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A31640 A letter to Mr. Braine Br. of Divinity concerning an administrator of water-baptisme. Chamberlen, Peter, 1601-1683. 1650 (1650) Wing C1897; ESTC R40320 4,893 7

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A LETTER TO Mr. BRAINE Br. of Divinity Concerning an Administrator of Water-Baptisme SIR UNless Disputes were syllogistical and then to a Moderator your Apprehensions are too nimble and your Learning too great and your Discourse too fluent to debate our difference by a multitude of words for ●either we our selves nor the Auditors do receive satisfaction I thought good therefore to proceed in writing not repeating what either you or I said in heat or anger but to take the Question de Novo You enquire after an Administrator which enquiry nor so much as the word it self is found in all the Scripture but is a new found word lately used to disturb the Ordinances of God But we may find the sum of the question in these words By what Authority dost thou these things Sir th● is the sum of your question and this Sir was the Pharisees Question Mat. 21.33 and might receive a like Answer by way of Question By what Authority dost thou demand these things The question was propounded by Pharisees men learned men of ●epute and Honour amongst the People men in humane Au●hority for they were Priests and Levites and Rulers of the People John 1.19.24 John 3.1 7.32.45.47.48 9.13 11.47.48.57 12.42 18.3 I cannot say they were Ministers but Commanders They asked this question to Christ the Anointed of the Lord the Son of God yet in the eye of men a Samaritan a Carpenters Son of no humane Learning yea one that was esteemed to have a Devil John 8.48 Samar Mat. 13.55 Mark 6.3 Carp Mat. 13.54.56 whence John 8.48 Mat. 10.25 Mark 3.22 Luke 11.15 a Devil Beelzebub This question was the question in the Bishops dayes to all that sought the wayes of Christ or endeavoured to propagate the Truth This question is the great question the main question of the Church of Rome and is yet the question amongst us intimating that there is no Authority but what cometh from Man or is successively by Man Alas poor men The workings of the spirit are invisible to humane sight The spirit bloweth where it listeth John 3. and Christ is a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchizedeck Heb. 5. Shall we ask Authority of Man to be wise or honest or just This was the folly the Parliament first ran in when those corrupt men were in it that cost so much blood When they asked leave of the King to discharge their Consciences to make just Lawes to discharge their Trust and ease the grievances of the People for which they were called Well Christ answers them with a question The Baptisme of John was it of God or Man Verse 26 John had Authority from God but they knew it not and propably had they not feared the People would have affirmed his Baptisme to be his own presumption and heresie For the Word came to John in the Wilderness Luke 3.2 and John wrought no miracle John 10.41 yet the People whom the Pharisees judged accursed John 7. and the Publicans justified God in being baptized of him But the Pharisees and Lawyers are said to reject the Counsel of God against themselves in being not baptized of him Luke 7.29.30 yet Sir there was no written word for Johns Authority to baptize Only an obscure Prophesie which they could not understand nor any but by the immediate spirit of God or the Son of God to interpret The voyce of one crying in the Wilderness c. Isay 40.3 there is nothing but a voyce and that in the Wilderness Yet this voyce in the Wilderness sets up an Ordinance the Ordinance of Baptisme for the remission of sins Luk. 3.3 justified by sinners Rom. 102. Phil. 3.6 condemned by zealous and learned Pharisees and Lawyers Luke 7.29.30 The People stood not capitulating with John about his Authority or how he could prove that the Word came to him in the Wilderness and who made him an Administrator Nor did they cavil at him for striking at their chief and main priviledge Luke 3.8 of being Sons of Abraham which they and all the world knew they were But the People asked him saying what shall we do then verse 10. They considered that what he spake was honest and reasonable and full of Piety and Holiness It was fit that men should repent for their Conscience told them they had sinned and finding the substance true they never quarreld with the circumstance of Authority yet they had then a visible Authority amongst them ordained of God Annas and Caiphas were High-Priests and the Priests lips were to preserve knowledge Sir I come near home you have ingenuously and publickly acknowledged Water-Baptisme an Ordinance of Christ and that it is necessary and it is only due unto Believers but you allow no Administrator because there hath been no visible succession I beseech you in the love of Christ to abate of the earnestness of your spirit in what you have been so long endeerd unto and now the more by having been heated therein by Disputes Look upon the business de novo as if you never had heard or been engaged to either side And the Lord in mercy to your soul and to his Church to the which you might be so bright and shining a Lamp if once perswaded of the truth grant you a clear and impartial understanding of his will and pleasure Sir God had a Church in the World though in the Wilderness And the Church was a Church a visible Church in it self though in the Wilderness and our from the manifest and stately Cities and Buildings of men And the Church was fed in the Wilderness Rev 12.14 Mat. 16 18. though the Habitation of wild Beasts And the Gates of Hell neither were nor shall be ever able to prevail against it If in the Wilderness where form and order decency could not be much more in the City in heavenly Jerusalem the Mother of us all Gal. 4.26 where God is our light Rev. 21.23 The God of Order 1 Cor. 14.33 Therefore whether in City or in Wilderness there is a Church and she is fed yea and some out of the Wilderness whilst she her self is in the Wildernes Rev. 12.17 a Remnant of her seed And such are they who keep the Commandemen●s of God and have the Testimony not of Men but of Jesus Christ ibid. When the Israelites murmured for want of water and that Moses gave it them out of the Rock they asked not whether they should drink in sanctified Vessels or stayed till Moses gave them every one their proportion They would not let the water run by them so in waste When we read the word of God and not of man that tells us Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners Jo 3.1 Tim and he is for salvation to the ends of the Earth Acts 13.47 And that whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16.16 And that unless a Man be born of Water and of the spirit he can in no wise enter