Blessed because he should fail of his End if these evil Actions were not done This is his Logick let him look to it But 3. What I conceive to be Truth concerning Free-Will I will give you a short account from what I have formerly published in a little Catechism where in Page 21. I put these Questions and Answers following What mean you by the third part of Repentance Answ I mean first a boly loathing of Sin because it is of the Devil 1 John 3. 8. and because God hates it And because Christ died because of it 2. To abstain from the act of Sin in Desire Word and Deed as much as possible God saw their Works that they turned from their Evil Ways Break off thy Sins by Righteousness Repent ye therefore and be Converted This is to bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance Quest Hath Man any liberty of Will and any measure of Power thus to hate and forsake Sin Answ 1. By the Bounty of God Man hath some liberty and power this way He is not chained to his Sins of Necessity Chuse you this day whom you will serve To day if ye will hear his Voice harden not your Hearts Mary hath chosen the good part 2. Man's infirmity in the exercise of this Liberty and Power is so great that he is not to depend upon this Liberty and Power but upon the Strength of God in the use of them Hos 14. 2. 2 Cor. 3. 5. Now let any Sober Christian tell me how it is possible to make the Will of Man an Imperial Majesty out of my Words that is a Majesty that hath no Peer for no less than such a Slander would serve Mr. Firmin to fix upon us especially upon my self For what cause he is so inveterate I know not But come Mr. Firmin will the Doctrine of a chief Man of your own please you if so you and I may agree in his Sentence Thus he speaks Austin as well as Pelagius Calvin as well as the Arminians the Dominicans as well as the Jesuits all generally maintain that Man hath Free-will Origen is condemned by Epiphanius for saying that Man had lost the Image of God This Image is two-fold 1. Natural i. e. Reason and Free Will. 2. Qualitative or Ethical i. e. Our Holiness and this is lost and by Grace restored No Man of Brains can deny that Man hath a Will naturally free it is free from Violence It 's a self-determining Principle but is not freed from evil Dispositions Mr. Baxter's Preface to his Call to the Vnconverted I think I need say no more to a Wise Man And I am sure this is as much as any Wise Man among us will say in this Matter CONCLVSION Mr. Firmin seems displeased at the multitude which will be Saved if my Opinion be true that all Dying Infants shall be Saved I will give you his own words I pray saith he whose Opinion are you of Huberus the promiscuous Salvation of all Or are you of Caelius Secundus Curio ' s Opinion That the number of the Elect and Saved is much greater than the number of the Reprobate and Damned Whether you or these or Christ be truest Mat. 7. 14. few find it the Day of Judgment will determine Here Sir you shew your Spirit But for answer Although I know that God is not willing that any should Perish but that all should come to Repentance 2 Pet. 3. 9. 1 Tim. 2. 4. yet I see too much cause to fear that but very few of the many to whom God is so long suffering to lead them to Repentance will consider his Goodness therein And that the far greater part will despise the Riches of God's Goodness and treasure up unto themselves Wrath against the Day of Wrath and Revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God. And in this very respect I fear some old Professors such especially as have been Teachers of others and yet have not learned either Civility or Honesty in treating those who differ from them in Opinion As to the Text Mat. 7. 14. blessed be God Infants are in no danger by it they may all be Saved and so the number of the Saved be much the greater by them for seeing they none of them are walking in the Broad-way which leads to Destruction they must needs go the Way which leads to Life Tho as it is a strait way of Faith and Obedience and many Crosses for Christ's sake they can neither seek nor find it yet their Redeemer hath found it for them and has declared their Right to Heaven and will therefore in his own Time and Way bring them to the Enjoyment of that Kingdom which he hath prepared for them as well as others But here also we see you are unkind to many Dying Infants whilst you are sending them to Hell with those who walk in the Broad-way FINIS * It was not the Bp of Norwich for I never saw him nor did I ever dispute any Doctor out of the room as Mr. F. hath both foolishly and falsly reported in Print with no less than six other false and very frivolous Tales in half a Page Dr. Willit Hexap in Gen. p. 196 c. * You bid me understand what that Fallacy Ignoratio Elenchi is and here you are fallen into that Fallacy your self * In the Book of Wisdom we read That Wisdom preserved the first Father of the World and brought him out of his Offence Chap. 10. 1. which is agreeable to the Canonical Scripture Luke 3. 38. because Adam is called the Son of God. Dr. Willit Hexap in Gen. p. 56. See Diodat upon Gen. 17. 14. who is also clear in this Point
THE Infants Advocate AGAINST The cruel Doctrine of those Presbyterians who hold That the greatest part of Dying Infants shall be DAMNED In Answer to a Book of Mr. GILES FIRMIN'S entituled Scripture Warrant c. By THO. GRANTHAM Exod. 32. 32 33. Yet now if thou wilt forgive their Sin and if not blot me I pray thee out of thy Book which thou hast written And the Lord said unto Moses Whosoever hath sinned against me him will I blot out of my Book Matth. 18. 10 11 14. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little Ones for I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels do always behold the Face of my Father which is in Heaven For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which is lost Even so it is not the Will of your Father which is in Heaven that one of these little Ones should perish London Printed by J. D. for the Author 1688. The PREFACE Honest Reader I Could not have thought that a Man reputed wise an old Professor and one who so bears himself upon his Father's Covenant whom he will have to be a Son of Abraham and so himself to be Abraham's Son also could have given such evident Proof of the contrary as by his Book he has brought forth Sure I am I answered his two Questions in much Love and Faithfulness according to my Ability being thereunto desired by some of his Neighbours And I hope no Impartial Reader will censure me to be a Scoffer as Mr. Firmin does But truly I think he was pleased to throw that Dirt that he might have some pretence to give scope to his ill Spirit to exercise it self that way I confess I use these words upon the occasion of his talking so high of his Father's Covenant that it would even make a well Man sick to see what pitiful work he makes of it And here I will give thee an account of it and then judg of me as thou pleasest Saith Mr. F. When I could not tell where to lay hold meaning in his dismal Temptations my Parental Covenant and Infant Baptism was a support to me So that I bless God 1. For Abraham ' s Covenant 2. I bless God that I had Godly Parents 3. I bless God my Parents were no Anabaptists c. Only a word some may think you had Godly Parents mine were not so It may be I had a Godly Grandfather or a Mother Had you so no doubt but you may improve the Covenant from him The second Commandment will help you others may say Baptized I am but my Parents bad enough Well art awake and art in earnest for Christ and the saving Blessings come by him you may improve your Covenant A Woman putting a Question how she might know whether ever she had these Qualifications Mr. F. tells us that whilst he was troubled about making out these Qualifications there comes a Motion into my Mind saith he What say you to your Father's Covenant you know your Parents were Godly will you stand to your Father's Covenant Here my Qualification was the choice of my Father's God who was mine before by an external Covenant But now to have him my God my Portion by an internal Covenant and Efficacy here I was pent up Will you chuse or refuse him c. Now whether this Discourse will not almost make a well Man sick I mean a serious Christian troubled to hear a wise Man talk at this rate And whether he does not lay his Foundation upon his Qualification for by that saith he was the choice of my Father's God. And does he not also set up his Will as high as ever any did in chusing or refusing God to be his God his Portion by internal Covenant and Efficacy Sure he doth Mr. F's great business is to abuse and disgrace me by false and foolish Stories which have been told him by others which I pass by as unworthy observation And then he falls in with the Papists against me in the case of abstaining from or eating Blood justifying himself and them in the latter Tho he confesses the believing Gentiles were forbidden to eat Blood by that Decree Act. 15. 29. And when these Decrees were repealed he cannot tell and whilst he makes us for observing them such as do not believe the Blood of Christ to be our Atonement and that we hold some things to be unclean of themselves he condemns also the Primitive Christians who religiously abstain'd from Blood for several hundred Years after Christ and makes himself wiser than the Apostles for had they known such to be the consequence they would not have made them nor have deliver'd them to be kept as they did Acts 16. 4. We know that that which goes into the Man defiles not and therefore Blood defiles not but acting against God's Word defiled Evah even by eating that which was good for Food and so may Mr. F. defile himself for he says he will eat Blood Puddings S. A. by which he means Sir Anabaptist and indeed a scornful Spirit breaths in many Pages of his late Books He is pleased to throw Dirt upon me very freely about an escape of the Pen or Press I am not sure which and yet he being a Scholar and acquainted with such over-sights could not but discern unless Malice blinded him that it was an oversight The Passage is about the time when Transubstantiation came into the World and the Book which he quarels has it thus How rigidly do they impose the Decrees of the Trent-Councils Where note the word Councils being plural he might easily have supposed Lateran which was wanting for thus it stands in the Catechism of the Papists of which I give notice Pag. 55. The Lateran and Trent Councils and from thence I took the date of Transubstantiation Not but that I have read the same in other Authors But here he brands me with gross Ignorance and I grant I am not so well read as himself if that will please him And my rejoycing is this that in Simplicity and Godly Sincerity I wrote that Book which he despises and I hope God will bless my Endeavours in which I trust I have no other scope but his Glory and the good of all Men heartily desiring that all Truth were restored to its Primitive Purity and Simplicity As to his three first Chapters I shall say little to them at present being very well satisfied with my Answers to his two Questions notwithstanding all that he has said to render them invalid The chief thing which I design in this Reply is to maintain what in me is the Mercy of God to all dying Infants against Mr. F. and others whose cruel Doctrine sends them by Millions to Hellish Torments as appears by this Book of Mr. Firmin's p. 8. If all dying Infants shall be saved there will be Millions in Heaven saith he in whom the Spirit of God had nothing to do in their Salvation I say to maintain the Salvation of
all dying Infants against those who would thus damn them is especially my present undertaking And if Mr. F. be disposed to urge me further it is a Subject I am willing to debate with him when and how he pleases so that we may discourse in Love as becomes Christians And as to the Questions about Sacred Baptism that Work may perhaps be undertaken in a particular Treatise by it self In the mean time let it be considered that it has been granted both by Papists and Protestants and those of the more Learned sort too That there is no Scripture for Infant-Baptism That the Scripture shews us no other way of baptizing but by dipping Yea I lately asked a Doctor of the Church of England very seriously Whether he held Infant-Baptism to be of Divine Institution Who very freely gave me this Answer No truly I only look upon it as a Church-Rite But then whether the Church have such Power as to make Rites and Ceremonies in Religion and particularly thus to alter the subject and manner of Baptism as has confessedly been done by the Church of Rome and in part by the Church of England is the business for this present Age to take into their most serious Consideration T. G. The INFANTS ADVOCATE against the cruel Doctrine of those Presbyterians who hold That the greatest part of Dying Infants are DAMNED Division 1. MR Giles Firmin was pleased to print two Questions and desires those whom he calls Anabaptists to answer them and at the request of some of his Neighbours I wrote a brief and I hope a modest Answer to them not for Contention but for Satisfaction to such as desire to know the truth in the matters thereby put to the Question by Mr. F. who finds himself aggrieved tho nothing is done but what he desired that is his Questions answered And tho he says they are not yet that shall not provoke me to say much to him concerning them But seeing by this occasion we are unavoidably fallen upon the business of Infants-Salvation Whether God Almighty ordained Baptism or any other Rite to be necessary to their Salvation or Whether the greatest or any part of Dying Infants shall be damned in Hellish Torments A Question of great weight and importance I find my self concern'd to proceed in opposing that cruel Doctrine which would send Millions of dying Infants to Hell Torments It was the Judgment of Austin and many others that unless Infants were baptized and received the Lord's Supper they could not be saved And Mr. Firmin seems to be of the same Mind with respect to their Baptism and moreover he holds that Infants must have Faith and Repentance as necessary to their Salvation or they must all perish I will set down his own words In Pag. 90. of his Plea he speaks thus To return to Infants They must be regenerate and have Faith some way else they must perish And in his Book entituled Scripture warrant c. he speaks thus Pag. 76. They who are regenerate have Faith and Repentance But all Infants saved are regenerated Therefore all Infants saved have Faith and Repentance And in Pag. 21. he counts it an Error in me for supposing If Isaac had died before he was eight days old he might have been saved So saith he this Covenant meaning the Covenant of Circumcision might have been spared And in Pag. 40. The same saith he I may say for Baptism being Christ's own Institution This is the Hand of the Spirit accompanying it when and where he pleaseth shall be the means to convey Spiritual Blessings to the Hearts of some Infants and prove to them the washing of Regeneration So that I think I have done him no wrong in the account I have given of his Opinion To all which I answer To intermit a little the business of Infants Faith and Repentance we will consider what he says of Circumcision and Baptism He tells us Pag. 39. That he cannot conceive how it can consist with the Wisdom Holiness and Goodness of God to institute an Ordinance in his Church for spiritual and saving Ends and strictly to command this Ordinance to be administred to such Subjects as Children of eight days old and he himself not work with his own Institution when and where he pleases to the good and benefit of that Subject to whom it is administred this Subject having need of the Spiritual Good signified and sealed thereby It doth implicitly charge the Institution with Vanity To which I reply 1. Considering what Mr. F. says of Isaac dying before the eighth day which I noted before his sense is this that from the time that Circumcision was instituted it makes that Covenant of Circumcision a Vanity to think any of Abraham's Seed tho but Infants of eight days old could be saved if not circumcised And then I pray what is like to become of all the World beside who had no Interest in the Covenant of Circumcision Must they not all perish We shall hear more of that anon 2. And besides this tho he makes Circumcision thus necessary to the Salvation of Infants yet he does not believe that all Infants that were circumcised were saved for these words of his when and where he pleases carry this sense in a Presbyterian Breast that tho Circumcision did by express order belong to all the Males of Abraham's Seed being eight days old yet perhaps but few of many of them should be saved which I evidently shewed in my Answers to Mr. F's Question and to Mr. Petto Now here I do profess to believe that Almighty God did not thus ordain Circumcision to be absolutely necessary because they to wit Infants can neither understand his Will herein nor desire it neither hinder it it wholly depends on others to do it for them and why then they should perish if it be not done no reason can be shewed but that which is the hardest thing of all is that if Isaac had died before the eighth day he should not be saved when yet it was not lawful to circumcise him What is this Does God damn Infants for dying before they be eight days old or for not having that done to them which by God's Law ought not to be done before the eighth day This is the cruelst Doctrine that can be And I will shew how contrary it is to the Doctrine of Learned Protestants One saith thus upon Gen. 17. 14. It is no good reading to say the uncircumcised Man-Child but Zachar the Male c. shall be cut off for the Infant of eight days old mentioned ver 12. is of purpose omitted here Hence then it is inferred that there was no such absolute necessity of Circumcision that Children wanting it should be damned Again This place cannot be understood of Infants that are uncircumcised 1. That addition the eighth day is used only by the Septuagint it is not in the Hebrew 2. The words are qui non circumciderit he which shall not circumcise So readeth the