Narrative of the Portsmouth Disputation their impartial Account wherein they are the Trumpeters of their own Praise But to any indifferent Reader their Impartiality will seem questionable and I would have them think â—hat to honour themselves is nothing worth As to their boasting that they have proved the Infants of Believers holy Persons Church-Members Disciples and this in a Scripture-sense is but a vain Boast These being the things in Controversy should have been left to the judgment of the Reader and their Modesty then would have been praised whereas so great Presumption on such small grounds argues great Conceitedness and Value of themselves And methinks I cannot but take notice of the concern of these Gentlemen they never think they have fully defended themselves else why comes out this Dialogue and yet their Cause is not one whit bettered but their Weakness more manifest For now we see the strength of all their Wit sure nothing more can be expected from them I mean nothing stronger for this is midwiv'd into the World with the best Advice and most mature Deliberation and as a Correction of their former Faults The People could not but expect some strange Production after so many Essays from these Mountains but their Expectation is at last deluded and behold a ridiculous Mouse the Matter of their Scorn and Laughter FINIS A SERMON Preach'd From the Commission Matth. 28. 19. IN THE Baptist Meeting-house at Wallup at the desire of some Friends To which is prefix'd a LETTER to Mr. Leigh written after the Portsmouth Dispute By JOHN WILLIAMS Pastor of a Baptized Congregation London Printed in the year 1700. Mr. William's LETTER to Mr. Leigh written after the Disputation BRother Leigh for so I can heartily call you and own you if you please to accept of it the occasion of writing these few Lines to you is this I have in my reflex Thoughts weighed what was offered upon both sides in the Dispute not being willing to abide by any thing that has not a foundation in the Word nor to reject any thing that is offered against my present Opinion could I see it were bottomed on the Word because I know I must one day be judged by the Word You told me you could have said four times more for our Cause than was spoken by us and ten times more than you did for your own Possibly you might have spoken four times as many words as we did but I think it would have been a hard task to have offered Arguments that had four times more weight and substance than those had that were offered by us I mean for clearing the Point of the Subject according to the Commission which the first Preliminaries bound us to yet I would not undervalue your Abilities nor set our own in competition with yours had we not had Truth on our side your Abilities would soon have overturn'd mine The Doctor I think might be able to cope with any of you in that respect but if you can offer four times more for our Cause than we did I wonder your own Arguments should not be convincing to you tho ours were not and could we have that fourfold Strength added to our Arguments I believe you would not be able to answer one of them For so weak as our Arguments were you did no otherwise answer them but by denying a part which is an easy way of answering the strongest Argument that can be offered and if you could have offered ten times more for your own Cause why had you not done it you might have had the Opponency soon turn'd upon you when the Doctor gave you an Argument containing an universal Negative and as I do since understand you ought to have accepted it according to the Rules of Disputation in the University from whence you take these Rules I am informed that a universal Negative is taken for a Maxim I thought that artificial Logick had been the Improvement of natural Reason but if this be a Rule to be observ'd in it that the Opponent must prove an universal Negative I know nothing that is more contrary to natural Reason had there been either Precept or Precedent for Infant-Baptism on Record then it had been possible for you or some body else to have produced it and had you done it his Argument had been gone and you had gained the Cause but it is impossible for a Man to prove that neither you nor any one else can produce such a Record otherwise than to deny that there is any such Record to be produc'd If this be according to the Rule of Disputation I look on it as an effectual way to keep People in ignorance I suppose that if you could have produc'd a Record either of Precept or Precedent for Infant-Baptism you would not be tied so close to the Rule of Disputation as not to have brought it to light Whatever you could have said I know not you know you did not give us an instance for Infant-Baptism tho it was often desired and that with great Importunity and must we still look on Infant-Baptism to be an Ordinance of God a part of Divine Worship that hath neither Precept nor Precedent for its Practice But Sir if you can say ten times more for your Practice than you did it is not too late to offer it yet and if you please to send it me and it be such as is convincing I will spread it for you if not I will fairly answer it and not publickly spread it Sir when I consider what was offered by us and denied by you and with what Props your own Arguments were supported being Men of such Parts and Piety as you are on whose Credit the Ordinance of Christ is like to be administred to a wrong Subject for the future as it hath been for Ages past upon a like traditional Bottom I am really grieved and that is the reason of my setting Pen to Paper First when I consider what was offered by us and denied by you I can repeat my own Arguments better than I can the Doctor 's and therefore I shall confine my self to them You know you prest us to allow of Consequences rightly drawn from the Word the Doctor told you you should give it which way you could but did you not deny almost if not all the Consequences that were offered by me to prove that Infants were not the Subjects of Baptism according to the Commission A Negative Task that we were put upon which could no otherwise be proved but by Consequences To repeat some of my Arguments and I need repeat but the major for the most part My first Argument was this That if Believers are the only Subjects of Baptism according to the Commission then Infants are not Here you denied the Sequel but if the Antecedent be true the Consequent is true and rightly drawn from the Text. There being none put into the Commission as the Subjects of Baptism but Believers Mark the 16th and 17th you did
to have borrowed some Light from him as he falsly says Isaac Harman did Now Sir pray be so kind to your self as to conceal your Paths for they are dark ones and let not blind Men tread on your Heels I hope you will be more careful for the future and not let Men with no Light tho as yet you have found but one of them see into the very Crannies of your wilful and woful Mistakes As to the truth of my refusing Matthew Caffin I could bring many Witnesses And I never knew but one Person who was for him which Mr. Chandler hath happily mist and is never like to know for me This is all at present from your Brother in Christ William Leddell Here follows an account of some of those Falshoods they charge upon Dr. Russel in their pretended Impartial Account of the Portsmouth Disputation and his Answers thereunto Brother Sharp FOrasmuch as you have taken in hand so good a Work as to vindicate the Truth of that Narrative I supervised and published concerning that Disputation at Portsmouth wherein our well-beloved Brother Williams and your self were also engag'd I thought meet to send you this following Account to free my self from those Calumnies the Publishers of that false and abusive Account of that Disputation have undeservedly cast upon me 1. In Pag. 57. they say that I mention'd Constantine the Great as a Scripture Instance I answer This they know to be false For at the same time I refer'd them to the History of the first five hundred years and alledged it only to prove matter of Fact from the Testimony of the Fathers which Mr. Leigh accordingly understood or else what made him give this Answer What do you tell us of the Fathers we are not bound to abide by their Testimony See p. 35. of my True Narrative 2. In Pag. 61. they say it 's false that Mr. Chandler's Sermons were the occasion of the Dispute and much more that this is agreed to by them To this I answer I have no more to do than to confute them by their own Pens My words are these it is agreed on both sides that Mr. Chandler's Sermons were the occasion of that Offence taken by you speaking to Mr. Bowes Mr. Webber and the Churches to whom they belong and of the Dispute it self as appears by the Preliminaries c. Now that this is true appears from their own Pens For in the Title Page of their own Account they have these words An Abridgment of those Discourses that were the innocent occasion of that Disputation And in Pag. 2. An Abridgment of those Sermons that were the innocent occasion of the Disputation Now in both these places they confess what I say to be true For I only say they were the occasion thereof without so much as telling them whether it were an innocent or nocent occasion But 2. I can prove it under the hands of Mr. Chandler and Mr. Williams of Portsmouth And for that I refer you to the Preliminaries themselves which were read publickly before all the People and assented to by both sides as you have them truly printed in my Narrative pag. 3 4. but omitted in theirs which begins thus Whereas by Mr. Chandler's late preaching on the Ordinance of Baptism several Persons have taken offence and upon desire of Satisfaction it 's mutually agreed between us whose Names are underwritten that these two Points be amicably disputed in the following order c. Samuel Chandler Francis Williams I had that very Paper delivered to me in Mr. Williams's Meeting-house at the time of the Dispute which they signed with their own hands and have it still by me to witness against them And strange it is that these Men should have the confidence to deny what is so solemnly delivered under their own hands But perhaps they thought I had lost that Paper and should not have been able to detect their false Accusation any other way And this seems to be the true cause why they were so unjust as to omit putting down the Preliminaries in their printed Account that they might not confute themselves under their own hands 3. In the same page 61. they say it 's false that Mr. Robinson should in the midst of the Dispute give me the Lie 1. Pray observe This is a falsifying of my words which are these He said in the midst of the Dispute with a loud Voice That is a Lie But I did not tell them he said so to me And under this subterfuge they might suppose to shelter themselves in their Denial But 2. I do know that he did say as I have printed it And if my word may not pass for it I have divers to testify for me Mr. Webber Pastor of the Church at Gosport being with me in London Sept. 6. last past I asked him about it and he affirms it to be true that Mr. Robinson did give me the Lie and that there were Witnesses enough could testify that for he being mounted in the Pulpit at a distance from the rest of his Brethren there could be no mistake about it See the Truth of this well attested in Mr. Sharp's Account 3. They confess that Mr. Leigh did give the Lie Now I did not accuse him but Mr. Robinson only and I hope Mr. Leigh's confessing that he gave the Lie doth not prove that Mr. Robinson did not But it doth prove that they were a couple of ill-bred unmannerly Presbyters to say no worse of them 4. I must now charge them with a notorious Falshood which they have printed against me in these words This bold Gentleman hath published amongst and by his Friends in London Dr. Russel to put it out of doubt that he and his Friends had carried the day at Portsmouth added the Bishop of Salisbury had received a Letter from Colonel Gibson wherein he applauded their i. e. the Anabaptists Performance To this I answer 1. That I never heard of any Letter at all sent to that Bishop by Colonel Gibson till I read it in their printed Account 2. I never said so to any Person whatsoever and I challenge them to produce their Evidence for till then it must be charged upon themselves 3. I neither knew nor thought that Colonel Gibson had been such a Zealot for their Cause to trouble himself to send Letters to two Bishops as they say he did in favour of them till I read it in their printed Account whereas had he not been extremely biass'd he might have known better than to have sent up such an Advertisment as they say he did to put into the Post-man But Mr. Robinson confesses that he was the Informer who waited on the Bishop to tell him this false and malicious Story And whereas he saith that his Lordship generously allowed them to make use of his Name for the undeceiving the World in this matter And whereas it plainly appears it was to deceive the World I hope his Lordship will for the future have a care how
we know that the Decrees of God are immutable and it is not in the power of any Creature to alter them And we also know that you cannot from your own Principles be at any certainty who are elected and who are not whilst in an Infant-state till such time as they come to be effectually called And seeing you do not believe that all Infants dying in their Infant-state shall be saved because you tell us that you leave such as die unbaptized to the unfathomable depths of God's Goodness there being no Promise to rely upon I must now needs discern the cloven Foot notwithstanding your sham pretences to cover it For unless you did think that the sprinkling of Infants is necessary to Salvation notwithstanding those deceitful Expressions in your Preface or at least did doubt within your selves whether any unbaptized Infant could be saved all this you talk of is but insignificant trifling And you had better deal plainly with the World as one of your Brethren did to let them know that if he must baptize no Infants but what he knew to be of the number of the Elect he must not baptize any for he did not know what Infants were in the Covenant of Grace and in the Line of Election and what were not For I believe you know as little of the matter as he altho you seem so unwilling to confess it But if you neither baptize them as knowing them to be the Elect of God nor yet in the Covenant of Grace how can you say they are in a state of Salvation and that if they die in their Infancy they shall be saved except you did conclude as Austin did that the Baptism of Infants is necessary to Salvation and that they are actually brought into the Line of Election thereby and made the Children of God and Heirs of Glory And if so then free your selves from the Papists Opus operatum if you know how Is this the way to early Piety Surely no. For if they were not sprinkled in their Infancy and afterwards told by you or others that it was a sufficient Baptism altho in truth it is no Baptism at all they might then be easily prevailed upon to submit to the Baptism of Christ And when they are taught that Repentance from dead Works and Faith towards God were to precede Baptism and to fit them for it And that Baptism is an initiating Ordinance without which they cannot be true Members of the visible Church of Christ And that they must be dead to Sin before they were buried with Christ by Baptism And that after they were baptized they must walk in newness of Life This were a more probable way to incline them to that great Duty of remembring their Creator in the days of their youth and to promote and advance early Piety and true Religion in their Hearts and Lives But so long as you shall tell them that they are made Disciples of Christ as soon as they are born that they were made Christians Members of the Church and enter'd into the new Covenant by what you did for them when you sprinkled them with Water This hath a direct tendency to lull them asleep in security and make them draw this false Conclusion that they were thereby made Christians indeed and so deceive their own Souls For it is found by woful Experience that many of them who are poor ignorant impenitent and wretched Siâ—â—ers yet they will be exceeding angry if you do but question their being really and indeed Christians What say they were not we baptized in our Infancy and thereby made Christians Members of Christ Children of God and Heirs of the Kingdom and do you question our Christianity Now if you will but seriously consider how far you have been the unhappy Instruments of the ruin of these poor Creatures by hardning them against the Truth as it is in Jesus and making them like the Pharisees and Lawyers of old reject the Counsel of God against themselves by that deception you have put upon their Understandings you would certainly discern that you have made work for Repentance and cannot acquit your selves therefrom until you do renounce that scriptureless Practice of Infant-sprinkling and submit to that holy Ordinance of Believers Baptism as appointed by Jesus Christ and provoke others thereunto 5thly But further in their Dedication they appeal to the honourable Governor and to the worshipful Baker as to disinterested Persons and proper Judges As for Henry Seager the Baker he is no disinterested Person unless this proves him to be such because when he was Mayor he carried the Mace to the Presbyterian Meeting and hath gone to it both before and since the Dispute and been a Benefactor to them for several years as is certified from thence Now I can as little suppose him to be a proper Judg as a disinterested Person because I am well satisfied he is unskill'd in the Controversy and incompetent as to Parts and Learning to fit him for it But being worshipful he would serve their turn to make a noise with in other Parts where he was not known to give a faint Colour to a fading Cause 6thly But the most amazing Passage in it is this That they should have Confidence to tell the World that their Account they give of the Dispute is true and impartial That it is what was taken by the Pens of the Scribes without any material alteration Whereas they know in their Consciences it is not so as may be made appear in due place 7thly And whereas they talk of Disorders in the time of the Dispute they also know there was nothing of that kind committed by us notwithstanding their repeated Provocations but all of it by themselves and their own Party Themselves were certainly guilty oâ— great Incivilities in giving the Lie in their missing and making such a noise that we could not be heard Which was so far from being a sign they were willing that Truth should take place that it was an evident Demonstration of the direct contrary I now come to make some Observations upon the Account they give of the Dispute it self By which it will appear that it is a false and partial Account 1. They have left out the Speech I made in the beginning 2. Given no account of Mr. Chandler's beginning with Prayer 3. The Preliminaries agreed upon and read publickly they have wholly omitted 4. Mr. Chandler's Apology to the People which he calls his Prologue they have alter'd For I have carefully examin'd Mr. Ring 's Copy and I find it there verbatim as I have put it down in my Narrative For 1. He puts Pride before Vanity 2. Adds Doctrine 3. Leaves out the New Testament 4. There is a Transposition and Omission of other words which I pass by 5. Mr. Chandler hath alter'd the words of the first Question to be disputed As first he hath left out and Saviour hath put only before are And instead of And not Infants he hath put
undertaking the Opponency which they confess he ought not to have done But he only talked of it but did not do it for he knew it was a Task too heavy for him and so waved it Now there is not one word of all this in Mr. Ring 's Copy nor in Mr. Bissel's nor in mine And I am well satisfied there was not one word spoken by Mr. Leigh at that time 22. Upon Mr. Chandler's denying the minor of my universal Negative they have falsified my Answer and made it quite another thing For whereas I say to him Hold Sir it is an universal Negative you must give your Instance c. which are the words in Mr. Ring 's Copy They bring me in saying It 's an universal Negative you must prove it Now I did not call upon Mr. Chandler to prove my Argument as they do slily and disingenuously insinuate but I call'd upon him to give his Instance where it was so written in holy Scripture that Christ had required any of his Ministers to baptize Infants which I then told him and do still affirm he ought to have done otherwise we might argue ad infinitum And this Mr. Leigh knew right well and therefore he bids Mr. Chandler offer me the Commission for an Instance as themselves have confessed in their printed Account But Mr. Robinson they tell you opposed it for he knew there was no such thing exprest in the Commission and did in effect give away the Cause of Infant-Baptism at once For his words are these as recited both in Mr. Ring 's Copy and my True Narrative Mr. Robinson you must prove it still Suppose Mr. Chandler cannot give an Instance nor no body in the Company you cannot thence infer that none in the World can 23. This also they have falsified and set down in their printed Account a Fancy of their own invention They have put in Mr. Leigh who was not then mentioned by Mr. Robinson and have left out these words nor no body in the Company Now they know it was urged upon them all and desired that if any one of them could give an Instance they would please to do it And yet none of them could be prevailed upon so much as to attempt it Surely the New Testament is not so large a Volume but either Mr. Chandler or some other of those Ministers that were present whose number was said to be about five and twenty or thirty might have been supposed to have read it all over and to have known where such an Instance had been written in case any such thing had been contain'd therein What are they all so ignorant of the holy Scriptures that not one of them can tell what is written in the New Testament about holy Baptism How then can they be fit to teach others their Duty concerning it I must therefore once more take the liberty to tell them that when there were so many Men of Parts and Learning together as there then were if none of them are able to give us one Instance from Scripture for their Practice of Infant-Baptism we cannot expect that any body else should It 's much to me that instead of Mr. Chandler's old Sermons pick'd out of other Mens Works they had not tried their Skill to have attempted some Instance from Scripture for their Practice seeing they sat brooding upon their Narrative so long as not to suffer it to come abroad till more than six Months were past after the Dispute Surely they might have found it out in all that time if it had been so written in the New Testament If therefore Mr. Chandler's Sermons are esteemed by them as their ne plus ultra we must conclude they have nothing of that kind to produce and therefore must cease for time to come ever to expect it from them 24. Here they have thrust in Matter never spoken and transposed and mangled what was spoken and have formed it according to their pleasure without any regard had to Truth or Justice For 1. They have made a Speech for Mr. Robinson that he never spake and another for Mr. John Williams p. 5. And I appeal to Mr. Ring 's Copy for there is not one word of either of them there nor in any one of the other Copies I ever saw 2. They leave out almost a whole Sentence of mine and use their Art and Skill to deceive the Reader by making a stroke as if it were left out by the Scribes Whereas in that part they recite they had Mr. Ring 's Copy to inform them and therefore must know that they did not put it down right and so have wilfully misrepresented me to the World Their words are as follows Rus I would have these honourable Persons here present to consider that I am under great Disadvantage you are to give an Instance What my words are you may see in pag. 8. of my Narrative at the lower end they are too long to recite For my whole Answer to Mr. Robinson contains twelve Lines and theirs is contained in two Lines and a half Is this agreable to their Title An Impartial Account 3. Their transposing and altering For my next words which agree with Mr. Ring 's Account are these Mr. Chandler this is only a Trick to turn off the Opponency Dr. Russel What do you talk of a Trick I hope you are able to give an Instance of what is your daily Practice But instead thereof they put down this false Account Rob. This is your popular Argument to shift the Opponency and turn it upon the Respondent 1. Here is a change of Persons Rob. for Chandler 2. They proceed as they began and make a Speech for me at their own pleasure And thus they go on till they come to the next Page This is a Practice they have great cause to be ashamed of when at the same time they pretend to give an Impartial Account 25. In pag. 6. they bring me in saying I am sure according to the Rules of Dispute Mr. Chandler must prove the Negative This I must charge as another Falshood upon them For my words are these If you say you have no Scripture-Proof for Infants Baptism I have done But why must you prevent Mr. Chandler I hope here are some honourable Persons and others that understand the nature of this Controversy and they may reasonably expect that those who have made such a noise about it can give some tolerable Instance for it And if they will do that we will proceed to examine it It is therefore evident that here is not any thing like what they report so that if I charge them with down-right Forgery they must bear with it for they knew that my words were according to Mr. Ring 's Copy and that they had abused both him and me 26. They have again alter'd Mr. Robinson's next Answer and framed words for him that were not then spoken as appears by Mr. Ring 's Copy which I have truly recited in my Narrative to