them sufficient till I hear from Mr. T. the contrary Answ. I have made it appear that these rules are not sufficient to make good the proof from analogy disproved by me nor was it formerly uncertain to me they are not sufficient yet I might say truly it is uncertain whether these rules be sufficient whether there be no need of any more to satisfie others who may think them too few as well as otherwise imperfect I for my part do judge them notwithstanding Mr. Blakes plea to be insufficient and all arguments inferring duty as of Gods appointment in the use of a rite of the New Testament from some likeness or agreement with a rite of the Old Testament now abolished without direction in the New as frivolous and serving onely to make wrangling fill people with superstitions and to weary Scholars as I say in the Addition to my Apology in answer to Mr. Baillee sect 15. Mr. Cawdrey Sabb. rediv. part 4. ch 1. against Dr. Sanderson saying Divine right or institution is that First which is properly and primarily such as what is first enjoined by express ordinance of God or secondly what may be deduced therefrom by evident illation Secondly that which is secondarily and consequently such To which four things say they are required 1. equity 2. analogy 3. insinuations in the new Testament 4. continued practice of the Church speaks thus But this proceeding seems not sufficient 3. There are things now in common use which have all the four conditions and yet he will not say they are Divine institutions as the observation of Easter c which yet are confessedly but Ecclesiasticall And will Mr. Cawdrey make a Divine institution of Infant baprism which in the next page he saith we have no express command nor express example of it in Scripture from grounds which at most can make but analogy without equity for in meer positive rites there is no equity but the appointers will insinuations in the New Testament or any truly wel proved continued practice of the Church However Mr. Cawdreys words are sufficient to shew though they oppose himself that he counted analogy not sufficient no not though accompanied with equity insinuations in the New Testament and continued practice of the Church to make a thing of Divine institutution but only Ecclesiastical Which being granted Mr. Marshals analogical argument as he calls it which with him the words of the Assembly intimate to be the chief prop of the Divine institution of Infant baptism falls to the ground But le ts hear what Mr. B. saith also What need saith Mr B. the same thing to be done twice except men had questioned the authority of the old Answ. The Holy Ghost hath delivered many things twice in the Old and New Testament yet sure it was needful else it is not likely it would have been done Will Mr. B. charge the Spirit of God with needless committing so many histories sayings of Christ c. to writing because they were written before And to his question I say If there were no other need yet there was this that the agreement of the Old and New Testament might appear whereby the authority of both is greatly confirmed The whole Scripture saith he is the perfect Word and Law of God and if he should reveal all his mind in one part what use should we make of the other Answ. The Gospels of the four Evangelists are the perfect Word and Law of God they need no unwritten tradition for a supplement in them those things are written by which we may have life John 20. 31. yet there is use of Pauls Epistles Suppose all Gods mind revealed in one part so as no more doctrine or truth were in the rest than in one yet there is use to confirm explain inforce that which is elsewhere written in that one part And indeed this reasoning of his would prove that book or part of Scripture to be of no use as suppose Marks Gospel which is counted an a bridgement of another or so much of that Gospel as reveals no more of Gods mind than another doth which me thinks Mr. B. on better consideration should disclaim He goes on How silent is the New Testament concerning a Christian Magistracy which made the Anabaptists of old deny it Where find you a Christian in the New Testament that exercised the place of a king a Parliament man or Justice of Peace or the like so of an oath before a Magistrate of war of the Sabbath c. how sparing is the new Testament and why but because there was enough said of them in the old This also is the very case in the question in hand Answ. The Anabaptists as they are called of former times or some of them as it is reported for their own books I never saw of them denied it lawful for Christians to be Magistrates to war to swear not onely because of the silence thereof in the New Testament but also because they mistook the meaning of the texts as forbidding them Is. 2. 4. Micah 4. 3. Zach. 9. 10. Iohn 18. 36. Mat. 20. 26. Mat. 5. 34 35. Luke 22. 25 26. c. And so either did or seemed to do some of the Antient Christians even those who are called the Fathers of which may be seen Sixtus Senensis Biblioth sanct lib. 6. annot 25 26. And yet learned men do not think the New Testament silent of a Christian Magistrate of an oath or war but that there are texts for them in the New Testament of which some are brought by Grot. l. 1. de Iure Belli ac Pacis c. 2. 1 Tim. 2. 1 2 3. Rom. 13. 1. c. And though there be no example of a Christian King Parliament man or Justice of Peace yet we find a Christian Centurion Act. 10. a Christian Deputy Act. 13. 12. Christian parents husbands masters whose government is allowed and rules given about the managing of it Wherefore I conceive Mr. B. doth too much betray Christian Magistracy souldiery civil judicature c. who suggests to his Reader as if the New Testament were silent of Christian Magistracy and sparing about war or oaths before a Magistrate I confess the determination of the Old Testament is obligatory because these things are moral not peculiar to the Jews but it doth not follow therefore that an argument is valid from analogy conceived between rites of the old Testament and the new or the Jewish policy and the Christian to conclude an obligation to us in a rite of the New Testament the rites of the Old Testament being meerly positive not from the beginning proper to the Jews and together with the policy of the Jewish Church now abrogated But there seems to be more difficulty about the Sabbath Mr. Marshall had said in his Sermon that all that reject the baptizing of Infants do and must upon the same grounds reject the religious observation of the Lords day In my Examen part 2. sect 8. I denied it
there being something moral from the beginning in the Sabbath not so in Circumcision and there being something in the new Testament to prove an institution of the Lords day nothing about infant baptism To this Mr. M. replies However the determinate day doth depend wholly upon institution therefore they who reject that which depends upon positive institution unless its institution can be expresly found in the New Testament are as much at a loss for the Lords day as for baptizing of infants 2. And the advantage is here for infant baptism above the Lords day because in the proof of infant baptism there is only need to shew the subject to whom baptism is to be applyed in the Lords day the institution of the day it self Answ. 1. That which he saies first confirms my exception for therein he acknowledgeth there is something natural or moral by institution about a Sabbath but shews nothing natural or moral in Circumcision 2. I never rejected infant baptism because its institution cannot be expresly in so many words or syllables without consequence found in the New Testament but because it is not there either in express words or by good consequence 3. If the determinate day require positive institution there is institution brought out of the New Testament if not express yet by good consequence which I count sufficient 4. Yet I do not count Mr. Ms. consequence good by analogy in his Defence pag. 208. The Jews keep the Sabbath on the seventh or last day of the week ergo the Christians keep the Sabbath on the first day of the week Of my judgement herein with other Antipaedo baptists more may be seen in my Praecursor S. 15. And for the other thing Mr. M. adds it is nothing to the business in hand which is not about the greater or lesser necessity of clearing the institution of the Lords day or infant baptism but about the principle by which infant baptism is rejected whether it necessitate us to reject the Lords day which I denyed because this principle That use of a meer ceremony or positive rite which hath neither precept nor example in the New Testament is to be rejected will not reach the Lords day which is not meerly positive but in part moral and hath precept and example for it in the New Testament neither of which can be said of infant baptism That which Mr. B. adds next about the desperate highest sort of Antinomians who wipe out all the Old Testament with a stroke and that they may as well do so by the New Testament too if they please and telling us the question whether infants should be baptized is turned into a higher whether the Scriptures be the word of God or not I might well let pass as being nothing to the point in hand the denying of infant baptism to be in the Old or New Testament neither being upon the higher or lower sort of Antinomians if there be such difference of them principle they that deny infant baptism being not necessitated to it nor so far as I find in their writings except what I have met with in Mr. Dens Books denying the obligation of moral precepts of the Old Testament All that they are necessitated to maintain is that Ceremonial precepts of the Old Testament and imagined ANALOGIE between Baptism and Circumcision the Jewish Church state and the Christian are of no force to conclude a divine appointment concerning any Sacrament or meerly positive worship of the New Testament And therefore his Pathetick Rhetorick though elsewhere of use yet in a dispute as this his writing should have been hath the face either of malignancy towards his Antagonists or of an indirect trick to prepossess people with horrour of that opinion which he would refuse afore he comes to his Arguments which is the chief part of his skill And for what he saith further that incestuous marriages are not forbidden in the New Testament and tells the men of Bewdley That some of eminency that deny Infant baptism deny either incestuous marriages or any thing else not forbidden in the New Testament to be sin It is like the former sith he might know that Antipaedo baptists are not necessitated to deny the obligation of the moral Law in which the Laws about incestuous marriages appear to be in that the Canaanites were punished for their incests Levit. 18. 25. And Mr. B. if he had any mind to deal candidly with me might have told them that I was none of those men sith he might if he did read my books with any heed of which I much doubt have told them that to this objection I answered in my Examen pag 111. 1. That the instance of the Lawes about forbidden marriages brought by Mr. M. is not to the point of the obligation of meer positive ceremonial worship sith the command about prohibited degrees in marriage is moral 2. That yet there is for one branch of Incest an express censure in the New Testament proving the unlawfulness of it To which Mr. M. page 196. of his Defence saith But how would you laugh at such a consequence in another a man may not marry his Fathers wife a thing which by the light of nature was abhorred among the Heathens ergo all the degrees of forbidden marriages in Moses Laws stand firm whereto I reply I made no consequence but this one branch of Incest is expresly censured in the New Testament therefore it is unlawful And this I only brought to shew the impertinency of Mr. M. allegation to prove the matter in question it being granted by me that a morall precept of Moses is in force thought not a ceremonial and yet Mr. M. brings instances only of morals standing in force none of ceremonials and instead of cleering the pertinency of his own instances makes a consequence as mine which saith he I would laugh at in another which dealing is cavilling not answering The like to which is that which follows in him The like say you against Polygamy there is proof against it Mat. 19. 5. 9. But is this an express prohibition of it Must you not be compelled to go by a consequence to bring it in which is ab I contend for Whereto I reply Though Mr. M. page 3. of his Defence charged me unjustly with a Socinian plot in my writings to question all conclusions deduced by consequence from Scripture yet page 205. he saith of me That I neither there nor here deny this Argument from a consequence to be sufficient for practice of some things in the worship of God which are not expresly laid down in the New Testament and therefore he might easily have seen if he would that to prove we may go by a consequence is not all he contends for it being known to him that I grant it But this he is to prove or else he still is besides the business that a consequence is good from analogy of an abrogated rite of the Old Testament to prove a Divine
hands were used to be imposed on persons in blessing Gen. 48. 14. which I allow He sets down six positions the first of which having confirmed he speaks thus of me Mr. T. brought his reasons against this to have nipt all in the bud but those he hath quit and is brought to confess that he contradicted himself in them and hath not a word to excuse his false quotation out of Mark concerning scandalizing onely excusing himself that he delivered himself doubtfully in them Apol. 149. Answ. It is true I brought in my Examen p. 146. Piscators reasons in his Observ. 11. on Matth. 19. 14. to prove the little children Matth. 19. 13. 14. not to have been infants but boyes who were capable of instruction which it is true I say in my Apol p. 149. I dâ—d not stick to nor need I sith at first I said Examen pag. 145. onely It is doubtfull whether these were infants or no. Nor is it truely said by Mr. Bl. that I excused my self as if I had been in a fault For it is true which I alleged not onely Piscator conceiving they were not infants but Estius also Annot. ad Marc. 10. 13. saying it is not certain that they were infants which could neither speak nor gâ— Which very doubtfulness doth weaken the argument thence for infant baptism yet I had no reason to stick to that there being other answers sufficient besides Not is it true which he saith that I am brought to confess I contradicted my self in the reasons brought and that they were my reasons for I expresly said they were Piscators reasons and therefore though Piscator should contradict my exposition of Matth. 18. 5. in those reasons I need not own it much less do I confess that I contradict my self in them as Mr. Blake falsely chargeth me as one that cares not what he prints so he may fully me with a black coal Nor was any false quotation out of Mark used by me I onely brought Piscators words de quali non scandalizando ibidem monet which if he misapplied to infants and thereby crossed my interpretation of Matth. 18. 5 6. he opposed himself though I think neither Piscator nor my self were guilty of any self-contradiction but Mr. Bl. of mistake and calumny Mr. Bl. saith he knows not that any in print hath maintained it that little children brought to Christ were diseased so as to have need of cure But there is now a Book in folio written by Mr. Samuel Fisher intituled Baby baptism meer babism in which p. 134 are these words that he should touch them and put his hands on them and pray no question 't was in order to healing for 't was at a time when he healed many others if you compare this passage as 't is in Matth. 19. with the first and second verses of the chapter yea v. 15. 't is plainly expressed what he did i. e. he laid his hands upon them and departed thence besides Luke says they brought little children to him also that he should touch them which also shews that others were brought too as sick folks commonly were because virtue went out of him so that as many as touched him were made perfectly whole Nor do I think Mr. Blakes reasons sufficient to countervail the other For though the Disciples well knew that it was usual with Christ to cure those that laboured under infirmities of all ages yet they sometimes shewed their unwillingness to have persons trouble Christ about diseased persons as Matth. 15. 23. Luke 10. 39. and whereas Mr. Bl. saith the Evangelist would never have concealed this reason and mentioned another if he mean it of the reason why the Disciples rebuked the bringers of the little children the truth is the Evangelists mention no reason at all of the Disciples rebuke if he mean it of the reason why Christ would have them brought such reason stands well with this that the children were diseased brought to Christ to be cured and cured by Christ. I had said there is no certainty onely conjecture that they were the children of believers Mr. Bl. sets down his third position thus These were infants of such parents that were in Covenant with God which he proves Matth. 19. 1. 15. 24 26. Rom. 15. 8. This farther appears by that which they requested for these infants This Mr. T. seems to yeild they came saith he to Christ upon the conceit that he was a Prophet and so they might bring children to him to be blessed And farther says if this reason prove any thing it is that the childrens parents were Jews Apol. pag. 150. which is all that we contend for the Jews as yet were in Covenant Answ. 1. The reasons of Mr. Bl. some of them prove rather the bringers to be Jews than the parents 2. The proving the parents to be Jews if any do prove it is not a proof that they were believers for there were a great part if not the greatest part by much of the Jews unbelievers John 12. 37 38. And what he sayes The Jews as yet were in Covenant if he mean it of all the Jews and of the covenant of grace in Christ it is palpably false contradictory to the Apostles determination Rom. 9. 7 8. where it is expresly resolved that all the natural children of Abraham and Israel were not at any time children of the promise If he mean it of any other covenant or promise of God or of some of the Jews it would nothing avail him for his purpose though his Proposition were granted him His fourth Proposition is thus exprest These infants themselves were in covenant and stood in relation to Christ bearing his name and being of his people and were not as Heathens in their present state without Christ aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise This is evident by their free admission by Christ and the reason by him given When this was prest upon Mr. T. in solemn disputation he took time to consider and after more than two years in his Examen we have an answer which shame will not suffer him to own But in his Apology doth disclaim yet not convinced by Mr. M. my self or any other it is enough with me if the truth is confest if the truth may have the honor I am satisfied Answ. Were I nor sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Bls. charges without cause I should be jealous of my self that there is some thing done by me which might occasion this imputation What was prest on me in the disputation in London Anno 1643. and what time or for what reason I took time to answer after 10. years elapsed I cannot trust in my memory to inform me What answer I gave in my Examen which in my Apology I disclaim and shame will not now suffer me to own concerning this proposition of Mr. Bl. and its proof it is such a riddle to me that I cannot yet tell how to understand it