or Heathenism till they give up themselves to Christ submit to the Lord Jesus they had no right to this Ordinance Therefore you read Repent and be baptized and If thou believest with all thy heart thou mayst So that if we were sent into an Heathen Nation we ought to engage them to repent and believe before we administer this Ordinance to them 2. In respect of the Church profest Believers are to be baptized God he doth not give the inward use of this Ordinance to any but those that actually repent and believe But the Church cannot see the Heart Where Men therefore make a solemn Profession of Faith and Repentance there they are to be admitted to this Ordinance Where Men have a competent understanding of the Principles of Christian Religion and solemnly profess to devote themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ and contradict not this Profession by notorious Ungodliness or an openly wicked Life these we ought to admit Would not any Man that had been a Stranger and heard Mr. Chandler preach such Doctrine have taken him for a Baptist Preacher and not a Presbyterian But pray how doth he acquit himself from being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned in himself His Answer is this If any through mistake or neglect of the Parents have not been baptized they ought to submit to this Ordinance as thereby professing they give up themselves to God The same with what he said at Portsmouth in our very entrance upon the Dispute viz. he did own that Adult Believers were the proper Subjects of Baptism Dr. Russel said Then you own our Practice to be right Mr. Chandler said Yes if they have not been baptized in their Infancy Dr. Russel replied You suppose they are to be baptized by virtue of some Commission and that it is by the Commission of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Mr. Chandler answer'd Yes I do so By all this it appears these Presbyterians own that Christ hath commanded Adult Believers to be baptized and they are the proper Subjects intended in our Lord's Commission So that at best if Infants are the Subjects of Baptism they are but improperly so But by his Confession if Infants are not at all intended in that Commission then those that we baptize upon Profession of Faith are the only proper Subjects of Baptism according to Christ's Commission and Infants are not the Subjects at all And till he answers like a Logician to Dr. Russel's first Argument and produces his Instance upon his universal Negative and shews us where it is written that Christ hath required any of his Ministers to baptize any one Infant the Controversy is fairly issued and it 's we and not they that have obtained the Victory or rather that Truth is strongest and hath prevailed These Men are just like the Pharisees c. in our Saviour's time who acknowledg'd that the fifth Commandment did oblige the Israelites to honour and relieve their Parents in their Necessities But by an Invention of their own by putting a false Gloss upon the words as appears by their Talmud treating of Vows Chap. 10. a Man is bound to honour his Father and Mother except he vow the contrary This our Lord takes notice of in Mat. 15. 4 5 6. Mark 7. 10 11 12 13. by the name of Corban a Gift In Pool's Annotations you have these words As touching this word Corban the most free and unconstrained sense seemeth to be this The Pharisees were a very covetous Generation and had a share in the Gifts that were brought unto God for the use of the Temple or otherwise thence they were very zealous and diligent in perswading the People to make such Oblations And when any pretended the need that their Parents stood in of their help they told them that if they told their Parents it was a Gift i. e. that they had vow'd such a portion of their Estate to a sacred use that would before God excuse them for not relieving their Parents c. and that they were not obliged by that Precept to honour and relieve them any longer Thus he tells them that by their Traditions under pretence of a more religious expounding the Divine Law they had indeed destroy'd it and made it of no effect at all In like manner if you ask these Presbyters Whether Jesus Christ gave Commission to his Ministers to baptize Believers Mr. Leigh shall speak for them his words are these We must all confess that Jesus Christ gave Commission to baptize Believers when at the Age of Maturity But if this Question were put to the Pharisees Whether such Jews were obliged by that Command of God to honour and relieve their Parents who had said to their Father or to their Mother Corban Their Answer was He is free and they suffered him no more to do ought for his Father or his Mother In like manner if you ask these Presbyters whether such Persons are obliged by that Command of Christ to be baptized in his Name when they come to years of Maturity and do believe who have been baptized in their Infancy Their Answer is as the Pharisees of old they are freed from that Obligation and they will not suffer them to be rightly baptized according to Christ's Commission Whereas Mr. Chandler confesses they ought so to be if they had not been baptized in their Infancy Now forasmuch as there is no other Authority for Infant-sprinkling but what the Pharisees had for their Corban i. e. the Command or Tradition of Men why may not we apply the words of our Saviour to the Pharisees unto these Presbyters Thus have ye made the Commandment of Christ for holy Baptism of none effect by your Tradition of Infant-sprinkling and thereby render'd the Word of God of none effect And that it 's vain Worship that is taught by the Precepts of Men you must be forced to acknowledg or deny the words of our Saviour And if Will-worship vain Worship Mens-Commandments and Human Traditions be not forbidden in the Word of God there is nothing forbidden but Men are then at liberty to do what they please in the Worship of God Why you that are of this Opinion should keep up a Separation from the Church of England unless it be for Humour and Interest I cannot imagine But to proceed These learned Annotators say That altho the Jews did for some tract of time keep to the Divine Law yet in process of time they abused that Text Deut. 4. 14. to found a new Invention upon it That besides the Law written in the five Books of Moses God delivered to him in the Mount divers things which were not written which he delivered only by word of mouth to the Sanhedrim which are to them as much a Rule of Judgment as any part of the Law which was written By which means they gained themselves a liberty of making the Law of God what they pleased From whence we also may observe that they did not deny this to be written
that is recorded in the fifth Commandment but that the other was also intended and included in it which they endeavoured to perswade the People to believe by their false Glosses upon the Text For they confess it was not expresly written in the Law but that it might be intended tho not exprest And that it was delivered by word of mouth tho it be no where so written in all the Word of God For they call'd it a Tradition of the Elders Whether Covetousness as in the Pharisees lies at the root of this Practice of Infant-sprinkling themselves are the best Judges But this they confess That it is not expresly commanded in the Word of God But they endeavour to perswade the People that it is intended therein altho they can't produce one Instance of any Infant that was baptized and by their corrupt Exposition of some Passages in holy Scripture and their false Glosses like those of the Pharisees they prevail upon their ignorant and unthinking admirers to believe it upon their word altho there is not one syllable of it recorded in the holy Scriptures But when this will not do they tell them it was the Practice of the Church for many Ages and they have reason to believe that it was taught by the Apostles altho there be no mention of it in holy Scripture For in p. 13. of their own Account they say that Paul might declare it tho the New Testament should not discover that he did And in p. 15. Paul might have declar'd the Baptism of Infants an hundred times over and yet it might not be left on Record in his Epistle to the Ephesians nor any part of the New Testament that he did so I therefore demand of these Presbyters that if they be not of the Papists Opinion that Infant-Baptism is an unwritten Tradition what moved them to use their very Language Had they not a fit opportunity to produce a Scripture-instance if they had been able But it seems all the skill they have with all their pretences to Learning is not sufficient to inable them to find it out and therefore we must still charge it upon them as a Scripture-less Practice and a mere Human Invention without the least shew of either Precept or Example to be found for it in all the Word of God And consequently we must reject it as an unwritten Tradition and Will-worship and as such forbidden by the holy Scriptures and that from the Pens of the most learned Pedo-Baptists in their Expositions of the second Commandment And seeing these Men grant this Practice of theirs is not exprest in the Writings of the New Testament let them tell us the reason of this total silence therein Why did not our Lord command it if he intended it should be practised Why did not the Apostles set it down in their Writings What can be the reason why those holy Men should not make some mention of it in the many Books they have purposely written for our Instruction Why did the four Evangelists conceal it The Acts of the Apostles make no mention of it when they set down in writing so many thousands of Men and Women that were baptized How comes it to pass that the Apostles Peter James John and Jude who wrote such excellent Epistles should not say one word about it But above all the Apostle Paul who wrote fourteen admirable Epistles and speaks in them so often of this holy Ordinance of Baptism who professes he did declare all the Counsel of God and kept back nothing that was profitable to be known and praises them for keeping the Ordinances as they were delivered to them and declares that as he received them of the Lord so he had delivered them does not in all his Epistles make the least mention of Infant-Baptism Is not this alone a great Argument against your Practice I pray consider it For the Apostle saith Let every Man prove his own Work You assert it and therefore it lies upon you to prove it But to evade this you make use of the same method against us as the Papists do against the Protestants when they demand of them to give some formal Passage in Scripture that doth expresly and by name deny what they affirm viz. where it 's said expresly that there is no fire of Purgatory and that the Pope of Rome is not the Head of the universal Church and that the Mass is not a Propitiatory Sacrifice Now this method of Disputation is accounted in the Papists an unjust caviling to demand such unreasonable Proof or else to pretend the Protestants cannot answer them The Turks may as reasonably demand of the Papists where there is to be found any formal Passage in Scripture that saith expresly that Mahomet is not a true Prophet c. and then pretend the Papists cannot answer them And surely if it be unjust caviling in their own esteem when demanded of them it must be the same in themselves when they demand it from the Protestants Just so you Presbyters serve us It belongs to you that impose this Opinion of yours upon us and oblige others to believe it to make the truth of it appear from holy Scripture For no one is bound to believe that which cannot be prov'd to be true You say that the Infants of believing Parents ought to be baptized but we deny it It 's not our business to prove our denial by shewing some formal Passage in Scripture where it 's said in terminis that Infants are not to be baptized it 's enough for us to â—â—ll you that there is neither Command nor Example for 〈◊〉 in all the holy Scripture And till you give your Instance where it is so written we shall neither believe nor practise it For till that be done the Controversy betwixt you and us is at an end And in my opinion you had better have forbore ingaging in it at first seeing you have so little skill to manage it There was one present at the Dispute who wrote thus to his Friend in London Sir We have seen the gross Abuses of the Dispute printed by Mr. Chandler c. who makes Lies his Refuge c. to favour his bad Cause But as a Minister of the Church of England said If Chandler and the rest had no better Proof for their Separation from the Church or Arguments to defend it they were grand Schismaticks for they proved nothing Another Minister of the Church of England that was also at the Dispute told a friend of mine that he had seen our printed Narrative and did declare that it was a very good Account of the Disputation Also a Doctor of Divinity who came to give me a Visit told me that a Country Parson of his Acquaintance who heard the Dispute did declare to him his great Dissatisfaction against the Presbyters both for their weak and ill management of themselves in that Dispute and did also declare to him that the Baptists were too hard for them And this was
blame must have lain upon Mr. Robinson who did use his Endeavour to provoke them but as it was altogether without cause on our part so it proved to be without success with respect to the People who departed in a quiet and peaceable manner The Church of England hath less reason to be offended with us than with you for we deny nothiâ—â— to their Children that we allow our selves to do for our own If their Children are sick we pray for them if desired c. But it is you that put an affront upon those of that Communion by your Practice For whereas you say you baptize the Children of Believers consider'd as such and yet some of your Party have made some scruple of baptizing those whose Parents are not Members with you as I have been inform'd Do you think that all Parents in the Church of England are Unbelievers And altho you profess to have a large latitude it may be more than others of your Brethren yet you do not often baptize their Children which gives some seeming intimation as if you made such a distinction betwixt your Children and theirs For our parts we look upon our Children to have no more from us by Generation than the Children of others have from them And I dare not say as you intimate in your Book that the Line of Election runs to the Believers Seed For I know many that have been converted and yet their Parents to all visible appearance were unconverted Nay the Children have been instrumental in the hand of God for the good of their Parents And on the contrary some Godly Parents have had very Ungodly Children to the great grief and sorrow of their Souls Now therefore if there was any cause for the Multitude as you call them to be offended it is most likely to be at what you said and not what the Doctor then said that you should look upon them as Unbelievers for so you do by your Practice and Writing tho other things are pretended by you I would not have any think I am against the Doctrine of Election I hope I own it as a Truth And when your Children and mine come to be regenerated it is a sure Character they were elected And whereas you talk of the Parents Faith being imputed to their Children I must tell you plainly I have heard of the Righteousness of Christ being imputed but never that the Faith of the Parent was imputed to the Children before It may be you will say you do but suppose it or why may it not be so It 's the same method indeed that Mr. Chandler takes in his Sermons But in my judgment it is a way to make Men turn Atheists and Deists and to ridicule all Revealed Religion to make the holy Scriptures a nose of Wax to serve your turns I beg of you for time to come to leave off such ways and methods and to argue upon a firm and more certain Foundation But you proceed further in your Certificate and say you will give a full Answer to Dr. Russel's Book If you had perform'd your Promise herein as you have not I do believe I should have been of your mind Neither have you been so good as your word in giving us the Attestations of the principal Gentlemen then present at your intire Victory unless by them you mean Mr. Smith Mr. Maultbey and Mr. Will. Wallen whom you produce as Witnesses in your Book And if so how can these be the principal Gentlemen present And if they are where be the Attestations under their hands that you obtained an intire Victory at the Dispute Or is there any else hath done it We find no such in your Book I would have you that are so rigid in charging Dr. Russel's Narrative as false by reason of some Omissions as you say in it whereas he was not willing if he could have done it to trouble the World with all those passionate Expressions that past from Mr. Robinson or others that were of little concern to the World lest he should have made it swell into too great a Volume even as I my self think it not convenient to make this my Writing swell with the several Remarks that might be made on many other Passages of your Book lest it be made too chargeable for the Purses of our poor People I would I sav have you and others consider whether the same Objection doth not fall as heavy upon your selves seeing you have not performed your Promise under your hands but have omitted to give us those Testimonials But I suppose you were not able to obtain such a Testimony from those Gentlemen or else we should have had it in your Book But there is one thing I would remark which is this That in p. 70. of your Narrative you use this Expression That false Lie Now altho I do not allow your Charge to be true yet suppose it had could not you by all your Learning and Skill have found out an Expression less liable to exception Pray Sirs when did you ever read or hear of a true Lie that you tell the World this is a false Lie Are there any Lies that are not false Now I think this deserves as much notice as that of the addition of a Letter and much more And yet how strangely did you improve that against the Doctor But I shall not deal so by you Thus Reader I hope I have made it appear how our Antagonists have no reason to boast so boldly as they have done of a Victory at the Dispute But whereas on the other hand they charge it as an egregious Falshood on Dr. Russel p. 64. as if he had boldly published amongst and by his Friends in London tho not in his Narrative that he to put it out of doubt and his Friends had carried the day at Portsmouth added the Bishop of Salisbury had received a Letter from Colonel GIBSON wherein he applauded our Performance Now for the undeceiving of the World I think good further to add that I charged the Doctor with this Report for which his said Enemies call him in the place aforecited a Falsifier of Reports but he told me he never said so nor thought so and therefore it must rest upon the Asserter till he can bring forth his Evidence that the Doctor said so and that it was from thence that such a Report has spread abroad However this may serve as another Instance of their Spleen and Virulency against him and how eager they are to snatch at any thing to asperse him and to render him little yea to degrade him in the highest manner And hence it is that they cannot forbear to trifle with his being a Graduate as in the last quoted Page Wherefore for the satisfaction of some Persons that may have read their Reflections on him and his Degree I shall here add the Certificate following together with some other Certificates that I have lately procured or have been sent to me out of the
for tho they seem to be all confident that Children are the Subjects according to the Rule yet they are greatly divided whose Children they are that are the right Subjects according to the Rule some will baptize all Children whose Parents make a verbal Profession of Christ tho their Conversation do utterly destroy their Profession a second sort will baptize all except Bastards A third sort will baptize none but such whose Parents are true Believers in the Judgment of Charity A fourth sort will baptize none but such whose Parents one or both are in Communion with themselves Here are four Opinions and there is but one Truth therefore three of these must needs err either they are too large or too short in their Judgment and I do not in the least question but the fourth is in an Error also he that is most strict in the Point of Infant-Baptism is too large there being neither Precept nor Precedent for his Practice 2. Consider if you baptize a wrong Subject you do it in your own Name not in the Name of Christ my meaning is you do it by your own Authority not by the Authority of Christ having no Commission from him for what you do 3. Consider it 's a bold attempt for Ministers to say I baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost if the Subject be not a Disciple of Christ This is like setting the broad Seal of Heaven to a Patent of their own drawing up 4. Ministers must give an account of their Stewardship another day The Books shall be opened and every Man shall be judged out of the things that are written in the Books according as his Works have been Rev. 20. 11. Then the Commission will be laid open once more and Ministers must be tried whether they have observed Christ's order first to disciple and then to baptize 2. I would caution Ministers to beware they do not mistake the form of Administration and make use of sprinkling instead of dipping 1st Consider there are a great many Ministers that do either mistake or alter and change the form some there are that do grant that the word in the Commission signifies to dip and that it was the Primitive Practice that Christ and John did baptize by Dipping that yet make use of Sprinkling instead of Dipping because we are under a cold Climate and alledg this for their Practice That God will have Mercy and not Sacrifice and that where moral Precepts and positive Precepts do interfere there positive Precepts must give place as when David eat of the Shew-bread and the Disciples pluck'd the Ears of Corn upon the Sabbath-day To this I answer 1. Such as do think it good to alter the form of Baptism from Dipping to Sprinkling under this Consideration had best to consider whether it were not necessary to alter their form of words too and say I rantize thee instead of I baptize thee that so they may speak truth in what they say seeing they do it in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost 2. If the coldness of the Climate be such that it will not admit of dipping why do you do any thing in the room thereof Where is your Authority for that you are to baptize if you do any thing it 's not left to your discretion which of these shall be done by you this is to rantize in your own Name 3. I grant that in some cases positive Precepts have given place when they have interfer'd with moral but this is no where made a general Rule for sometimes moral Precepts have given place to positive as when God commanded Abraham to offer up his Son Isaac a Burnt-offering the moral Precept Thou shalt not kill gave place to the positive 4. When positive Precepts have given place to moral it hath been in some case of exigency that hath suddenly fallen out where in a little time the Subject might return to his Duty unto the positive Precept again but if the positive Precept to Dip must give place to the moral because of the coldness of the Climate we shall never have opportunity to return to our Duty to the positive Precept more because our Climate will never alter it will be always cold and so the positive Precept to Dip will be of no more use to us than the Altar that was built on the other side of Jordan was to them which was not built to offer Sacrifice thereon but to be a Witness of what was formerly done Josh 22. 28. so the positive Precept for Dipping shall only stand as a Monument of what was done in the Primitive Time 5. It 's but a begging the Question in this case to say that the positive Precept doth interfere with the moral No instance can be given of any one Person discipled to Christ that ever sustain'd the least damage or had his Health impaired by being Dipt no not in the coldest season under this cold Climate 2dly Consider if you mistake the Form you mistake the Essence for the Essence of a thing lies as well in the Form as in the Matter 3dly If you mistake the Form you deceive the Subject he thinks he is baptized when it 's no such matter he is but rantized not baptized 4thly If you mistake the Form the Subject loses the benefit of the Ordinance for it 's not Rantism but Baptism that obligeth the Subject to die to Sin and to live to Holiness Rom. 6. 4. It 's Baptism not Rantism that doth evidence together with Faith our Title to Salvation Mark 16. 16. Secondly I would caution People and that in two Branches 1st To beware you do not take up this Ordinance of Baptism till such time as you are discipled unto Christ 1. Consider there are many that will desire to be baptized and are so that are not discipled in deed but only in shew Simon Magus was baptized and I suppose there is no doubt but Judas and Ananias and Sapphira and many more were baptized that were never really discipled to Christ 2. Consider you have no right to the Ordinance till you believe Acts 8. 37. If thou believest with all thy heart thou mayst the contrary that offers it self is this If thou dost not believe with all thy heart thou mayst not 3. The Ordinance will stand you in no stead if you do not believe it will be no ways acceptable unto God nor profitable to your selves Without Faith it 's impossible to please God and without Faith it will be no Evidence of your Title to Salvation it 's not the putting away the filth of the Flesh but the answer of a good Conscience by the Resurrection of Christ that will stand us in stead 4. You will make your selves Hypocrites thereby rank your selves among the number of foolish Virgins and so render your Condition worse than it was 2dly I would caution such as are discipled to Christ to beware they do not