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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85020	The infants advocate of circumcision on Jewish and baptisme on Christian children. By Thomas Fuller, B.D.	Fuller, Thomas, 1608-1661.	1653 (1653)	Wing F2447; Thomason E1431_1; ESTC R202071	87,089	272

infants children striplings youths men of perfect reduced decayed ages CHAP. XVII An Objection Answered drawn from the inability of Infants to repent and believe ALthough we conceive this formerly satisfied yet finding it to recur in our proceedings we will repeat something in our larger Answer thereunto We perceive many men infidels in the point of infants faith and do not believe that they do or can believe whose distrust is principally grounded on these two causes partly because infants cannot evidence their believing to others partly because men cannot conceive the manner of infants belief To the first of these we say it is injurious to conclude infants incapable of believing because they cannot manifest it to others On the same account and with as much truth and right one might deny reasonable souls to infants because they neither do nor can make any expression thereof Let matters be measured by outward appearance and the young ones of bruit beasts seem more rational though indeed it be but natural instinct in them then any childe whatsoever A Lamb new wean'd and Chicken new hatch'd know their Dam can stand go do many things in order to their self-preservation better then a new-born infant and yet no wise man will pronounce them more reasonable then a childe Yea give me leave a little here to make an useful digression There is no one mistake w ch hath betrayed mens judgements to more absurdities in the points of Circumcision and Baptism then a misapprehension in making the body the standard of the soul and measuring the same by the proportion thereof I am afraid there be too many who conceive souls like the pipes in an Organ some longer some shorter some lesser some larger and fancy degrees of their dimensions variable with their ages So that a new-born infant should have a smal soul a weaned childe a soul somewhat greater and so successively that the souls of boyes youths striplings men should gradually exceed one another in greatnesse Yea I am afraid that some do farther extend this their false apprehension even to imagine that at the last day of Judgement the souls of such who died in their infancy shall appear before Gods Tribunal little diminutive Spirits This conceit makes men behold infants with disdainful eyes accounting them but Cyphers which signifie but little in nature and nothing in Religion To rectifie their erroneous judgements let them know that all reasonable souls as created by God and first infused into bodies are equal in their essence and that something extrinsical and adventitious causeth that grand disparity betwixt souls in their natural moral and supernatural operations 1. In their natural as the wise man and the fool are equal in their death Eccles 2. 16. so also in their birth not only in the manner thereof but in this respect of an adequation of all the essentials of their souls The different tempers of their brains and more or lesse perfect fabrick of their bodies differenceth them in their actions who in their beings are alike 2. In their moral That which makes the difference betwixt them is this First education bestowed on one more then another whereby he arrives at a perfection above his equals Secondly Habits of vertues or vices which one hath acquired more or lesse then the other 3. In their supernatural Only the distinction ariseth from infused graces more plentifully conferred on one then another and from the holy improvement thereof which one frugal in goodnesse makes above him which is an unthrift therein Thus the species or kind with all specifical perfections are not partial to one individuum to make that a favourite more then another but all indifferently partake thereof And as amongst the Israelites Exod. 16. 18. all had their just omer of manna so the man yea the giant hath no more of the reasonable soul then the Dwarfe or the Infant all share alike in the essence thereof The same may be said of the souls of Children and men The essentials of a childs soul are as large and ample to all purposes and intents as that of a man The house-keeper is the same though pent for rooms he cannot make the like entertainment Indeed we read Rev. 20. 12. I saw the dead great and small stand before God and the books were open c. But the inequality there relates not unto their souls and the essences thereof but to their conditions wherein they were estated when alive Psal 49. 2. Low and high rich and poor together What matters it then though Children cannot discover and though men cannot perceive their belief It follows not but that God may see what a child is not sensible of in it self nor others in it God judgeth not as man judgeth nor doth he see as man seeth Man only beholdeth the out-side of childrens operations loaden with defects arising from their bodily indisposition Gods sees the heart and what mainly moveth therein the soul and age being meetly circumstantial and accidental thereunto it maketh no odds at all in Gods discovery therein who can see in them that beliefe which we cannot behold But suppose the worst that Infants neither do nor can believe yet this cannot be a bar to their Covenanting in Baptism no more then it was to the Jewish children in Circumcision Their tender age knew not what a Covenant with God meant Nor had they feeling how thereby they were engaged to keep the Law Nor understood what did belong to the inward Circumcision of the heart yet were vouchsafed to be foederati cum Deo So it can be no bar to the children of Christian parents to receive a seal of covenantship with Christ albeit they at that time want reason to know the nature of a Covenant nor how they put on Christ nor what it is to believe and to be washed clean from sin There is no more absurdity or inconsequence upon one then the other CHAP. XVIII Other Objections Answered THe Grand Objections thus cleared such as remain will be easily satisfied as followeth Object It is pride and presumption for any to account themselves fitter and forwarder for Baptism then Christ himself was Now Christ himself was not Baptized Luke 3. 23. till he began to be about thirty years of Age none ought therefore to prevent that date of time in their Baptism Answ Though Christ was not baptized till thirty years of Age remember he was circumcised Luke 2. 21. on the eighth day Secondly Christ was not Baptized out of necessity needing no soul-physick who had no soul-sicknesse but a voluntary design to Baptize baptism and to give a soveraign vertue thereunto Thirdly Many of Christs actions were for our instruction not imitation Christ presently after his Baptism fasted fourty days and fourty nights which the urgers of this argument will not pretend unto Discover we here a corruption too rife in all our hearts Such is the frowardnesse of our crosse-grain'd nature that we lazily stand still and admire such actions of Christ