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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	faith_n	justify_v	salvation_n	3,033	5	8.0315	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58206	Anabaptism routed: or, a survey of the controverted points: Concerning [brace] 1. Infant-Baptisme. 2. Pretended necessity of dipping. 3. The dangerous practise of re-baptising. Together, with a particular answer to all that is alledged in favour of the Anabaptists, by Dr. Jer. Taylor, in his book, called, the liberty of Prophesying. / By John Reading, B.D. and sometimes student of Magdalen-Hall in Oxford.	Reading, John, 1588-1667.	1655 (1655)	Wing R443; ESTC R207312	185,080	220

from the womb for many dying young are saved which being conceived in sin and born the children of wrath● they could not be without regeneration and sanctification And truly when I consider what marvelous instinct God giveth to the new-cast young of beasts to take the brest as well as to new-born infants for their bodily preservation I cannot but conceive that the good God gives infants on whom he hath set his own image which consisteth in understanding sanctity immortality c. some admirable though to us secret light of mind and capacity of that which is snbordinate to the preservation of their immortal souls 2. Children under the Gospel have no less capacity then children under the Law had who yet received the seal of the same righteousness of faith in their infancy and were circumcised to newness of life Rom. 2. 29. But you say And then have they but one member of the distinction used by S. Peter they have that baptism which is a putting away the filth of the flesh but they have not that baptism which is the answer of a good conscience towards God which is the only baptism that saveth us I answer 1. You vainly dispute è non concessis 't is not granted nor can it ever be proved that elect children in baptism are not formed new in righteousness and holyness and so your superstruction concerning their having only that baptism which is a putting away the filth of the flesh but not the rest necessary to salvation is frivolous 2. The answer of a good conscience toward God is an effect of the inward baptism by the spirit of Jesus peculiar to the elect Now if your reason hence taken for the exclusion of infants from baptism the external seal were good by the same reason none but the elect or those who have the answer of a good conscience towards God must be admitted to baptism and whom then might you with good conscience baptize certainly but few and for ought you can certainly know none For in these last and worst dayes what know you but that they who fairly profess faith and repentance c. may yet notwithstanding be meer hypocrites And where is then their answer of a good conscience toward God 3. I say what secret light and sweet confidence elect infants have in God I know not sure I am they have that which is and shall be sufficient to their salvation in Christ though they die before man can teach them mor●● and why shall man exclude them from the external Seal of Gods Covenaut with them as being born within the Church of which they have as evident and a more easie capacity then children had of circumcision God gives Infants the incomparably greater and more excellent part sanctity and sealing to salvation and shall man presume to deny the less and subordinate part the external Seal of Christs visible Church whereof Reprobates born within the Church have a capacity 4. Faith good conscience repentance c. are in the elect those fruits whose seeds were sowen in baptism and as hath been said were it reasonable to say we may not sow untill the fruits thereof appear Nay but we therefore sow in hope that we may in due season see and reap the fruits thereof 5. Whereas you say that the answer of a good conscience towards God is the only baptism that saveth us I answer 1. It is not the answer of a good conscience that saveth any man though a good conscience be an excellent signe of our salvation by Christ for Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also we have access by faith c. 2. Your reasoning is fallacious your medium being homonymical For allowing you the signe for the cause yet if that which saveth us though it may be true if understood concerning persons of years and as good conscience an undoubted effect of regeneration is opposed to the bare seal thereof without any inward effect of the spirit I say if it be understood of Infants as in your sense excluded from a capacity of good conscience or the acts thereof it is very false except you will also exclude all Infants from salvation which were against the express doctrine of Christ. As infants you say by the force of nature cannot put themselves into a supernatural condition and therefore say the Poedobaptists they need baptism to put them into it so if they be baptized before the use of reason before the works of the spirit before the operation of grace before they can throw off the works of darkness and live in righteousness newness of life they are never the near I answer 1. Neither can men of years by the force of naeture put themselves into a supernatural condition supposing you mean subordinate to salvation and what then can the use of reason without the works of the Spirit advantage them hereto Shall not they therefore that have the use of reason be baptized 2. What do you herein say which might not as well have been objected against the circumcision of infants Would you have concluded them never the neer because at eight dayes old they had not the use of reason to know what or why it was so done unto them before they could throw off the works of darkness and live in righteousness and newness of life 3. If you will have none baptized before the works of the Spirit before the operations of grace c. when and whom may you baptize For the wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit God can and doth sanctifie infants as in the elect infants dying such must be granted if you have so much reason or charity as to think that at least some of them are elected and saved and he can and doth sanctifie in age sometimes in the very last act thereof as appeared in the penitent thief how then will it follow that infants are never the neerer if they be baptized before the use of reason c. 4. We must understand that baptism comprehendeth first the sign water and the whole ceremony sprinkling washing or dipping into water in the Name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost Secondly the things themselves signified by the visible and externall things which are sprinkling of the blood of Jesus on the baptized for the remission of sins mortification of the old man quickning the new man into certain hope of resurrection to eternall life to come Thirdly the commandement promise of Christ whence the sign hath authority and power of sealing and confirming these things unto the baptized They then that say baptism is an externall sign and washing of the body and therefore a bare and effectless sign do fallaciously dispute dividing that which God who cannot deceive us hath joyned together by giving us

be damned for their fathers carelesness or malice c. You trifle here you know that we hold no such necessity of the means as hath been said your foundation therefore failing nothing of your superstructure can stand If men neglect or contemn the ordinance of God toward their infants salvation they do as much as in them lieth to shut them from heaven but yet the foundation of the Lord remaineth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his though men neglect to mark them who cannot help themselves thereto yet the Lord knoweth all his and is not unjust to punish the childs involuntary defect for the parents voluntary neglect which God will severely punish though the child shall be held guiltless thereof as may appear in the fore-recited example of Moses which might perswade considering men to beware of denying children baptism for if the neglect be such a sin what is the contempt thereof to which their parents faith giveth them right not as an efficient principall or meritorious cause of infants salvation but as a sign and seal of Gods good will towards their children whose providence causing them to be born of such parents sheweth that he vouchsafeth them the priviledge of his covenant and how horrible a presumption is it for man to take away that which God pleaseth to give It follows say you that it is not necessary at all to be done to th●m to whom it cannot be prescribed as a law and in whose behalfe it cannot be reasonably intrusted to others with the appendant necessity We have said enough concerning the necessity you stil harp on and fear to weary the Reader by telling you we hold no such absolute necessity as we have expressed but that it follows not that it is necessary at all to be done c. is evidently false as may appear in circumcision which was enjoyned the parents not the children as untrue is your second branch in whose behalf it cannot be reasonably entrusted to others for the infants circumcision was reasonably entrusted to the parent under this necessiry The uncircumcised man child that person shall be cut off from his people Gen. 17. 14. And you say if it be not necessary it is certain it is not reasonable Stay and prove that it is not necessary before you build up many conclusions upon that which never was not will be granted you We have shewed how 't is necessary It is nowhere in terms prescribed Neither is the Sabbath which we observe nor many other things which of duty we do perform See what hath been answered hereto pag. 240. Num. 28. and so we baptize infants for it is both reasonable and they have a capacity thereof though you deny both Either baptism produc●th spiritual effects or it produceth them not c. A rare Dilemma but that 't is fallacious Reduce it to a Syllogism and it will appear a Paralogism ex accidente Suppose thus That which produceth no spiritual effects is not to be contended for but baptism produceth no spiritual effect ergo it is not to be contended for Who knows not that 't is accidental to baptism to produce no spiritual effect in the baptized This is for mans unbelief and forsaking the Covenant● by wilfull sinning which doth ponere ●bicem and make the Ordinance of none effect to salvation If we should thus dispute That which causeth wrath is evil but the Law causeth wrath ergo the Law is evil the Fallacy were the same For it is accidental and through mans disobedience that the Law causeth wrath of it self it is good and holy right and pure so here though baptism produce no good spiritual effect in the reprobate or not ex opere operato yet by the institution of God whose spirit worketh on his Ordinance it doth What are we nearer heaven if we are baptized If I were of your Councel I would entreat you to beware of these political temporizings which come so near Atheism Believe you the Scriptures who thus slight Gods holy Ordinances But if baptism does do a work upon the soul producing spiritual benefits and advantages these advantages are produced by the external work of the Sacrament alone or by that as it is helped by the co-operation and predispositions of the suscipient Here you bring another fallacy à non causâ pro causâ We say that neither are the effects or spiritual advantages of baptism produced by the external work of the Sacrament alone nor by that as it is helped by the co-operation and pre-disposition of the suscipient as hath been proved but by the spirit of God working on his own Ordinance If you say by the external work alone how doth this differ from the opus operatum of Papists save that it is worse If the Skie fall we shall have Larks Who affirms that which you suppose For they say the Sacrament does not produce it's effect but in a suscipient disposed by all requisites and due preparations of piety faith and repentance Do they say so when they speak of infant-baptism slander them not herein they are better then you who deny infants baptism which they grant though children cannot actually believe confess profess or repent But this opinion saies it does of it self without the help or so much as the coexistence of any condition but the meer reception Make much of the Minerva of your own brain if it be your opinion we own it not But if the Sacrament does not do its work alone but per modum recipientis according to the predispositions of the suscipient then because infants can neither hinder it nor do any thing to further it it does them no benefit at all You might have pleaded the same against circumcision with as good success They could neither hinder it nor do any thing to further it did it therefore do them no benefit at all But who saith it is per modum recipient is c. which is not properly expressed according to the predisposition Per modum speaks a cause ad or secundum a condition We say that the Sacrament doth work according to the dispositions of the receivers because God gives that to infants which makes them fit to be baptized giving them by his own Covenant with his believieving parents federal holyness and so a right to the external initiatory seal of his Covenant with them Whether it do them good or no whether it produce a spiritual good effect or no that is to regeneration and salvation a right they have to the external seal as being born within the Church and that as soon as they are born we understand not any other predisposing cause in the infant to be baptized as if he were able to contribute any thing to his receptibility more then the unborn Jacob was in relation to the love of God which indeed never found any cause but it self yet ere the children were born God loved Jacob and hated Esau. Further we say

Anabaptism Routed OR A SURVEY of the Controverted Points Concerning 1. Infant-Baptisme 2. Pretended Necessity of Dipping 3. The dangerous practise of Re-baptising Together With a particular Answer to all that is alledged in favour of the Anabaptists by Dr. Jer. Taylor in his Book called The Liberty of Prophesying By John Reading B. D. and sometimes Student of Magdalen-Hall in Oxford LONDON Printed for Thomas Johnson at the Golden Key in Saint Pauls Church-yard 1655. To the Right Worshipful Sir WILLIAM BROCKMAN KNIGHT And to his truly vertuous Lady The LADY ANNE BROCKMAN THIS Antiphrastical age perverting terms to contrary meanings calling Truth Falshood Falshood Truth Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue c. not only minds us of Ephesian Wolves and spekers of ●perverse things but evidently shews that the time of which the Apostle warned is not instant but extant The deaf Adders will not be charmed or hearing endure sound doctrine that 's bitter to the wicked but after their own lusts heap up to themselves Teachers like Jeroboams Priests of the lowest of the people having itching ears We have so much experience hereof that we cannot but know that for the loud-crying sms of this Nation proceeding from contempt of his Word and Ministry the Lord hath smitten many tongues and ears with a worse then Egyptian plague a spiritual botch scab incurable itch madness blindness and astonishment of heart so that they hate the light and learning because they would have all like themselves that their ignorance might lie hid in one common darkness unreproved undiscovered all which like a shril Trumpet from the clouds of heaven sounding lowder and lowder gives the alarm to all faithful Ministers to take heed to themselves and to all the stock over which the H. Ghost hath made them overseers spiritually furnished like those repairers of the Temple both for building and defence taking to them the whole armour of God that they may be able to stand I may safely say no one age ever felt such various oppositions of truth Satan seeming in former times but to skirmish but now to storm the beloved City and Tents of the Saints with all his Legions of errours drawn up into one body of all which none more infest or hinder our work then those Moabites and Ammonites who contrary to Gods ordinance have intruded into the work of the Temple pretending to build with us saying with those enemies of Israel We seek your God as ye do Now the noon-tide Devil is on the Stage in his last scene whose part is if it were possible to deceive the very Elect. To which no ordinary dress can now fit him or his Ministers it must be and so is some close semblance of sanctimony in which the Saints delight without which Satan could not easily take them with which he often doth whilst incautiously credulous they are deceived by those whom they esteemed good The hunters of Ostriches used to dress themselves up with their feathers imitate their motions and scatter grains of seeds before them so the false Apostles deceitful workers seduce by transforming themselves into Apostles of Christ Ministers of righteousness scattering out of their delightful bags seeds of dangerous Heresies and Schisms Why I undertook this polemical task you know who were present at my first imbarquing in this controversie as also many of my reverend brethren who afterwards importuned me to the first part hereof If any ask why it comes out so late to publike view let the false Zibaes answer I can conjecture but not resolve it is now about two years since it was much desired fairly promised and accordingly sent to one Press where the children were come to the birth and there was no strength to bring forth Why I write after so many so much more able to defend the truth might possibly put me to the Oratours quaere● What is left for me to do but new adversaries arising giving fresh assaults and impudently affronting and challenging me in my publike charge to answer them what could I have answered the Lord if seeing the Wolf coming into the fold I had withdrawn or betrayed the soule of my● Auditors who might possibly have thought our cause deserted for which none durst plead All lovers of truth owe it respective defence and too much caution cannot be in things of so great moment as salvation of souls No man rationally asketh What need we two eyes who can see with one I am far from pleading universality for defence or multitudes for Patronage of truth let our adversaries reckon themselves many and think that Illes Defendit numerus junctaeque umbone Phalanges They have many Writers but if the cause be weighed by Scripture and solid reason then as Elisha said they are more with us then with them yet I heartily wish that many more would shew themselves on our part and neither betray the truth by their silence who can seasonably and ably speak in its defence nor encourage the adversaries thereof by such a Laodicea-like lukewarmness as shews a dangerous symptome of neutralitie For my part I cannot but be conscious of much disabilitie yet dare not but endeavour to defend the truth for this let whoso will condemn or acquit me God is all-sufficient Such as these endeavours are I submit to the judgment of the Church of God the pillar of truth and dedicate them to you who love the truth and by Gods assistance will not be negligent to put you alwayes in remembrance of these things though you know them and be established in the present truth yea I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle God alone gives the encrease To him be glory in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men to you and yours constancie in the truth and happiness temporal and eternal which is the daily prayer of Decemb. 8. 1653. Your faithful and affectionate Servant in the Lord Jesus JO. READING The Preface to the Christian and Candid Reader GGood Reader know that as I was addressing my self to discharge a publike Engagment for writing something in answer to certain Objections made against Paedobaptism there came to my hand from a friend a Treatise under this Title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Liberty of Prophesying c. in the 18 section whereof I finde A particular consideration of the opinion of the Anabaptists In which part of this Florelegie or flowers and selected points of Divinity are not onely some stingy expressions but also such a wilful or incautious collection of wilde Vines as may cause the children of the Prophets not unjustly to cry Mors est in ollâ It was truly reported by some judicious Divines who had perused the same that there are many dangerous stumbling-blocks to weak Christians and subtil arguments for defence and animation of the Anabaptists being cloathed

as we shall be saved secundum opera but not propter opera Good works are in the regenerate excellent signes of justification and salvation future they cannot be the causes of either they follow they cannot precede justification So we may say that baptism works according to the dispos●●ons of the suscipient which are not in infants faith profession repentance c. which God gives not to infants but to persons of years but as to their ri●● baptism by his Couenant what other predispositi●●●re in them are secret and known to God above And so your exploded fancy and dream of a notable advantage vanisheth Either baptism you say is a meer Ceremony or it implies a duty on our part If it be a ceremony only how doth it sanctifie us or make the comers thereunto perfect If it implys a duty on our part how then can children receive it who cannot do duty at all How many impertinences are here twisted up together We answer pla●nly Ceremony and duty on mans part are not membra dividentia nor always contradistinct for they may coïncidere as in those ceremonies of the Law which being commanded of God were duties of men subject to the Law and to be performed though they could not make the comers thereunto perfect and so is baptism now a duty on our part to be administred though of it self it cannot make all the comers thereunto perfect But you demand if it implies a duty on our part how then can children receive it who cannot do duty at all Where is now the revelation reason common sense and all experience in the World in which you so lately triumphed as if you had driven us to take sanctuary If it be a duty on our part to administer it● how can children receive it who cannot do any duty at all Nay but tell me if you can by all your reason how could infants receive baptism except we did administer it say you how can he be passive who cannot be active at all how could infants receive circumcision who could do as little duty as infants now can That homonymical on our part must be otherwise limited by some expression or else your Argument will appear fallacious It is a duty on our part to baptize infants on the childrens part no duty is required● they can do none as such for God enjoyneth no impossibilities But you say ●This way of ministration makes baptism to be wholly an outward duty a work of the Law ●●rnal Ordinance it makes us adhere to the letter without any regard of the spirit c. This Rhetorick would somthing better ●●●●●●im that careth not what but how much he saith ●●●●●● vain and injurious expressions are meer aspersions and call you this an Argument considerable wherein appears either matter or form thereto pertinent For the rest which in some other man I should take for some aegri insomnium we say if you mean by Mystery the spiritual baptism mysteriously signified by the outward ministration to which you seem to drive 't is evident that it doth not alwaies accompany it except you will say that the Sacrament justifieth ex opere operato which a little before you would have pinned on our backs which appears in Judas Simon Magus and all others who fall away And as certainly false is it that it never follows in order of time common experience shewing that the spiritual seed sowed in baptism many times and in many of the baptized lieth long before it actually appeareth either in any outward effects inward signes of calling or fruits of regeneration as in Abraham faith preceded and circumcision the seal of the righteousness of faith followed so in Cornelius a spiritual sanctification preceded and baptism followed but in Isaak circumcised the eight day the seal preceded and faith and sanctity followed So in Infant-baptism the seal and laver of regeneration goeth before and actual faith followeth it in season if they hold fast the faith of Christ. You say again Baptism is never propounded mentioned or enjoyned as a means of remission of sins or of eternal life but something of duty choice and sanctity is joyned with it in order to production of the end so mentioned Know you not that as many as are baptized into Christ Jesus are baptized into his death c. Good reason that such things should be propounded mentioned and enjoyned to those who converting to the faith in years capable of Doctrine require the seal of Gods Covenant and certainly so was it to Proselytes to be circumcised but you cannot reasonably think that they proposed or enjoyned Infants to be circumcised any such things and it were as vain to propose any of these to Infants now to be baptized Therefore we seal them now and propound these like things to them when they be capable Now the Scripture speaking to men or women of understanding propounds to them their present duty who are to be baptized or who are baptized as faith repentance walking in newness of life mortification and as hath been said the Apostles in the ecclesiâ constituendâ had mostly to do being to endeavour the calling and conversion of the Gentiles who before were aliens from the Covenant of God But in ecclesiâ constitutâ we rarely meet with any first to be taught and then to be sealed the children of Christian parents having Church-priviledg are now baptized first as in the setled Covenant under the Law they were first circumcised and when they come to fit years instructed And what then do all your impertinences disadvantage our cause seeing elect infants in their baptism are implanted into Christ and in due time walk in newness of life This is indeed truly to be baptized both in the Symbole and the Mystery Whatsoever is less then this is but the Symbole only a meer ceremony c. The effects of elect childrens baptism being nothing less this Rhetorick might have been spared Plainer yet Whosoever are baptized into Christ have put on Christ have put on the new man But to put on this new man is to be formed in righteousness and holyness and truth c. All this plainly makes for infants baptism who being naturally flesh and blood such as cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven conceived and born in sin children of wrath must indeed put on Christ Jesus that they may be saved These premises we willingly adhere to but your conclusion is liable to a non sequitur because it is either fallacious disputing ab adultis ad infantes which wanting the condition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 becomes an ignoratio elenchi and mistaking or mispursuing the Question or begging it in those terms remaining in the present incapacities which cannot be granted I answer two things 1. God can give capacity of regeneration and newness of life to any age That he doth not give it to infants cannot appear to us The contrary doth for he giveth the spirit of sanctification to some infants in and