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book_n	call_v	church_n	rome_n	2,941	5	6.6026	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89563	A defence of infant-baptism: in answer to two treatises, and an appendix to them concerning it; lately published by Mr. Jo. Tombes. Wherein that controversie is fully discussed, the ancient and generally received use of it from the apostles dayes, untill the Anabaptists sprung up in Germany, manifested. The arguments for it from the holy Scriptures maintained, and the objections against it answered. / By Steven Marshall B.D. minister of the Gospell, at Finchingfield in Essex.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1646 (1646)	Wing M751; Thomason E332_5; ESTC R200739	211,040	270

Infant-Baptisme hath been perpetually observed in the Christian Church for there is no ancient Doctor that doth not acknowledge that Infant-Baptisme was constantly administred by the Apostles 4. That notwithstanding all this evidence I have brought from Antiquity yet I build as little upon Antiquitie as any other man I acknowledge what learned Rivet saith to be very true that Tradition is in most points uncertaine and therefore he that will build sure must build upon the Scripture Proinde necessario veniendum erat ad argumenta ex Scripturis quae si rem non evincant frustra traditionem advocabimus Animadv in Annot. Grotii in Cassandrum Art 9. Pag. 71. And I would have you and every Reader to remember that I doe not build my faith upon humane Traditions in this Argument nor did the ancients build upon humane traditions in this thing the very Pelagians themselves acknowledge it upon this ground Parvulos baptizandos esse concedunt saith Augustine of the Pelagians qui contra authoritatem universae Ecclesiae procul-dubio per Dominum et Apostolos traditam venire non possunt lib. 1. de peccat merit et Remiss cap. 26. Nay they were forced to their owne prejudice to acknowledge that Infants were baptized secundum regulam universalis Ecclesiae Evangelii sententiam lib. cont Caelest Pelag Now that which was pressed from the scope of the Gospell was not pressed as a Tradition and that which was acknowledged by the Pelagians to be the practise of the universall Church according to the rule of the Gospell was not built upon tradition I will therefore close up my testimonies produced out of the ancient writers with that savoury passage of learned Calvin in his Instructions against the Anabaptists Caeterum minime peto ut in eo probando nos Antiquit●s ●●llo modo juvet c. I doe not desire saith hee to borrow any helpe from Antiquity for the proofe of this point any whit farther then the judgement of the Ancients shall be found to bee grounded on the Word of God for I know full well that as the custome of men doth not give authority to the Sacraments so the use of the Sacrament cannot hee said to be right and regular because regulated by custome PART II. HAving made good the practise of Antiquity for the Baptizing of Infants I follow you in that which you are pleased to make the second part of my Sermon which you call prejudices against Antipaedo-baptists from their noveltie and miscarriages Where first you blame me for seeking by prefacing and setting downe a briefe touch of the Anabaptists carriage in Germany to create prejudice in my Auditors To which I answer that I yet never learned that a briefe setting downe the Originall History and State of a Controversie or the weight and consequence of it thereby the more to ingage the Readers attention was against any Rule or Law of Art either divine or humane but in case it were a fault Quis tulerit Gracchos You who begin your booke with telling how nine moneths since you sent thus many Arguments in Latine drawne up in a Scholastique way c. and never yet received any Answer and in the end of your booke intimated that though you allowed me but a moneth yet I have kept your booke a whole yeere unanswered and throughout your whole Treatise strive to make an ostentation of reading and put abundance of scoffes and jeeres upon them who are of a contrary mind to you and seeke to loade the opinion you write against as if it carried all kind of mischiefes in the wombe of it All which things you know well enough are apt to take the people but have no weight with them who use onely to weigh Proofe with Proofe and Argument with Argument you I say of all other should pardon such a peccadillo and might very well have passed over what either my selfe or Dr. Featlies Frontispice or Mr. Edwards his expressions might seeme to bee lyable to of exception in this kind In your second Section you blame mee for two things first that I gave you no more light out of Augustine to know who they were that questioned Paedo-Baptisme in his dayes you have searched and cannot finde any the Pelagians you acknowledge opposed it not the custome was so universall and esteemed so sacred that they durst not oppose it All the further light I shall now give in a matter of no greater consequence is that if you cannot finde any in Augustines dayes who questioned it I am contented you shall beleeve there were none Secondly you blame me for making such a leape from Augustines time to Baltazzar Pacommitanus as if be were the first who opposed it where as you alledge many who opposed it 400. yeeres before his time To which I answer I sayd not hee was the first whose judgement was against it but the first that made an head against it or a division or Schisme in the Church about it It is possible men may hold a private opinion differing from the received doctrine and yet never make a rent or divide the Church into factions about it But let us examine your instances you alledge the famous Berengarius as one 2. The Albingenses 3. Out of Bernard you mention another namelesse Sect. 4. Petrus Cluniacensis charges the same upon the Petro-Brusians To all which I answer first in generall That these instances of yours having occasioned mee to make a more dilligent search into the doctrine and practise of those middletimes between the Fathers and the beginning of Reformation in L●●bers time I dare confidently think that you will have an hard taske to prove out of any impartiall Authors that there were any company of men before the Anabaptists in Germany who rejected the baptizing of Infants out of the confession of their faith possibly some private man might doe it but I shall desire you to shew that any company or Sect if you will so call them have ever denied the lawfulnesse of baptizing of Infants produce if you can any of their confessions alledge any Acts of any Councells where this doctrine was charged upon any and condemned in that Councell you know the generalitie of the visible Christian world was in those dayes divided into the followers of the Beast and the small number of those who followed the Lambe who bare witnesse to the truth of the Gospel in the times of that Antichristian Apostasie these were called by severall names Berengarians Waldenses poore men of Lyons Albingenses Catharists Petr-Brusians and severall other names as may bee seene in Bishop Vshers book of the Succession and State of the Christian Churches Now all grant that the Church of Rome even in those dayes owned the baptizing of Infants and so did all those persecuted Companies or Churches of the Christians for any thing I can find to the contrary Severall Catalogues of their confessions and opinions I finde in severall Authors and more

overlashing herein is not so much as you would have the world believe though my testimonies had pleaded for no higher time then 150 after Christ Neither have I overlashed so farre in this as God willing hereafter shall appeare as you have done more then once I said the Church was so long in possession of it and if you bee pleased to subtract 150 from 1645. I hope the remaining number will shew the mistake was not great as appeares in the margent If the Church was not all the while in possession of it it had been your part to have informed your Reader of the time wherein the Churches quiet possession was disturbed and by whom It is true I named Baltazzar Pacommitanus with his associates who to their own ruine started up to disturbe this possession but the claim of an unjust intruder to justle out the true owner will not carry the Title in any Court where equity takes place In pleading the Churches possession of this truth for so long time I said not so much as others have affirmed before me Learned Augustine though his judgement bee slighted by you affirmed as much in his time and yet I read not of any then that excepted against him for it The Church saith he ever had it ever held it they received this from the faith of their Ancestors and this will it with perseverance keep unto the end If he might say that the Church before his time ever had maintained it and if after his time it was more clearely h●ld out then I hope I did not overlash in saying the Church had bin 1500 years possessed of it And it were an easie task to produce abundance of testimonies giving evidence not onely for their own age but that it was the received custome in all ages even from the Apostles time that this evidence was true we may hence know saith Learned Vossius because the Pelagians never durst deny it when the Orthodox Divines used to presse it who certainly wanted neither Learning nor will to have gainsayed them if they could have found them abusing Antiquity nay they not onely not denyed this but concurred in it so saith Augustine lib. 2. contra Caelist Pelag. Caelistus saith he in a book which hee set forth at Rome grants That Infants were baptized for the remission os sins according to the rule of the universall Church and according to the sentence of the Gospell In the next place you tell me I know that booke from whence this testimony was taken was questioned whether it was Justine Martyrs or no. Truly I was not ignorant thereof therefore I said in a Treatise that goes under his name I did not confidently averre that he was the Author of it yet you plainly call it a bastard Treatise and never prove it but whosesoever it was it is well known to be ancient and both Protestants and Papists asserting Paedobaptisme cite it Thirdly I take notice that you answer nothing against the truth of the testimony it selfe onely you say that by it I may see that the reason of baptizing Infants was not the Covenant of grace made to beleevers and their seed which you make the ground of baptizing Infants at this day You cannot be ignorant that this testimony was not alledged by me to prove the ground why it was administred I onely made use of it to beare witnesse to the matter of fact that Infants were baptized in that age in which that booke was written which is plainely held out in the answer to the question you may also remember what I said of all the testimonies quoted by me that I did not relate them to prove the truth of the thing but onely the practice of it and so much it doth notwithstanding the answer which yet you have brought unto it what ground the Covenant of Grace made to beleevers and their seed gives to Baptisme shall bee manifested hereafter and whether the Ancients used not at least some of the Arguments which we doe Come we now to consider what you answer to Irenaeus his testimony here you speake 1. Of his Countrey 2. Of the age he lived in 3. You question his translation 4. And in the last place you speake a little against the testimony it self Before you fall upon the examination of the testimony you say Hee was a Greeke and wrote in Greeke but wee have his Works in Latine except some fragments this you conceive to be a reason why we cannot be so certain of his meaning as we should be if wee had his owne words in the language in which he wrote and may not this Objection lie against any Translation whatsoever and upon that ground you may slight it I cannot guesse why you adde this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that hee was a Greeke c. unlesse it were to intimate to your Reader that I could not discern whether he were to be numbred in the Catalogue of Greek or Latine Fathers yet you know that I mentioned him in the first rank of those Renowned Lights of the Church which wrote in the Greek tongue to which afterwards I added two other and when I came to speake of any of the Latine Fathers Cyprian was the first in whom this question did occurre But whether his words in the testimony alledged bee truly translated into Latine shall by and by be considered As for his age you acknowledge with me that hee lived in the same Century with Just Martyr the yeare in which he flourished is variously related by the Authors named by your selfe one sayes 180 the other 183 I may adde i● third who varies from them both and sayes 175 and may not others point at other times also For ought I know you needlesly trouble your selfe and your Reader in naming particular year● in which these famous Lights of the Church lived which I thinke can hardly with exactnesse be done it is safe to say about such a time or in such a Century such and such lived which cannot bee prejudiciall to the Reader when wee know a Century includes many years neither can any man warrantably restrain it to any one year alone wherein such a man flourished as if he had flourished one year and no more But I proceed to what you say of the testimony it selfe it is extant Iren. 2. 39. Christus venit salvare 〈◊〉 c. Your exceptions against it are many First you question whether re●asuatur there signifies baptisme or no as Feuardemiur his glosse take● it Secondly You say that neither Christ nor his Apostles call Baptisme a new birth Thirdly possibly this was not the word used by Irenaeus in his own Writing Fourthly that the Latine alters Irenaeus his minde as learned Rivet sayes Lastly that Irenaeus meant not Baptisme in this place you goe about to prove by his scope therein These are your exceptions which now wee come to examine To begin with the first of them when Irenaeus saith Christus