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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45830	Infants-baptism disproved and believers baptism proved, or, An answer to several arguments propounded in a paper by Mr. Alexander Kellie, minister at Giles Criple Gate London, and sent to Mr. Jeremiah Ives of the said parish and is now published for the general information of all, but particularly for the satisfaction of many of the inhabitants of the said parish who have desired it, wherein the arguments for infant-baptism are examined and disproved by the said Jeremia Ives.	Ives, Jeremiah, fl. 1653-1674.	1655 (1655)	Wing I1100; ESTC R31669	39,332	78

INFANTS-BAPTISM Disproved AND Believers Baptism proved OR An ANSWER To several Arguments propounded in a paper by Mr. Alexander Kellie Minister at Giles Criple-Gate London and sent to Mr. Jeremiah Ives of the said PARISH And is now published for the general information of all but particularly for the satifaction of many of the Inhabitants of the said PARISH who have desired it Wherein The ARGUMENTS for Infant-Baptism are examined and disproved By the said Jeremiah Ives Prov. 18.17 He that is first in his own cause seemeth just but his neighbour comes and searcheth him Job 6.25 How forcible are right words but what do your arguings reprove Prov. 23.23 Buy the truth but sell it not Luke 7.30 But the Pharisees and Lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves not being baptized of him Printed at London for Richard Moone and are to be sold at the seven Stars in Paul's Church-yard neer the great North door 1655. To the READER Reader IF those men of Berea Act. 17.11 were counted more noble then they of Thessalonica because they would take nothing upon trust that the Apostles said but searched the Scripture dayly to see if what They said were so How ignoble should we be in this Age wherein men are much more divided in matters of Religion then they were in the Apostles times and wherein our Teachers themselves are contradictious one to another in many of the great concernments of Religion if we should receive any thing from them without diligent search into the Word of God to see if it be true or no sith Solomon makes this a distinguishing Character between a wise Man and a Fool Prov. 14.15 The simple believeth every word but the wise man looks well to his goings Neither let a man think that his looking back to the ancient Fathers and his searching of them and reading them will much help in the midst of these Religious disorders because they were in many things as much contradictory to the Truth and one another as any in these times as for instance Hierome and Chrisostome deny Original-sin in the sence it is now maintained Augustine taught That the Lord's Supper should be given to Infants in his fifth Book of Hpognosticks Justin Martyr against Triphon saith God at first gave the Sun to be adored Origen held the Salvation of all both wicked men and devils The Bishops of the East and West Churches opposed one another in the Doctrine of the Deity of Christ in the time of Constantius Son to Constatinus Magius And long after Socrates Lib. 1. Chap. 29. and Chrisostome said That Saint Paul spake against Truth and Reason in allowing second Marriages See Moulin's Defence p. 137 138. By all this you may see that we have great cause to search the Scripture and not to follow the Fathers or any but wherein they followed Christ And we may likewise understand that that which the World now calls The Christian Religion is like the Weather-beaten Bark at Athens that had been so often mended and riged that it was hard to say whether it retained any of its old materials onely it retained its old Name The like may be said of Religion as it is commonly profess'd in the world by the generality of men that it hath been so often mended with the new state of ●ens own inventions that if we look into the Word of God and compare the state of the Christian Religion in the Apostles times to the common Religion that is profess'd now in the Nation and we shall finde nothing but the name of it the name of Believing the name of Churches the name of Baptism the name of Ministers of the Gospel the name of the Lord's Supper the name of Christians c. How mightily then doth it concern us all to search the Word of God which is a Light to us in this dark Day and is able to lead us through all the Mists of the Mystery of Iniquity and to set our fee● in a fair path where we may walk without stumbling But if you shall say Have not our learned Men undertaken to reform Religion by the Word of God and cannot they as soon hit the right way through these many wayes as we I answer T is one thing what they can do and another thing what they will do considering how much the most part of them are taken with the love of this present World and the pride of life which stops them from laying aside any error that they have preached practised lest it should reflect either upon their profit on the one hand or their credit and learning on the other as some of the Bishops said in the Council of Trent That the School men were like Astronomers which did feigh Eccentricks and Epicycles to save the Phenomina though they knew there were no such thing In like manner as Sir Francis Bacon well observes in his Essaies of Superstition p. 97 98. The School-men saith he have framed a number of subtil and intricate Axioms and Theorems to save the practise of the Church I shall therefore intreat the Reader to see if the Profit of this World and the Credit of the Learned doth not engage them to do so in the present controversie of Infants Baptism and whether it doth not savour more of the spirit of the forenamed Bishops in the Council of Trent then of the self-denying spirit that was Christ and his Apostles For this end that thou maist try all things and hold fast the best I have put forth that ensuing Controversie which at first was in private at Mr. Kellie's own House and afterward according to a promise then made he did send me in a Paper not onely the Arguments that he laid down then but also some others that he had not then time to propose all which are particularly examined and the Scriptures relating to them seriously weighed and considered and therefore if by what is herein written there be any discovery of the Truth on either side receive it and embrace it with readiness of minde and with the like readiness let thy heart be lifed to give God the Glory which is all that is desired from him that is ready to serve thee in the Gospel of Christ Jer. Ives From my House in Red-Cross Street at the corner of the New Street this 16 of August 1655. Infants-Baptism Disproved In ANSWER to Mr ALEXANDER KELLIE His severall Arguments levied in Defence of it Together with the proof of the lawfullnesse OF Believers-Baptism SIR I HAVE received a Paper from you wherein you use your best indeavour to prove that Infants ought to be Baptized Which Proposition you say you began to prove at a Meeting at your house July 10. 1655. in the forenoone Whether you did not at that time doe like the Builder that Christ speaks of Luke 14.28 29 30. viz. begin to doe that that you were never able to finish I shall not now determine but leave it to the Reader to judge when

other Countries and Churches who did not suffer any to doe so till they were baptized Socrates lib. 5. cap. 2● Which plainly shewes that infants baptism was not a tradition of the Apostles for if it had this Church of Alexandria that had for the space of some hundred years been converted to the faith of Christ would by this time if all believers had baptized their infants as the Church of England and others doe now adayes one Generation after another have been without any that were able to read and interpret the Scriptures before baptism as we see the Nation of Engl now is a few Anabaptists Children so called excepted otherwise where are your Oathecumenists that are able to read understand the holy Script before you baptize them And that they in those times did follow the way of Christ in baptizing and not your Bason way appears for the same Socrates lib. 7. cap. 4. speaks of a Jew which was baptized by Soticus Bishop of Constantinople who saith he as soon as he was TAKEN OUT OF THE WATER his Palsie left him Can it be said so of any that you baptize that they are taken out of the water The same Author further saith lib. 7. cap. 17. of a Jew that was to be baptized upon his profession of faith by Paulus the Novatian Bishop that all things were provided for his baptism among which he saith The Bishop did provide him a linnen Garment which was to no purpose if he had not been to dip the person in water And Bellarmiue himself acknowledges that in old time they had women in the Church whom they called to the Office of Deaconnesses to attend upon the women that were baptized with baptizing cloaths And Jerome Translating the Lamentation of Origen saith That Origen lamented and bewailed the Vow that HE MADE WHEN HE WAS BAPTIZED in that he had now by sin walked contrary to it However Origen is himself thought to favour this practice afterwards yet those things are but the supposed works of Origen and it 's hard to say whether it was his or no. Again Eusebius who writ the Ecclesiasticall History of the first 300 years after Christ though he tells us of all the most observable passages of those times yet he doth not so much as mention the baptizing of one infant but doth often times mention things in favour to the baptizing of men upon profession of faith as appears lib. 7. cap. 8. of his Ecclesiasticall story where he relates of a man that heard the Questions that was by the Minister asked of persons to be baptized and THEIR ANSWERS TO THEM fell down and wept at the Ministers feet because the baptism that he had received of the Hereticks was not like the baptism THAT WAS IN USE THEN which plainly sheweth That at this time the Churches did not receive men to baptism but upon profession of faith and also that it was no Apostolicall Custome to baptize infants Further Beza himself upon Acts 17.3 saith That they professed in baptism the doctrine propounded by John And besides this how often have Mr. Tombs and Mr. Den and others produced sufficient proof that this practice of baptizing infants was not so much the Custome of the Primitive times as you imagine That memorable instance of Gregory Nazianzen whose father was a Bishop and his mother a vertuous woman yet himselfe was not baptized till he came from Athens where as Socrates saith lib. 4. cap. 21. he had spent much of his time in the study of Rhetorick Again That other instance of Mr. Tombes out of Hugo Grotius in his Annotations upon Mat. 19.14 That even Chrysostome though born of Christian parents was not baptized till he was 21 years of age The same Grotius adds That the Canon of the Synod of Neosesarea held in the year 315 determined that a woman with Child might be baptized because baptism did not reach the fruit of her womb because in the confession made in baptism EVERY ONES FREE CHOICE IS SHEWED He adds further That many of the Greeks to his time did defer the baptizing little ones till they could themselves make a confession of their faith Again Was not the Image of this Custome to be seen in the practice of the Church of England when they asked What was required of persons TO BE BAPTIZED and the answer was Repentance whereby they forsake sin and Faith whereby they believe the Promises of God Which afterwards by changing the Command of God into a Tradition of their owne they did use to ask the God-fathers and God-mothers a conceit that was never heard of till the Churches had apostatized from their Primitive Purity And as for the manner of baptizing by dipping the Person in the water however it is now laught at you see it was not onely that which as I have said Christ and his Apostles Commanded and Practiced but it was used in the Church for a long time after the Church of England did look upon it as a more commendable way in as much as they in their service-Service-Book did place dipping before sprinkling and therefore they said the persons DIPPED or sprinkled c. Now may I not better say That if you had looked over the Command of Christ and the Practice of the Apostle and traced the foot-steps of the Primitive Practice in this Point for 300 years after you might have saved me a labour and your self too then you could say I might have saved you a labour if I had looked over the writings of a few men that you have named who have not in all their Books cited either a Command or Example for infants sprinkling but onely some far-fetched non-sequitors which most of your Paper is filled withall I shall now conclude leaving what I have said in Answer to your Arguments for your Practice and the plain Scripture I have urged for my own Practice to your judgement and the judgement of all to whom this shall come and desire that like the Bereans you and all others that shall peruse this would search whether what I have said in the premisses be of God or no and if in your Conscience you or any else doe so fied it to be take heed then what you do in opposing of it least you be found sighters against God And what hath fallen from my pen that is not according to Gods word I shall desire that you or any else would shew it me either in word or writing and it shall thankfully be received as a favour by SIR Your Friend to Serve you JER IVES FINIS