relative formal nature and not either with the accidental consideration of active or passive it is no marvel I should be at a stand what to answer him using termes in such an uncouth non-sense acception as I never met with before For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to battel And it seemes to me a grosser absurdity which Mr. B. hath in those words then any of those he chargeth me with to take disciple and servant in their relative formal nature without learning or service active or passive whereas Mr. B. himselfe page 92. where he saies the relation of a servant disciple souldier husbandman trades-man remaines when the act ceaseth for a time yet expressely saith the relation and so the denomination is from the act of service learning c. and yet he would have infants to be denominated disciples and servants of God without their act of learning or service or capacity of actual learning or service in an ordinary way and he is not ashamed to call learning or service actively or passively accidental to the title or denomination of a disciple or servant Which is a monstrous absurdity to make a denomination without the forme denominating yea to count it accidental to conceive a relation without the foundation which is all one as to call one a Father without begetting a Lord without dominion a signe without signification not unlike the riddle vir non vir percussit non percussit avem non avem lapide non lapide super arbore non arbore or rather absurdorum absurdissimū oppositum in apposito And yet this notion of a disciple never proved is the ground work of Mr. Bs. first argument and therefore if I may use Mr. Bs. words they are very tractable soules that are led by his notions page 180. He thinks strange that a man of my parts should know of no separation to God but by election or calling he questions whether election be proper separation he saies that the Jewes first-borne were seperated by a law and men now by dedication separate goods to God that he meanes separation neither by election nor extraordinary or ordinary call but by the law or Covenant of God To which I reply Mr. B. still abuseth me by leaving out my words as the case now stands which were put in as remarkable to exclude that way of separation to God whereby the first born Priests goods c. were holy as separated to God Election is alwayes with seperation that is differencing one from another and as election is said to be according to purpose Rom. 9. 11. so likewise separation Paul was separated from his mothers wombe Gal. 1. 15. according to Gods pleasure and purpose that is by his election And with this separation infants may be said to be sanctified as Jeremiah ch 1. 5. And so the terme holy is applied Rom. 11. 16. to the Jewes then unborne who were after to be called ver 24 25 26 27. And called Saints is used 1 Cor. 1. 2. As for infants of believers whether elect or reprobate outward federal holinesse I know no such there 's no law or Covenant separates every child of a believer to God According to Mr. B. the Covenant sealed by baptisme is conditional and that belongs to all the sons of Adam till persons are severed by believing and unbeliefe this Covenant therefore of it self without putting the condition doth not separate any to God and so not infants till they be believers the absolute is onely to the elect and according to it and so onely the elect are separated which are not all perhaps but a few of the children of believers but an Isaac of all Abrahams children Rom. 9. 6 7 8. A law or Covenant of God
the book of Gods judgements on Sabbath-breakers he is jealous lest it be from no good will to the doctrine of the morality of the Christian Sabbath as being against the scope of the book though the occasion shew it was onely to prove the uncertainty of relations that men may not rest on them as proofes of a truth But I perceive as Mr. B. is very prone to have hard thoughts of me so both he and Mr. M. seek advantage to create prejudice against me about this point of the Lords day which makes me more full in my clearing my self in this thing and in other things not so much regarding my own personal esteeme as desirous to prevent that indirect way of wounding the truth through my sides I would have no man adhere to my tenet because it 's mine nor would I have any to reject it because it is mine I know too much evil by my self yet not in the things in which I am accused at least not in that degree in which Mr. B. accuseth me Mr. Bs. telling me in print this manner of crimes not proved but imagined is no whit justified by the rules and examples he brings his ranking me with seducers I defy and know that I shall better be able to prove it against him then he against me SECT XVI The ground of my opposing infant-baptism is confirmed by Mr. B. himself PAge 205. He tells me all the Ministers and schollers that he can meete with that heard my disputes did think I had silly grounds to build my confidence in and though I boast much of my answers by writing he thinks my writings have little to be boasted of Answ. I have some experience of Ministers and Schollers and I sind few fit to judge of controversies and of those few not many willing to search impartially into a point that 's against the streame and likely to expose them to hard measure some that talk much study little nor is it a new thing to find some that wrangle in dispute for such a sense of a Scripture as when they are out of the heat of dispute they themselves expound otherwise The Ministers and Schollers at the dispute such as they were weigh but little with them that know them best My writings are not boasted of by me yet men equal to Mr. B. or any auditors of the dispute have said more of them then I am willing to speak of My imployment in this argument seemes to me to be part of my work God hath allotted me though I am known not to be idle in other work What Mr. B. calls fallacies passing from me will be proved verities My arguments from Mat. 28. 19. Marke 16. 15 16. are to be found in my Exercit. sect 15. Examen part 4. sect 1. to which Mr. Ms. replies are insufficient as I shall shew in my Review In the worship of God it was wont to be accounted a certain rule that Gods worship should be observed according to his appointment and no otherwise And so Protestant Divines argue from 1 Cor. 11. 28. selfe-examiners are appointed to eate Ergo no infants or younglings though young ones ate the Passeover Yea Mr. B himself page 221. If Christ never sent any but Ministers to baptize then no others may do it If there be no example of any but Ministers that have baptized though parenrs did circumcise then no others may do it For the Apostles established the Church according to Gods mind and the Scripture is a sufficient rule page 222. if there be no command or example in Scripture of any but Ministers administring the Lords Supper then no others may do it Page 342. If we have no warrant by word or example in all the New Testament since the solemne institution of baptisme Mat. 28. to admit any member into the Church without baptisme but both percept and example of admitting them by it then we must not admit any without it ordinarily I take his own medium mutatis mutandis and thence inferre If we have no warrant by word or example in all the New Testament since the solemne institution of baptisme Mat. 28. to admit any member into the Church by baptisme but believers by profession but both precept and constant example of admitting them by it then we must not admit any without it ordinarily I use his own words and texts But the Antecedent is evident John 4. 1. Acts 2. 38 41. and 8. 12 13 16 36 38. and 9. 18. and 10. 47 48. and 16. 15 33. and 18. 8. and 19. 3 4 5. Rom. 6. 3. c. the Consequent is undoubted to those that take the word for their rule If Mr. B. will stand to his own argument he must make good my arguing from Mat. 28. 19. Marke 16. 15 16. unlesse he have some such strange shift as Mr. Cotton puts in the mouth of Silvanus who personates himself in his book intitled The grounds and ends of baptisme in the Preface page 3. where he intimates that the urging against childrens baptism this main principle of purity and reformation to wit that no duty of Gods worship nor any ordinance of religion is to be administred in the Church but such as hath just warrant from the word of God is from Satan but from God when it is urged against the Prelatists and Papists so Mr. B. thinks his medium good against Socinians but not though it be the same for the Anabaptists He addes All your confident words shew me not the least ground for your conclusion no more then thus Scripture requireth faith to justification therefore none but believers are justified which is false yet like yours if I know what you would thence deduce Answ. He now I hope knowes what and how I deduce or rather how Mr. B. deduceth my conclusion from Mat. 28. 19. Marke 16. 15 16. not onely in my words but also his own though I had often long before deduced my argument in the places before quoted and elsewhere in my writings of the validity of which deduction I am the more confident because it is in Mr Bs. own words justly brought by me against himself If the Scripture requireth saith of all to justification then it is not false that none but believers are justified Yet infants may be justified by habitual faith or actual by operation in an extraordinary way But the Scripture requires profession of faith afore any be baptized ordinarily As for what may be done extraordinarily elsewhere I have expressed my self and have vindicated my self from the wrong inferences made thence Postscript sect 15. and elsewhere Page 206. The People of Kederminster did not heare from my mouth in the dispute Jam. 1. How little Anabaptists could say in the hardest point of baptisme for I used no such wordes nor any thing I said or omitted to say can infer it and when they have read my answer me thinks they should believe I could say more then I did say then and see the reason why no
explication of my meaning of which what Mr. B. hath in his Corrective page 259 260. is not much short Mr. Bs. inference thereupon that by my definition Independents are Heretick followes not For though they erre yet that they make a party for their error is unknown to me although weary of alteration with Mr. B. as acquainted with his temper I replyed not If I desired Mr. Bs. animadversions on my writings that I might see all worth answering and put it in my Review it was no more unreasonable in me to desire then in Mr. B. to desire the like afore his reprinting his Aphorismes nor any more folly in him to have gratifyed me then then in othersto gratifie him with the like but had been a very friendly neighbourly part in him to one who was very glad to gratify him or his neighbours in any thing meet for me as I deny not excepting this he and his neighbours were to gratify me After his denial of his animadversions I think I came to his Lecture sundry times though not so often as formerly because of my much absence from Bewdley To conclude Mr. B. found me not adverse to the Churches peace but only his uncharitable surmises imagined me so And I desire the Reader to take notice that in all this he chargeth me with there is no one act of separation from whence he should conclude so hardly of me as he doth SECT VIII More personal matters which the History of Mr. B. hath made crooked are set straight THe next part of the History is about the occasion and mannaging of the dispute to most of which an answer may be gathered out of my letter to him Sept. 10. of which so much as is needful is printed at the end of this writing To call being baptized in the name of Christ Apostasie contrary to the Ancients language and in effect to call white black Divisions that happen if the saddle be put on the right horse are to be charged on them that oppose the reformation of the corruption of infant-sprinkling I think I answered Mr. Bs. letter sufficiently in mine of Sept. 10. 1649. If I had a designe to answer his arguments in my Review it had been an honest designe and hansomer then Mr. Bs. printing my answers to his arguments afore he had them from me in writing Sith Mr. B. is unwilling to be put in the crowd among the rest he shall have an answer so far as it is fit by himself that he may not complain of being sleighted by being yoked with the vulgar My dealings with Mr. M. were such as none can justly expcept against Personal things were fully answered in my Apology the dispute it self at large I reserved for the Review onely sect 15. I gave arguments to prove Rom. 11. 17. c. to be meant of ingrasfing by giving faith into the invisible Church and sect 16 17. pointed at some of the chief things wherein Mr. Ms. dâ—fence was defective I professed not a full answer to Mr. Blake but gave short advertisements in my Postscript with reasons why I did so which I yet count sufficient for answer to that piece however Mr. B. imagine of it I slubber'd over nothing as Mr. B. and one Mr. George Milward in a letter to one Capt. Freema charge me If I do not write so quick as M. B. Mr. M. c. it is from my unsettled condition ministeriall imployments the multitude of them that write against me though I earnestly intreated that I might see the strength of all together which motion had been fit for them that were desirous to have truth take place and not make use of advantages to hinder the cleering of it the difficulty and charge of printing which Mr. B. can easily perhaps have done people being averse from the truth I hold and willing to sell or buy or reade any thing against me but not what is for me That in my Sermons at Bewdley I culled out the weakest arguments is most false to the best of my skill I produced the best arguments I met with in their strength and as much as I could in the Authors words Mr. Cobbets book being a loose discourse for the most part having many passages and expressions proper to the way of N. E. filled with dictates unproved much of it against f. S. H. D. c. whose speeches and arguments I am not engaged to maintain I do not bind my self to answer If I might be allowed to passe my judgement freely notwithstanding Mr. Cottons Mr. Thomas Goodwins and Mr. Bs. conceits of it I should say that I do not perceive in the matter of it any such strength as needs much answering and that the method and expressions are such as that it cannot well be answered without lopping off many superfluous branches enquiring into his meaning in many of his expressions which are cloudy which would be extreamly tedious to the answerer and reader and liable to much exception and reducing it into a more scholastical forme were it by himself shaped into a succinct treatise like Mr. Nortons to Apollonius and should be willng to answer it if I found any thing in it which I had not answered before But I would not have the Reader expect me to answer that again which in some of my writings is formerly answered and in which he might by reading heedfully satisfie himself Yet I did answer the chief of his arguments in those Sermons and I intend to answer what else I meet with in them that is opposed to my Examen and what ever else I shall conceive is necessary to be answered I little expected to satisfie Mr. B. who I found had prejudice in him which was not denied by him Mr. Bs. name was used with respect onely in citing his words in his Aphorismes which I never dreamt would be taken for an injury His censuring mens writings and confuting them in pulpit without naming them or citing their words as it is lesse offensive so it is lesse edifying Mr. Bs. prosperity and my conceived failings at the dispute which will appear to be Mr. Bs. mistakes in the answer of his arguments in print were ordered by the Almighties providence for humbling me and discovery of Mr. Bs. spirit then which must be refereed to the judgement of the hearers and since which Readers may perceive yet I hope according to the strange-windings of his providence as in Josephs case for the advancement of the truth he opposeth The Ministers about Mr. B. at the dispute were all of Mr. Bs. party sent for up and down all the Countrey such as they were if they may be reputed Ministers or men that mind the things of Christ of whom no marvel Mr. B. was cried up I taunted with dulnesse it serving for their ends to keep up their esteeme one or two of better account sate further off yet of Mr. Bs. judgement That I did not bearken to Mr. Borastons motion for Mr. Bs. preaching it
drink of that cup and this example 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. The cup of blessing which we blesse is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the body of Christ For we being many are one body and one bread for we are all partakers of that one bread But for command or example that an ordained Presbyter onely should administer the Lords Supper by breaking bread c. let them that say there is shew it Mr. B. goes on But by this time you may see whither Mr. T. would reduce the Ministerial office 1. Others may baptize 2. And administer the Lords Supper 3. And then preaching is all or almost all that is left for he gives them far lesse in government than I do And how well he defended the Ministerial privilege of publique preaching in his disputes with Captain Bray is too well known And what need the people allow so much of their meanes then to maintain Ministers is not this next to the utter extirpation of them acoording to the doctrine of their learned Martin-Marpriest Answ. Pastors and Teachers or Presbyters to teach and govern the Church of God I am assured are a Divine institution and a very merciful gift of Christ Ephe. 4. 11 12 13. 1 Cor. 12. 28. Acts 14. 23. 1 Tim. 3. 1. Tit. 2. 5. to whom people should yield obedience Heb. 13. 17. and yield maintenance liberally 1 Cor. 9. 14. Gal. 6. 6. 1 Tim. 5. 17 18. If any go about to extirpate them let him be accursed as an enemy to Christ and his Church The railing bookes of Martin-Marpriest and such like on the one side and the slanderous books of Mr. Edwards Mr. Baillee c. on the other side I abhorre Yet I fear more danger to the Ministry by the pragmaticalnesse of the Ministers especially their meddling with State matters then either by Martin-Marpriests libels or my assertions Would Ministers keep to their studies and the work of Christ in preaching in season and out of season it would better establish their maintenance and Ministry then the asserting such a juridical government and power of dispensing the seales as they are called as they do I ascribe as much to the Ministry as the Scripture gives them Though the office of preaching whether publique or private be proper to the Minister so as to be his constant imployment and he ought not to be hindred in it sith he is to be accountable to God for it yet publique or private preaching I do not annex to ordained Presbyters as a peculiar priviledge to them so as none else may be said to be sent or called of God to preach in Scripture sense but they Notwithstanding what Mr. Thomas Hall in his Pulpit guarded or my quodam scholar and worthy friend Mr. Giles Workman in his better temper'd book intitled Private men no pulpit men have said I still conceive that not onely for trial of expectants but also upon other occasions persons not ordained may be permitted yea desired to preach in the pulpits I find these words in Bilsons Difference between Christian subjection and Antichristian rebellion part 4. Strangers also if they were in place were suffered both to teach and blesse in the Church as well as others that were tied to their cures by reason that many were sent by the Apostles and by the Holy Ghost to visite the Churches and comfort the Christians as they travailed and such were according to their knowledge and gift not onely permitted but also desired to exhort the people and to give thanks to God in other mens charges Grot. annot in Mat. 4. 23. Mansit is mos aliquandiu in Ecclesia Christiana ut concessu Episcoporum Scriptur as interpretarentur non presbyteri tantum aut diaconi sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Eusebium qui Origenis aliorumque exemplo probat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spectant quae leguntur 1 Cor. 24. 19. Neverthelesse I am against the courses of many Souldiers and others who against the denial of able teachers to whom the teaching of the people is committed love to get into the pulpits of the ablest men to vent their peculiar conceits and oft-times their pernicious errors not reguarding to preach to the ignorant the clear truths of faith and a holy life in places where they have no Preacher but to new converts to pervert them and withdraw them from their able Teachers and to disquiet them and their congregations by frivolous exceptions And for this reason I was unwilling Captain Bray should preach at Bewdley when I was there and when he would preach and bent himself to assert a liberty to all that had Gods sanctifying spirit and could expresse their minds to take upon them to teach publiquely what 's the meaning of the Scripture and what doctrines are true and what false without any skill in arts yea though he taught error I did oppose him Which if it were not so skilfully and happily done as Mr. B. better acquainted with such mens way might have done yet me thinks my good will might have been accepted But I see very little I do is well taken and therefore see it necessary to wait patiently on God till my words and actions though intended for the furthering of reformation and good of the Ministry in my Examen part 2. sect 7 in my Apology and elsewhere be better resented and considered The fourth and fifth error Mr. B. chargeth me with as dangerous and the root of my error about baptism will more fitly come into the body of the dispute in which I doubt not but I shall shew that both himself and Mr. Blake however he esteem his writings do recede from the Scripture and other approved authors in their making the New Covenant common to elect and reprobates in making reprobates interest in the Covenant a fruit of Christs death denying the absolute promise to be most fitly called the Covenant of Grace hold that a person may not be baptized that is not known to belong to the Covenant of Grace that God actually seals the Covenant of Grace to reprobates with sundry other mistakes about Sacraments in general as if their essence were in being seals of the Covenant of Grace and deriving thence a right to baptism for believers Infants though the Covenant be conditional and common to all The fith error of mine he confutes is about the Magistrates not being an officer of Christ as Mediator And he excepts against me for saying in pulpit at Bewdley it was of dangerous consequence which he held though he named not me at any time and he wrote to me and I would not dispute it with him To which I answer It is true preaching on Mat. 28. 18. the argument leading me to it I did oppose that doctrine that the Magistrate is an officer of Christ the Mediator and because Mr. Bs. book was in some of my Auditors hands did reade the passage in his Aphorismes
of more credit concerning the Antiquity of Infant-baptism then Augustines who as I shew Apology sect 6. and elsewhere did often inconsiderately call that an Apostolical tradition which was commonly observed in his dayes within the compass of his acquaintance Cyprians speech if it be rightly brought by Mr. B. will prove all still-born Infants to be lost being not of the visible Church Catholick That which Mr. B. page 266. saith fully satisfies him part of it is false the rest so frivolous that I can impute his satisfaction to no other cause then his inconsiderateness The very same or like plea will serve for communion of young children in which yet Mr. B. is not satisfied But to me it is very good satisfaction that baptizing of Infants is but an innovation neither agreeing with the institution of Christ nor the Apostles practise nor known till it began to be conceived necessary to give grace and to save from perishing yet then disswaded and not practised but in case of iminent danger of death nor maintained on any other ground till Zuinglius his dayes What the Churches of Anabaptists so called have done in London that Mr. B. should so much lament till I know what it is I take to be a Calumny That Anabaptists have been in danger by the instigations of Preachers and writers it is a marvel to me that Mr. B. should not understand who can hardly be ignorant whence the ordinance against blasphemies and heresies came That any of my Antagonists are turned out of house and home is unknown to me surely not for non-conformity to rebaptizing most certain that if any such thing hath been done it was never by my procurement nor I think any of the Churches of Anabaptists That which Mr. B. page 267. saies that the same men that subscribe the Anabapiists confession have many of them written other kind of doctrine elsewhere I doubt whether it be true I find him onely naming Paul Hobson page 147. and citing some passages of his of which that which is most liable to exception Mr. B. himself gives us this excuse in his Saints evelasting rest part 2. chap. 1. sect 2. page 169. not understanding that they affirm and deny the same thing in several expressions so that however his expressions be dangerous yet it is probable he held not the Socinian opinion which he contradicted in the subscription to the confession but onely discovered his weakness And yet Mr. B. I think is not ignorant that so holy learned a man as M. Pemble near the beginning of his Vindicae gratiae hath a like conceit of Gods never hating the elect but being reconciled from eternity taking reconciliation for an immanent act in God which as I imagine Mr. B. would excuse in Mr. Pemble so might he with a like charity excuse the other in Paul Hobson What he cites out of Cyprian I wish Mr. B. had Englished it and that both Anabaptists and their opposites would learn it Page 268. he saith if my book of scandals were read men may perhaps receive a preservative from my own hand from the danger of my opinion to which I say I wish my book of Scandals were more read nor do I fear that my doctrine will be the lesse embraced for reading it if my interpretation of my own words justified even by Mr. B. be received as I shew before Page 269. he tells us the Levellers were Anabaptists but I cannot yet learn of any of them he names except Den that was so though I deny not but there might be sundry of them such likely of the Free-willers disclaimed by the seven Churches in London and that they were but few in comparrison of the rest by the Newes-books I gather the Levelling businesse was carried on by such as were in no gathered Church but lived above ordinances As for Mr. Bs. dark criminations I can give no answer to them unlesse I could plow with his heifer and find out his riddle But my hope is those great instruments of God to break the enemies of those that are termed Sectaries though Mr. Bs. words seem to forebode and misdeem evil of them will and do prove better then he discribes them though I imagine they be not Anabaptists Nor do I like Mr. Bs. obscure satyrical criminations they having some shew of a malevolent mind Whatever Mr. B. may conceive of the danger of the Anabaptists way in other things I am sure if they would keep themselves onely to this to be baptized upon profession of faith they should be in a safe way even in the way of Christ. SECT XXII The speech that no one Countrey is gathered into Christs visible Church contains no malignancy to Christ but is a manifest truth MOst of that which is in Mr. Bs. answer to the last section of my Antidote hath either been replied to before or in some other part of my writings or will fall into the main of the dispute wherein I doubt not but I shall fully vindicate my argument against the visible Church-membership of Infants from the different cause of the Jewish and Christian Church though the thing be so manifest to wit that the Christian Church was otherwise gathered then the Jewish that I see nothing but meer wrangling in the questions Mr. B. propounds And to his words page 279 280. Sir if you were my Father I would tell you that when you say Christ makes no one City Countrey Tribe his Disciples you speak most malignantly and wickedly against the Kingdome and dignity of my Lord Jesus I answer I meet so often with Mr. Bs. high charges upon palpable mistakes and weak proofs that I fear his misguided zeal or natural distemper hath brought him to an habit of ill-speaking My words were not as Mr. B. sets them down but thus no one Countrey or City or Tribe together were gathered by the Apostles or other Preachers into the Christian visible Church but so many of all as the Lord vouchsafed to call by his word and spirit which hath neither wickedness nor malignancy against the Kingdome and dignity of the Lord Jesus but a manifest truth expressely taught in the Holy Scripture as congruous to the glory of God and the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 1. 26 27. 28 29. Not many wise men c. Ergo not the whole Nation Revel 5. 9. out of every Nation Ergo not the whole Nation as he did the Jewes in the Wilderness The relations in the Gospel and Acts of the Apostles plainly prove it true that by John Baptist Christ the 12. and 70. Disciples was no entire Nation City Countrey or Tribe gathered into the visible Church-christian but parts of them and those fewer then the adversaries who in every place were so numerous when the Christians are counted at some few thousands as that even at Jerusalem and elsewhere they prevailed to disperse Christians by persecution Nor do Mr. Bs. questions prove that into the Christian visible Church any one whole Countrey City or