cause you to consider whether those Sub-divisions and sub-separations among your selves do not befal you as a correction for your first dividing from others without a cause and to awaken you to review the grounds on which it hath been done Now to convince you that you have no sufficient ground to separate upon account of Infant Baptism and that you have great cause to repent that you have so done is that I confess which I chiefly design in this Charitable Address so far as it concerns you only You are wont to interpret the extent of Christs Commission to Baptize by what is recorded in point of fact touching who or what manner of persons were Baptized by the Apostles and others in their times and to conclude that no Infants were authorized by that Commission to be Baptized since as you suppose the Scripture gives no account that any such were Baptized But if this way of arguing were good it would certainly make against your own practice whether it make any thing against Infant Baptism or no. For then the said Commission of our Saviour would not warrant the baptizing of any such as you baptize to wit persons at age whose Parents were Christians when they were born and who have been educated from their Childhood in the Christian Religion for there is not the least hint in Scripture that any such were baptized in the Apostles days nor of any except Infants but only such as were Converted from Judaism or Paganism to Christianity and that presently after such their Conversion But if you think the lawfulness of baptizing such persons as you baptize may be deduced by way of consequence from Christs Commission though there be no instances in Scripture of the baptizing any such Then you cannot deny it to be lawful to baptize Infants if the lawfulness of it can be deduced from Christs Commission to baptize though there should be no instances in Scripture of the baptizing any Infants By this you see that your popular argument against Infant Baptism falls foul upon your selves and your own practice The difference then between you and the Paedo-Baptists must not be decided by examples in point of fact though if it should you would be far more to seek than they as shall be shewed afterwards but by the Doctrine of the Scriptures relating to Church-membership and Baptism which we will now come to consider and therein proceed gradually When any thing hath been wont to be argued from the Church-membership and Circumcision of Infants in Old Testament times in favour of the visible Church-membership and Baptism of Infants now and in favour also of the Nationality of Churches it hath been still replied and urged by you that there is this difference between the Church then and now to wit that the Church was Constituted then by Natural Generation whereas it is Constituted now by Spiritual Regeneration and further that what was sufficient to make Church-members then and to qualifie them for the initiating Ordinance is not so now And because this is a Corner-stone in your building a foundation principle upon which both you and the Congregational men in great part do found your separate Congregations therefore it will be very meet in the first place to examine what there is in this pretension That which is usually alledged for it is Rom. 9.6 7 8. where it 's said They are not all Israel which are of Israel neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all Children but in Isaac shall thy seed be called That is they which are the Children of the flesh these are not the Children of God but the Children of the promise are counted for the seed However you may have flatter'd your selves from the meer sound of these words to think them a strong foundation for your aforesaid notion and opinion yet being more narrowly looked into they will be found to subvert and utterly overthrow it For that which these words will directly prove is that Church-Membership or persons Relation unto God as his Children did not no not in Old Testament times proceed from Natural Generation or meerly from being Abrahams Seed according to the flesh The unbelieving Jews against whose pretences the Apostle here argues did indeed hold that because they were naturally descended from Abraham and Circumcised and kept the Law that God should be unrighteous and not make good his promise if he should not own them for his Children but cast them off as the Apostle in his Doctrine it seems asserted that he would if they did not believe but reject the Gospel of his Son And that upon which they built this confidence was in that God had promised to be the God of Abraham and his Seed To take off which pretence of theirs and to prove that God would act nothing contrary to his promise made to Abraham and his Seed though he should reject them for rejecting the Gospel he shews they were under a great mistake just as you are now in thinking they were the Children of God or of his Church meerly because they were descended from Abrahams Loins For saith he they are not all Israel that are of Israel which yet they would have been if somewhat else had not been requisite to make them so than their procedure out of his Loins in a course of natural Generation Neither saith he because they are the Seed of Abraham are they all Children to wit of God as after he expounds it when he saith they that are the Children of the flesh these are not the Children of God Ver. 8. But as he shewed from what this Relation of Sonship unto God did not proceed so he shews likewise from what it did by interpreting those words of God to Abraham but in Isaac shall thy seed be called That is saith he they which are the Children of the flesh these are not the Children of God but the Children of the promise are counted for the seed Now by Children of the promise is meant Abrahams spiritual Seed for they we see are opposed to Children of the flesh and spiritual and carnal are contra-distinguished the one from the other as Seeds of a different species or kind This is so plain as what can be plainer So that in Abrahams time and after we see those who were Related to God as his Church and Children were so upon the account of their being Abrahams spiritual Seed And furthermore in that any of the Gentiles being proselyted to the Faith and Religion of Abraham were with their Children to be admitted to the same priviledges with the people of the God of Abraham and to be numbred with them as they were it 's a plain case that their Church-membership or Relation to God as his people did not then proceed meerly from natural Generation and Relation they being Children of Abraham not according to the flesh but according to faith The same may be said of Strangers from among the Gentiles that were born of Gentile Parents in
Church of God When the promised Messias was come and the promise thereby fulfilled and a new Revelation made touching his being come and that Jesus the Son of the blessed Virgin was he some of them believed this and so kept their standing in the Church in as much as by that belief they continued to be the Spiritual Seed of Abraham as they were before by their former Faith Whereas the other Jews who did not believe this but opposed the profession of it in those that did ceased thereby to be so much as nominally or by profession the spiritual Seed of Abraham and so became broken off from the Church being now his Seed but after the flesh only This which is indeed the plain truth and easie to be understood is point-blank against your contrary opinion and assertion on which you much build touching the dissolution of the Church which had been Jewish when the Church as Christian did commence The belief of a new Revelation did not make a new Church but the Church in being before had thereby a new illumination and their faith changed into a belief that that now was done which they believed before would be done The Church considered as well before as after the entrance of the Gospel into the World is resembled by one standing Olive-Tree that had some branches broken off and others grafted in And as the same Church continued under the Gospel which did exist or was in being before so the very same Church-members kept their place and standing in it which were of it before except such as were broken off by unbelief And if so then those little Children which were of the Church immediately before their Parents became Christian did not cease to be so by their Parents becoming such nor by any alteration which the Gospel made For if those who were broken off were broken off by unbelief according to the Apostles express assertion Then unless those little Children I speak of were guilty of unbelief in themselves or had it imputed to them from their Parents they could not be broken off but still kept their place and standing in the Church of God But guilty of unbelief by imputation of it from their Parents they could not be for they were Believers Nor could they be any more guilty of it by any act or omission of their own than they were while as Abrahams Spiritual Seed they were of the Church before And therefore the only reason and cause of the dischurching of those who were dischurched not being found in those little Children they could not possibly be dischurched by any alteration which the Gospel made You may further observe how that such expressions are used in the holy writings of the New Testament as do denote the Children of believing Parents to be holy to be separated to God now as well as they were in old Testament times Thus when the Apostle speaks of the Hebrew Christians and their Seed of which the Christian Church was first constituted as the first-fruits unto God and how it was like to continue as the root or stock into which the believing Gentiles in part were already and were further to be grafted he saith thus in Rom. 11.16 If the first-fruits be holy the lump is also holy and if the root be holy so are the branches In old Testament times if the root were holy if the Parents Abrahams Spiritual Seed were holy the branches their little Children were holy also as coming under the same denomination with their Parents And we here see the Apostle asserts the same thing to be now and to take place under the Gospel dispensation He doth not say in reference to times past if the root were holy so were the branches but with reference to the time present if the root be holy so are the branches And as here St. Paul speaks of the Sanctification of the Seed of the Hebrew Believers so elsewhere he asserts the sanctification of the Children of the believing Gentiles when he saith The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband else were your Children unclean but now are they holy 1 Cor. 7.14 If we should read this Text according to your interpretation of it thus else were your Children Bastards but now they are Legitimate we should impose such a sense upon the Apostles words as would represent him as speaking untruly For certainly the Children of Heathen Parents born in lawful Wedlock were no Bastards although the Parents were neither of them Believers nor neither of them sanctified by faith or by means of the faith of the other Whereas the holiness of the Children here spoken of did depend upon the faith of one of the Parents if one of them had not been sanctified by means of the faith of the other their Children would have been unclean and yet not Bastards neither provided the Parents were lawfully Married before either of them believed If then your interpretation be not the true sense of the Text and you see for what reason it cannot then what can so reasonably be assigned for it and so agreeably to the current tenour of the Scriptures as those Childrens being separated together with their Parents from Heathenism to Christianity from Idols to God from being without God and Christ in the World to be related to him as members of his Church chosen and called out of the World by which they became relatively holy Unto all that hath been already said let us add in the last place that little Children together with their Fathers are expresly called Disciples Acts 15.10 Where it 's said Why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the Disciples which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear That which is here called a putting a yoke upon the neck of the Disciples was the urging the necessity of proselyting the believing Gentiles with their Children by Circumcision after the manner of Moses ver 1. Now the manner of initiating Proselytes of the Gentiles according to the Law of Moses was to Circumcise the Father and his Male Children too if he had any Exod. 12. And therefore the Children of the believing Fathers as well as their Fathers themselves must needs be understood to be those Disciples upon whose necks this yoke was endeavoured to be put This being the plain and genuine sense of this Text in all probability I must needs say it is but a faint put off and weak evasion to escape the force of the testimony given in this Text to the Discipleship of some Infants for you to alledge that it was the doctrine only of the false Teachers imposed upon the Parents and other grown persons who only and not their Infants were able to understand it that was the yoke the only yoke that was endeavoured to be put upon the neck of the Disciples here and that therefore they only must be here meant by the Disciples upon whose neck the yoke was
Abrahams House or bought with his money they being under his power to instruct and educate in the true Religion the Males of them were to be Circumcised and received into the Church as Abrahams Spiritual Seed This being so upon what account little Children were of the Church at that time we will consider afterwards In the mean time methinks from what hath been now represented to you from the Scriptures you should not but perceive that the Church was no more constituted by natural generation before the times of the Gospel than it is since And that therefore the spiritual Constitution of the Church under the Gospel is no more an argument against Infants Church-membership nor of the Nationality of Churches now than the like Constitution of the Church in Old Testament times was an argument against them then The next thing I would offer to your consideration is this That notwithstanding that the Constitution of the Church in Old Testament times was as well spiritual as that in the new and did as well consist of Abrahams Spiritual Seed as the New Testament Church doth and that there is no such difference between them as you have imagined Yet for all that the whole body of the Jewish people in Jacobs Line stood related to God as his Children and peculiar people Before they were incorporated into a Common-wealth and while they were as yet in Egypt God himself stiled them collectively considered his Son Exo. 4.22 23. And afterwards to the whole body of that people Moses said Ye are the Children of the Lord your God And again thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God and he hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself Deut. 14.1 2. Elsewhere they are stiled Saints Deut. 33.2 3. Psal 89.5.7 149.1 And St. Paul saith that unto them pertained the adoption Rom. 9.4 Now these several appellations Children of God holy people Saints peculiar people signifie doubtless as much when applied to the Old Testament Church as when applied to the New in the Epistles to the Churches And therefore there can be no difference in the general nature of the Constitution of the one and of the other Though there is a difference in the Revelation of the mind of God and of the way of Salvation to the Church then and now yet there is no such difference in their Constitution as that the one should be called carnal and the other spiritual for as those of the Church of the New Testament are said to be Saints by calling holy brethren Children of God a peculiar people so were those of the old likewise Considering then that the Old Testament Church was Constituted of Abrahams Spiritual Seed as well as that of the New and stiled the Children of God Saints a holy and peculiar people as those of the New Testament Church also are One of these two things must of necessity follow Either first that the whole body of the people of the Jews under the Old Testament and all the people of the Churches of the New who both came under the aforesaid denominations were all savingly holy and no Hypocrites among them or else secondly That some people are in Scripture denominated Children of God a holy People Saints a peculiar people and the like in other respects than that of saving grace or internal holiness And because we have no ground to believe that all those both of the Old Testament Church and of the New to whom the aforesaid appellations are given were savingly sanctified savingly the Children of God therefore we must of necessity conclude that they were and are so called upon some other account that is more extrinsecal than that of special and internal grace And what that should be is not necessary for me to determine it is enough to my purpose that it appears that the forementioned glorious appellations are in Scripture given to some other than such as are savingly sanctified But yet that which seems to me most likely to be it upon account of which others are stiled Saints the Children of God and the like than those that are savingly so is this to wit Gods chusing calling and separating them from other people in the World to be brought nearer to him than those others are in relation and in learning to profess the true Religion And thus such are Saints by Calling Rom. 1.6 7. of which I shall say more afterwards and of the manner how But thus there are many called when but few are chosen as our Saviour hath told us again and again Called not only by being invited but really brought to profess the true Religion in the sincere belief and practice of which Salvation is to be obtained when yet they are not the chosen of God in that emphatical sense which is peculiar to those who are inwardly in heart and Soul separated and devoted to God Thus all and every one are Gods Sons or Daughters that are called by his name as every one is that is called to profess his name and Religion Isa 43.6 7. Bring my Sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth even every one that is called by my name And according to this account and in this more general respect persons very unworthy in point of life and practice are Gods Sons and Daughters Deut. 31.19 When the Lord saw it he abhorred them because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters There are many that are Children of Gods Kingdom that will be cast out into outer darkness Math. 8.12 St. Paul writing to all the Churches of Galatia saith thus unto them Chap. 3.26 Ye are all the Children of God by faith in Christ Jesus and gives this reason of his so saying For as many as have been baptized into Christ as they all were have put on Christ viz. by profession And yet many of them were such as made him to write thus of them I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you unto the grace of Christ unto another Gospel Chap. 1.6 I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed on you labour in vain Ch. 4.11 And again I stand in doubt of you Ver. 20. Much more of this nature might be said and it might be further shewed also that the holy Scriptures stile such Saints in this more general respect and in a large sense which were far from appearing to be so in the more special and emphatical sense Instances of this nature might be given in Members of the Church of Corinth and other Primitive Churches as well as in the antient Jewish Church Compare 1 Cor. 1.2 with Chap. 5.1 and 8.10 11. and 15.34 2 Cor. 12.20 21. But I will not multiply words to prove that which appears so evident by a few as you see But if this be true which I have been proving viz. That some in the visible Church are in Scripture denominated the Children of God a holy people Saints a peculiar people in other
him to worse than being drowned in the depth of the Sea And this sense of the word offend exactly agrees with the common use of it in the New Testament But yet notwithstanding all that I have said I do not at all deny the emblematical use here of the little Child which our Saviour set in the midst of the Apostles which was to cure them or some of them of ambition and to perswade them to become if possible as free from it as little Children are And therefore tells them first that except they were converted and became as little Children they should be so far from being greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven the thing they contended about as that they should not at all enter therein ver 3. And secondly he tells them that the way for them or any other to interess themselves so far in his favour as to be made greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven is by becoming like little Children by purging out such ill habits of pride and the like which made them unlike to little Children in whom such ill habits had not taken place For saith he Who so shall humble himself as this little Child the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven ver 4. But then though all this is granted yet it must be considered how and after what manner our Saviour would cure this distemper in the Disciples by this emblem of a little Child And this he did first by intimating to them how free from pride and other ill habits little Children are till they have defiled themselves with actual sin And secondly by letting them know how very dear to him they are upon that account upon their not having actually defiled themselves with pride malice or opposition against him and his Gospel for which reason perhaps he numbers them with those that believe indeed so dear as that he takes what is done for or against them as done for or against himself And by thus discoursing to them of such little Children as that was which stood in the midst of them he instructed them touching the necessity of purging out ill habits and of becoming humble and innocent if ever they would endear themselves to him or become capable of entering into the Kingdom of Heaven or of being great therein By the way then by what hath been now said you may answer your own argument why you cannot think it probable that any little Children were said to be baptized when it 's said such and such were baptized and their Housholds Your reason you know is because it is said of some of them that all of those Housholds did believe Which yet is no reason to disbelieve little Children to be any of those all if the little Children of Believers are said by our Saviour to be Believers as you may see they are by what hath been now represented to you unless better reason can be offered against the sense argued for than what is offered for it THus far we have heard what our Saviour hath said touching the continuance of little Children in the visible Church under the Gospel Let us now hear what his Apostles say In the first Sermon they preached after they had received the Holy Ghost St. Peter used this as a motive to those Jews who had Crucified Christ to repent and be baptized for remission of sins for saith he the promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call Act. 2.38 39. This clause even as many as the Lord our God shall call shews that which I have been proving to wit that the promise of spiritual benefits or priviledges was not made to Abrahams seed meerly upon account of their relation to him according to the flesh but as they shall be his spiritual Children in deriving from him the profession of the same Faith or Religion which was in Abraham And so and upon these terms the promise was made to the Jews here spoken to as bad as they were and to all afar off whether Jews or Gentiles upon supposition of their being called and not to them only but to their Children also Now I have shewed before that the little Children in the Jewish Church could not have been of it no more than the Children of the Gentiles but by being some way or other called to it as they were whom God put under the nurture of believing Parents or Tutors and upon those terms the Gentiles Children might be of the Jewish Church too as the Children of the Strangers that were born in the House of him that was a Jew or bought with his money were By this part of St. Peters Sermon you may see that under the Gospel the promise continued to all such as were called both of Parents and Children just as it was before I mean as to spiritual priviledges The promise now is to as many both Parents and Children as God shall call and it was no otherwise before The Apostles words here run but according to the tenour of the promise of old and according to what was enjoyed in old Testament times both by Jews and Proselytes and their Children The Proselytes from among the Gentiles upon their being called were of old grafted into the stock of Israel and their Children with them and did partake of the root and fatness of the Olive Tree as the Apostles phrase is that is they were partakers of the same spiritual priviledges as Abrahams spiritual Seed were Thus the Proselytes were then and the believing Gentiles under the Gospel were no more they were but grafted into the same stock or Olive Tree i. e. into the same Church Rom. 11.17 I say into the same Church for that continued still though not all the same Laws and was constituted of Abrahams spiritual Seed as before it had been Which brings me to the next thing I would call you to the consideration of When St. Paul in Rom. 11.20 speaking of the unbelieving Jews saith because of unbelief they were broken off it doth appear thereby there was no discontinuance of the Church by any change made by the Gospel upon its first entrance This is implyed when it 's said of some Jews that they were broken off For it was the Church the same Church from which they were broken off of which they were branches or members until they were broken off But then the Church it self remained still in being at that time when they as branches were broken off and after also into which others were grafted The case was plainly this Before Christs appearance in the flesh the Jews generally both better and worse professed a belief in Gods promise of sending the Messias and that he should be of Abrahams Seed in which Seed all Nations were to be blessed By profession of which faith or this and the Religion of Abraham otherwise they were all externally Abraham's Spiritual Seed and as they were his Spiritual Seed they were the
respects than such as amount to saving grace or internal holiness Then your principle and the principle of others in the Congregational way cannot be sound when you and they assert That none are to be owned as members of the visible Church so as to be received into Church Communion who are not in the Judgment of Charity savingly sanctified For we see others than such are in Scripture account owned as really members of the visible Church And therefore the opinion and practice both of you and them in this can be no other than an innovation and humane invention and which hath been one principal cause of so much division in the Church and of the sad effects of it as we have already seen I have nothing to say against exercising as much Charity in your opinion of others as you can But that 's no judgment of Charity nor of truth neither to judg those no visible Church Members for want of saving Grace which yet are so in the judgment of God himself by the Scriptures And men should not pretend to be wiser than their Maker or think to find out better methods than he hath pitcht upon for the promoting his ends his own Glory and mans Salvation But when they do they lightly do in the total and at the long run but frustrate and disappoint those ends or greatly hinder them and promote those of a worse nature The Judgment of Charity in this matter is a rule arbitrary and uncertain and will vary as mens opinions and affections vary and he shall be a good Christian in the charitable judgment of some that shall be denied to be so in the judgment of others To set up this judgment of Charity for a rule in this matter is indeed a way like unto which there is none that I can think of so prepared and fitted to make parties and Sects in the Church as that is But to own all to be of the visible Church who are converted from a false to the profession of the true Religion and the little Children of such and the successors of such in the same profession until they desert the Church or are worthily and deservedly and in a regular way of proceeding Excommunicated is to walk by an open manifest certain and fixt rule which had it been duly observed would have preserved the Church in Unity and Peace which now is lamentably divided and disturbed by introducing other measures Which brings me to the next thing to be enquired into The next thing then which as I say we will enquire into is how or in what respect little Children were members and a part of the Old Testament Church and capable of the then initiating Ordinance And by what hath been before proved I think we may safely conclude that it was not meerly upon the account of their natural descent from Abraham or from Abrahams Seed according to the flesh For Abraham as he was Father to the Church or Church members as such it was not in his natural but his religious capacity that he was so it was as he was a believer that he was and yet is the Father of Believers And accordingly all that were of the Church whether young or old were so upon a religious account in one respect or other The Church is not a Natural Political or Civil Community but a Religious or Spiritual Community And therefore all persons and so little Children that were of the Church must needs in one respect or other have been persons of a Religious or spiritual consideration This I think is past dispute And yet I think that the little Children which were of the Church could not be looked upon to be in that religious capacity actively or by any act of their own while but little ones but were passively such This considered I know not upon what better to place the visible Church-membership of Infants or to attribute it to than Gods electing and calling them to be his people and their Parents dedicating and devoting them to God and his service First God chose them to be his people among the rest Deut. 4.37 Because he loved thy fathers therefore he chose their seed after them This was the adoption of which St. Paul speaks Rom. 9.4 Now Gods thus chusing them to be his people and declaring that he had chosen them as he did in promising to be their God was one degree of separating them from the rest of the World and by which they became a holy seed relatively holy I mean But this was not all but they became his people by Gods calling them to be so as well as by his election and promise The Lord by his Prophet stiled the whole body of the people of the Jews Israel my called Isa 48.12 By this call of his they were in a further degree separated to God as his people and differenced from the Heathen Nations that were under no such call Now God then calleth persons to be his people when he placeth them in such circumstances or vouchsafeth them such means as by which they do or will come to take him for their God and to imbrace the Religion which is of God Now as to the manner of this call it is either extraordinary or ordinary As for Abraham himself he seems to have been called by God in a way extraordinary by his appearing and speaking to him as he did in Mesopotamia Acts 7.2 But his seed and posterity were called in an ordinary way by being educated from their Childhood in Abrahams Religion by their Parents deriving it from Abraham and so successively from one Generation to another from Generation to Generation according to Psal 78.5 6. The Lord established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a Law in Israel which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their Children that the generation to come might know them even the Children which should be born who should arise and declare them to their Children that they might set their hope in God And in this way the little Children who were then members of the Church as all confess were called to that Church membership unless you can suppose that any can be Members of the Church without being called to it And it was doubtless the Election and Call aforesaid by which little Children were brought into that spiritual relation to God and his people which qualified them for a solemn admission into the Church by the Church initiating Ordinance for the time then being which other Children were not duly capable of who were not under that Election and Call God's placing those Infants in such circumstances as was their being under the care and tutorage of such Parents as would issue in their owning God for their God and his Religion for the way of their worshiping and serving him was his calling of them in the beginning of it unto such a profession And the Scripture useth to reckon little Children as having begun to do this or that
endeavoured to be put For this Doctrine of false Teachers was no further a yoke or burden than as it referred to the thing thereby urged to be practised The yoke or burden which St. Peter a Jew here saith neither they nor their fathers were able to bear was the pain they underwent in being Circumcised and the costly Sacrifices and other external burdensome observances which by the Law of Moses was laid upon them and this really or Circumcision which was a part of it was the yoke or burden which the false Teachers would now have imposed upon the believing Gentiles and their Children as necessary to Salvation And this was that which St. Paul also called the yoke of bondage wherewith he would not have the Believers intangled again Gal. 5.1 Which did not consist only in doctrine for he presently by an instance shews what he meant by it and wherein it did consist saying ver 2. Behold I Paul say unto you that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing And the like he had done before Chap. 4.9 How turn ye again to the weak and beggerly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage instancing wherein in the next words ye observe days and months and years This yoke of bondage then we see did consist in more than meerly doctrine The neck of the Disciples must needs be the neck of all those who were to have born the yoke according to the Law of Moses if they had been obliged by it as the false Teachers pretended they were and such were Children of eight days old who among the rest were to have been brought under that yoke had the false Teachers prevailed To restrain then the sense of the word yoke to doctrine only when as the thing urged by that doctrine was the yoke which the Children were as much to bear as their Parents is as I said but a weak evasion I deny not but that adult persons are primarily meant and intended by Disciples in this place but that they only were so with exclusion of little Children is that which you will never be able to prove since it 's certain that the false Teachers did no less impose the burden of Circumcision upon the Children than upon the Parents Though it 's true they began with the adult and the dispute lay between the adult and them for they could not impose upon the Children but by procuring the Parents to accept of the imposition both for themselves and for their Children In that Infants are not in an immediate and the most proper capacity to learn of Christ makes you think I suppose that the Scripture should not call them Disciples But that need not make it incredible to you when you consider what I have already shewed and need not here repeat How that little Children in Scripture account are esteemed to be or to do this or that in a religious respect when yet they are but first put into a way or but brought near a proper capacity of being or doing it when they are but placed in such circumstances as will issue there and which makes it visible to men that they will do so How else should little Children be stiled Believers and be said to do several other things every whit as remote from their capacity in the properest sense as their learning of Christ is I could shew I think by many instances in Scripture that things are said to be or to be done when they are but visible in their foundation or cause Thus to give you one instance our Saviour said of the family of Zacheus This day is salvation come to this house for as much as he also is the son of Abraham Lu. 19.9 The name of the effect is given to the visible cause Salvation is said then to be come to the family of Zacheus because he himself being become a Son of Abraham would in all probability be a means of bringing his Houshold to be so too Besides in Scripture account as are the Parents so are their little Children reputed to be If the Parents are counted the seed of the blessed of the Lord so are their off-spring with them Isa 65.23 Psal 37.26 If they are called from the rest of the World into a near relation to God as his special or peculiar people or to be his Disciples which is but another name for the same thing Isa 8.16 so were and are their Children with them And in some sort they are accounted to do that in their somewhat remote religious Progenitors much more in their immediate Parents which they did And thus Levi paid tithes in Abraham Heb. 7.9 And when our Saviour said whoso should receive one of those little Children he spoke of in his name would receive himself it is intimated that in doing so they should receive such Child as specially related to him as Disciples are And to receive them in his name and to receive them as his Disciples seem to be two words signifying but the same thing as appears by comparing Mark 9.41 with Mat. 10.42 Where both express the same thing in different phrases That which one calls a giving to one a Cup of water in Christs name because he belongs to Christ the other calls a giving it to one in the name of a Disciple And to receive little Children into the Church of Christ which is one way of receiving them in his name which is his Family is to receive them as Disciples or Scholars into his School as designed by him there to learn his Doctrine which may well give them the denomination of his Disciples And the account which I have now given why little Children are called Disciples may serve as reasons also why they are said to believe in Christ Having now heard what doctrine our Saviour himself and his Apostles after him have taught concerning the little Children of believing Parents and in what visible state they stand in relation to Christ and to his Church I think you will find little room left for you so much as but once to imagine that the Gospel when it took place put a period to the visible Church-membership of Infants Let us now consider from what hath been said in what capacity such Infants stand in reference to Baptism And can any man that doth consider them forbid water that these should not be baptized If such Infants are as much of the Church and as much Abrahams spiritual Seed as ever Infants in the old Testament Church were then they can be no more uncapable than they were of a solemn admission into the Church by the Ordinance of initiation for the time being as Baptism is now as Circumcision was then That which qualifies any for visible Church-membership certainly qualifies them for Baptism All were baptized into one body that were of it 1 Cor. 12.13 And such Infants can be no less capable of the spiritual ends of Baptism now than they were of the spiritual ends of Circumcision then
Anabaptists more true to their principles than they and that then the baptizing of persons may be as well deferred till they have special grace as their particular Church-membership may and so upon that account among others have gone over to them Secondly hereby some who may have no saving grace are in great danger of being betrayed into self flattery and into a being confident that they have because so good and knowing a Congregation as they esteem such a Church to be hath judged that they have and so rest secure in an unsafe condition Which made several of the New-England Ministers after their long experience of the effects of this way at last in their joint answer to Mr. Davenports Apologetical Preface p. 43 44. to say thus Indeed when men confound these two and do tie visible Church-membership unto such conditions and qualifications as are enough to salvation this may tend to harden men and to make them conceit that if they be got into the Church they are sure of heaven whenas alas it may be they are far from it Thirdly A guiltiness of a great Schism in the Church and consequently of the many sad effects of it some of which I have mentioned before If the separation built upon the principle under consideration had been matter of duty by vertue of that principle they that have engaged in it would not have been accountable for the evils consequent upon it no more than they were of setting Father against Son and Son against Father Mother against Daughter and Daughter against Mother by preaching the Gospel Lu. 12.53 But whosoever hath undertaken a separation from though but part of the Church upon insufficient grounds and mistaken principles must be accountable for the ill effects and consequences of it until they repent and leave off as well as for the Schism it self which caused them But now I have already represented to you why a Judgment in the Church that persons have not saving grace cannot be the rule of non-admission of them to particular Church Communion supposing them to have been baptized into the Church Universal and I have shewed likewise how that in the account of Scripture such have been visible Church-members and externally related to God and to Christ and called by his name and denominated Saints upon another account than that of saving grace or internal holiness Which if truly represented then it cannot be matter of duty but the contrary to ground a separation from such Congregations as are constituted upon other terms and because they are so In that those of the Churches mentioned in Scripture have been stiled Saints it is no argument why none are to be admitted to Church-fellowship but such as are Saints in a saving sense though this principle of separation I now speak of is wont to be grounded on that For some in those Churches which were not Saints in that sense were yet stiled Saints from their being separated and set apart to own and profess the worshipping of the most holy God only and to be of his holy Religion as I have shewed both in this discourse and elsewhere more at large Saints then was the common appellation of those that profest the Christian Religion as Christian is now and was not then used to discriminate the sincere from the unsound Christians as it is now This was a device of a later date and is too like that of the Church of Rome which does appropriate the honour of being Saints unto such only as they esteem to have been eminently Religious The conclusion then is that if the separation of these friends with that of your own be unaccountable from the Scriptures then they and you must needs be accountable for it as an unlawful and naughty Schism and for the many evils produced by it until pardon be obtained by repentance which none can promise themselves but upon reformation THE last thing I shall observe from the foregoing discourse is that it doth afford us a substantial ground for National Churches That is it affords us ground to conclude that the whole body of a Nation who are baptized into the Universal Church and that profess Gods true Religion are in that respect subject matter of a Church though this is indeed a thing which lies cross to your thoughts and which you are wont to oppose with some indignation The whole body of the Nation of the Jews as was shewed before were by Gods call and their profession Abrahams Spiritual Seed and as such were Church matter and a Church inorganically considered And for the same reason if the whole body of a Nation now by Gods call and their profession of the true Religion become Abrahams Spiritual Seed in a sense they must needs be as well National Church matter as the Nation of the Jews were Now that other Nations which have profest Gods true Religion have thereby become Abrahams Spiritual Seed in a large sense as well as the Nation of the Jews ever were we have good reason to believe not only from the nature of the thing it self but also from the Scriptures The Lord said unto Abraham My Covenant is with thee and thou shalt be a father of many Nations a father of many Nations have I made thee Gen. 17.4 5. Which is not to be understood in a restrained sense of his being a father of many Nations by natural generation only but also if not only of his being a spiritual father of many Nations who were to derive their being and what they should be in a spiritual or religious capacity from him from whom the true saving doctrine hath been since propagated first to the Nation of the Jews and then to Nations of the Gentiles And thus St. Paul interprets the aforesaid promise of God to Abraham Rom. 4.16 17. That the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all as it is written I have made thee a father of many Nations Now if Abraham be hath been and shall be a spiritual Father of many Nations then many Nations must needs be his spiritual Children For Father and Children are corlaretives and in what sense the one is a Father the other must be his Children And when St. Paul saith if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed Gal. 3.29 is true of all that are so and in the same sense in which men are Christs in that sense they are Abrahams Seed whether it be by profession only or by a sound Faith also And in correspondence to all this the Kingdoms of this World are said to become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Which must be understood of their becoming professors of the Gospel of Christ or the Christian Religion Revel 11.15 And this hath come to pass according as was foretold by the Prophets as well as to Abraham himself To instance in one instead
to all Communities of men and to the flourishing of Religion I do not find that in the Law of Moses there was any direction or command in particular that when that people should chuse them a King that he should use his authority in causing both Priests and people to do their Duty in the several parts of Gods Worship enjoined by Moses his Law any more than Kings now under the New Testament are in particular appointed and required to see that the Christians under them both Ministers and People do their duty in matters relating to Gods publick Worship And yet when Hezekiah for instance to restore Religion after a decay of it in his Dominions commanded the Priests and Levites to do the duty of their places according to the Law of Moses and with advice of the Princes summon'd the People of the Land to come and keep the Passover and the like in the Conclusion it is said thus of him Thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah and wrought that which was right and good and true before the Lord his God and in every work which he began in the service of the house of God and in the Law and in the commandments to seek his God he did it with all his heart and prospered 2 Chro. 31.20 21. And if this and the like in other good Kings was highly acceptable to God as we see it was then we have little reason to think it should be displeasing to him when Kings now do any thing like it He is the minister of God to thee for good saith St. Paul Rom. 13.4 and so long as he promotes the publick good in things temporal or spiritual Civil or Ecclesiastical he is not out of his way If it were a thing so well pleasing to God for Abraham to command his Children and his great Houshold to keep the way of the Lord as that God himself applauded him for it Gen. 18.19 it cannot certainly be an offence to him for Kings to command their Subjects to do likewise It was no small blessing that God promised to the Church when he said that Kings should be their nursing Fathers and Queens their nursing mothers and it would be great ingratitude not to acknowledge it to be so when they use their power and authority not only to protect and incourage them in the profession of the Christian Religion but also in making provision as Nursing Fathers for their spiritual nourishment Isa 49. And the truth is the more the Higher Powers concern themselves in due ways to promote Religion in their Dominions the more usually it flourisheth as we see not only by examples in the Scriptures and other History but experience teacheth us that there is generally the least face of Religion in such places as have been most neglected in the publick provision I would advise those among you who are most tender in this point touching the Magistrates Power in matters of Religion to hear what is said in answer to a Question of this Nature by J. O. in some Sheets intituled Two Questions concerning the power of the supream Magistrate about Religion and the worship of God with one about Tythes proposed and resolved Whose words I know they will more regard than anothers The Question is Whether the Supream Magistrate in a Nation or Common-wealth of men professing the Religion of Jesus Christ may or ought to exert his power Legislative and Executive for the supportment preservation and furtherance of the profession of the faith and worship of God and whether he may and ought to forbid coerce or restrain such principles and practices as are contrary to them and destructive of them The Answer to which is managed under ten Heads of Arguments The affirmative saith he of both parts of this Question is proved 1. From the light and Law of Nature 2. From the Law of Nations 3. From Gods Institution in and by Laws positive upon Doctrines of faith and ways of worship of pure Revelation 4. From the example of all godly Magistrates accepted with God from the foundation of the World 5. From the promise of Gospel times 6. From the equity of Gospel rules 7. From the confession of all the Protestant Churches in the World 8. From the confession of those in particular who suffer in the World on account of the largeness of their Principles as to toleration and forbearance 9. From the spiritual sense of the generality of godly men in the World 10. From the pernicious consequences of the contrary assertion This was good Doctrine in 1659. And if upon apprehension and experience such Higher Powers do judge that all the Christian Ministers and People in their Dominions are never like to prove so wise and sober as not to abuse an absolute liberty by making different parties in the Church by chusing different ways of administration and if to prevent this and to preserve Peace and Unity in the Church as of great concernment for their edification and comfort and for the honour and reputation of the Christian Religion and for the better propagation of it they have thought it best to prescribe some method and form to be used by all it is to be seriously considered by you That if nothing in that method and form be enjoined you as a condition of Communion which is not sinful for you to submit to Then which is most eligible whether to separate or to submit to that method and form though it should not in your apprehension be so useful beneficial and grateful to you as a liberty for you and your Ministers would be to use what way you liked best If you say to separate is most eligible and fittest to be chosen in this case Then you must prove that which no man will ever I think be able to do to wit That it is lawful to break Churches to pieces upon the account only of some conveniencies you desire and inconveniencies which in your apprehension you suffer when otherwise you might lawfully and without defiling your selves with sin continue and maintain your Communion in those Churches to your own and their edification with whom you were united No doubt but the great differences that were on foot between the Judaising and Gentile Christians in the Apostles times did somewhat burden their Communion together in the same Church with some considerable inconvenience and so did the scandalous opinions and practices of many in the seven Churches of Asia and other Churches make the Communion which those had with them who had not defiled their garments the less pleasant and comfortable and in some respect burdensome to them But we hear nothing of separation and breaking of Churches in pieces upon that account nor of any encouragement given thereto by the Apostles but the quite contrary To bring this business down from above let us try it a little in your own Court Suppose the Higher Powers should not have concerned themselves in prescribing any Common form to be used in all particular