in hearts houses Towns and Countries as when Christ came to Ierusalem all was in an uproar and when Paul came with his Gospel to Ephesus Athens Iconium Lystra Derbe lewd fellows of the baser sort were set on by others to raise tumults for truth tormented them into rage thus we often judge of Causes as good or bad right or wrong by the effects that slow from them but to reason upon a cause as good or ill true or false right or wrong according to the might or meaness the abilities or defects of the persons that stand up for it is the right way to wrong it indeed sith the Antichristian cause hath the mighty wise and prudent Priests and Potentates of the world for its Patrons when the poor only for the most part receive Christs Gospell and the strength that God ordains in defence thereof against the persecutor is the mouths of Babes and Sucklings Causes are to be rejected as wrong and false according to the defects and weakness that is discovered to be in the Arguments that are brought to maintain and not by the weakness and defects that may seem to be in those that are more zealous then able to mannage them if there appear to be weight in the Arguments these if strong however weakly and babishly propounded will carry the cause in the conscience of any but such Priest-be-charmed Christians as in Charity to their Churchmen are resolved to yield themselves up to be carried away with every wind of doctrine that passes from them and covering the weakness of them to be whisled any way by such arguments as the men themselves that make them are fain to grant to be weak to prove what they are brought for for no Argument is weak that is sufficient to evince the thing it s used in proof of though it fall from the mouth of never so weak a man if a weak feeble hand let fall an heavy Axe upon it or a sharp sword even the sword of the Spirit the word of God that is quick and powerfull it may serve to cut off the Popes head Tripple Crown and all but if the Pope himself and all his children which are the ablest Humanists in the world come out to warre against Christ and his cause with reeds and rushes blind non sequiturs weak and broken Consequences they must ride back to Rome for stronger swords or else they may force fools into conformity to their follies but never guide wise men after the spirit to believe their cause to be good as therefore t is not good that an ill cause that hath but weak Arguments to uphold it should be owned for good either in Charity or upon pretence of ability in the persons that patronize it as the Clergies crooked cause of Infant-sprinkling is for what saies the Parish to those poor ones in it that entertain the Gospel are you wiser than a whole Synod of able Orthodox Divines so it is a thousand pitties that a good cause that hath strong Arguments enough from Scripture and reason to prove it right should be wronged so as to be rejected as rotten yet so Christs true baptism is through the defects of the persons called Anabaptists who are supposed at least to have more zeal then ability to prove it of which sin of wronging a right cause upon account of such defects even the cause of Christs true baptism which in his strength those Babes that are baptized with it are not only zealous but able to make good against the Ablest Baby-Baptist that is among you I know no men under the Sun more guilty then you Clergy men who take your advantages to cry out the lowder against it as error by the defects of Christs Disciples that plead and practise it of whom you say commonly as you say complementally of your selves here they have more zeal then abilities to maintain it yea verily you who seem here whether more simply or more simulatorily who knows not so to implore the charitable benevolence of well disposed people to cover the weakness of your Arguments and not to suffer your cause of Infant-sprinkling to suffer throw your defects and inabilities to maintain it are men so far from teaching fâ—…enda faciendo from doing to others as you would be done to that you rather disclaim and proclaim those Arguments of ours as weak which as feeble a folk as we are are strong enough to storm you out of your strongest holds and cause that cause to be despised under pretence of our defects which though weak in our selves and pretending to little of that outward accomplishment which you call ability yet throw Christs word assertaining it to be his and his spirit assisting us thereunto we have both zeal and ability to maintain who is it I trow that trumpets about the eminency and learnedness of their party and illiteracy of the Anabaptists whereby to render the way the more contemptible more then the Priesthood who charm their people against the receipt of the Gospel in such sort as the Pharisees of old when they said are you also deceived have any of the Rulers of the Pharisees believed on him but this peopâ—… that know not the law are cursed Ioh. 7. 47 48 49. So brags Dâ—… Featly and his fellows despising the way of dipping viz. joint suffrages of so many Bishops in such a Synod as for the Anabaptists they are a few mean sylly men and women an illiterate and sottish sect the father and head of whom quoth he was Nicholas Stock and a very blockhead was he p. 164. Simple rude Mechanicks Russet Rabbies Apron Levites whom we own not quoth he but detest and abominate p. 113 who know not how to dispute for truth because they know not the original and cannot conclude syllogistically in mood and figure p. 1. 2. Thus Featly defeats them in their cause by dilating on their defects and which of you almost do not confirm your people against their cause by their infirmities of one kind or other like flies you feast your selves upon their sores and let go their sounder parts you make much of their little to your purpose you make your best out of their worst and out of their personal weaknesses strengthen your selves and others against the truth which wise men know is nevertheless truth for the poors receiving it you root in their very excrements whereby to find matter to make their good cause bad and yet here oh how mendicant of other mens mercy not only to spare sentencing your cause as wrong by your personall defects and want of abilities but also in charity to couer the weakness of your Arguments which is such an unreasonable request as was scarce ever put forth before by any Disputants who if they find their Arguments to be weak ought rather to recant them specially after such publique acknowledgement of the weakness of them and to desire people that they would not suffer themselves to be swayed by them then otherwise But Sirs
do you think in your consciences that there is such weakness in your Arguments as is here intimated to us in your own book and likewise that your cause which is so far from a good one that it deserves to bear the name of Abaddon is in danger of suffering so much through your defects in disputing it unless men be so charitable as to wink at the weaknesses of both I speak seriously in my mind you had then better by far have conceal'd then reveal'd your disputation in an Account and had provided much better for the honor of it for now you have vindicated it from the disgraces with which it was loaded in private like him that fetches a frisk out of the frying pan into the fire whilst you publish it in the same weakness onely robbing your Respondent of the strength of his Answers in which it discover'd it self at first and hang it out against the Sun so that all men may see clean through it so thin and thread-bare it is and that without spectacles and not onely so but make proclamation of the weakness of your Arguments with a petition to pardon the weakness of them that 's an ill bird which in hast bewraies his own nest and leaves it to others to make all clean and such are they that uncover their own nakedness so far when they need not that they are fain to be beholding to the benevolence of others to cover it and yet are so inexorable as to hold the cause of others inexcusable in the self same case wherein they are earnest to be excused by them for our cause is at a loss among you for the sake of what ere defects you spie in any persons that profess it But I believe you are not cordiall in your acknowledgements here for if you were you would surely have endured your Respondents private representations of the weakness of your Arguments and your pedling in your proof of Infant-baptism with more patience then you did but its evident by your impatience towards him in that kind that what ere you say here of your selves in a voluntary humility yet you have so good an opinion of your selves and your work too that day that Tam nil as nothing as it here seems to be in your Account as well as ours you take it ill that any should esteem so poorly and speak so plainly though but privately of your trifling doings as you dispense with your selves to do here in publick before all 〈◊〉 world and howbeit here 's weakness and defects and defects p. 3. overtly worded over by you in a general way yet it 's an hundred to one if a man take you at your word and yield to what you say as truth and say it ore after you that there 's much weakness in your Arguments and that there were many defects in your Disputation and your zeal of Infant-baptism is great and your abilities but mean to maintain it you will be half angry with him and think he casts scandals upon your disputation and be ready to gainsay all this and to stand up in vindication of your Arguments as strong and sufficient and â—…ay all the defects that were in the disputation at your Respondents door and if you be askt what one individual particular Syllogism Term Argument or Scripture you were out in the framing uttering urging or underctanding of throughout the whole day of the disputation I am perswaded you will sooner bite your nayles then assign any or if it be specified by others that in this and that you were out you misunderstood such or such a Scripture such a speech or passage you faultred in I am afraid your pretended self-deniall will be found so little that you 'l justifie your selves in every bit and scrap of that which past from you during the whole discourse which makes your confessions deserve but little of that favour you so much implore by how much they savor of juggle and complement more then of a real true sense of what is wanting to you indeed which verily is a right-baptism to maintain rather then abilities to maintain that right-none that you stood up for nevertheless I must needs grant it to be true that you say here that your abilities were far short of your zeal yea so short that howbeit you had a good mind to do it yet you neither did nor could maintain it at all but wherefore was it but because you had a bad cause in hand yea had your zeal been as big as your cause was bad there had been no standing before you indeed the defects of your cause was the cause of your defects and not your own defects the cause of your causes had not the fault been more in your faith which was a false one then in your faculty to maintain things and had that and your baptism been as good as your parts are great and both these as probable as you capable to prove the meanest among you might have done more at the disputation then as it happend all of you did per vim unitam because though you fought with one who was no more then a flea in your ears yet you hapned to be fog'd so that you faced the wrong way and fell in unawares â—…ainst the truth which in these daies of its return falls upon inquisitive consciences with more force from the mouth of fooles and babes then meer tradition doth from the wisest Babists in the world The deepest defect is in the cause you defend in the way you warrand t is a crooked cause an unwarrantable way and therefore those that will warrand mens walking in it can never do it without faultring and fumbling in the work and such after occasions of fawning on men for their charitable excusation Gentlemen that I may neither seem to defie nor yet to deifie your persons but put things upon a true Account you are men that have some worth and excellency and yet some weakness and exigency too but I impute your miscarriage in the disputation not half so much to your own as to your causes indigency your business was well man'd but ill manag'd because there was but an ill matter to be maiâ—…tain'd you were at the wrong end of the staff and therefore well might you be defective in the strife this makes the least of the flock draw you great Leviathans out now adayes and the feeble to be as David before Goliahs that have been Polemically exercised from their youth in that truth on their side doth animate and assist them you meet them with staff and spear and humane accomplishments and they stand before you in the name of God and strength of that truth and true Israel of his whom you yet defie this makes Schoolmen like Schoolboyes under the rod when they are taken tardy in their exercise and see they are like to be whipt for it cry spare us in that their School-masters the Pope and Councels have overtaskt them and set them
reasons for baby-baptism be strong and solid your Reader if rational will receive them if weak as you say they are he is a Reader scarce worth writing reason to who will be prevailed with by your desire so to cover their weakness as in charity to suffer himself to be overcome and carried away by them notwithstanding that their weakness to close with you in your cause and to be beaten into a belief of your baptism as good though it hath but broken reeds and bulrushes to maintain it by the force of bare beggings and beseechings or if in this request of yours to us to cover the weakness of your Arguments your meaning is not that we should be so silly as to build our belief and practice upon them though weak by your own confession whose they are but onely that we should not publish discover and divulge their weakness to the world but in charity be content to think our think or to see and say nothing truly Sirs what others will do at your request in this kind I know not but I assure you I cannot possibly for my part grant your desire in this case forasmuch as your selves have engaged me several waies not to be silent on pain of giving away the cause which if it were onely my own too the matter were so much the less you should have it with all my heart yea verily and my own life too to do your souls good for I know I could freely part with it to be a means of effecting your salvation but since it is the cause of God which he hath intrusted me with the pleading of against you who presume to enter the lists against it with such silly tools and weak weapons on behalf of a Babish-baptism which is not from heaven but of men I dare not give place so far as in foolish pitty to spare the Cittie Babylon or in Charity not to bewray a Breach or weakness in her walls of defence when I spie it for that were in Charity to betray the truth of of God and such Charity is more Antichristian by far then Christian what ere you call it and such as could have small hope of acceptance before God however esteemed of among men wherefore I desire you to have me excused if I cannot in charity cover the weakness of your Arguments for in Charity to poor souls that are led aside from the way of truth by your piteous pious pretences and weak reasonings for your way and I am concerned in the very next place after I have done with this of yours to the Reader to discover to the world the weakness of them besides sith you have made so bold with your selves as to proclaime the weakness of your own Arguments for Infant-baptism I hope the Counties of Kent and Sussex will consider this that their choise Ministry that stood up to maintain Infant-Baptism at Ashford did after in their own Account theerof give out of their own accord that there was weakness in the Arguments they brought for that purpose men mutire nefas I hope it shall be no offence to you for me to second you in your own saying 't is you who have publisht your arguments to be weak my business shall be only publickly to prove them so to be as you assert them yet if it be offensive to you it shall be no wonder to me for I know already that you can bear it better to have your Disputation ly under disgrace and disparagement under shame and censure of weakness from your selves in print then from your supposed Adversary and true Friend my self so much as in a private Letter only and that some men as the Proverb is may more safely steal the horse then some so much as peep o're the hedge Pre. Not to suffer the cause to be wronged thorow the defects of those who had more zeal to maintain it then abilities c. Post. T is both usual and lawfull for us to judge of causes by the effects that naturally and necessarily flow from them for qualis causa i. e. naturalis per se talis effectus Retró e. g. Infant-sprinkling hath been a cause efficient and per se from whence much evil hath necessarily crept into the world for it hath been a means of confounding the Church and the World together of letting the Gentiles or Nations by whole sale into the outter Court of filling the world with meer nominal Christians and carnal Christianity whereby they have got advantage ever since to tread down the holy City and true worship and worshippers as Heresie Hereticks of bringing the nations into one Catholick Church whereof the Pope was universall Bishop or overseer for ages together thorow the eyes of his creatures the Clergy the very Stirrup whereby he and his Ministers who have blended themselves into a blind and beastly uniformity have become Masters of the Kingdomes and have got up to ride them a plea and president for traditions it being one it self which ever make Gods commands void and mens worship of God in vain an inlet of these and innumerable more mischiefs and absurdities for posito hoc uno absurdo sequuntur mille therefore it is undoubtedly an ill cause also t is lawfull to judge of a cause by the common Consequents which come from it not as caused properly but meerly occasioned by it and in respect of which it is called only causa sine quâ non i. e. that without which the other would not be and yet no other then the bare accidentall occasions of those effects which flow from something else as the cause thereof perse and most especially when those consequents are declared by the word of God to be such as will upon that occasion universally and unavoidably come to pass and thus we may give a shrew'd guess that our cause is good viz. that our Gospel Ministery Church-way and Baptism is the true one because we see it is seconded now and ever hath been with what it was of old seconded and foretold also that it should ever be even every where to the worlds end viz. divisions in families two against three and three against two the Father against the Son the Daughter against the Mother c. offences of friends and fleshly relations the account of Heresie and baseness hatred of men persecution cavils stits tumults about it by which things Christs people Gospel Ministers and Ministrations are ever proved to be his Luke 12. 52. 53. Math. 24. 9. 2. Tim. 3. 12. 1 Cor. 1. 27. 2 Cor. 6. 4 5. So that where there 's none of this I avouch the Gospell in its purity is not there though where these are the Gospel is not the cause for that is men lusts and flesh fighting against the light but the only the occasion whereupon they arise when Satan the strong man holds the house the goods are all in peace but when Christ the stronger man comes to storm him out there 's contention
a Theam which Scripture whence onely they must fetch all their proofs saies just nothing of at all This makes the Disputers the Divines to come abroad a begging in print among the vulgar as you here do saying cover pass by bewayling the weakness of their Arguments their defects in disputing their presumption in entring the lists their non-preparation for the disputation because it s not the true Gospel they disputed for a very stripling may make a Gyant give back if he have hold on the hilt of his sword and the other thrust hard against the blade 't is hard for thee O Saul to kick against the pricks a learned lawyer may be at loss in a lame suit Asinus ad lyram may play his part better and make sweeter musick then the most accurate musitian that hath nothing to beat upon but a board it may well put any but the meer Sophister to his shifts to prove the moons made of green cheese and so 't will any save the meer self-seeker that is set to serve it out of a sight that he can serve himself of it and therefore is resolv'd to make any Argument serve turn even libet ergo licet rather then leave it to prove Infant-baptism much more Infant-rantism to be a good cause and yet the more 's the pitty this is the cause you have to make good and have been so bold as to stand up for which though your wishes are here that it may not suffer wrong through your defects yet mine are much rather that you may not suffer your selves to be wrong'd any more or to be wrong'd for ever through its defects for howbeit it flatters you into an opinion of its ability to be maintain'd by you by its appearing ability to maintain you yet you 'l find ith'end that by its fair flourishes it hath flusht you into more zeal then furnisht you with ability to maintain it when it shall have brought you to your choice of one of these two ex quibus minimum est eligengendum viz. either of Repentance from it and all other your Parochiall dead works tithes and other traditions that depend upon it upon a sight and acknowledgement that you have been mistaken about these as well as other Romish Remnants that you have seen cause through the Parliaments eyes to renounce since that long since Lutheran reformation which after longer standing out will be so much the harder Chapter for you Clergy men to run throw or else which is worse then nought of perseverance in your evil waies and dead works against light to prevent the other which last the Lord prevent from befalling any of you if it be his will Pre. Who would not have presumed to have entered the lists c. Post. It had been no presumption in you had you been true Ministers of Christ and the cause you stood up in Christs cause indeed for grant it to be presumption in Uzzah to meddle in the publique service of the Temple and in Uzzah to put forth his hand to uphold the Ark and consequently for so you argue not we for men to meddle so as to minister to the Gospel publiquely in your Churches that are not in holy orders yet it is none vos Apello for the Priests or ordained Ministers of Christ to stand up any where in defence of Christs truth where it s traduced but rather duty which in speciall they stand bound to in that therefore you accounting your selves Christs Ministers do grant it to be presumption in you to put forth so publiquely when you saw it tottering you do no less then give the cause you stood up in to be none of his as indeed it was not but your own and that was it only which made it presumption and very high presumption in you too in that you durst enter the lists against the Lord Iesus in in his own ordinance and that with such weak Arguments such flags as slam'd like swords but alas such as could not bear the brunt when it came to blows here how much less will they in that battel of the great day of God Almighty which is now marching space upon you 'T is true therefore as you here confess you have been presumptuous and presumption is one of the most desperate sins that can be against Christ yet for all that in his name and as an Embassador from him thoâ—…gh otherwise an unworthy and â—…ver a contemptible creature in your eyes as though himself did beseech you by me I am bold to beg of you that you would not despair but come in and be reconciled to him presuming no more to stand up against him with such weak weapons as before least he tear you in pieces fall upon you and grind you to powder but sit down and humble your selves that you have stood so long in the way of Sinners so that they could not come to Christ through your Blurres lay down your arms and yield your selves prisoners to him stoop to that golden Scepter he yet holds out unto you own him as your King Priest and Prophet list no more against him but list your selves under him for he is gracious and will yet recâ—…ive you and baptize you with his spirit if you turn at his reproof and repent and be baptized in water in his name for remission of sins Pro. 1. 23. Act. 2. 38. become little children in such a sense as you should be that you may be baptized and then be baptized in truth and in token for your memory hath lost your traditionary token sprinkling that hereafter you will not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified but manfully fight under his banner against sin the world and the devill and continue Christs faithful souldiers to your lives end How happy had it been for you if you had took quarter from Christ before this time for he would have given it and forgiven all your enmity against him in his truth but you are stiff-blades and your words have been stout against him you Clergy men are Lords you will not come neer but I beseech you become Lord beggars at the throne of grace as Brightman said truly the Bishopâ—… were for earthly honor at the thrones of Kings and Princes that you may have more of that grace and holiness to worship God with reverence according to his own will which God gives to all humble Suppliants then had you less learning and living then you have and more disgrace in this world then ever any Synods of you had reverence or Arch-Bishops grace or Popes holiness you would never find occasion to bewail your losses or repent of your change or reject the councel of God against your selves out of his mouth who is a serious Sollicitor botâ—… from God to you that you would be and to God for you that you may be in the acknowledgement of his truth no less then happy for ever Pre. Where there was so great expectation c. Post. There was great
Sirs as far as that example is of force it overturns your turn who use it in the thing in order to which you alledge it and overthrows you clearly in your question as you state it and in your tenet of a right to baptism for only believers infants exemplifying rather if the example were to be heeded the baptizing not of such infants only as are born of believing parents which we are against but such as are born of unbelieving parents also who se baptism your selves are against as well as we Ad hominem therefore I conclude and ab exemplo on behalf of unbelievers infants as your selves do from the same head on behalf of believers infants only thus viz. To hold that the universal Church or Christian world hath erred in so necessary a matter as baptism for so many hundred years is little less than damnable blasphemy But to hold it an error to baptize the infants that are born of unbelieving parents is to hold that the universal Church or Christian world which hath baptized in suo genere such as well as others hath so longerred in so necessary a matter as baptism Ergo to hold it an error to baptise the infants that are born of unbelieving parents is little less then damnable blasphemy Another Argument whereby you strive to evince your opinion viz. the baptism of believers infants above other infants and to evade ours viz. the denial of baptism to them both alike as desperate and ungodly is drawn from the danger of their damnation if it be denied them and the destructiveness of that denyal to all that hope that else may be had of their salvation which if it be of force doth it not cry out as loud against your desperate and ungodly cruelty on behalf of those millions of innocents of infidells dying infants to whom in opinion and doctrinally you deny baptism as well as we as it doth on behalf of believers infants who are no more innocent then the other to whom we deny it also for if it be such a business as not we but you and the rest of the right Romish Priests seem to make it the denial of which de jure facto damnes so down-rightly the infants dying without it that there 's no hope to be had of their salvation so you say or else my shallow noddle cannot reach the profoundity of your purpose in pettering out that pure pious piece of sense which with this Argument of yours is stuffed pag. 13. then it s high time as high a degree of charity as you would be thought to have towards a few infants viz. one of a hundred for scarely so many are true believers infants to the rest to plead for the baptism of unbelievers infants too and stand up in the cause of those innumerable poor babes that cannot speak a word for themselves against your Cruelties who deny baptism to them and deny all hope of their salvation to whom they so dying it is deni'd yea verily Sirs perswade us to that once and make us believe that popish trumpery that the deniall of baptism to any infants doth so much as doctrinally damn them and then I 'le plead for baptizing of infants in a larger way then you who confine it to believers infants onely viz. for the baptism of all babes and sucklings in the world and that least they die and so be damn'd before it be dispensed to them so soon as they are well out of the womb so far are we from that cruelty to infants which you commonly though not properly charge upon us that if we thought as you think but Sirs mistake us not for we have good ground to act more charity then your selves do to all dying infants could we think I say that their salvation did so depend upon their baptism that their damnation would be the issue of denying it we durst not be so desperately cruell as your selves nor limit it to some one infant of an hundred know Sirs we are tender in our construction of the condition of all that die in such minority as you sprinkle in before they have known or done eithe rgood or evil and are well assured there 's no damnation to such of what parents soever descended and as little need of your Rantism to their salvation but for you who are so seemingly compassionate and charitable to a few how churlish are you to a hundred to one whilst your cruel doctrine excepting such as are born of believers onely curses all the rest unavoidably to hell you talk much of your own charity to infants and our cruelty but truly Sirs I dare tell you that your tender mercies to that age of infancy are meer cruelty so long as in your childish dotage on some you send so many packing to perdition and as unchristian as our cruelty is it hath more tender mercy in it to the whole infancy of the world then all your Christian charity doth yet amount to for as you prescribe it p. 5. 't is our rule indeed but not your own presumere unumquemque bonum nisi constet de malo to presume and hope well even the best things and things that accompany salvation of all infants as well as some specially since it cannot appear that any of them have yet by any actual sin bard themselves or deserv'd to be exempted from the general state of little children declared in Scripture which is a right to the Kingdome of heaven but your Christian charity hath not carried you out so farre yet as to hope and presume well of infidels infants unbelievers infants or any unrantized infants though it cannot appear that any of these have by any actuall sinne more barr'd themselves then the other or more deserved to be exempted from that general state of little children declar'd in Scripture then the infants of the best believers in the world Whether therefore we who though we baptize no infants at all nor see warrant in the word so to do yet believe and that not ungroundedly nor as being more merciful then God shews himself to be to them the salvation of all that die in infancy or one who imagining as sillily as your selves that no baptism no salvation should thereupon for pitty dispute against you limiters of Gods grace for the baptizing of all infants in the world or your selves who supposing the same i. e. no hope to be had of their salvation to whom baptism is denied have yet no more pitty in you then to dispute for the baptism of believers infants onely excluding all other infants from it in doctrine though not all in practise which are no less then an hundred to one whereby not a moity onely but all save a small moity of infants in the world yea in the very Christian world in which the most by far are unbelievers are cut off at once from not the Church on earth onely but all share in the Kingdom of heaven also which of all these
Religion then your children are unclean and this is truth for so the children are in this civil sense if begotten and born out of matrimony whether the parents be believers or no buâ—… the other is not truth for whether both or but one or none of the parents believe the infants for that cause alone and without respect to matrimony are in no sense ere the more holy or unclean Thirdly and this will yet appear more plainly if you consider that faith alone in either one or both the parents begetting out of wedlock cannot sanctifie the seed so begotten with this civil holiness here meant no nor with that faederall holiness you plead for nor could it do so even then when that holinesse or birth priviledge you talk of was in force as now it is not viz. in the daies of the law for if two believers came together then out of marriage their seed were not onely base born and so unclean in this our sense but also to the tenth generation uncapable to be admitted into the congregation and so consequently unclean even in your own Deut. 32. 2. whereupon how Pharez and Zarah were dealt with it matters not sith they were born before the law was given Ieptha was exempted from any inheritance with his brethren because he was the son of a strange woman Iudg. 11. 2. and Davids unclean issue by Bathsheba that in the wisdome of God was taken away by death on the seventh day might not surely without breach of the law have been accounted holy and of the congregation if he had lived beyond the eighth whereupon your selves also are much fumbled about the holinesse of bastards and the baptism of base-begotten babies so that you scarcely know how to behave your selves about it though the parents sinning be believers at least en-churched in your Churches yea it s generally known saith Mr Cotton that our best Divines do not allow the baptism of bastards and though he is pleased to say they allow it not sine sponsoribus without Sureties yet I wonder sith Deut. 23 〈◊〉 2. Gods denial of such of old is made the ground of their denial of such now to enter into the Congregation as unholy that our Divines dare take on them to admit cum sponsoribus and so to go besides their own Rule viz. the order of things under the law wherein God gave no such allowance but to let that tolleration pass which they take to themselves you may learn thus much of your selves if you will that though wedlock without faith make a holy seed in our sense yet faith without wedlock in the parents can make a holy seed neither in our sense nor in your own nor any at all for the infants of the married are holy but believers bastards are both civilly and federally unclean inso much that your selves see cause to refuse as federally holy the spurious seed euen of those whose lawfull issue you unlawfully sprinkle Fourthly if you more seriously consider that the holinesse in the Infant here must needs be the fruit and result of that and that must needs be the cause of the holiness here spoken of in the infant quo posito ponitur sanctitas sublato tollitur which being in the parents a holinesse must necessarily be thereupon which not being in the parents a holinesse cannot be in the seed for positâ causà ponitur effect us sublata tollitur abstract the cause and the effect cannot be suppose the cause and the effect cannot but be now that which if it be not in the parents the holiness is not but being in them the holinesse is consequently in the infants 't is not the faith but the conjugal or marriage Relation of the parents for as for the first of these viz. faith it may be in one yea in both of the parents and yet no federal holinesse at all be in the infants witness Ishmael the seed of Abraham the father of the faithful and his Sons by Keturah also born of him after Co venant made with him and his seed in Isaac and Iacob and yet neither of them in that Covenant witnesse the base born children of true believers among the Jews suppose David and Baâ—…hsheba which for all the parents faith could not by the law be admitted in thâ—… Congregation nor have that birth-priviledge to be reputed holy which from the parents faith you universally intail to the infants moreover this birth-priviledge and Covenant-holiness by generation which did inright to Church ordinances which once was but now is a non-entity and out of date might be then when it was in being in children in whose parents faith was not found at all for most of the Iews were unbeiievers yet all their legitimate children were holy federally therefore faith in the parent cannot be the cause of such a thing yea if you will believe Mr Blake himself the strictest pleader for a birth-priviledge of federal holiness in Infants that ever I met with and that from this very place he condescends so far as to contribute one contradiction to himself toward the helping of the truth in this case viz. That faith in the parâ—…nt is not the cause of this holinesse whilst making the holinesse in this text to be a birth priviledge or Church-Covenant holinesse and to be the fruit and result of the faith of the believing parents and consequently their faith to be the sole and proper cause of the same he confesses flatly elsewhere page 4. that a loose life in the parent and mis-belief which is as bad in some cases worse then unbelief for which is worse to believe false things or not to believe true yea Apostacy from the faith which all if they be not inconsistent with faith I know not what is do not divest nor debar the issue from having that holiness which himself saies is meant in this text Babist Perhaps he means not by faith strictly the parents true believing but in generall his being in the covenant and faederally holy himself and so a cause of this federal holiness in the issue Baptist. First Paul means true believing here in 1 Cor. 7. 14. whether Mâ—… Blake do or no. Secondly what will he get as to the point in hand by his Synonamizing faith and faederall holiness for still neither the one nor the other is made here the cause of the holiness of the seed for the holiness here spoken of may be where neither of them is and may not be in the seed even where they are both in the parent as for example in Ezras time Ezra 10 3. we find abundance of the Jews both Priests and people that were in the faith or at least in faederall holiness yet the children were put away as unholy as well faederally as otherwise because their marriage was unlawfull and that bed adulterous wherein they lay with strange wives Ezra 10. 3. and that both parents possibly may be faithful and faederally holy and yet their seed be in all
senses utterly unclean is evident for the child of two believing Jews begotten besides the marriage bed was both a Bastard and also barr'd from the Congregation Deut. 32. 2. again this faederal holiness as well as faith may be in neither parent and yet the issue not be unclean but holy still and so are all Matrimonially and civilly at least that among Pagans are the issue of the marriage bed and with the holiness of the Covenant of Grace too when they come to years and believe themselves as not a few children of unbelievers do and sometimes the seed of Turks and Tartars this therefore i. e. the faith or faederal sanctity of the one parent nor of both cannot be the cause of this sanctity is here denominated of the seed for holiness in the infants is not alwaies when this is and sometimes it is in the infant when this is not in the parent which being of each without other cannot be between a true cause and its effect but as for the second viz. the marriage sanctity in the parents it is that which being in the parents holiness is naturally and necessarily in the seed that is born of them whether they be both or either or neither in faith or unbelief but being not in the parents there can be no holiness no birth holiness in their infants nor Matrimonial nor Congregationall neither therefore this is that which is the cause of the holiness of the issue in this Scripture the result of which and not of faith in the parents is this non-uncleanness in their posterity and so I have done with this kind of holiness and with this Scripture which speaks of this Matrimonial holiness and no other Thirdly Ceremonial holiness I call that same holiness which properly peculiarly and pro tempore only pertained to the whole nation and congregation of Israel denominating them all holy every one of them and distinguishing them from all other people and nations which during the time of the Iews pedagogy according to Gods own imposition were then accounted sinners common and unclean by a certain ens-rationis an extrinsecall meerly notional and nominal rather then either real moral or substantiall sort of sin and uncleanness to which the others holiness was directly opposite and answerable The subjects of which Accountative holiness were not only the people of the Jews themselves which were a holy people Deut. 7. ver 8. Exod. 22. 31. but also and more specially the Priests and more specially yet or in a higher degree but in the same kind of holiness for degrees do not vary nature the High Priests which were holiness to the Lord Exod. 39. 30. also their parents which were not matrimonially only nor often morally yet to allow your own phrase here because they were outwardly in Covenant with God concerning outward promises and priviledges on performance of outward ordinances every faederally a holy parentage a holy root Rom. 11. also their natural if withall matrimonial issue which were not at all in their infancy and but seldome when at years spirituaâ—…ly allwaies faederally holy branches a holy seed also their land of Canaan which was the holy Land their Metropolitan City Ierusalem which was the holy City their Temple which was a holy Temple the Utensills vessels 〈◊〉 and other accomplishments which were all holy a holy Lavar a holy Altar a holy Ark holy Candlesticks holy Cherubims most holy place c. and in a manner all things belonging to the Law of Moses and that first Covenant made with Abraham and his fleshly seed whether hollowed or consecrated by God himself or dedicated to him by men at his appointment viz. the first born the first fruits tithes offerings sacrifices daies feasts which were all holy and had relation as shadowes and types for a while unto things Evangelically Spiritually and substantially holy that were to be there after yea with this same kind of holiness some meats were holy some flesh Hag. 2. 12 13. was holy some birds and beasts were sanctified as holy and lawfull to be used and eaten when others were prohibited as prophane common and unclean not so much as to be touched without sin without contracting such an outward fleshly kind of guilt and impurity as made their souls in that ceremonial sense abominable yea with an uncleanness oppositely answerable to this carnall holiness those fleshly purities and purifyings that then were some actions as the touch of a dead body some issues of men and women some diseases as the Leprosie some bodily blemishes as crookedness dwarfishness blindness lameness yea the very easements and excrements that passed from them in the camp without covering did defile and render them sinners prophane unclean unholy and guilty before the Lord Levit. 5. 2. 3. 5 11. 43. to 46. also Chapters 14. 15. 22. also Levit 20. 25. 26 21. 18. to the 24. Deut. 23. 12. 13. 14. which deâ—…ilements did then reach to pollute the flesh only which the bloud of Bulls and Goats that could not cleanse the conscience morally did sanctifie to the purifying of Hebr. chap. 9. ver 13. neither do these things defile any man now in any such sense at all This is the holiness which when you say infants of believers are holy I have ground to perswade my self you Ashford Disputants mean not but rather some inherent morall holiness when I consider how you talk of infused habits in the hearts of infants in your Disputation and Review and yet again I have ground to believe you mean this holiness which was in the Jewish infants and their implements if I may imagine your meaning by what is extant in the writings of your brethren upon the subject specially if I may measure your meaning by Mr Blakes in his Birth-priviledge or covenant-holiness of believers and their issue wherein he laies himself out at large and yet is too short when all is done in proving from the like under the law among the people of the Iews and their issue that even now in the times of the Gospel also a people that enjoy Gods ordinances convey to their issue a priviledge to be reputed by birth not unclean but holy persons and thereupon to be baptized the absurditie and inconsequence of which doctrine and so I hope to make it appear now I am upon it is little less then if he had argued thus as the Pope doth from that time to this viz. there was an Hierarchy or holy principallity among the Priests under the law therefore there must be such another under the Gospel and as then the high-Priests Aaron and his Sons who were holiness to the Lord wore holy garments in their ministration for glory and for beauty viz. Coats and robes embroydered with gold and blew and purple and scarlet and fine linnen and curious girdles of needle work nnd miters and holy Crowns upon the miters so his Holiness to the Lord the High-Priest of Christendome Appollyon and his sons must thus swagger in their service and
lands they had sinned and p. 182. out of Pontan Catolog Through Germany Alsatia and Swedland many 1000s of this sect who defiled their first baptism i. e. their no baptism by a second a true one were baptized the third time with their owâ—… blood i. e. miserably tortured as some have bin in England also both old and new yea massacred and murdered by fire and fagot for this and other resistance of the Romish stream by racking headings hangings pinching with hot pincers stabbings and such like wayes whereby the self-preserving common-wealth of Clergy men that they might testifie their cause by the Neronean cruelty of it to be of Christ who in the 9th chapter of just no where charges all his ministers to impower all Christian magistrates to imprison spoil torment hang banish burn drown whip fine flea and destroy all such as in foro hominum Synodicantium non Dei deny his name have restored those that have to their offence been overtaken with the fault of unfeigned faith and true obedience in the spirit of meekness in all ages of their reign So that if either fear or fire or blood or water were sufficient there hath hitherto wanted none of all these to suffocate the disputers to lay the itch and quench the heat of disputes against infant baptism but as the hast of these times wherein God begins to find the magistrates othor work viz. to curb the Christian cruelty of that whore that hath thus rid them into rigor against the Saints doth forbid the the ministers to be so throughly provided with them as heretofore so modesty doth to use those knocking arguments now in these times of Orthodozism where in both the Clergy and their bloody tenet of persecution for cause of conscience are discovered dayly in their colours How little then the Authorities of fathers and Churches in case we grant them to come in thereunto can contribute to your assistance is apparent and now that those modern authors you promise your Reader such through furniture from viz. Calvin Ursin and Featley upon this subject and also such others as though you name them not here yet have improved themselves more singularly on that single subject then any of these have done as little help you if they be well heeded I come now in the fourth place to discover And first as for your worthy Dr. Featley he is so worthily defeated and disarmed of all his Artillery by Mr. Denn that it were but to attempt the stripping of a naked and encountring of a wounded man to meddle much more with his arguments which are all sufficiently secured and disabled from doing much mischief to the true baptism onely for his high charges of the Anabaptists as he calls them as a bloudy illiterate lascivious lying sacrilegious sâ—…ct whether they may not more easily be made good against the Clergy in general then against the generallity of them he calls so may possibly be examined hereafter And as for Calvin and Ursin t is true they are both against us in the maine but in some things so slatly against you in the mean that you have as little cause to brag of their assistance of you as the Kirk of Scotland had to blesse themselves in the help of their King and his party who though they were all against England yet were so eager against each other that they rather weakned each others forces for thus do you Ashford arguers for infanr-baptism and those two Champions you seem to crack of as propugnators with you of the same who are such strenuous impugnators of their opinions asseverations and principles about the point as to debillitâ—…te and raze them down as impious and impedimental imbecillities for they cry out as I have shewed more at large above Christus non adâ—…mit salutem â—…is quibus adimitur baptismus quantum damni invexerit dogma illud c. Christ doth not deny salvation to them to whom baptism is denied what mischiâ—…f that opinion brings that baptism is necessary to salvation few consider and the opinion that they are damned who are not baptized makes as if the grace of God were lesse to us then to the Iews c. and there seems no small injury to be done to the covenant of God not to rest in this principle that infants are not excluded from the kingdom of heaven who depart out of this life without baptism and more of this sort so that instead of being strengthned in your last arguments at least wherein you assert that denying baptism to little infants destroyes the very hope of their salvation which is as much as to say Baptismum esse de necessitate salutis and perditos â—…sse omnes quibus aqua tingi non contingit c. that baptism of infants is so necessary to their salvation that parents can have no hope of their salvation if it be denied thâ—…m and that inâ—…ury is done to the Covenant of God and that the Goâ—…pel is worse then the law if infants be not bapâ—…ized instead I say of being strengthned by these mâ—…ns testimonies you turn us off to contrary wise you are rather spoiled and stark 〈◊〉 of a moity of that argumentative furniture whereby you strive to stiffen your selves and others against the truth even of no lesse then one or two of those three principal pillars wherewith you under pin your false practise and fortifie it from falling flat unto the ground As for the other men that together with your selves are up in armes in this age for infant-baptism so odiously are some of them at odds with you and among themselves as also some of you are with them and among your selves that it s well â—…igh enough to render a wise man mad at least a doubting man more distracted then resolved to hear read and see the wonderful jars that are among modern Divines as touching the various opinions ends grounds and principles upon which they plead and practise in this point of infant-baptism For not to spâ—…ak here of the jarrs which the baptism of persons in infancy occasions necessarily between the preachers assertions of baptisms nature use offices ends and the peoples practicals and infants capacities not one of which in infancy appears to the preachers to have any of those things which they say baptism signs seals and is used for viz. regeneration real union with Christ by faith and incorporation into him 〈◊〉 of his spirit and confirmation of their faith by it c. nor one of many when they grow up to years neither the most of them whom they so incorporate into Christ and signifie to the world by baptism that they are without doubt so accepâ—…ed and eternally beloved of Christ proving wicked and rejected of him as much as those who remain unbaptized till they are at age of which jars Mr. Blackwood speaks plainly p. 17. 18. 19. of his storm to which as little or nothing to the purpose as Mr. Blake replies p. 41 42. yet he is
consequently that believers children do now you prove the Antecedent viz. that the Iews children did believe because God did witnesse it by setting to his seal circumcision which if it were Gods seal to them of their eternall salvation by faith and witnesse to the world that they had faith also that seal must be firm and that testimony true concerning them all being set to all as well as some so that unlesse they depart from the faith which you say God who cannot ly witnessed they once had and that your principle of not falling from faith will in no wise give way too they could not possibly void it by unbelief and so must necessarily and universally obtain the inheritance but sith t is most clear you selves also yielding it that they do not therefore assuredly one of these must be true viz. either that circumcision was not to infants in their cradels Gods seal of their eternal salvation as you say it was or else that that seal of God is not firm as you attest it is or else that God did not witnesse by it that those to whom it was set had faith as you say he did or else that Gods witnesse and testimony was not true which were blasphemy to think or else that they fell from that faith which at first they had in infancy and at the time of their circumcision and that self confutes you in another case among all which grant which you will to be true you must contradict and convict your selves of falshood And lastly if the end of Gods setting baptism to persons be no other then the very same with that of making his promises and sending his son meerly to let them know how he would have received them how sure his mercies should have been unto them but they would not not to speak of your telling truth here unawares viz. that mans own will rejecting God first and not Gods own will first rejecting them without respect to their fore-seen rejection of him in time is the true cause of their condemnation then as God makes his promises to all and sends his son in his love a Saviour to all so baptism should be dispensed to all without exception belonging as well as Christ himself tell they appear finally to reject him to every one as well as any one in the world but that being denied by both you and us doth shew that the end of baptizing a person is somewhat more viz. not to beget him to the faith before he doth but to improve him in it when he doth believe To conclude this whole train of stuff or long tail of that short shower of shot that went before it is not of so much force as a scottish mist nor scarce enough to wet a naked man to the skin therefore bear with my folly in sheelding my self so much against it i. e. in saying so much in answer to it for a wise man would have said no more to it but mumm Review The third argument is this Those that have the holy spirit that have faith the Anabaptists will not deny but are the subjects of baptism but children have so as their justification declares without which there is no salvation Hence it is that the adversaries are put to their shift s to finde out a new way for the salvation of infants dying in their minority viz. The presentment of the satisfaction of Christ without faith otherwise they conclude they could not be saved which invention of theirs destroies the Gospel covenant which is the righteousnesse of faith and either damns innumerable innocents whose right to the kingdom of heaven our Saviour hath declared or grounds their salvation upon a figment of their own brains such as the Scriptures are wholly silent in and the Churches of God never dreamed of They alleadge two texts for their proof Rom 5. 18. As by the offence of one judgement came upon all to condemnation so by the righteousnesse of one the free-gift came upon all men unto justification of life Rom. 11. 7. Election hath obtained it of which two texts the latter is nothing for them for it excludes not justification for the Apoctle saith plainly Rom. 8. 30. Those whom he predestinated he justified and though the elect onely shall be saved yet justification goes between The former is directly against them for it expressely mentions justification of life so that the Anabaptists must either prove that justification is not to go before salvation and so pull in pieces the golden chain by taking out the link Rom. 8. 38. or else that justification is not by faith and so destroy the Covenant of the Gospel till when they justly deserve the censure of damning all infants dying contrary to evident testimony of Scriptures and the sentence of our Saviour that to them belongeth the kingdeme of heaven And whosoever shall consider the impertinences of their proofs in a cause of so great consequence shall have just cause to suspect all their other doctrines and take heed how to take any thing upon trust from these new masters Re-Review Here is an argument hath neither head nor tail in it able to hurt for both have bin bruised already we having had to do with them before the one in the front the other in the rear of the disputation therefore no need to fear it yet sith it turns about again and Reviews us hisses in our faces and makes such a flutter as if it would both bite and sting us to death I shall secure it a little further how ever The head of the argument is this syllogism viz. Such as have the holy spirit and faith are the subjects of baptism but children have so The first proposition whereof you say the Anabaptists will not deny but I tell you what the Anabaptists will do I know not because if there be such a people in the world yet I never was so privy to their principles and practises as Dr. Featley and his fellows pretend to be who paints them out and presents them to the world in his title page as dipping naked and daily But in the name of 100s of them you commonly and abusively call so I mean the truest baptists that are in England I le be so bold as to deny it to be true without more for t is not the inward unseen seeds of grace and faith nor that invisible having of these which is the uâ—…most you dare or do affirm concerning infants but the visible having thereof so that we see they have them by the fruits effects acts opperations and professions that quoad nos makes a subject for baptism as for what is within it is nothing to us we are strangers to it neither can or may we intermeddle therewith till it shews it self without secret things belong to God onely and things revealed onely to us and therefore for your blind brazen faced minor wherein you positively affirm here again that children not specifying what children nor whose whether of
men at years but infanâ—…s being uncapable to act faith and it being not required of them therfore they may be baptized without it which conclusion you make without book to for the word warrants you not to make it why may not we when you call so universally for faith to every ones salvation or else saying assuredly they are damned return the like viz true no salvation without faith of persons capable to act it and of whom it s required but infants being uncapable to act it and it being not required of them therefore they may be saved without it Babist This conclusion is spoken without book and as unwarrantable by the Scripture as you say ours is sith the Scripture speaks as much of salvation by faith as of baptism upon faith and as little of salvation without faith as it doth of baptism without it therefore still we have at least as good ground to say infants may be baptized without faith as you have to assert they may be saved without it Baptist. No I shall leave you behind here for sith the Scripure speaks of the impossibility of infants believing and yet with all of their saluation as your selves confesse in your own interpretation of that clause viz. of such is the kingdome of heaven but no where at all of their baptism it shews that they may be saved without believing but shews not that they may be baptized without it besides to hold any of them to be damned before they have by actual sin debard themselves of salvation is abominable cruelty and breach of Christian charity with you who yet confesse that all of them have not faith p. 19. but to hold they need not to be baptized cannot bear the like construction sith t is acknowledged by them that deny their bapâ—…ism and by them also who absurdly assert to the contradiction of themselves that the denyal of baptism to them denies all hope of their salvation that they may be saved nevertheless though they die unbaptized so that whether we who hold that to them all belongs the kingdome of heaven though they neither believe nor are baptized before they die or you that hold no salvation to them without faith and yet hold that all of them have not nay that very few of them for how few are believers infants to others have faith whether we or you I say do justly deserve the censure of damning all or at least innumerable infants dying contrary to that evident testimony of Scripture and sentence of our Saviour that to them belongeth the kingdome of heaven and contrary also to the rule of Christian charity set us by your selves which is to presume well of every infant that he is in a good estate till he appear to be in a bad and by actual sin to bar himself and deserve exemption from the general state of little children declared in Scripture which is this that they have right to the kingdome let the most simple but honest Reader judge between us As for the two texts you say are brought in proof of justification of infants without faith viz. Rom. 5. 18. Rom. 11. 7. who urges the last of them I know not for my part I take it to be of no tendency at all either to your purpose or ours therefore I shall not trouble my self with it but the first of them which you say is so directly against us t is because you are blind if you do not perceive it to be an express downright declaration of a general justification of all from Adams sin as to life i. e. a resurrection from that bodily death which that sin brought upon all mankind and from which as there is now a universal return of every individual by Christ so there had never bin any returning for any one man in the world but by Christ to all eternity world without end 1 Cor. 15. 21. 22. Yea as universally as that judgement or condemnation to that first death came by Adam upon all men so that it spreads its black wings upon them all and brings them all down to the dust from whence they came so universally is justification unto life i. e the benefit and resurrection from that death from which else no one man should ever have risen come by Christ upon all men really and truly and not onely so but a capacity also and possibility of eternal happinesse and well being after that resurrection and all this whether persons believe it yea or no yea and a promise and certainty of it in case of belief in this Christ otherwise indeed a losse of the Resurrections becoming a mercy and benefit to them and a lyablenesse even after that escape of the first death that came by the first Adam to a sorer even that second death that lake of fire which by the second Adam by whom comes eternal blessednesse on believers comes upon all unbelievers and that for ever So that if there be no salvation to infants without justification yet ther 's justification of infants without faith or baptism either And whereas you argue from the cart to the horse from the justification and salvation of infants to their faith I argue from their non capacity to believe to their justification and salvation without it no salvation or justification without faith say you but infants are justified and saved therefore they believe if no justification and salvation without faith say I infants who cannot believe can neither be justified nor saved but infants so farre as they need justification for they have no sins of their own are justified and saved also for the kingdome of heaven belongs to them therefore there is justification and salvation for infants without faith To conclude therefore this opinion of you adversaries to the truth which allows no salvation to infants without faith puts you miserably to your shifts viz. either to find out a new way of coming by faith which Paul saies comes onely by nearing or else to damn innumerable dying infants who whilest they lived were uncapable to hear the word preached and so to believe or else as you do p. 18. to dream out a new kind of hearing whereby infants come by their faith viz. an inward wonderful miraculous hearing of some voice of the spirit within such a sigment of your own brains as the Scripture is wholly silent in and no true Church of God nor rational man but your selves who dream dreams and divine false divinations and things of nought deceits of your own heart and tell them to the deceiving of others did ever dream of and whosoever shall consider the impertinencies of your proofs in a cause of so great consequence shall have just cause to suspect all your other doctrines and to take heed how they take any thing any more upon trust as the whole world hath done now of old from these new masters the Clergy who instead of being ministers in truth or servi servorum dei have bin domini dominorum Lords
gift to them in any other the spirit works it but not without the use of means not per saltum and in 〈◊〉 ocul i. e. so suddenly as you fancy but by the discharge of that office he bears from the father to that end and purpose towards the whole world i. e. moving striving perswading inwardly whilest the word doth without inlightning convincing a man of sin in himself of righteousness to be had and of a judgement to come wherein we shall be saved or damned according as we believe or believe not accept or neglect so great salvation upon which motions and convictions which are stricter and stronger in some then in other foure some yield and believe and obey the Gospel and some for all this rebel and obey not so that t is true the spirit thus effects the business within us yet not so as that he is said wholly to do it without us he is the supreme efficient the operative cause of it but we are to be concurrent cum causa operante we have a part to do as well as he when he hath done his part towards us i. e. to believe which if we do not he will not force us he will go no further nor shall he be blamed but we and we not onely blamed but damnd for not doing it accordingly but if we do believe and turn at his reproof then indeed there is a promise of an infusion or rather effusion of the spirit in other i. e. those more special and peculiar offices of a witnesse to our spirits that we are Gods children a seal a comforter a reveâ—…ler of the things freely given us of God a supporter under sufferings c. all which it performes towards the Saints and in respect of which onely its called the holy spirit of promise Eph. 1. 13. in this manner the spirit of God in order to that sweet infusion of it self into us may be said if you will call it infusion for which a fitter word may be found to infuse i. e. to work faith other infusion of faith into men much lesse into infants or such a downright infusion as I suppose you dream on the Scripture makes no mention of at all Thirdly in that you say he is not bound to work it in all the children of Christian parent nor barred from working it in any of the children of infidels this indeed you must necessarily hold as you say for t is undeniable truth but in holding it you must wholly let go â—…ll you held before concerning believers infants appearing to have faith and that in contradistinction to the infants of unbelievers for first you use to say as p. 14. out of Act. 2. that the promise of it is to believers and their seed i. e. as believers seed and so consequently to all and onely their seed not the seed of unbelievers for quod convenit qua ipsum convenit omni soli semper belongs alwayes to all of one sort and not any man of another and thereby you use to bind the spirit unlesse he will bee unfaithfull to work faith as without which you think he cannot give them salvation in all the seed of believers for a promise that is made to such or such a seed quâ—… siâ—… must needs be sure as the Scripture saith Romans 4. 16. and made good or else God that cannot lie breaketh his word to all the seed to whom as such it is made But sith now you say that the spirit is not bound to give faith and salvation to believers seed nor barred from giving it to any of the seed of infidels which is as much as to say he is at liberty from all obligation of himself by promise to either of these above the other and to work it in which he pleases you will I hope unless you be more ashamed of seeming to have been ignorant then ashamed of your ignorance so as to give glory to God by confessing it relinquish that wonted position of a birth priviledge in this point in believers seed more tâ—…en in others which you ground and prove from that promise Aâ—…t 2. and ingenuously confesse that for ought you know the one hath no more ingagemeat of God to them by promise then the other so that unlesse there were more warrant then you have to single out one from the other as the special subjects of baptism and heirs of salvation you ought to baptize them all alike i. e. in very deed to let them all alone till you come as in infancy you confesse you cannot to presume what children have the habit of faith and what have not Fourthly whereas you say wheresoever the habit of faith is it inclines to holy actions when there â—…s opportunity and the season for bringing them forth whether this be necessary to be held or no yet wee l hold it to do you a pleasure in calling you thereby from your false cause for else its like to do you more displeasure in your cause of infants faith then you well considered when you penned and printed it for wheresoever faith is the opportunity and season for its bearing fruit and working by love and other holy actions is ever present and perpetual yea its never unopportune or unseasonable for him that hath faith to be acting obedience in one thing or other yea if any one say I have faith and have not works and holy actions much lesse if no inclinablenesse to holy actions that faith cannot save nor stand him instead faith without works being dead and profiting nothing therefore if where ever faith is it inclines to holy actions when opportunity and season for it is then I am sure there is no faith at all in infants for there is no opportunity or season at all in infancy wherein faith is found fruitfull in them and if you will say they have faith though you have no evidence of it and prove it is so because it is so then it is a faith without works and that faith is dead unprofitable and cannot save them Iames 2. and if so you would be better opinioned towards infants in my mind to hold them saved without faith then to hold they have a faith which cannot save them for better never a whit at all then never the better Fiftly whereas you say that this inclination to holy actions is not equally alike in all in whom the habits themselves are that may be so too yet Sampson and David are no such sufficient instances of it but that more sufficient might have been given for as there are many worthy things recorded which both these did by the power of faith Heb. 11. so he of whom you say he exceeded in acts of piety was in some things not to say as impious yet impious as well as the other besides to make comparisons between two such worthies as doing the one more good the other lesse both which by faith did no lesse the subdue and in their times fully deliver Israel from the
but suppose I say that there be at any time full five thousand newly believing in so short a time as one day if they could not be baptized all in one day they must necessarily they might lawfully for ought I know stay till the next but yet 3000 we read were baptized in one day neither is it such an impossible thing as you who stumble at every straw are slugg'd by every rub and look on duty with such difficulty as if a Lyon were in the way would seem to make it for 5000 to be baptized in one day Multorum manibus Grande levatur Opus Multorum manibus Grande levatur Onus Many hands of them that have love to Christ may both lessen and lighten that service and suffering that is sustained for him and make but then some performances and such I perceive it is to you tenderlings that make provision for the flesh to fullfill it in the ease thereof to dipp many or be dipped your selves in cold water or weather possible easie and pleasant and how many hands there might be at work at once at the dipping of the 3000 besides the hands of the 12. who as occasion was made use of others to dispense the ordinance it being an inferiour work to their preaching see Act. the 9. Act. 10. 1 Cor. 1. may be conjectured when the number of disciples were a hundred and twenty where if there were but forty dispensers with what ease might they baptize a 100 a piece and do themselves no more wrong neither with abiding in the water knee deep or a little more for half an hour together then he that stands deeper for almost a day together and washes many a hundred sheep as I have known some do and that not by plunging onely but longer padling with each of them by farre then need be in onely dipping persons and so letting them go again besides when once 3000 were baptized how many hands there were ready to baptize not 5000 onely but 5 times 5000 if occasion were and that quickly too is evident to any rational man that reckons it for it is a work which when it is once ready to be done is done in lesser time then I have seen taken up by the Parish Priest in his dropping and crossings and other font fidlings about an infants face and if you suppose it may ask so much hand for so many persons in so short a time as one day to make themselves ready for such a work I hope the same time that serves one to undresse and dresse in which may be some a quarter or at most not above half an hour may as easily serve ten thousand for as if all set at once to sweep every one his own door a whole City may be clensed in an instant so every one that is willing addressing himself to the work a thousand may be ready as soon as one And as for that other conceit of Mr. Blake which Mr. Simpson transcribes out of his book into his own letter in these words viz. that Paul when he was baptized by Ananias was not in case by reason of his weaknesse to be plunged in water over head and ears as he was not by reason of his stripes to have gone in a deep river or pond when he baptized the Iaylor it is as wisdomlesse as any of the rest for what if he were taken out of the stocks in the inner prison had such stripes that his convert was fain to wash them was he therefore so unfit or was it such a strange adventure as Mr. Blake proclaimes it to wade in the water for such a work as the dipping a few persons could that water that toucht his legs while he waded be more mischievous to him then the water that washed the blood of his stripes and when he was baptized himself what though he had fasted three daies from food in that sudden extasie of his mind which time its like he spent in fasting and prayer to the Lord for behold he prayeth saith the text yet I trow as dainty of danger as our Clergy men are that dare dip their fingers but not their feet in cold water for Christ that voluntary keeping under of his body did rather fit then unfit him for burial with Christ in baptism which his proud flesh would else not have stoopt to Surely Sirs you are men that make so much of every little for Christs sake that Crosses and diseases your flesh that you will hardly ever commend your selves as the ministers of Christ did of old 2 Cor. 6. 5. 6. c. 2 Cor. 11. 26. 27. in much patience in afflictions yea in necessities in stripes and imprisonments in tumults in crossings in labours in perils of waters in wearinesse in painfulnesse in watchings often in hunger and in thirst in fastings often in cold and nakednesse in indurance of hardship as good souldiers of Christ 2 Tim. 2. which sith you decline with all the might you can rather then expose your selves freely to for truths sake therefore the Lord have mercy upon your persons your ministeriall capacity will be cashiered Rantist Well what if it was so in the primitive times that total dipping was the custome must it therefore needs be so now will it follow that we must follow their fashion in that particular there may be sundry reasons whereupon they might baptize in such a manner then and yet no reason at all why we should tie our selves to the same Baptist. If it was so what do you speak suppositively of it still nay verily I hope you will not be so obstinate as to deny for all your gainsaying it hitherto but that it was so then for sure enough it was otherwise then in that way of sprinkling or powring nose dripping or face dipping either which are in use amongst you and keep it out at swords point as long as you can yet you will be forct to yield to it in the end when you consider that your own parâ—…y are fain to flag so far in this case as to confesse it for not onely Tilenus reacheth us that heretofore submersion was the way of baptizing rather then aspersion but Dr. Featley also furnishes us as I have shewed above with as much as we desire and if it be once granted as it is in a manner already by not a few if not all but Mr. Blake why else do they trouble themselves and the world to render reasons why it might be by submersion in the primitive ages and places of baptizing but not so now I know no reason worth a rush on which we can be held excused from baptizing by submersion as they did Rantist T is true it is confest by some and if it were granted by all that baptism was then by dipping it were not so material to your cause nor would you get so much ground by it sith both such as flatly agree to it and such as see not cause to agree to it so fully as some do
are all agreed in the grand reason why it was so then and why it may not be so now at any hand viz. the different temper of those climates wherein baptism first began and of ours wherein it now is practised theirs being so hot that there could be no danger by dipping in the coldest times ours so cold that it cannot but be very dangerous if not destructive to life and health I grant saith Dr. Featly that Christ and the Eunuch were baptized in the river and that such baptism of men especially in the Hotter Climates hath been is and may lawfully be used but the question is whether no other baptizing is lawfull or whether dipping in Rivers be so necessary to baptism that none are accounted baptized but those that are dipped after such a manner usitatior olim fuit c. submersion was more usual in Judea and other warmer Countreys saith Tilenus then aspersion notwithstanding sith submersion may prove prejudicious to the health specially of such tender infants as for the most part are baptized now a dayes we suppose the Church may use which she pleases and saies Mr. Baxter if it were otherwise in the primitive times it would be proved but occasionall from a reason proper to those Hot Countreys and saith Mr. Cook though it were granted that in those Hot Countreys they commonly washed by going down into the water and being dipped there whether in ordinary or ceremonial or sacramental washing that will no moee inforce on us a necessity of observing the same in baptism now then the example of Christ and the Apostles gesture in the sacrament of the supper ties us to the same which was leaning and partly lying which was their usual table gesture then now the ordinary table gesture which is usual among us is most fit so the usual manner of washing among us is most fit to be observed in baptism and that is by powring as well as by dipping so you see these men are all of a mind that is was or at least might be so possibly in the primitive times but if it were yet not so in ours in regard of the coldnesse of our climate Baptist. Then it seems we shall have it amongst you pro confesso that in the Apostles dayes the way was dipping for though Mr. Cook keeps a loof off in his hypotheticals saying though it were granted and Mr. Baxter who borrowes well nigh all he saies against dipping from Mr. Cook Cookes it out but conditionally saying if it were otherwise yet Tilenus takes our part plainly and the Dr. drawes neerer to us then so giving it for gone that in those Hot Countryes baptism in rivers was then used onely whether such manner of dipping in rivers be so necessary to baptism in all countreyes this we say saies he is false and so for ought I see you say all But Sirs first I pray tell me from the very bottom of your consciences whether you can conceive that Christ hath appointed two sorts of baptism viz. one kind of baptism for Iudea and those regions round about Iordan and another for England Scotland France Spain Italy and all the regions round about of the Romish Christendom whether he hath ordained two baptisms or rather two different dispensations whereof one is not baptism to be used in different places viz. baptism for the Hot Countryes and Rantism for the Cold or whether he hath not rather wild one onely baptism and that a true one to be used throughout the world Dr Featley Mr. Cook Mr. Baxter suppose the first but where 's Mr. Blake all this while their wonted Coâ—…diutor in the cause verily he leaves them a little here and lends us his hand who hold that Christ gave order and commission for no more then one way of baptism in all Nations for howbeit he finds in his heart to let Rantism passe for currant baptism among them that take the liberty to maintain and use it for fear of cold p. 4. yet whatever way of baptism the commission was given out for in those Hotter Countryes whether submersion or infusion for a spersion he ownes not to be it however the very same way and no other he holds the commission to be for in the coldest Nations under heaven and this will appear if what he saies in his 9. p. be considered where after he had used this argument to prove that total dipping was not the way of the primitive baptism viz. because the conversion of disciples and so consequently their baptism hapned sometimes to be when there was no season for dipping the element of water being over cold for that service he speaks thus in way of answer to an objection viz. if any object that in those Hotter Countryes there was no danger in the coldest times I answer saith he The Commission being for all nations disciples were made in all Countries how soon came the word to this nation c. In which words he is void of common sense that doth not discern Mr. Blake siding with us saying that the way of baptism should be one in all ages and places and asserting quite contrary to his fellow disputers against dipping so far as to confute them to our hands for whereas they all uno ore with one consent cry out that the reason why they baptized by dipping in the primitive time was because Judea and the regions round about were Hot Countryes but England is a colder climate and therefore we need not baptize the same way as they dâ—…d he Tells them plainly that the heat of those Countries could be no reason why they should use totall dipping then more then other nations because the commission for baptizing was one and the same to all Nations and disciples were then made in all Countryes as well as in Iudea in cold Countries as well as in hot yea how soon saies he came the word to England it self baptism therefore in his account should be the same in England as in Iudea not by dipping in Iudea more then in England because that was a hot Country and this a colder but the commission is a like in all places cold and hot this is the sense those words of his sound forth but if Mr. Blake were silent in this case the Scripture speaks loud enough that there is but one baptism for all Nations and no Rantism ordained for any for then the commission must include Christs willingnesse to dispense with colder climates in this point and in our understandings at least run thus viz. go and teach all nations baptizing them that live in hotter countryes and rantizing them that live in colder climates he that believeth and is baptized if he live in Iudea or any Hotâ—…er Countrey or is but rantized if he live in England or any cold Countrey shall be saved in which silly unsound sense to understand those Scriptures is to be silly indeed and without either sense or understanding and yet thus it may be understood if this be the
the truth yet many that are baptized do run out to very vise opinions and practises no better then their principles and stop not there indeed as he saies but go much further and degenerate into wayes of wickednesse more abominable then ever in former time and of these Ranters Mr. Copp is none of the least attainers whom Mr. Ba. p. 148. hath very well set forth in his colours for I believe God in Iustice hath given him up and many other besides him to more notoriousnesse of error and enormity then ever any that profest godlinesse But what then shall we impute that fault to his being baptized I trow not for howbeit Mâ—… Ba. so imagines yet it was because he honoured not the truth when he had owned it nor walked in Christ after he had received him in which case how often God gives over to strong delusions is evident not only by the word which declares that when men like not to retain God in their knowledge he oft gives them over unto vile affection But also by sad experience in the world in these last times wherein 2 Pet. 2. 1. 1 Tim. 4 1. and the 2. 3. 1. doctrines of divels are rise among them that once owned the faith yet the faith not a whit in fault for all that but departure from the saith before expressed And that the fall of these men is into worse then ever before it is no argument against but rather for the way they newly fall from the sensuality of such as separate themselves from the true Churches in the later times i. e. congregational after these are once separated from the false ones i. e. the nationall being prophesied of 2 Pet. 2. Iude 19. of old that it should be greater then that of all beastly men that were before them besides corruptio op imi pessima the higher the rise into reformation the more desperate the fall into deformation of those that reform and prove deformed again that greater depth of hell therefore men fall into that fall from us proves the hight of our Churches to be neerer heaven then that of yours for if after they have escaped c. 2 Pet. 2. 20. 21. 22. when Cop was in his standing in the Church of England I remember very well for I knew him better then then ever since he had some bounds from conscience to his corruption but having been once inlightned higher then Mr. Baxter ever was yet in the will and way of God and tasted of the heavenly gift and made a partaker of the holy spirit and obeyed the truth as it is in Jesus and yet fallen away his conscience is feard with a hot iron and I have small hope of his renewing against by repentance who thus denies the Lord that bought him and cruçifies the Lord afresh and is twice dead pluckt up by the Roots a raging wave of the sea foaming out his own shame But what is all this to those that yet walk in truth of baptism more then to warn them that they depart not from it as he hath done lest they come into the same condemnation with him doth it prove baptism to be the cause of that grosness that often followes when a person is baptized in no wise for his non abiding in the love of the truth and that doctrine of Christ gives God occasion to give over to the height of wickednesse I appeal therefore to the conscience of Mr. Baxter 1. Whether the Pope may not by as good consequence charge all these errors that are upon Protestanism saying Thus the Protestants stop not there but run out further from Episcopacy to Presbytery and to Independency and so to Anabaptism and so to all it is true Protestanism is occasioâ—… or causa sine qua non for such as sit still in the smoak of the Popes Traditions are not acquainted with the new found fancies of the Ranter But Protestanism is not the true cause 2 Whether Mr. Ba. be so well aware as he should be what time of day it is when Peter and Iude point out these things so plainly and yet he wonders at them as a Mystery 3. Whether the few owning and the few abiding in the true way of baptism doth not prove it to be the streit and narrow way that leads to life which few find 4. Whether he think we lay not to heart their misery and madnesse that run off from us as well as he and strive not to warn and watch over them as much as he and if so why he blames us more then himself that do what we can so many run to ruin besides some he names were never baptized though neer it as Mr. Saltmarsh 5. Whether it be just to load them that still stick to the truth with the blame of all their blasphemies that go off from it Tâ—…s true the way of truth will be evil spoken of by the Priest by reason of the madnesse of the false Prophet 2 Pet. 2. 2. but that is ought let every reasonable man examine The Rantizer renounces his sprinkling and is baptized in truth and after renounces that and runs on to be a Ranter and then all is reckoned to his baptism poor truth may say quum remini obtrudi potest itur ad me every one shifts it off from himself and truth must carry the scandal and baptism bear the burden of all the Priest and his people are they by whom the false Prophet and his people they by reason of whom the way we walk in is evil spoken of but vae illis per quos vae illis presertim propter quos veritatis via blaspemabitur quam optimum esset utrisque si nati non fuissent Mat. 18. 7. 26. 14. 2 Pet. 2. 2. What force therefore is in this Argument to conclude against the truth of our way yea what absurdity is in all Mr. Baxters Arguments against us you see in all which he sits beside the cushion yea and indeed the whole bulk of them is nothing but a thing full of emptinesse Rantist I would fain see you answer that book as nothing as it is I believe it is more then ever will be answered by any to any purpose Baptist. First there is a great part of his book needs no answering from us being such an absurd aberration from what we hold and practise in contradistinction to him to other things which he undertakes to disprove though we and who doth not do join with him fully in them and do hold as he does as namely almost all those 7 or 8 Arguments from page 125. to page 138. wherein he spends himself mostly in declaring against judgements and practises that are no more ours nor any ones else that I know of more then his own for who holds Christians children quâ Christians children i. e. without their own personal profession of faith and Christianity in which case heathens children may be baptized also are to be baptized when they come to years any more
of the unity of the Church are departed shall be the very same that you Protestant Clergy do make in your own defence when you are charged by your old father Caiphas and his Catholicks as Hereticks and Schismaticks in your rending from them and as infringers of the unity of their Church yea in the very words of Calvin to whom you my Ashford opponents are pleased to send us who saith thus of them as I do with him of you all Inst. l. 4. c. 2. S. 2 Magnifice quidem c. They do indeed gloriously set out their Church unto us that there should seem to be no other Church in the world and afterward as though the victory were gotten they decree that all be Schismaticks that dare withdraw themselves from the obedience of that Church that they paint out and that all be Hereticks that daâ—…e once mutter against the doctrine thereof But by what proofs do they confirm they have the true Church S. 1. If the true Church be the pillar and stay of the truth it is certain that there is no Church where lying and falshood have usurped the dominion S. 3. There is therefore no cause why they should any longer go forward to deceive by pretending a false colour under the name of the Church which we do reverently esteem as becommeth us but when they come to the definition of it not onely water as the common saying is cleaveth unto them but they stick fast in their own mire because they put a stinking harlot in place of the holy spouse of Christ that this putting in of a changling should not deceive us be side other admonitions let us remember this also of Augustine for speaking of the Church he saith it is it that is sometime darkned and covered with multitude of offences as with a cloud sometime in calmnesse of time appeareth quiet and free sometime is hidden and troubled with waves of tribulations and temptations He bringeth forth examples that oftentimes the strongest pillars either valiantly suffered banishment for the faith or were hidden in the whole world S. 4. In like manner the Romanists do vex us and make afraid the ignorant with the name of the Church whereas they be the deadly enemies of Christ. Therefore although they pretend the Temple the Priesthood and other such outward shews this vain glistering wherewith the eyes of the simple be dazled ought nothing to move us to grant that there is a Church where the Word of God doth not appear for this is the perpetual mark wherewith God hath marked them to he his He that is of the truth saith he heareth my voice Again I am the good shepheard and I know my sheep and am known of them my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me And a little before he had said that the sheep follow their shepheard because they know his voice but they follow not a stranger but run away from him because they know not the voice of strangers Why are we therefore wilfully mad in judging the Church whereas Christ hath marked it with an undoubtful sign which wheresoever it is seen cannot deceive but that it certainly sheweth the Church to be there but where it is not there remaineth nothing that can give a true signifition of the Church for Paul rehearseth that the Church was builded not upon the judgements of men nor upon Priesthoods but upon the doctrine of the Apostles and Prophets but rather Jerusalem is to be severally known from Babilon and the Church of Christ from the conspiracy of Satan by that difference wherewith Christ hath made them different one from another He that is of God saith he heareth the words of God ye therefore hear not because ye are not of God In summe forasmuch as the Church is the kingdom of Christ and he reigneth not but by his word can it be now doubtful to any man but that those be the words of lying by which Christs kingdome is feigned to be without his scepter that is to say without his holy word 5 But now whereas they accuse us of Schism and Heresie because we both teach a contrary doctrine to them and obey not their lawes and have our assemblies to prayers to baptism to the ministration of the supper and other holy doings severally from them it is indeed a very sore accusation but such as needeth not a long or labor some defence they are called Hereticks and Schismaticks which making a division do break in sunder the communion of the Church And this communion is holden together with true bounds that is to say the agreement of true doctrine and brotherly charity whereupon Augustine putteth this difference betwixt Hereticks and Schismaticks that Hereticks indeed do with false doctrine corrupt the purenesse of faith but the Schismaticks sometime even where there is like faith do break the bond of fellowship But this is also to be noted that this conjoining of charity so hangeth upon the unity of Faith that faith ought to be the beginning thereof the end and finally the only rule Let us therefore remember that so oft as the unity of the Church is commended unto us this is required that while our minds agree in Christ our wills also may be joined together with mutual well willing in Christ Therefore Paul when he exhorteth us to that well willing taketh for his foundation that there is one God one Faith and one Baptism Yea wheresoever he teacheth us to be of one mind and of one will he by and by addeth in Christ or according to Christ meaning that it is a factions company of the wicked and not agreement of the faithful which is without the word of the Lord. S. 6. Cyprian also following Paul deriveth the whole fountain of the agreement of the Church from the onely Bishoprick of Christ he afterward addeth the Church is but one which spreadeth abroad more largely into a multitude with increase of fruitfulnesse like as there be many sun beams â—…ut one light and many branches of a tree but one body grounded upon a fast root and when many streams do flow from one fountain although the number seeâ—… to be scattered abroad by largeensse of overflowing plenty yet the unity abideth in the original take away a beam of the sunne from the body the unity suffers no division break a branch from the tree the broken branch cannot spring cut off the stream from the spring head being cut off it drieth up so also the Church being overspread with the light of the Lord is extended over the whole world yet there is but one light that is spread every where Nothing could be said more fitly to expresse that undividual knitting together which all the members of Christ have one with another we see how he continually calleth us back to the very head Whereupon he pronounceth that Heresies and Schismes do arise hereof that men do not return to the original of truth nor do seek that head
what need else of causing the pulpit to be washed as I have heard one of our Kentish Clergy men did his after two tradesmen had preached there in his absence they think they are men meliore luto of some better mould and taller by far in Gods affections then the People are This conceit makes them go apart look upon themselves as sons of Anack their Brethren as Grashoppers shun commerce and society with them as with publicans and sinners In detestation of whom as not consecrated they say Odi Profanum vulgâ—…s and in a kind of proverbiall spel procul hinc procul este profani anâ—… as dislike of others so 2. Dislike of their own places is another cause of the Heresies of the Clergy the foot will be the hand or not of the body the hand will be the head or else will be no body at all the Servant regarding neither the Councell nor the command nor the Example of his Master who came not to minister to but to minister and gave in charge that there should be no dominion among his disdiples and bade them that meant to be greatest to be last and least would needs be above his Master and he that was sent greater then he that sent him and by this he entred exceedingly into error the Minister could not indure to be the foot to have the whole body of the Church stand above himself though sure if he were as a king is Major singulis yet he is Minor omnibus and must stoop to the vote of the congregation he could not bear it to be the hand onely to execute what the head directed in but he must be the head to give laws and ordinances of his own Corah could not be content with his place but sought the Priests Office the CCClergy could not be contented with such Shepheardship as the Gospel had at first but they must need be made Priests after that more pompous way of the law nor to be Priests onely in sensu diviso from all the Saints but they must seek the High Priests office too and have Arch-Patriachs Arch-Bishops Lord Bishops c. they could not brook it to be amonst the Saints as them that serve but they must be as they that sit at meat having all others to serve them and in no mean manner neither have some of their Holinesses been served when Kings and Emperours have stood bâ—…e before them bare foot at their dooâ—…s as Henry the fourth Emperour and his wife and son did at Pope Adrians gate before they were admitted to the speech of him and not onely so but held their stirrups also and lay down to have their necks trod upon by him as Frederick Barbarossa did to Pope Gregory saying non tibi sed Petro and was answered again by the proud Prelate et 〈◊〉 et Petro in a word have held it honour enough to kiss his feet In the state Absoloms ambition O that I were a Iudge was the cause of his rebellion and the same kind of aspiring mind after no lesse then all power both in heaven and earth Church and State too made the Clergy when time best served their ambitious turn to rebell so abominably against all civil power as not onely to exempt themselves fully from the jurisdiction of Temporal Princes but most wickedly to subjugate all civil power to such depency on them and their Lord God the Pope that when they have not been slaves to the Clergies Imperious will and carnal concernments he hath took upon him to act according to that power he claimes most blasphemously saying by me Kings raign to force them to surrender their crownes and sacrifice their lives too to his lust witnesse the case of King Iohn here in England and in scorn to kick off the crowns of Emperours with his feet and in testimony of their taking all civill power as well as spiritual to themselves Eugenius the second took on him within the Roman territory the authority of creating Earls Dukes and Knights as the Exarchate had done before him Helin p. 182. also Innocent the third held a councel in Rome in which it was enacted that the Pope should have the correction of all Christian Princes and that no Emperour should be acknowledged till he had sworn obedience unto him Helin p. 184. upon the same ambitious account Pope Boniface the eight by a general bull exempted the Clergy from all taxes and subsidies to Temporal Princes whereupon Edward the first put the Clâ—…gy out of the protection of him and his laws by which course the Popes bull left râ—…ring here in England He. G. p. 184. the same Boniface boasted one day in his pontisicâ—…l attire with the keyes of the Kingdom of heaven in his hand that all spiritual power was committed to him and the next day in the Robes of an Emperour with a naked sword born before him that all civill power was committed to him also ecce duo gladii hic yea after the translation of the Eâ—…pire from France to Germany the Popes began to make open protestation that the Pontifical dignity was rather to give laws to the Emperours then to receive any from them Helin G. p. 188. and as in the state ambition so in the Church the desâ—…re of a change from Membership to Mastership from Servantship to Lordship over the true Clergy is the true cause of the Clergies Heresie and Schism for being raised by earthly power and greatnesse they forgot the sal vation of souls sanctity of life and the commandements of God propgation of Religion charity toward men and to raise armes to make warre against Christians to invent new devises for getting money to prophane sacred things for their own end to enrich their kindred and children was their onely study saith Helin out of Guiciardine Geog. p. 188. 3. Gloriae secularis â—…ucupium a desire to be somebody Iudas Thudas Simon Magus are Instances of it which Simon sin'd and erred so grossely out of his vain glorious desire to be lookt upon as some great one as to offer to buy the gift of the holy spirit for money of which sin and error of Simon no men under heaven are more guilty then the CCClergy for as they endeavour to to get gifts and endowments for the honour office of ministry in the Church by laying out money at Schooles and purchasing to themselves degrees as if the spirit must undoubtedly gift men for the Ministry that mean to bestow themselves that way when once they are train'd up to be Masters of Arts in the university so to say nothing how they pay for their ordination and actual admission into the function it self when so fitted though themselves call it Simony or the sin of Simon to buy spiritual livings these with them we see are the gifts of the holy spirit yet such is their unsatiable greedinesse after glory and greatnesse in the world that as hateful a sin as Simony seems to be among them few of their
O Presbyters against Prelates Deans and Chapters c. without regard to the several disturbances that were like to be consecutive thereto yea the true subject and manner of administration of baptism which when it serves your turn so to do you call a circumstantial matter a ceremony for which if you should erre therein none but weak querulous consciences will complain and separate an indifferent thing for which why should we make so much ado a gâ—…at not to be streind at and such like is so necessary a matter one of the most necessary points of Religion which those that erre in do most fearfully erre and are totally deserted by the spirit of God these are your own words Thirdly you talk much and t is the language of the Pope to your selves since you reat from his Church of the Church and our holy mother the Church and Ghostly fathers of the Church and good and true tempered sons of the Church and the peace of the Church and Schismaticks in the Church c. wherewith you astonish the vulgar but I protest this day before God and men not onely against him against whom you are Protestants also but against your selves also his Schismatical sons who own his ordinations and still walk in some of his ordinances viz. Rantism Parochial posture c. as those that are little lesse ignorant then he and his good sons of both the true Church and true peace thereof whilst the truth to which she should submit is not regarded by you and the very things that make a true visible Church and are de esse and constitutive of it so that abstract them and you null it viz. true matter i. e. believers baptized and true form i. e. free and not forced fellowship both which are so in the Churches of England Scotland Italy France and Spain are not onely wanting but also trodden under your feet Fourthly the peaceable way wherein we propagate these opinions were you as sure they are erroneous as I am tha tyou'l once find them to be truth will yetexcuse and acquit us from all guilt of disturbing the peace of either the world or your Church which is the world in reference to the true one and unlesse you can say the Gospel of peace which where ere it comes occasions dissentions is the cause of them as in no wise it is but mens lusts rather that rage and take on against it you cannot say our Gospel is for it propounds them to the world in no other way then that and that way was no other then bare propounding them and as Christ and his disciples did not judge them here though they will judge them most severely hereafter who reject their words by the power of the Magistrate by the civil sword by nailing to pillories cutting off ears slitting noses whippings fines confiscations prisons bonds banishments fightings fire and fagot the bloody wayes whereby BBBabilon hath edified it self to that height of abomination the Arguments whereby the CCClergy were wont to convert Hereticks quickly from all error to dust and ashes so if any man hear our words and reject them well may we rebuke him sharply as they also did but we judge him not in that way whereby the Tribe of Levi that hath levied war for his lusts sake against the whole earth hath bereft all men of peace neverthelesse the words that we speak to him being those that Christ and his disciples have spoken in the world the same will judge him at the last day Secondly why sith it must needs be supposed there be many Godly men among the Ministers of the Nations though the most of them be wicked yet I do not except and exempt them when I inveigh so heavily against the CCClergy or why I do not rather forbear and spare to speak so broad at all and so generally as I do against that generation as an evill one for the sake of those good ones that are among them To which I say First that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 godly men properly are those onely that worship God aright i. e. according to his own will and institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which well weighed might possibly put the best men among you to your trumps to make good your title to that title and denomination of godly by Scripture record sith while you stand among the rest even you as well as the worst do preach and practise for doctrines of Christ some traditions of man if you had no more enjoined you by them on whom you wait for your instructions then barely the sprinkling of infants by which you make void what in you is the true baptism of Christ. Yet not denying but that there is a sprinkling of honest hearts quorum meliori luto sinxit praecordia Titan whom the sun of righteousnesse as he lightens every man that cometh into the world hath hatcht up into a higher predicament of Godlinesse then their fellowees who are drawn up into some higher streins of devotion then the rest I adde further Secondly what are these littles to the lump what is the gleaning to the vintage here and there one good man to the whole corrupt crue of them that like Locusts and Caterpillars have spread themselves together with the smoak of errors over the earth in three several swarms or armies can some scores of well meaning Priests give the denomination of an holy PPriesthood godly Ministry to those legions of them that lie in wickednesse you may as well say there 's a million of Saints among the men of the world therefore reprove not the world for their sakes such as these who out of meer simple honesty rather then sinful sophistry and mystical iniquity do stand and act and argue against the true way as they do are Rarae aves very few to the multitude of humanists and sensual ones and subtle subverters of the Gospel which yet they would seem to be Ministers of for their own ends by whom they are commonly so hated too so far as they have any more strictnesse and sincerity then ordinary that they are among the other of their brethren as I was for querying after truth while I stood among them as owles and bats baired by other birds which few good grapes were they better then they are cannot denominate the whole vintage as una â—…irundo non facit ver BBBabilon is BBBabilon still and SSSodom is SSSodom and must be called so though Lot live in it and he called out of it too unlesse he mean mean to perish with it Thirdly those good men that are there the mores the pitty that they are so ought not to be suffered nor spared but spoke to the rather themselves and that very roundly too for being and abiding in a bad way and not the way it self and those many bad men that are in it scape declaring against as bad because of them there must be down-right dealing with upright men when they are in a wrong way