God now as ever Circumcision did the Circumcised heretofore And it is now as much the benefit of Persons to be obliged in Covenant with God in their Infancy by Baptism as ever it was for others formerly by Circumcision Now as touching that Warrant or Authority which Christians have to oblige their Infant Children by Baptizing them to become parties in Gods Covenant and to perform the terms and condition of it on their part as they grow up into a capacity of being active therein I shall compare what of this kind Christians have with what Abraham and his Seed and others had for their obliging their Children to be a People unto God by Circumcising them Abraham and his Seed had an express command for it but the Gentiles which were not of Abrahams natural Seed had only a favourable allowance and grant that in case any of them had a mind to joyn themselves to the Jewish Church and to have communion with them in the way of worship prescribed them Exod. 12 48. that then in order to this attainment the Father or Man himself was to be Circumcised and all his Males But otherwise as Circumcision was not enjoyned the Gentiles so we do not find that any Prophet or other were sent abroad among them to draw them into the Jewish Church only we read indeed that the Pharisees compassed Sea and Land to make one Proselyte but its probable it was but from among other Jews to make him of their Sect to strengthen their party But when the Visible Church was to become Christian our Saviour commissionated his Apostles to go into all the World and to disciple all Nations and Baptize them Now if this commissioning extended to the Baptizing the little Children of Christian Parents as well as the Christian Parents themselves then here is Warrant and Authority enough for such Parents to engage their Children by Baptizing them in Covenant with God and to oblige them to perform the terms of it when they shall be capable of endeavouring to do so And that this Commission of our Saviour did extend to the Authorizing the Apostles to Baptize such little Children I have endeavoured to make out in another discourse which I shall not here repeat but refer the Reader to it Address from p. 29. to p. 80. The substance of what is there said is reducible to these two heads 1. To shew what reason the Apostles had to understand the words of their Commission to Baptize in this Latitude 2. What reason we have to believe that they did understand the words of their Commission in this extensive sense and that they did practice accordingly Unto what I have said there I shall here add one very considerable reason to induce us to believe that the Apostles did Baptize the little Children of Christians taken from the unanimous agreement of all Christians in all parts of the World in the practice of Baptizing Infants in the purer times of the Church and before the defection into Popery Now there are some things which render it morally impossible that there should be such an unanimous agreement in such a practice unless they had it from the Apostles or others sent by them in their first planting of Christianity in those places The Apostles went into all the World to Preach the Gospel and were our Saviours Witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth according to his Commission Their sound went into all the Earth Rom. 10. Col. 1.6.23 and their words unto the ends of the World The Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven as St. Paul saith There are some things which make it morally impossible that there should be such an universal agreement as aforesaid in all places upon any other account or for any other reason than their first receiving this practice of Baptizing Infants from the Apostles in their first planting of Christianity there As 1. The vast distance of one place from another where the Christians lived made it morally impossible they should come into this usage by combination or imitation of one another 2. The diversity of their Languages made it impossible that this sameness of practice should grow out of any mutual correspondence or intelligence held by them 3. If these things had not made it impossible and if it could be supposed that the Christians in all parts notwithstanding their distance of place and diversity of Language might have held such correspondence as by agreement to have introduced such a practice as they had not from the Apostles but had been imposed upon them at first by some Innovators yet it is morally impossible it should steal into all Churches and every where without some known opposition from some good men or other if it had not been Apostolical We cannot with any reason think that all Christians both in office and out of office in the Church would have suffered such an Innovation as this if it had been an Innovation without such considerable opposition as would have been taken notice of by some Author or other who lived in or near such time in which it had been first brought into the Church Since then no man is able to assign the beginning of this practice short of the Apostles times And since the whole world of Christians were agreed in it in the purest times of the Church for ought appears to the contrary And since all Christians how much soever they have differed in other things have yet all along agreed in this as much as they have in the observation of the Lords day a very few only excepted and those chiefly or rather only as have appeared since Luthers days or the beginning of the Reformation And since the Apostles practice recorded in Scripture of their Baptizing whole Housholds gives us ground to believe they practised the same in all places where they have been and that their doing so was the reason and ground of the universal practice of Baptizing Infants in all Churches first planted by them and in those succeeding them I say all these things considered there remains little reason for any impartial man to doubt but that the Apostles did practise Infant Baptism in pursuance of their Commission QUERY VI. WHether in the Baptizing of Children that method of proceeding be not most proper by which the Children are most directly made to enter into Covenant with God by their Parents The reason of this Query arises out of the matters discussed in the two former For if that Union and Relation between God and men by which they become Members of his Visible Church is made by entering into Covenant with him to be his People as he with them to be their God And if little Children are obliged in Covenant with God by what their Parents do in causing them to be Baptized with intent thereby so to oblige them then I propose it to be considered whether it will not thence follow that it is most proper to demand of the Parents
they had been in the Church for some time seems to intimate that the Apostles themselves had no other apprehensions of those Conversions or many of them For we find them earnestly perswading those Christians to put away such practices the retaining of which could not well consist with a thorow and sound conversion Which argues that at least many of them had not yet put them off tho they had been for some time in the Church Thus Col 3.8 9. But now ye also put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication out of your mouth Lie not one to another seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds That is they had engaged to do so in Baptism See the like again Ephes 5.3 And 1 Pet. 2.1 Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings as new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby 1 Cor. 6.15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an Harlot God forbid What know ye not that he that is joyned to an harlot is one body Chap. 10.21 22. Ye cannot drink the Cup of the Lord and the Cup of devils Ye cannot be partakers of the Lords Table and of the Table of Devils Do we provoke the Lord to jealousie Are we stronger than he Chap. 15.33 34. Be not deceived evil communications corrupt good manners Awake to righteousness and sin not for some have not the knowledge of God I speak this to your shame 2 Cor. 6.16 17. What agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols For ye are the Temple of the living God Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you Chap. 12.20 21. For I fear lest when I come I shall not find you such as I would and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not lest there be debates envyings wraths strifes backbitings whisperings swellings tumults and lest when I come again my God will humble me among you and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleaness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed Phil. 2.22 All seek their own and not the things of Jesus Christ So by the general Epistle which St. James wrote not to any particular Church but to the twelve Tribes scattered abroad it appears that he was very jealous and suspicious that the faith which very many of the Christians had was but a dead and unavailable faith and such as would neither justifie nor save them because it was but a barren and unfruitful faith such as did neither purifie the heart nor reform the life being hearers of the Word and not doers For for all their knowledge and their faith it seems by the tenour of his writing that their lusts remained still lusty and strong that warred in their members The love of pleasure their unworthy compliances to keep friendship with the World pride envy and grudging one against another strife and contention and uncharitable judging and condemning one another and provoking one another with their unruly Tongues and cursing and swearing and such like distempers it seems did abound among them And St. James by this Epistle to them endeavours their thorow Conversion and encourageth the sincere among them to endeavour it likewise saying If any see his brother err and one convert him Let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins And when we likewise find that there were but a few names in Sardis but what had defiled their Garments having indeed a name to live but were dead and nothing which our Saviour could commend in all the Church of Laodicea I say when we find this and consider all these things and more of like nature in the Apostles Writings we have great reason to think that many of those whom the Apostles baptized were not thorowly converted till after they were brought into the Church and yet many such were so after And indeed I do not know what other reason can be given why the Apostles made such haste as they did to baptize persons after they had once gained their consent to turn Christians without staying for any farther trial but that they thought their thorow Conversion was more likely to be effected within the Church than without It is one thing to be converted from a false Religion to a bare or notitional belief of the true and another thing to be converted from that to a right practical belief of it There were some who did believe in the former sense through the power of conviction and could do no otherwise who yet had no mind to become obedient to the Rules and Precepts of the Gospel in all things Such were those Joh. 2.23 and those Joh. 12.42 43. and such was Simon Magus and such were those of whom St. James speaks that had but a dead faith And thus it is with many that are of the Visible Church in these days who have no other faith for some time and yet afterward are converted to a lively practical belief of the Christian Religion And it is probable that the faith of most of the Apostles Converts went little or nothing farther than to a general belief of the truth of the Apostles Doctrine until after they were baptized they having so little time of learning before as generally they had but were carried on further to a more particular distinct and practical belief by after-teaching when they were in the Church And this is not disagreeable to what I have formerly noted from the words of our Saviours Commission to his Apostles touching a double teaching the one to make men become Disciples which went before Baptism the other to direct them how to live as Christians which followed after it Mat. 28.19 20. But however whatever thorow and effectual Conversions the Apostles might in an extraordinary way effect in men while they were without the Church for the first founding of the Christian Church yet we are sure that since that extraordinary way of Conversion has been discontinued abundantly more have been converted by their being in the Church and by advantage of the means of conversion which they have there enjoyed than have been among those without the Church And this is the first reason assigned why others should be admitted into the Visible Church than such as are of the Invisible or than are reputed to be so before such admission 2. Another reason why we may conceive Almighty God allows many others to be of the Visible Church than are of the Invisible is because so to do is more useful for the propagating and spreading of the Christian Religion in the World than the limiting and restraining the
the bad from among the good in the Church but from among the good in the World Not that they should both grow together in the Church till Harvest but in the World And to strengthen this they alledge our Saviours interpretation of this Parable where he says that the Field where the Tares and the Wheat grow together is the World Mat. 13.38 And this indeed at first sight seems to be a very considerable Objection But if we consider the matter well I think it may appear otherwise The Field indeed in which the Seed was sown and the Gospel first preached was the World according to our Saviours Commission to his Apostles Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel Mar. 16.15 But then those that received this Seed of the Gospel so as to make profession of adhering to it were presently baptized and received into the Church Now it was among these that the Tares sprang up many of them proving bad Christians So that the Seed was first sown in the World as in a common field But yet the Tares sprang up in that part of the world which was now become the Visible Church and an enclosed Garden And therefore when the time of the Harvest shall come when these Tares must be separated from the Wheat our Saviour says They shall be gathered out of the Kingdom of the Son of Man Ver. 41. where they were permitted to grow till this Harvest And what is this Kingdom of the Son of Man but his Visible Church The History of the Event of the Apostles Preaching does plainly lay open the meaning of this Parable and that of the Draw-net and other like Parables in that the Visible Church which they gathered out of the world consisted of bad as well as good And this Parable in particular shews further that these Tares were not to be gathered out of the Church for this very reason Lest while ye gather up the Tares saith he ye root up also the Wheat with them So that it seems that the Tares growing with the Wheat is in some respect matter of security to the Wheat and that the Wheat would be in more danger by the Tares being gathered from among it than by their growing together with it in more danger of bein rooted up or rooted out And this seems fully to justifie and make good that reason I am now upon why all unregenerate Christians should not be denied a place and being in the Visible Church If it shall be hear said that the Church in the Primitive times when but few in number did yet subsist yea and abundantly increase too tho they had no humane or worldly Power to defend them and when almost the whole world both of Jews and Gentiles were against them And why may it not as well do so now tho none that are not of the Invisible Church should be any defence unto it I answer that there is no doubt but that they might subsist in the world continue and increase as well as they did provided they had but the same extraordinary means to back and abet them and to increase their numbers as those Primitive Christians had I mean those miraculous Powers which then procured the Christians great reputation among the People and which did still attract and draw in more to their Party than were diminished by the Persecution which was raised against them by the higher Powers which were then Infidel For by reason of those miraculous wonders which were done by the Apostles and others in those times the multitude of People were so astonished and affected that they favoured them so far as that the Rulers were put under some awe For we read that for the reason aforesaid great grace or favour was upon them all to wit all the Christians Acts 4.33 And Chap. 5.13 it s said that the people magnified them So that the Rulers when they had otherwise a mind to it found not how to punish them because of the people for all men glorified God for that which was done Chap. 4.21 And in Chap. 5.26 it s said of the Captain and Officers that were sent to bring the Apostles before the Council that they brought them without violence because they feared the people lest they should have been stoned And by reason of the credit they obtained among the people both to themselves and their way by the numerous Miracles they wrought believers were the more added to the Lord multitudes both of men and women notwithstanding all the opposition which was made against them by the Rulers Chap. 5.14 And that wonderful increase of Believers which was made from among the Heathen also was attributed by St. Paul unto those Signs and Wonders that were wrought for the proof and confirmation of the Christian Way I will not dare saith he to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed through mighty Signs and Wonders by the Spirit of God Rom. 15.18 19. But if the small number of sincere Christians that are in the world had no other means to preserve themselves and to increase their number but the goodness of their Cause and their own Innocency and were not countenanced and protected by Christian States and Governours and by a multitude more of the same Profession with themselves than are of like sincerity in that Profession they would be in great danger of being in a manner extirpated out of the world by the Insidel and Antichristian Parties in it When the Papal defection befel the Church within the Roman Empire the greatest part perhaps of the then Visible Church in that part of the world fell off from the Orthodox and sincere and became their Enemies in time The consequence of which was the exterminating and rooting out of that part of the world in a great measure the Orthodox and sincere Christians Which is a great instance to shew how it would fare with those of the Invisible Church if they were deserted by those Christians which are not of it or if those were rejected as no fellow-members of the Visible Church and thereby made their Enemies 4. Another reason is taken from the danger in another respect of reckoning none of the Church as Visible but upon the reputation of their being of the Church as Invisible For to admit men upon no other terms into the Visible Church nor to its Communion but upon the reputation and under the Notion of their being already of the Church as Invisible tends greatly to betray many Souls into a dangerous snare of self-deceiving For if this rule of admission should be observed many mistakes would be committed either through fallibility or partiality of judgment in them that admit them and so many would be received into the Visible Church or to the Communion of it as Members of the Invisible which yet are not of it And if so then all those which are thus received under the approbation of
Church and those of the world All under this Character and Badge and none but they were of the Visible Church and therefore it must needs be the Constitutive form of that Relation Visible Church-membership All that have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ and are visibly Christians and of Christs Church How ancient and how long before Christs appearance in the world in our nature this way of constituting Visible Church-members has been by such a Rite as God appointed I have shewed before And if this visible Covenanting with God by Baptism be that by which persons become Members of the Visible Church then a probable appearance of Regeneration or a reputation of being of the Church as invisible cannot be it that makes them visible Church Members tho it does qualifie them for it unless this probable appearance of Regeneration and Covenanting with God by Baptism be one and the same thing And if they be then those of which our Parish Churches are constituted have a probable appearance of Regeneration or of being of the Invisible Church and then they are constituted of matter according to those Dissenters own mind And if so then we may well hope they will no longer separate from them as if they were not Constitututed of qualified matter So that things are brought at last to this issue That these Dissenters must either overthrow this Plea against the reason and ground of their Separation and prove that visible Covenanting with God by Baptism is not that by which Visible Church-membership is made or else it will certainly overthrow this Plea of theirs for their Separation And if they will so much as attempt to overthrow this Plea against them they must row all the way against the stream and strong tide of the Scriptures and against the stream of Antiquity and the sense of the ancient Church from the Apostles times downwards who always esteemed Baptism the door of entrance into the Visible Church and consequently that all such as had pass'd through Baptism were within the Church And as it is more agreable to Scripture so it is much more reasonable to say that men cannot seem to be of the Church as Invisible without being first of the Church as Visible than it is to say their being of the Church as Visible proceeds from their seeming to be of the Church as Invisible For as touching mens enterance into the Church by Baptism our Saviour hath said Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Joh. 3.5 And Baptism is injoyned in order to the obtaining Remission of sin and Salvation which are Priviledges of the Church as Invisible Acts 2.38 and 22.16 Mar. 16.16 So that according to these Scriptures mens being and seeming to be of the Church as Invisible and their sharing in the Priviledges of it seems ordinarily to depend upon their being of the Visible Church by Baptism Now one would think a Notion so preposterous as this opposed appears to be should be very unfit to make a foundation to build Churches upon or to justifie a separation from those which have a substantial foundation the Scriptures I mean But if mens seeming in the apprehension of others to be of the Church as Invisible did not depend upon their being of the Church Visible yet such seeming could be no proper or fit Rule by which to judg determine and conclude who are and who are not of the Visible Church And the reason is because it is Arbitrarious and uncertain for mens being or not being acknowledged to be of the Visible Church would depend upon the uncertainty of mens opinions and affections and those would seem in some mens apprehensions to be of the Church Invisible which to others would seem otherwise And then those would be owned by some to be of the Visible Church which would be denied to be so by others Of the truth of all which this present Age hath furnished us with plentiful experience And if this should be the Rule observed through the whole Christian world it would be the ready way to make Parties and Sidings unchristian oppositions and uncharitable censurings among Christians in all parts of the world as it has done here in this Nation Whereas to be visibly in Covenant with God by Baptism is a certain fixed a common open and publick Rule by which to judg who are of the Visible Church so long as they continue to own themselves under the obligation of that Covenant and have neither so far violated it as to give Divine Worship to other Objects than their God nor incurr'd to themselves Excommunication by Heresie or other scandalous living And this Rule gives no occasion of division in the Church as the other does but tends to bind and hold the several Members together in the unity of the Spirit and bond of peace To which purpose St. Paul urgeth it upon the Christians motive-wise Eph. 4. All these things considered one would wonder how men of Learning and Piety should ever be betrayed into such Notions and Principles and to lay so mighty a stress on them as they have done when yet they have no more colour from Scripture or reason than ever yet they have been able to produce for their defence But to make the best of it I can we will suppose it was the appearance of a more thorow Reformation and more pure Communion which in their apprehension was to be obtained by these new Methods that first drew them into this way Reformation and pure Communion are things which sound mighty well in good mens ears and which they can easily believe to be well pleasing unto God And as there is an appearance of greater strictness in that way than in that of more general Communion so it was easie for them hereupon to think there was more purity in it also which has been the prevailing reason which has carried multitudes into Quakerism And when such an opinion has once seated it self in mens minds they quickly grow confident that nothing in Scripture can be against it and then they can easily fancy that every slight appearance and sound of words in Scripture is for them upon which they can but put such a gloss as shall favour them though it be nothing to their purpose when impartially scann'd And had their opinions and practice which I have opposed and wherein they differ from all other good men been matter of purity indeed I should not have made One to find fault with them But if this their Way be disagreeable to Gods pure Word which is the Rule by which we must judg of what is pure and what is impure and if it run counter to our Lords Method laid down in the Scripture of ordering the affairs of his Church in very material points then it will be found an impure practice a sinful mixture and a corruption to be purged out of the Church And yet such it is if I have not