found even of all which are done throughout the whole life Ambrose the Bishop of Millain by whom Augustine was Converted and Baptized in his Book of Abraham the Patriark lib. For the year 381. 2. Chap. 11. writing upon those words unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit See saith he Christ excepts none not the Infant not the prevented by some necessity c. Every age is obnoxious to sin therefore every age is fit for the Sacrament So also in his Epistle ad Demetriadem Virginem he mention eth the Baptism of Children Epist 84. lib. 10. speaking in that Epistle against Pride and Boasting of some especially Hearetiques and shewing the evill effects thereof to the defending false opinions extenuating of evil and sin and the evacuating of some good gives these two Instances amongst others Hence the sin of Adam is affirmed to hurt his Posterity by example not by passage or transition into them Hence is that Evacuation of the Baptism of little Children as if they should be said to have Adoption given there but not to be absolved from their guilt and again Though little ones not Baptized may or should be saved yet great is the negligence of those that hindeed their Baptizing In his Book de vocat lib. 2. cap. 8. he mentioneth Baptism of Children three or four times and once thus They speak very ill and unjurly of little Children who say Grace hath there what it may Adopt but the water hath not there what it may wash away speaking of such as deoyed sin in little Children Paulinus Bishop of Nola in Camqania For the year 379. a man famous for Poetry and Eloquence Piety and munificence a good acquaintance of Augustine and Hierom betwixt whom and Him there passed sundry Epistles a great favorite and familiar of Ambrose whose life he wrote as also of Sulpitius Severus to whom he wrote 14. Epistles As the Beginning of the twelfe Epistle to the same Sulpitius Severus hath these two verses whhich for your sake I must be fain to tranflate into English Thence from the Sacred Font the Priest did lead it The Infant white in body heart and habit Epiphanius For the year 376. In his first Book Haer. 8. The Figures were in the Law the Truth in the Gospel Circumcision which served for a time gave place to the Great Circumcision which is Baptism which Circumciseth us from sin and Sealeth us into the Name of God In His Book against the Cerinthians Circumcision had its time untill the Great Circumcision came that is the washing of the New-birth as is manifest to every one Surely he meant that which the Apostle calls so that is Baptism the washing or Laver of Regeneration and by calling Baptism the Great Circumcision he must intend Infant Baptism as Infant-Circumcision and speaks of them as of things manifest and wel-known the Carnal or fleshly Baptism as Circumcision In the end of his work calls Baptism and other mysteries observed in the Church which are brought out of the Gospel and setled by Apostolique Authority Traditions and then in his Time Baptism was ministred to Infants and observed Gregory Nazianzene For the year 375. In his 40. Oration of Holy Baptism largely speaketh of it the brief is in the Question and Answer What say ye of those who are of tender Age and perceive neither dammage or Grace shall we Baptize those Yes surely if any danger be it is better to be Sanctified without sense and feeling then to depart without the Seal and Initiation Circumcision bearing in a manner the figure of Baptism was offered to them who were void of Reason c. calleth also Baptism the Seal or Signet to such as enter into the Race of Life Basil the Great For the year 372. Bishop of Caesarea 1 Tom. Exhortation to Baptism wherein though the Baptism of Infants is not named yet I find these words There is a proper and peculiar time for this and that as for sleep for watching for warring the Time for Baptism is the whole life of man which he proves at large and again without Baptism there is no light to the Soul and then adds the Jew was compelled or forced to Circumcision because every soul which was not Circumcised the eighth day was to be cut off wilt thou defer the Circumcision not made with hands which is performed by Baptism in the putting of the flesh When wilt thou be a Christian Athanasius Q. 91. For the year 325. Of the Sayings and Interpretation of Scripture We dip or put the Infant thrice into the water and thrice bring it out insignification of the death and resurrection of Christ upon the third day I shall also here set down an answer of his Quest 2. to Antiochus because it confirmes what I have writ before of Infants having the Holy Spirit How shall we know that the Infant was truly Baptized and received the Holy Ghost in Holy Baptism when it was a Child but the answer is long and shall not need because I would be short The Question is enough to the purpose and sheweth both that Athanasius held both Infant-Baptism and therein affirmed them to receive the Holy Spirit the very question makes it unquestionable as to him Again in his Treatise of the Sabbath and Circumcision Hee calls Circumcision a type of Baptism Cyprian Bishop of Carthage and a Martyr For the year 247. The higher we go the cleerer the light shines for the Baptism of Infants for now here Cyprian with 66 Colleagues all Bishops do in a Councel at Carthage decree for it and so Certifieth his Friend Fidus in an Epistle to him third Book of Epistles Ep. 8. Yea that whole Epistle written by Cyprian and his 66 Colleagues sitting in Council with him The Title of it is of Infants to be Baptized and the subject of the whole Epistle is to justifie the Baptizing of them and answereth the objections of Fidus. As to the Cause the Baptism of Infants we all have judged that the mercy and Grace of God is not to be denyed to any Child born of man c. and that there is the same equallity of grace for the young Infant as the Elder God is no respecter of personages nor ages Yea he gives divers reasons why Infants and the rather and the sooner because Infants should be Baptized which for brevity sake I leave out here as who am onely upon the shewing having proved the Baptism of Infants before the Custom and Practice of Antiquity herein This Epistle also is owned and avouched both by Hierome Au-Augustine to be the true Epistle of Cyprian by Hierom as above is said and by Augustine Epistle 28. unto Hierome saying Cyprian did not here devise a New decree but kept and observed the true Faith or the faithful Practice and Custom of the Church Yea this Epistle of Cyprian was a very strong ground for them both to stand upon and they very much relyed
upon it for the strengthening themselves in their own opinion of Infant-Baptism Origen the Schollar and Disciple of Clemens Alexandrinus For the year 204. so forward a Schollar that at eighteen years of his age he set up a School and taught others in his fift Book to the Rom. 6. c. the Church hath received the Tradition from the Apostles even or also to little Children to give Baptism because in them as in all are the Genuine or ingenerated filths of sin the which ought to be washed with water and the Spirit Somewhat more of this there is in his eighth Book upon Levit 8. Homil. and upon Luke Homil. 14. Tertullain whom Cyprian read so diligently and esteemed so highly For the year 195. that in all matters of doubt he would have recourse to him saying Give me my Master meaning Tertullian in his Book of Baptism chap. 18. According to the Condition disposition and also age of every person the delaying of Baptism is more profitable especially in and about Infants for what necescessity is there if it be not so necessary to bring the suerties into danger of not performing their promise and whether this be meant of the Children which were not born of Christian Parents as some will or of the Children of believing Parents as others say its evident that Baptism was administred in all ages and he intimates the Custom and practice of the Church in his age to Baptize them even Children as well as others Though he seems not to be so well pleased with it and yet again the words import no other then that he denyed the Necessity onely of Baptism to them being out of danger of death not simply the Baptizing of them rather as in another place he doth imply they ought to be Baptized if there be danger or fear that afterwards they may not or cannot be Baptized in his Book of the Soul Chap. 39. and 40. where he saith that Infants of believing Parents or one Parent have such a Sanctity and that from the Privilege of their Birth not the discipline of their bringing up as gives them a Right to Baptism Therefore Tertullain calleth the Children of Believers The designees or destinates of Holiness or as elsewhere the Candidates of Holiness and so here is an evidence for that Birth Holiness or foederal Holiness of which I shall speak anon out of the 2 of Acts. Irenaeus 2 Book For the year 170. Chap. 39. He came to save all by himself I say all who are born again by him into God Infants and little ones and Children and yong men and old men c. The intention of the words is of Christ Jesus who as it followeth there went through every age to Infants made an Infant Sanctifying Infants to little ones made a little one sanctifying those of that age but you see there is an expression of Infants of whom he saith they are born again into or unto God that is Baptized for so Baptism is usually stiled by the Ancients especially the Greeks a Renascence or New Birth or Palingensy as might be shewed out of Athanasius and Basil who took it from the Apostolique manner also of speaking Tit. 3.5 as before I mentioned I can go no higher for Irenaeus was the Schollar and Disciple of Polycarpus and Polycarpus was the Schollar or Disciple of John the Evangelists and to you see I am come up to the very skirts and thresholds of the Apostolique Churches and Primitive Times with the Custom and Practice of Baptizing Infants Some go yet higher to Justin Martyr quaest resp ad orthod qu. For the year 130 90 60 56. and so to Clemens the Roman Bishop in his Apostolical constit lib. 6. cap. 15. and to Dyonisius Areopagita in his Eccles Hietarchy Ch. last And indeed there are pregnant places in them for Baptizing Infants if the Authors were Legitimate they are so good and sufficient against the Papists who own them and maintain them for true and Genuine but with us they are held to be suppositions and spurious and though many good and true things are in them as Infant-Baptism c. Yet they are not belonging to such venerable Names as those I have rchearsed and therefore not of that Antiquity with them and so impertinent to my purpose Onely one thing I must ad to satisfie the Reader why on this side of Augustine towards the Apostles I have mentioned no more of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church seeing there were many more or what were they discrepant in their opinion about the Baptism of Infants no sure the reason must needs be this they all lived long before Pelagius came out from the Brittish Seat and gathered to himself a Sect of Locusts which spread over the world and troubled the Churches with this matter for one they denying the Traduction of originall sin in Infants Therefore those Ancient Fathers of the Church having no occasion to intermeddle with any such matters about Infant-Baptism kept close onely to such controversies and questions as were on foot in their dayes save onely that Cyprian as I touched before was questioned hereabouts the silence of those Fathers that touched not upon it gives consent to the Practice as unquestioned by them but God would put words of it it to the mouthes of some of them to be witnesses unto posterity of the Antiquity of Infant-Baptism and the Churches Practice The like answer may be given why in those two General Councels the Nicene and the Constantinopolitan and some other Provincial ones which were before Augustine nothing is touched upon in their Canons about Baptism of Infants except that of Cyprian and his 66 Colleagues before mentioned because it was at a thing never in question amongst them never opposed by any and yet that was a very sruitful age of haeretical weeds springing up in those purer times witness the Munichees Arrians Donatists Macedonians Aaerians Eunomians Luciferians c. amongst all which not an Antipaedobaptist not any that so much as made scruple at it which sure some or other in malice or envy to the Church would have done if they could have found how to have shaken that as they did all other Foundations of Christinaity But after Augustines time when Pelagius arose Then the Councils came in against him thick and threefold as the Milevitane or Council of Carthage in the year 402. 418. Canon 11. and the Gerundense Council held in Spain 518. Can. 5. and the Bracarense Council the 2. 572. Can. 7. And so the Fathers and Doctors of the Church are ever and anon storming of Pelagius and his adhaerents And now Sir I know all this Labor is lost as to you who are and desire to be but a man of to day and for ever but for yesterday or Antiquity there you will leave even Christ and his Church and go no farther you are none of the old Martiald Souldiery but the New Modell'd Militia and yet you may remember how you began
marriage of the Parents then why was not were not all the sons and daughters of Solomon Rehoboam Jeroboam Nadab and others of the kings of Israel and Judah saved seeing they were all lawfully married according to there their Laws and Customs and why are not drunkard drunkards swarers swearers and other prophane persons saved whyle while they so lived and so died seeing they are in our experience of tymes times the children of lawfull married people according to the laws of the land and why was Jeptah Jephthah saved seeing he was a bastard How now Sir is all the ado for this I looked for Grapes from your mouth and you bring forth wilde grapes I looked for judgement and behold oppression or a scab and for righteousness and behold a cry or a lye In a word I looked for an answer and behold more questions and nothing but questions and those nothing to the purpose for 1. whereas you said before Some will affirm that sanctification of holiness in children such as is the way to heaven and salvation is here spoken of do you affirm if you can of some that say or ever said that it came from the lawfulness of the marriage of the Parents Here you are like Don Quixot who imagined wind-mills in the air before him and ran a tilt at them so you set up images and imaginations in your way to question them thereby to keep your self in breath and your pen on paper 2. Suppose some had affirmed it that childrens sanctification of holiness for as long as I am about your work I shall use your words and when I have done that I shall leave there for I like them not cometh from the lawfulness of the marriage of their Parents doth or may then rationally or religiously follow thereupon such a question as Why then were not all the children of all married Parents in the Church for I pass by your great reading in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Judah and their Genealogies so impertinent here and why not drunkards and swearers which are in your experience of times the children of lawfull married people you seem to be a man of great experience of times and a diligent observer of childrens births and their Parents marriages and are a fit man to be the Register of your Parish and to keep the Book why say you were they not all saved and why was Jephthah saved seeing he was a bastard and not the child of lawfully married Parents what a consequence or rather as I said before a non-sequence of a question is here from a supposition like unto this the qualification of coldness in the water cometh from the confluence of showers into the pond why then are not all the drops and handfuls fetched thence sweet and distilled Sanctification of holiness in the children cometh from the lawfull marriage of their Parents why then are not all their children and issues saved Sirs can you forbear smiling They say when one Almanack-maker looketh upon another they smile both to think how they delude simple people with their vain and false Prognostications certes when you Sectaries see one another you cannot but laugh out to remember how you deceive silly people with your irrational and inconsequent argumentations offer it now unto thy Governour thy God will he be pleased with thee and thy Question Why not all saved he will tell thee that thy and their destruction is from themselves but thy and their help or salvation is in me saith God not in or from any other Parent or not Parent married or not married lawfully or not lawfully you and they are saved by the free grace of God and not by the sanctification of holiness in the one or other Yea do you not answer your self why drunkards and swearers who were children of lawfull married Parents are not saved Why they so lived and so died drunkards and swearers how could they But what is all this to our business which is not of salvation but sanctification Here is another of your absurd and inconsequent questions sanctification of holiness in children if it come from the lawful marriage of the Parents why then are not all sanctified so you should have said would if you could have told how to keep to the Question then you might have answered your self or needed not have made such a question seeing even the wicked children born of lawful married Parents in the Church are in a way which I shall anon shew you sanctified and this their sanctification is a way also unto Heaven and Salvation and all those whom you name were in this way and I suppose you know I shall not need to tell you what fell out in the way that they were not all or any of them saved It is one of your grosse mistakes and Reasonings from every kinde of sanctification of holiness to conclude the salvation of souls when as to go no farther the unbeliever is here said to be sanctified in and by the believing and their children are said to be holy from whence who can infer their salvation these arguings are rattles for boyes to play with not Reasons for men to bring forth But what 's the business why Jephthah is here named It is confessed He was saved because the Scripture beareth witness of it in Heb. 11.32 and also that he was a bastard Judges 11.1 But seeing he was a bastard you ask why he was saved why to teach you that base birth is no obstacle to free Grace nor hindreth the salvation of any believer no more than lawful marriage of Parents so much talked of or rather as you should have spoken the legitimate birth of children doth further the salvation of an unbeliever But in the mean time this Example named by you and produced doth accuse you of inconsiderateness in your Consideration for we are both considering as you will have it of the sanctification of holiness in children whose Parents are one of them an Infidel or unbeliever and you come in with your Jephthah neither of whose Parents were unbelievers though sinful in that act and so its impertinent as not comming within the compasse of the Corinthians doubt and Quaere or the Apostles answer and Argument and so you are besides the Matter and out of the Cause and Case here questioned in all your Questions being nothing to the purpose But now lastly tell me one thing did you not once but a while ago hold the Apostles meaning here of childrens being holy to be noching else but a legitimation of their birth from Parents in lawful Wedlock or Matrimonial holiness or chastity which you also or yours make to be the very sanctification of the unbeliever to or by the believer How then can you and with what constancy can you now here argue against the sanctification of holiness in children as comming from the lawfulness of the marriage of the Parents who before make legitimation of their birth and nothing else to be their
hurtful neither is it prejudicial to the baptized party whether it be once or thrice dipped and immerged but so much I have said to shew the vanity of your boast of the good old way of your dipping insomuch as you have thrice digressed from Antiquity therein as is hitherto proved Yea you are gone from the present way of your Mother and not onely Brother-church of Rome which hath lately sided with you gone cheek by joyl with you sided said I nay rather headed you and the other Sects amongst us for so she hath given over her old way of the Trine-immersion and is upon the new path of Trine-aspersion and you have left her also in both both in the number of Trine or thrice as also in the matter of aspersion or sprinkling in this your once dipping and immerging and thus you forsaking your friends walking alone by your selves yet going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it yea compassing sea and land to get proselytes your friends may perhaps at last forsake you and leave you to your selves and your bad new way to walk alone and wilder your selves But I come to a fourth and last difference 4. The Ancients dipped and immerged and though they made it mysterious and significant yet they the learnedest of them thought it not absolutely necessary but adiaphorous and therefore held it but as an Ecclesiastical custom and tradition as Hierom. dial adver Lucif whom I cited but even now expresly calls it such morem traditionem Ecclesiae and so Basil lib. de Spiritu sancto cap. 27. by way of Question demands this of the thrice dipping how came it to us and that other of renouncing the devil and his angels from what Scripture have we it and then answereth it by an affirmative in a negative interrogation have we it not rather from an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from a private and secret instruction or tradition for the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to the liberty of it and no necessity hereof being a consequence hereupon I shall say more afterwards As for those that owned and held this dipping and especially the thrice dipping to be either a Divine precept or an Apostolical tradition unwritten and nonscript they were either minoris vel nulliusfidei as the Canons of the Apostles as they are called Can. 50. and Basilius is cited by the Papists in the Book before alledged by me for making the thrice dipping an Apostolical and necessary tradition but it 's answered by Whitakers desc cont 1 quest 6. and so also by Rivet in his Criticus cap. 20. who both acknowledge they had it from Erasmus in Epist aa Johannem Episc Culmensem that that Book de Spiritu sancto is not any true and genuine work of the great Basil but a spurious and supposititious one especially in the later half thereof by some one that would be great in Basil and therefore though I cited a testimony a little before out of the 27 Cap. of that Book de Spiritu sancto bearing the name of the great Basil like as Vessius and others do yet I will not stand upon it as I need not having another Authentique one standing by him which is that of Hierom for that I hear of it by those learned above mentioned and read also my self in that 27 Chapter for though the words that I have cited thereout may bear a good sense by themselves yet finding the drift of that 27 Chapter being to equal or to adjoin Traditions of which a great many are there named and this amongst the rest unto the written word of the holy Spirit as Apostolical and necessary I do suspect those words before of private and secret or hidden doctrine as I rendred them to bend and incline that way Others lesse credible Ancient Authors there are who make this Trine immersion and Apostolical tradition yea precept as Pelagius Papa Anno 510. who is cited by Gratian de consec dist 4. can 10. makes it a precept in those words because of the three Persons named in the Precept Go baptize all Nations in the Name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost and Theodoretus l. 4. haeret Fabular Which book is thought to be none of his by reason of some fabulous things in it and so this way generally the opinion of the later Roman Church whilst they held to the Trine-immersion that it was a necessary Apostolical tradition and the like I beleeve they are as ready to say now they have left that of their Trine aspersion to which they have be taken themselves now at last And you also and yours are of the same opinion for your once dipping and immerging that it is of Divine prescription and Apostolical tradition who adhere so peremptorily to it disallowing and condemning all of us and other Churches who practise aspersion and sprinkling for heretical and antichristian and our baptism for unlawful and invalid And therefore I shall now also give you a little of Antiquity to 〈◊〉 for our sprinkling and aspersing of water with the hand upon the party baptized or our pouring or laying on of water upon some part head or face of the same whereby it shall be made to appear to be also a good and old way of baptizing But shall I need to add any more of this I have given you already the Testimonies of some of the Ancients for the same in the third difference I made 'twixt your and the Ancients dipping and immerging and the Example of Laurentius so baptizing Lucillus by pouring water upon his head and so also he baptized one of the Souldiers who brought Vrceum cum aqua and took his time and offered it to St. Laurence that so he might be that Souldier baptized of him which could be no otherwise then by taking water out of the Pitcher or Pail or Kettle with his hands and pouring it upon him even his head and this was much about Cyprians time in year 250. And therefore sure it was the practice in Cyprians time yea and it was his very judgement given hereupon to one by name Magnus Epist 76. who propounded the Question to him whether the weak and sick who could not be dipt but were onely perfusi sprinkled or aspersed with water were truly Christians and obtained grace He answered Let it not move any quod aspergi vel perfundi videantur aegri that the sick are aspersed or poured upon with water at their Baptism for that also they partake of the Lords grace seeing the holy Scripture by the Prophet Ezekiel saith I will sprinkle upon you pure water and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness of which Text I have made use before to the same purpose So likewise I have shewed the Antiquity thereof from Eunomius and the Eunomians who living about the year 360. did wet the head down to the breast in their baptizing and I have pressed it out of the Greek word which
Constantinople Basilius born also a Graecian and contemporary with Gregory was also brought up in humane literature at Caesarea first and then at the Vniversity of Athens under Eubulus his Master a Heathen whom he afterwards converted to the faith and coming to Libanius the Sophister and a School-master who thought to have posed him with some hard and difficult verses of Homer he expounded them with such readiness and wit that he astonished Libanius and when he could not convert him from Idolatry to Christianity he gave directions to the young-men his Scholars concerning their deportment in their Studies He was surnamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil the Great and came to be Bishop of Caesarea and Cappadocia Athanasius a Graecian born was brought up by his Parents in learning and excelled in all sorts thereof was ordained Deacon and received the order of Priesthood about what time Arrius began to broach his heresies to whom Athanasius was the greatest opponent in the Nicene Councel Was after chosen Bishop of Alexandria by the general suffrages of all the Churches there and by the last Will of his Predecessor there Irenaeus a Graecian was a general Scholar in all Humane learning as himself sheweth by his refuting the Hereticks in all their Sophisticated arguments shewing them to be fetcht only out of the Fables of Poets and Philosophers and therefore himself must needs be well versed in them as who wittily useth their Proverbs Exhortations and Examples to the confutation of them and their errors whom therefore Tertullian stiles omnium doctrinarum curiosissimum exploratorem He was after Bishop of Lyons And as I have shewed this truth in the famous Bishops some of whom I have made choice I will do the like in three or four of famous Divines onely and not Bishops who were quallified at first with Humane learning And I will go downward as I went upward before Justinus Martyr was a Palaestine born and was a most acute Philosopher Ad Philosopiae tum nostrae tum posissimum prophanae summum evectus fastigium saith Photius He mostly lived in Rome as the place of his abode where both in life speech and habit he professed himself a Philosopher saying he found great profit by these Studies yet made them subservient to his Diviner ones He was the first Champion that appeared against those Hereticks Marcion and Valentinian Tertullian an Affrican born he was indeed well read in Poets Grammarians Histories Laws well seen in Physicks and Philosophy of whom Hierom testifieth that his works cunctam saeculi continent disciplinam And what a great Divine he was the world knoweth and especially Cyprian who in all his Theological doubts still said Da mihi Magistrum intelligens Tertullianum Clemens Alexandrinus a Graecian and born at Athens a great Student of History Poetry and Philosophy and excellent therein even in all the Heathens Sciences and Arts and what a great Divine proved he and a learned Priest also who having been an Auditor to Pantaenus supplying the place in the City of Alexandria next after the Apostle and he dying was chosen Master of the Catechists in which place he maintained mightily the mysteries of the Religion Origen a Graecian born at Alexandria and Scholar or Auditor of Clemens Alexandrinus where he studied and learned Logick Arithmetick Rhetorick History Poetry Cosmography and was experienced in all Arts and Sciences Where also in that City and Vniversity too of Alexandria as some make it he taught a School and professed the same Arts. Soon after he read the grounds of Religion and soundly instructed the Christians and strengthened them against the storms of persecution so that Demetrius the Bishop of Alexandria thought him a fit instrument to be placed in the Church and so called him to be Catechista or Reader of Divinity in that City in the place and room of Clemens Alexandrinus deceased They the Disciples of Christ were from these two last named Origen and Clemens first called Catechumenists being about the year 226. Lactantius Firmianus of whose Country I read nothing a Romane or Italian most likely He was the Scholler and Disciple of Arnobius and publiquely taught Rhetorick in Nicomedia quasi quidam fluvius eloquentiae Tullianae and in his old age was called to Court to teach and Tutor Chrispus the Son of Constantine the Latine tongue This made him the better able to set forth his skill in the diviner mysteries so that by the help of his humane learning he wrote the more strongly against the Gentiles and Heathens in defence of the Christians Hieronymus an Italian born at Histeria was brought up at Rome the best Academy for learning then though there were Schools for learning also elsewhere in France Affrick Spain as I have hinted His Master for Grammar there was Donatus who is thought to be the same who hath made-such learned Comentaries on Terence and Virgil and for Rhetorick Victorinus He read Porphyrius Isagoge or Introduction to Logick and the Philosophy of Plato and the Stoicks He looked into Cosmography History and Antiquities intending to study Divinity and to set it forth with all the lustre that might being now sufficiently furnished with the Arts He was also excellently learned in the Hebrew and Chaldee and Syriack and ordained a Priest at Antioch by Paulinus the Byshop there and was a great planter of the truth a rooter out of heresies in saecularibus valde eruditus in Divinis Scripturis eruditissimus I have forborn to set down the Names and Books of the Authors who report thus of these learned Bishops and Divines for that they are so many and well known and for that the same Historiographers do speak of every one of these which to write out would be too oft to repeat the same as Socrates Sozomen Photius Hyeronimus Paulinas Trithemius Sixtus Senensis Baronius and others who have set forth the lives and studies the arts and sciences of these worthies in the Churches of God And now Sir have I not shewed you the good old way here also wherein the Ancient learned Fathers and Pastors and Doctours of the Church of old walked prosperously in their ministery and which Jesus Christ laid out of old for them to walk as who ordereth the steps and wayes of these Righteous good men and his Ministers Psalm 37.23 Yea I have compassed you about with a cloud of witnesses Heb. 12.1 and those not obscure Tenebrios but of the illustrious lights and luminaries of the world who were first Humanely then after Divinely learned brought up at Vniversities and other Schools in the knowledge of the Arts and Languages before they went forth or were called into the Church and Pulpits for the preaching of the Word and Gospel Into which cloud if you will enter and come under it as you cannot avoid it and will be to use the Apostles phrase dipt or baptized into me 1 Cor. 10.2 or rather unto the Worthies I have mentioned in the cloud it will be also unto you as that
namely none to step in until the Angel go down first and move the water so make way for him or her for I believe the water is as good for a him as a her the man as the woman And to encourage you the more hereunto I shall not take any occasion or advantage to raise your Rent hereupon one penny in the year so that you will keep the Pond in good Repair and in its vertue and efficacy by scouring and fencing about so as it may continue therein unto my Heirs and Executors onely I pitty the loss and damage if not undoing that will hereby come to Tunbridge waters in Kent and Barnet water in Hartford-shire and the Bath waters of Sommerset-shire and the waters of the Spaw beyond Sea may be somewhat endamaged hereby and Ebesham waters in Surrey I but here 's comfort You and this Town may be benefited hereby But I will onely tell you at this time how much worse you are and will be in your soul salvation and the peace of your conscience but this your new business of being Re-dipped unless you repent of it timely and truly and turn again to God and his Covenant and the Seal thereof your Infant-baptism and renew them to your benefit and comfort by faith laying claim and hold of them and never let your first Right and Title to them and the grace of them go and so they will never let their hold and tenure go of you and your soul I know not whether I said it before or no for my papers are now out of my sight and so out of my mind but if I did I will say it again after the example of the Apostle Gal. 1.6 7 8 9. I marvelled you were so soon moved away from him my self who called you unto the Seal of Grace Baptism and to the hearing of the Gospel unto another Baptism and Gospel which is not another there being but one Gospel and Baptism But there be some that trouble you and would pervert the Gospel-Covenant and Gospel-Baptism of Christ But though we I think we shall not or they they do it indeed or an Angel from Heaven neither will any Angel preach any other Gospel unto you or any other Gospel-Baptism preach it or practise it then that which we have preached and practised unto you let him be accursed And now here as the Apostle addeth As I said before so say I now again If any man from Earth transforming himself into an Angel of light preach any other Gospel unto you preach or practice any other Gospel Covenant or Baptism then that ye have received let him be accursed Let him be onely of me accused he may be both of you and yours both accused and accursed Sir I have been the bolder with you and the larger in my discourse for that I fear you have not been sufficiently taught and yet even in this point of Baptism I have also formerly catechized you with the other young men of my Parish when for three years together I made it my Afternoons business on the Lords day by your Parents or those who did as Sponsors or Sureties undertake for you the meaning and Doctrine of your Infant-baptism when you came to years of understanding unfolding unto you Gods precious Promises therein made to you and your strict Engagements stipultated to God by them and if so it be then also you ought so much the more now you know their default and understand your self to be more earnest serious and laborious in learning it out and teaching your self the same For thou which teachest another as my self you assayed to do in your Letter teaches thou not thy self Rom. 2.21 But if also you are not either able or willing of your self to do either then be content another and amongst others my self who being your Minister and Pastor notwithstanding your separation have as much right and authority to do both for your good as any other yea and have shewed the more love and integrity towards you in so doing by this piece and my whole Book then any other I add but a few words and I also shall have done teaching you and I hope at leastwise learning of you if not learning you I will not say to you He that is ignorant let him be ignorant still but if you have been ignorant learn now to know and if you have been slighting of your Infant-baptism have hereafter a high esteem of it not as of humane Custom and Formality of the Church but an honorable Ordinance and appointment of God who never imposed upon his people any Service or Order in vain wherein the covenanted Blood of Christ was and is still mysterially and ministerially sealed up unto you for the purging away of that pollution you brought with you into the world by which Grace of Gods Covenant and the Seal thereof in your Baptism you have stood hitherto in your relation to God as a member of Christ under Gods protection and favor and in discrimination from the Heathen world as a Christian of the Church under the fruition and use of all its saving and sanctifying Ordinances And is this a matter to be vilified difesteemed rejected and renounced If the uncircumcised through a wilfull and voluntary refusing of that Seal was to be cut off from Gods people and was called and accounted a breaker of the Covenant surely you can be no less then the same Covenant breaker or more a Covenant dispiser and may fear some heavy visitation if not an utter rejection from Gods people which is in part already faln upon you in your separation from a visible Church by this your voluntary peremptory rash and resolute slighting and renouncing of your Infant-baptism as a Seal thereof conferred and imprinted upon you He that despised Moses law and even that of circumcision which was also Gods law dyed for it Heb. 10.28 29. Of how much sorer punishment suppose you shall he be thought worthy who hath troden underfoot the Son of God and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite to the Spirit and Covenant of Grace in slighting the Seal thereof your Infant-baptism Sir do not the words sound unto you as a Thunder-clap with Lightning in it and make your ears to tingle and your heart to tremble and your conscience to trouble you 1 Sam. 12.19 20 21. For you have added to all your other sins this evil to renounce your Baptism yet I say fear not you have done all this wickedness yet turn not aside from following the Lord but serve the Lord with all your heart and turn not aside for then should you go after vain things which cannot profit nor deliver for they are vain And so you have done in turning aside from your Infant-baptism and going after that vain thing of your Anabaptist Dipping which cannot profit you nor deliver you from any one sin the guilt or filth for it is a
him as the Pharisees did upon our Saviour and have said thou bearest witness of thy self for thy self thy witness is not true they would have given a check or denyal to such a Custom accused it of Novelty or but of Yesterday and so have turned off easily that Argument which of all other lay most heavily upon them the Ancient Churches Custom and Practice in Baptizing Infants But they never did that as who could not deny this And so that other exception against Augustine as if he should utter and urge this in Heat and Passion against Pelagius his Adversary in point of Baptizing of Infants and speak more of the Custom and Practice of the Church than was true falleth of it self For they differed not in that point of Infant-Baptism no nor in the matter of the Custom of the Church herein For so Augustine affirmeth both in his first Book of the Merit and Remission of Sin The Peloagians themselves do grant that little Children are to be Baptized as who cannot come in or stand up against the Authority of the Vniversal Church delivered without doubt or Traditioned by our Lord and his Apostles And again in the eleventh Book against Caelestius and Pelagius He affirms and cites that Caelestius in a Book of his written at Rome acknowledged that Infants in a Book of his wirtten at of sin according to the Rule of the universul Church and according to the sense and meaning of the Gospel and Therefore Pelagius not daring to deny though otherwise impudent enough the General Practice of the Ancient Church in Baptizing Infants as who then and that way might have slipt his neck out of the Collaror Yoke Augustine held him to was feign to shist off that Fathers Argument as well as he could but very poorly and pittifully That the Church Baptized indeed Infants but not for the washing away of original fin which he denyed in Infants but for the better bringing them to the Kingdome of Heaven which Christ said was of such as theirs And truly this makes a great Addition to the Truth of this The Custom and Practice of the Universal Ancient Church in Baptizing lnsants that Pelagius so great a Schollar and Travellour who had seen the Customas and Practices the manners and fasthions of the Affricane and Asiatiqne yea and Europaean Churches being also himself a Brittish born should not as indeed he could not make any denyal or take any exception thereto as who by his own eyes and experience saw found it to be most true and uniform and so I may say our Baptism of Infants is a true Baptism and the Ancient Churches Practice hereof is a true Practice even our enemies themselves being Judges as Deut. 32.31 〈◊〉 why then was not Augustine himself Baptized in his In … y who was such as strong Advocate for the Baptism of Infants the Reason is plain and makes nothing against our Infant Baptism or the General Practice of the Church for neither his Father nor Mother were Christians or Believers when himself was born and they continued so untill a little before their death Augustine himself was not converted from his Manichean Haeresies and other vices untill the 31. year of his age who two years continuing a Catechumen and in the mean time writing somethings to give proof and testimony of the truth of his conversion or of his conversion to the Truth was Baptized himself and his Son Adeodate together like as Ahraham was circumcised with Ismeal his Son on the self-same day These things may be seen in His Confessions I shall need to adde no more for the shewing Infant-Baptism to have been the Custom and Practice of all the former Ancient Churches Augustines Testimony of the same is to me instead of all and as Goliahs Sword to David there is none like that Give it me 1 Sam 21.9 I have taken it and I give it thee not as a single Testimony of one Father for it but as a Quadruple witness of the Universal Church and its Custom and Practice for the point of Paedobaptism being four times expresly deliveced though by one and the same Father Saint Austin Yet I may for more perspicuity sake follow up this General Testimony by one Father unto its Particulars I mean the Covattestations of other particular Fathers in their several ages You have heard what Augustine hath said and written as for that Century For the year 390. 384. and those years wherein he lived Hierom In his Epistle ad Laetam having told her that the good and the evill of little once are imtured much to their Parents he addeth in the middle of that Epistle unless perhaps you think the Sons of Christians is they receive not Baptism They onely are guilty of sin and that the wickedness also thereof is not to be referred or to redound to the Parents who would not give it especially at or in such a time wherein they could not contradict who were to receive it In his Book against the Pelagians towards the end he is for Infant-Baptism and confirms it by allerdging the Authority of Cyprian and his Colleagues In the same third Book against Pelag it is thus Crito i.e. Pelagian saith grant me thus much at lest that they are without sin who cannot sin speaking of Infants To whom Atticus i.e. Hieronimus Answereth I will Grant it if they have been Baptized in Christ and again They are without any Sin through the Grace of God which they have received in Baptism Chrysostom Arch-Bishop of Constantinople For the year 382. in his Homil. to the Neophytes is for the Baptism of Children and in his 40. Homil upon Genes calls Baptism our Circumcision His being not Baptized untill he was 21. years of age doth not prejudice here as whose Father and Mother were not Christians at his birth and who himself was brought up under Libanius an enemy to and a scoffer at Religion but after he was instructed in the Divinity knowledge by Miletus a Bishop and Baptized of him In his Homil ad Neoph having spoken of the Honours and Benefits of Baptism he saith a little from the beginning For this cause we Baptize the little Infants that they may not be defiled with sin that to them may be added Sanctity Righteousness Adoption Inheritance Fraternity of Christ That they may be all his Members and the Habitation of the Spirit In his 40. Homil upon Genes having spoken of Circumcision appointed to the Children of the Jewes and the pain of the Incision he addeth but our Circumcision or the grace of our Baptism brings the medicine without without such dolour and Innumerable benefits with it It hath indeed no definite time set down for it as that hath but it is lawful to receive both in the first and in the middle and in the last age this not made with hands Circumcision in which there is susteined no great pain but the weight of sins are put off and Remission of them is