in force and vigor and by a pious recordation thereof the Penitent may confirm his Faith as Peter did and by vertue of the same once established Covenant God receiveth such to mercy and grace otherwise the infidelity and impiety of man would frustrate the goodnesse and good will of God the matter testified in baptism which it cannot because it is constant and changeth not and therefore it is a horrible prophanation of it to reiterate baptism In a word Second baptism was ever abhorred in the Orthodox Church as a kind of incestuous Birth and if you iterate it and baptise your beleevers again upon their profession of faith you must be able to make their former baptism void and no baptism which you can never do as having all things therein which God requireth unto Infant baptism Though Faith a positive and actual Faith as you call for should not be there which is not required of God and therefore is denyed of us to be a necessary condition requisite to be found manifest in every one that is to be baptised indeed in an Aethiopian Eunuch an elder Gentile it is and therefore when he said see here is water what doth hinder me to be baptised Philip answered If thou beleevest with all thine heart thou maist who answering I beleeve that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and so Philip baptised him Acts 8 36 37. The onely Argument the Anabaptists triumph in I shall here give a short answer to Infants of Gentiles are not of Abrahams seed either according to the flesh because not Iowes or according to the promise because not beleevers therefore not to be baptised whilest Infants or if they be to be baptised again when beleevere But I answer First The consequent is denyed for Simon Magus and thousands more even of them that you baptise are neither 2. Nor is it true that onely Iewes are Abrahams seed according to the flesh for that part of the Gentile Galatians who pleaded for Justification by the works of the Law and thereby lay under the bondage and curse of the Law are called the children of Hagar and said to be born of the Bond-woman Sinai and Hierusalem upon earth as it is to be seen Gal. 3. 4. The Apostle applying that part of the distinction to them like as the other part the Children of Sarah to those Gentile Galathians who were justified by faith Nor 3. Is it true that onely beleevers actually beleevers as you speak are the Children of the promise for thus they do not onely at this one blow beat down all Christian infante from all interest in Christ and title to heaven and make them like as the Heathens and Pagans who yet are not wont to strike so hard yea and which is more all Jewish Infants Isaack Iacob and Ioseph these must not be with them nor were by this reason Children of the promise in their Childhood but only according to the flesh untill they did actually believe and so became Children of the promise And more absurdity yet doth follow hence that those Patriarks whom I named Abraham is to be here excepted by their infant-circumcision had no promise of grace sealed unto them but were under a Covenant of works and until the years of discretion and actual fiath were incapable of any interest in the Covenant of grace If onely true beleevers and the Elect persons be under the covenant of grace have right to the Sacraments why is the same Covenant of grace inthe outward administration thereof both in preaching the promises and applying the Seales of the Sacraments to be propounded by Gods appointment to all the outward visible members of the Church And why was Simon Magus baptised as I said 'T is true the inward saving grace of the Covenant in both Administrations is by the Holy Ghost conferred onely upon the invisible members of Christs mysticall body which are the true beleevers and elect But we not able to discern of these give the outward baptism to all those I mean all outward members of the visible Chruch You must do so for the Text before alleged out of the Acts sheweth that all they who have any degrees of Faith may and ought to be baptised But Sir will you stand to your own Tackling The baptising of beleevers hereby you think and intend to exclude Infants of Christians What then will you make of them Infidels or Beleevers can you shew any Text of Scripture old or new where any Infant of Iew or Gentile in Covenant with God is so stiled or can you give any reason of it That which makes an Unbeliever must be a positive habit of unbeleef to justifie this in an Infant will be a task too hard for you and to say that Infants do not beleeve in act or have not the habit of faith onely negatively will not in the Language of the Scripture denominate an Unbeleever Indeed those that are made Christians of heathens they must give some positive and actual expressions of their faith before they be baptised so Philip required of the Eunuch and not till then are they to be accounted beleevers but for such as are born Christians of Christians as our infants are being entred into and under a gratuitall Covenant with God we admit them unto the Initial Seal of that Covenant which is baptism without any such Testimonial Act of Fath as you require for they are not Infidels or Unbeleevers but beleevers and within the compasse of your words though not your sense the baptism of beleevers Seeing you can produce no scripture against their Faith I will see what I can do for their Faith Matth. 18.5 6. Turn to the Chapter and Verses and read them and look to your Neck in that Verse it is a Neck verse Whose shall offend one of these little ones which beleeve on me it were better for him that a Mistone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Lord what shall become of those that offend all thy little ones by dobarring and excluding them from their birth-privilege and their Right-baptism But that I aim at as to you Sir is that you would take notice that our Saviour Christ who best knew knowing the very secrets of the heart pronounceth of some little ones little Children such as he took out one of them set down in the midst of the Apostles for a pattern of Humility and Harmlesseness That they did beleeve in him its apparent that howsoever sometimes and elsewhere spirituall Children are meant by little Children such as are of a meek spirit little in their own eyes here and at this time very natural Children in age and little in growth or statute are spoken of as the very context and Antithesis do shew They who do so interpret this place do make this not the same story with that which followeth in Matth. 19.13 Where little Children are said tob e brought to Christ it may be in their
unto the Church For which you may see Acts 2.39 41. because you give me no Text here which I wonder at of which I have your consideration in particular to peruse anon Onely I shall add a word or two about Sureties in the Baptism of Infants because I do not remember that hitherto before now you have made any mention of them and for that I see you are here in an errour about them and you would put a slur upon us and a kinde of slander upon our Church as if Infant-Baptism stood upon account of faith in the Parents and Sureties although say you they have none for themselves I will adde somewhat although they have more than your self I may say the one as well as you say the other Know then Sir that the costom of having Sureties at the baptizing of Infants hath been very ancient in the Church when Truth was in its prime light and Primitive purity though thereupon it is the less liked because the more unlike to the new upstart and out-staring novelisms of these later Ages and last declining times and their office was as to bear witness of the birth of Infants of Christian Parents and therefore were called Attesters or Witnesses as at this day so to answer for the faith and take upon them the education of the baptized Infants and for this they were called Sponsors or Susceptors Hereupon the Infant to be baptized although he did not profess himself to be Believer with his own mouth nor could yet being asked and interrogated as the manner was Doest thou believe he answered in the mouth and tongue of his Sponsors or Sureties or the very Parents or they which is all one answered in stead and place of the Infant I believe And without such profession of faith Infants publickly were not baptized in the Church Thus in and by the judgment of charity the Ancients held and judged the Infant to believe and that if it could speak with its mouth it would answer that it believed and because it could not they appointed as before Sponsors and Sureties in the name and place of the Infant to answer I believe And in this sense also besides others I have given were Infants of Christians called of old Believers because they did in some manner profess faith in and by the mouth and words of their Sponsors Sureties and Parents True its uncertain and unknown to the Church or man whether the Infant doth believe or not but unless the Church had so judged by the judgement of charity which saith the Apostle believeth all things hopeth all things the Infant to believe she would not have appointed Sureties and Sponsors in the name and place of the Infant so to asnwer and unless the Infant it self had so answered in the words and mouth of its Sponsors and Sureties she i.e. the Church would have forbid it to be baptized Thus I have told you of the ancient manner of the Primitive Baptisms with Sureties and Sponsors you must not now here call upon me for proof hereof out of the plain and direct Scripture for I acknowledge this ancient Custom and many a one in use amongst the first Christian Churches is not expresly prescribed in Scripture for then it might be concluded absolutely necessary for all ages and persons to follow so neither is it forbidden explicitly in Scripture and therefore not utterly to be rejected as unlawfull to be used as which was for the good of the Infant and hurs of none as having neither impiety nor iniquity in it so also it was for the provision and better education of the Infant the edification of the Church and the demonstration and exercise of Charity to and charitable judging of others Insomuch that as those venerable Names and Lights of the Ancient Church Tertullian and Auguâ—tine have related and delivered that Custom of baptizing with Sureties and Sponsors so other Reverend Names and Lights of these Modern reformed Churches as Luther Zanchy Beza have allowed approved and commended the aforesaid Custom as fit to be retained still From all which it now appears that you Sir are much out when as you talk and tattle of the Churches baptizing Infants upon account of faith in the Sureties although they have none of their own for you see it was not upon the account of the faith of the Sureties which the Sureties had of their own that Infants ever were baptized but upon the account of the faith of the Infant which the Infant had of its own testified and professed in their name by the Sureties appointed by the Church which judged charitably of the Infant to beleive that the Infant was baptized But now before I proceed to the next I will call upon you to consider That your Doctrine of baptizing actual Believers onely and thereupon not baptizing the Infants of Believers until they have actual faith and can and do make confession of it doth rather overthrow as much as in you lieth the nature of the Covenant of Grace and the whole Gospel of Christ at leastwise to the Seal thereof all the while from their birth that such Infants are kept by you from the same Seal of Baptism for you cannot keep them from their Covenant though you do shamefully ingratefully ungraciously yea and unnaturally keep them from the Seal The thing is evident enough if you do but remember this is the nature of the Covenant and Gospel of Christ the Promise of God to be the God of the believing Parent and his Seed joyntly therefore also of his child as soon as it s born yea before when it is his Seed and soon after its birth Gods will is declared to have this Covenant executed and confirmed by an initial Seal of Circumcision upon Infants in the Old and of Baptism upon Infants in the New Testament now who overthroweth this Covenant we who put our Infants under the Seal of the Covenant soon after their birth it being their birth-right or you that with-hold it from your Infants until they come to be of years to make profession let God himself be judge and that his Word Genesis 17.14 He hath broken my Covenant who the child whose flesh of his fore-skin is not circumcised so also he whose flesh is not washed with the water of Baptism which latter if not done or ordered to be done by you who are Parents to the Child the breach and overthrowing the Covenant lieth upon you and not upon the child to answer for You have broken the Lords Covenant and the Lord may break in upon you as he did upon Moses for neglect of circumcising his Seed Exodus 4.24 Consider of it it s the Lords mercy you are not broken and consumed let the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering lead you to repentance the Covenant Gospell Christ being the same under both Administrations God will look and justly may and must that his Covenanters or covenanted with even Instants shall be now partakers of
you have done fighting with the Papists that we are agreed about them two to be but one and the same baptism I could tell you that the Apostle here writing to the Hebrews alluded to their old Legal Washings Ablutions and Baptismes minding them of thens but wishing them withall to lay them by and mind the one Evangelical baptism and the sprinkling of Christs blood the which they did but typifie or look at So still but one baptism I could tell you that the baptismes here meant are those I must speak three words more of Human Latine for the words sake because of the elegancy of them Fluminis Flaminis Songuinis But I will turn them into divine English words for yoru sake of Water Fire Blood For there as I said before is an outward baptism which is the washing of the flesh with Water by the Minister and there is an inward baptism which is washing of the Soul with the blood of Christ by the Holy Ghost these are baptismes indeed and here meant but in all Gods true Children they meet in one baptism and they come from God as one baptism entirely made up of these two sorts the outward and inward for that baptism which is of blood mentioned by Christ and mentioned to his two Disciples are ye able to be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with and resolved for them ye shall indeed be baptised with such baptism Matth. 20.22 It is nothing but a constant suffering and conflicting in Christs cause even unto Blood and the suffering of Martyrdom for his sake But I will call in again for Beza whom as before I stiled an interpreter of Luke and that Text Acts 19.5 according to his heart Though he confessed he learned the interpretation of Marnixius so here also I may stile him an interpreter of Luke again and of this Text Heb. 6.2 according to his heart the which interpretation also he learned of Calvin who saith to this purpose an interpreter of those Apostles and Prophets he commented upon according to their hearts though here Beza doth not acknowlege so much There was a right and Custom in the Church Primitive of administring many baptismes upon certain set dayes which set dayes were after appoynted to be Easterday and Whitsunday especially when many Catehumens and New Converts were wont to meet together for baptism These therefore were called Dayes of Baptismes as appears out of the writings of the Antient both Greeks and Latines so still it was but one and the same baptism was conferred upon every one though called baptismes because so many received baptism together upon one day like as sometime in London six seaven and more Children partake of baptism together at one time And now Sirs are you Masters in Israel and know not these things are you Dippers and know not these Baptismes and wheras for the time ye ought not to be Teachers for that ye have need that one Teach you which be the first Principles of the doctrine of Christ learn that this doctrine of Baptismes is the third of them the principles and that it containeth nothing of two Baptismes our baptising Christians born in their infancy and your baptising Christians born in their grown age and least of all for your rebaptising our baptised Infants when you have made them your Proselytes upon a confession of Faith What though our Children be baptised in ignorance of God they are yet baptised in Covenant with God if that be a reason with you they must be dipt again and rebaptised when they come to knowledge why were not the Apostles so when better instructed who were ignorant of the Messias and his kingdom the death the resurrection of Christ will you put your self Sir or your learned Dippers themselves upon the tryall and if you be found ignorant of divers principles of the doctrine of Christ and even fundamental poynts will you be instructed and Redipped Alasse Sirs if as often as God shall shew you the errors of your Minds and the enormities of your lives you must be dipping redipping dripping redripping every Year Moneth and Day No there is another baptism to be used in these cases eyē the washing the soul with the tears of repentance dip re-dip drip re-drip in these and renew your repentance dayly With what a bold face high hand dare you Sir be either dipt your self now twice as I hear or be a dipper of others again as you intend of those whom you have inveigled seduced away into your Scism Heresie being before rightly validly baptised is not this a multiplying so a vilifying of that ōe baptism What example have you in all the Word of God of any Infant Jew re-circumcised when he came to an ability of professing Faith and will you tempt God to put a yoak upon the neck of the Disciples of Christ which neither our Fathers nor we were able to bear Telling us it is needful to baptise baptised Christistians again when they come to be believers whē it was not needful yea sinful to circumcise Jewes circumcised when they came to be the like Even when Ziphorah a Woman had circumcised her child Exod. 4. Moses himself allowed it for good and lawfull and never did he or any other iterate that circumcision in present or afterwards upon the profession of its faith and when any went over from being Samaritans who worshipped they knew not what as who knew not Jesus Christ to become Jews John 4. or came over to Christ and to the faith of him none of them were ever baptised again as Beleevers Your duplicate of baptism doth not only oppose the one and single baptism of the Apostle but brings Christans under a Tax and layeth a new yoak upon their necks as I said before Besides To be baptised is to be born anew into the Church no man naturally can be twice or often born every Nicodemus can say Can he enter the second time into his Mothers Womb and be born Iohn 3. Why then twice baptised being once baptised sufficiently and truly By baptism Children are admitted into the heavenly society of Saints and no man civilly can be adopted often into any ones stock or family Genesis 48. Ephraim and Manasses were but once adopted and assumed by Iacob into his stock for his Children and why then twice baptised When of Married Persons one forsakes another returns again into Love both are reconciled they do not enter into a new conjugal Covenant by any solemne Celebration of new espousals because the first conjunction stands firm the reconciliation made The baptism of Christians is as the celebration of the Contract betwixt them and Christ the Bridegroom when such a one through open abnegation or other hainous sins departing away from Christ returns again with and by a serious repentance there will be no need of being baptised again and so a new sealing of that Covenant which being once entred into is still
than with your manly or rather unmanly pride envy uncharitableness roughness and presumption whereout it is that you so despise and offend the little ones withholding them from their due of Baprism rail and revilethe Churches of God and the Ministers of Jesus Christ These things I tell you grieve the good and mild Spirit of God and send it away sad from such hearts and at last if presevered in will quench its holy fervours And I wonder very much that any people should run after you as they do who leave their Infants and Children under no better a condition or denomination than of Infidels and unbelievers for so you tell them that their condition by nature and their seed is the same which Pagan-Gentiles and till they know God and believe in him open and professed enemies of God whereas upon their and our nature that is natural Generation or Procreation of Seed there is the Covenant of Grace established and set up which you see at large Ephes 2.3 and 4 c. That we were by Nature the Children of wrath as well as others when out of Covenant You profess much Scripture Learn to speak in that Holy Language and to call Children of Christians Christians by Nature and not sinners of the Gentiles or Pagans for so Saint Paul speaketh Gal. 2.15 We who are Jews by Nature and not sinners of the Gentiles How Jewer by Nature because they were the Children of the Prophets and of the Covenant born under it Act. 3.25 So are our Children Christians by Nature how not sinners of the Gentiles because born Jewes had not their sins imputed to them though born in original sin as the Gentiles the Covenant being a remedy appointed against it and a means to bring them into Gods favour again and so are our Children not sinners of the Gentiles You that are Parents and are carefull enough to keep sure your inheritances and joyntures of earthly things to you and your Children suffer not your Children to be wrangled out of their birth-right and joynt inheritance they have with your selves in the Covenant of Grace under the name and notion of unbelievers when as the Scriptures never calleth them so but a holy Seed and God hath made you and you Children joynt-partakers of the Covenant and the Seals thereof I have been the longer in this for that I would lay therein some ground-work for something to follow I will be very short in your next Quaere Section II. Of Baptism making Christians and how YOu ask whether Baptism maketh a man or woman a Christian without Faith and following of Christ in all his Commands and Steps left upon Record for our imitation This is a short Quaere and therefore shall be soon answered as not seeing to what purpose it is for you or against me I shall therefore briefly answer something to it out of Rom. 2.28 and 29. distinguishing of the sorts of Christians and the parts of Baprism as he doth of the sorts of Jews and parts of Circumcision As Circumcision which was outward in the flesh made though I do not here approve of this your word and therefore I will use another shewed or declared the Jew outwardly or the outward Jew so Baptism which is outward in the flesh sheweth or declareth the Christian outwardly or the outward Christian And both may be without Faith and following of Christ in all his Commands c. as in Esau and Simon Magus the one Circumcised the other Baptized Again As Circumcision which is of the heart in the Spirit not in the Letter made for here your word may go a Jew inwardly or the inward Jew So Baptism which is of the heart in the Spirit not in the water onely maketh a Christian inwardly or the inward Christian neither of these can be without Faith which parifieth the heart or the fruits of Faith in following of Christ c. Now as the Apostle saith surther He is not a Jew and that is not Circumcision so may I He is not a Christian and that is not Baptism namely approved of God and avaylable to Salvation which are outward onely and literal and therefore every true Jew or Christian must indevour after Faith and Following Christ to speak as you do and to find and get the inward and spiritual substance and nature of these Sacraments which is to worship God in Spirit to believe and rejoyce in Christ Jesus having no confidence in the flesh Phil. 3.3 to put off the sinsull body of the flesh Col. 2.11 That we may draw neer with a true heart in full affurance of Faith having our hearts sprinckled from an evill Conscience and our bodies washed in pure water Heb. 10.22 and may have the washing of Regeneration and the Sprinkling of the Blood of our Lord Jesus within us as Tit. 3.5 and 1 Pet. 1.2 Again There are Made Christians and there are Born Christians or a Proselytical or Parental Christianity As for such who are of the Pagan and Heathen world by Nature They can no otherwise be made Christians or Members of the Church but by a lawful Baptism upon their accession unto the Church and expression of their Faith so the Proselvtes of old were and did whom Baptism made Christians and outward members of the visible Church upon their Confession of Faith like as their Faith if true made them Saints and inward members of the Invisible Church But for them Infants who are in the Church and within the Covenant descended of Parents and in Covenant these are Born Christians and Church-members visible I mean not as born of Christian Parents but as born in and under the Christian Covenant so that their Baptism doth not so much make them to be Christians but only shew and declare them to be such as I said and seal them as Covenanters And howsoever a Positive expression of Faith explicitely be necessary unto a Heathen Born for his Admission unto his Christianity or Church-membership yet it is not so unto a Christian Born for their Christanity or Church-membership is their Birth-Privilege and Baptism is but their Instalment or inrolment and is but as the Inauguration or unction unto a Prince Born Faith I confess and I mean saving and justifying Faith and so must you seeing you joyn thereto the following of Christ in all his Commands and Steps left upon Record for our Imitation is absolutely requisite unto Born Christians as a Condition to their partaking and enjoyment of the Benefits and Fruits of Baptism but not absolutely required as the condition to their comming and engaging to the Covenant to the which they have a good Title and Right without present actual Faith unless you will affirm that all the Jewes who came to Circumcision had the like and all the whole Congregation of Israel man woman and child who Deut. 29. entred into Covenant with God had a saving and a justifying Faith In a word Baptism without Faith may declare a visible Christian but incompleatly
their being in Covenant must needs be the ground of Gods commanding the Seal of Circumision It is acknowledged there was a special Commandement for circumcising in the time of Infancy but do not you blame God for his such Command by the same reason you blame us for our practice Infants of Jewes were as much in the state of Nature as ignorance blindness and under the same defects that Infants of Christians are and why do ye not charge the wisdom of God with folly for Commanding the Infants of Jewes to be circumcised or excuse us who being under the same Covenant do Baptize the Infants of Christians In imitation of God Commanding Circumcision and also in obedience of God and that Command which was in part also Evangelical For That Commandement was for the Circumcising of such Infants in their Infancy whose Parents were under Gods seal but there is no such command for Infants whose Parents were not for these Profession of Faith was needful Abraham in whom the Church of the Jews began therefore had Faith before hee took the Seal but no such thing was afterward required of Abrahams Seed but the contraty Commanded namely that their Seed should be circumcised in their Infancy And so I deny not but God Commanded Circumcision but this that by vertue of Gods Commandement onely they were Circumcised I deny for it was also and chiefly because of the foregoing Covenant in the 7. and 8. verses to which the words refer saying Thou shalt keep my Covenant Therefore what Covenant vers 10. Circumcision is so named He doth not barely Command it but with an Inference or reference therefore to shew that they being in Covenant were therefore to have the Seal thereof Circumcision which did but put the Covenant under Seal in which Covenant those Children were before by Birth being born of Parents with whom God had stricken Covenant But I shall go neer to make use of it anon for the Baptizing of our Children like as they and you do now for the circumcising of the Jewes Chrildren Though the Truth is that was nothing but Gods word of Institution whose incommunicable property it is to appoint Sacramental Signs The Covenant then especially was the ground of Circumcising the Seed of the Jewes and the same is the ground of Baptizing the Infants of Christians and so Christian Parents being in Covenant their infants are in Covenant with God and therefore Baptizable for Gods Covenant written upon Children of Parents in Covenant is no Blank to seal too but a just Title or writ as I may so say for the Seal and a very Commission given out by the Holy Spirit for the Baptizing Infants of Christians in their lofarcy and so these things appearing to the Churches of God That Infants of Christians are entred in Covenant with God They ought to put the same under the Seal of Baptism as the Infants Due and the Churches Duty More briefly and Syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it All persons within and under the Covenant of Gods Grace are Commanded of God to have the Seal of Covenant put upon them which in the Gospel-administration thereof is Baptism But all Infants of Christians are within the Covenant of Gods grace Therefore all Infants of Christians are Commanded of God to have the Seal of the Covenant put upon them which in the Gospel-Administration thereof is Baptism The first Proposition is clear from Gen. 17. and God Commanding all Jews in Covenant to be Circumcised and from Matth. 28. and Christ Commanding all Gentiles or Nations in Covenant to be Baptized The second Proposition is the very Tenour of the Covenant I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed and so I have reasoned the Baptism of Infants and Terms into a Command of God before I intended it A third Warrant is this Reason If the Infants of Jewish Parents were capable of Circumcision the initial Seal of the Covenant which was Circumcision and were Circumcised though they could shew no Right they had unto it but their Birth of Parents in Covenant Then also may and must the Infants of Christian Parents be Baptized and receive Baptism the initial Seal though they can shew no other Right to it but their Birth of Parents in Covenant This Warrant is Reasoned out or this Reason is warranted out of Heb. 13.9 Jesus Christ the same yesterday to day and for ever Jesus Christ ministred is the Covenant which is as I said the same for ever in sabstance and in relation to theeternal welfare of souls Though the ministrations of him be different of him as to be exhibited and to come unto the Jewes and of him as come and exhibited unto Christians And though some Ceremonial and Circumstantial matters be changed yet the substantial and that which was purely a Covenantall or Sacramental Part abides as being an everlasting Covenant made with Abrahams Seed all true beleevers they differ not the Two Sacraments in any substantial thing or in any spiritual effect necessary to salvation or in any use to confirm the Covenant of Grace and further a man in the way to Heaven and so as an Initial Seal of the Covenant they differ not nor as a Sacrament of entrance into the Church and so Circumcision was a Seal of the same Righteousness by Faith as Baptism is to us Rom. 4.11 and Circumcision signified the mortification of the flesh and the renewing of the mind and did bind over the Jewes unto the obedience of Gods will Rom. 2.28 c. Gal. 3.21 and so doth Baptism the same to us now as Rom. 6.3 and 11. 1 Pet. 3.21 Insomuch that Baptized Christians are called circumcised Christians and Baptism is called by the name of Circumcision Col. 2 11. and 14 4. Though we Christians are not to follow the Jews in things peculiar to his own dispensation which was Legal and Ceremonial yet those actions that were done by them upon such grounds that are of moral perpetual and common concernment to one person as well as another in one Church as well as another for one age as well as another none can deny such actions to be binding and obligatory to all as a standing Rule for after Generations by which may be answered that which is usually objected by those that except to our Analogy of Baptism with Circumcision as why do ye not plead a Baptism of Males onely and that particular of the eight day and so carry on the whole Analogy together and in order why because these were but circumstantial things the two Sacraments may be one in substance for all these besides they were not of common but peculiar use to the Jews that Church those ages as for the eighth day it was both a Ceremonial and Physical reason as to life and health of the infant that thefore skin was not cut off till then and for the Females not Circumcised it is enough against you and your opinion if the proportion betwixt Circumcision and Baptism
holds but in the Males for that will infer the state of infancy capable of the Initial Seal of the Covenant of Grace under the Gospel and again under the Law because of the inconveniency and unfimess of the thing it self to be done upon them the Females were Circumcised in the Males as the Church is circumcised in Christ the Males bearing the Type of Christ upon their flesh and the Males and Females in Matrimonial conjunction representing Christ and his Church to which the Apostle alludes Eph. 5 22 and 33. but now such a typical discrimination of Sexes being removed Christ exhibited puts no difference in Baptism between Males and Females Gal. 3 27 and 28. Nor yet do we Argue for Infant-Baptism from the bare Analogy of Infantcircumcision but from the force of the reason that lyeth in the performance which holds not in the circumstances of the eighth day and the Females as it doth in this of Infancy Namely that as Infants of the Jews were circumcised though they declared no right they had unto it but their birth so may the Infants of the Christians be Baptized though they make no manifestation of their Faith c. but shew their birth as Children of Parents in Covenant with God Yea the Foundation and occasion of both Circumcision and Baptism were one the same of common concernment to all to adde somewhat left out before wherein they differ not namely Gods free eternal Love to his Elect and mans misery by his fall in the loynes of Adam and his birth in pollution from the loynes of his immediate Parents derived to them from the loynes of Adam whence also I may argue the original sin and the clensing of Nature by the Spirit of Christ are of Common concernment to Jewish and to Christian Infants Therefore Christian Infants ought to the made partakers of the Seal of Regeneration in their Infancy as the Jewish Infants were and so there lyeth as much necessity in substance yea morality in the duty for believing Christians to Baptize their Infants as for believing Jewes to circumcise theirs but of this particular I shall say more presently 5. If now for all this you shall deny and withold Baptism from the Infants of covenant-Christians in their Infancy notwithstanding that God granted yea commanded Circumcision to the Infants of covenant Jewes in their Infancy but by reason of the covenant which God made with the Parents and their Seed You must of necessity do one of these absurdities yea Impieties i.e. either you must deny Gods covenant of Grace under the Law and the Gospel to be one and the same for substance and these circumcision and Baptism to be the Initial Seales of it according to the diversities of the administeations of the same which is unreasonable and unwarrantable as is shewed 2. Or you must charge God with want of wisdom and discretion in managing his affairs for choosing such unfit and uncapabie parties as Infants to make a covenant with and to Seal too which is Irreligious and Impious to do 3. Or you must prefer the Typical Administration before the Evangelical and so advance Moses above Christ and the shadow before the Sun-light by denying the Infants of Gods covenanted people under the Gospel and since Christs comming the Initial Seal of the Covenant and so making the Grace of less extent than that which Moses allowed the Infants under the Law and before the comming of Christ which is unchristian and un-Gospel-like to do 4. Or you must put our Children born in the bright day of the Gospel and of more abundant Grace into a worse estate and Condition as to the meanes of their Salvation if they be passed by the Seal and not baptised then the Children were who were born in the Twi-light of the Law who were admitted to the Seal Circumcised which is envious and malicious to do 5. Or you must shew that a manifestation of Faith and some personal Righteousnesse is now more requisite Which was onely required of such whose Parents were not under the Faederal Seal unto the baptism of our Infants than it was unto the Circumcision of their Children or that their Children gave at their Circumcision such Testimony of their Faith and Righteousnesse more than ours Which is even foolish and childish to think This Warrant of our Infant-baptism from its Analogy with this Infant-Circumcision lyeth as such a Block in your way as neither you nor any of yours could ever get over as Christ crucified on the Crosse was unto the Jewes a stumbling Block So Christ ministred in Circumcision unto the Jewes in Covenant and their Infants is to you and all Antipaedobatists a very stumbling Block which whilest they have endeavoured to lift at and leap over they have strained and stretched and wrested Scriptures more than their Armes and have broken their shins I mean their first Faith and a good Conscience making shipwrack of both whilest they slit upon this Rock or stumble upon this Block But Sir I hope better things of you and I have better things for you as my Friend and Neighbour I will not leave you in the maze of the five-went way of the Anabaptists that they must walk in I have a single path and a plain way for you if you please to take it and it is this or none 6. You must yeeld in Modesty and Humility at it becomes you to beleeve such parties Infants of both Testaments to be inabled by God with some proportionable Grace for the Covenant and Seals in a way acceptable to himself Though you cannot see it nor have Capacity I will not say Inpenuity to acknowledge it and to clear off all Clouds of Doubts and Quaeres which you or others have raised up and gathered together about the manner and manifestation thereof and for this purpose read Esay 40.13 14. Esay 55.8 and 9. Rom. 11.34 35. Ro. 12.3 16 And of this I have largely before discoursed more briefly and Syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it If all Infants of Jewes are commanded in Scripture to be circumcised and their Parents thereupon bound to bring them to Circumcision Then also all Infants of Christians are commanded to be baptised and their Parents bound to bring them to baptism But all Infants of Jewes are commanded in Scripture to be circumcised and their Parents bound to bring then to Circumcision Therefore all Infants of christians are commanded to be baptised and their Parents bound to bring them to baptism The first Proposition is clear from the cited Texts of Hebrews 13.9 and Colossians 2.11 and from the Analogy of Circumcision and baptism and the samenesse or identity of the Covenant of both Administrations in the substantials as to the good of Souls The second Proposition is the very Letter of the Text in the seventeenth of Genesis and elsewhere as hath been shewed and so I have reasoned Infant-baptism into a command before I intended it A fourth Warrant is this
3. The case of necessity in state of Person I scarce understand unless it be this When as he or she earnestly desireth and imploreth for the same whether by its speech or its need and there is no Minister to give it Baptism here the Lord will have mercy and not sacrifice and men are not to stand upon this ordination but the persons salvation Let but your Brother or your self stay and expect such cases of necessity before you or he dip any more or baptize again and then though you be not nor he set a part for the administring that Ordinance but are meer Lay men you shall hear nothing from me against the same I assure you But if in a well ordered and already planted and constituted Church and that when there are no such cases or states of necessity but that lawfully ordained Ministers may easily be procured you and your Brethren will go on still to dip and baptize and that publiquely being no better ordered or set a part then you have related I shall say though again Ye take too much upon you ye sons of Gad for I shall not hold you of the Tribe of Levi Num. 16.7 or Issachar rather couching down between two burthens Genes 49.14 your Laical and Ministerial Callings And it shall come to pass as Zacharias saith Zach. 13.4 5. that such Prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision which he hath prophesied and every one of his Division that he hath made and set a partition yea of his Dipping also that he hath ministred and Baptisin and he shall say and confess at last I am no Prophet I am an Husbandman for man taught me to keep cattel from my youth God never ordained me to dip Christians from my birth Distinctly Take this a Presbyter or Priest in respect of his Ministerial Character and Order I mean onely a sacerdotal gift power and commission is primarily and principlally the publick and ordinary minister of Baptism A Deacon may baptize also and that publikely so it be at the appointment of the Bishop or Priest but a Priest by his own right may baptize ex officio as we say by vertue of his sacerdotal office even in the presence of a Bishop But a Layman may not baptize publickely but onely privately neither privately in the presence of a Priest or Deacon but onely in their absence neither alwayes in their absence but onely in case of necessity Then it hath been permitted according to the good old way and new way also of true Churches some such times to Laymen to baptize so he intend to do that which the Catholick Church doth in that kind of administration The second Catechistical Quaere is concerning the Persons Dipped Quaere 2. What warrant of precept or example have you from the Sacred Word or Prim tive Antiquity for your Dipping and Anabapâ—izâ—ng Christians washed before or members of the visible Church baptized once in their Infancy by lawful Ministers so as the two Women and Sisters were whom your Brother Dipped Ask now of the days that are past which were before since the day that God created man and woman upon Earth and commanded circumcision in the eldest Chruch of the Jews and appointed Baptism in the younger Church of the Gentiles ask from the beginning to the end of both whether there hath been any such thing as this that a person circumcised or baptized in their infancy were ever recircumcised or rebaptized at growth or yeras after when they could render a Reason or make confession of their Faith c. Instance in one if you can and be instant upon it as you will and is not then your dipping the formerly dipped a new business As for that example of Joshua upon Gods command Circumcise again the children of Israel the second time Jos 5.2 This doth not intimate any Repetition or Reiteration of that Sacrament in or to the same particular Israelitish person circumcised as if he should be now circumcised again but onely relates the Restauration and Renovation of that Sacrament unto the people of Israel in general amongst whom Circumcision was a long while intermitted and discontinued by reason of their frequeut yea continual journals and removings up and down as the 4 5 6 Verses do evidence the same As for that Acts 19.5 of St. Pauls practise the example of the Ephesian Disciples in the Acts it is abundantly answered in my Instruction of your Scribe to which I refer you and I add this for a plainer and shorter Resolution for you 1. That it maketh nothing for your Re-dipping and Re-baptizing 1. Because St. John's Baptism being there spoken of and you or your Sect being Popish in your opinion of Re-baptizing and so holding from hence that the Baptism of John and Christ are two different Baptisms and that in the substance and not onely in the Degree of their signification and efficacy Here was no iterat on of one and the same but the ministration of a diverse Baptism and so is not to your or my purpose 2 For that there is no Baptism of water spoken of much less there laid to be reiterated that the Ephesian Disciples had long before received from some of Johns Disciples but onely the Baptism of Fire i.e. of the Spirit and the miraculous gifts of the same is there mentioned which they confess they had not so much as heard of namely that they unsually as then accompanied the other Baptism of water And so that the former was that they were baptized with and was poured upon them there in the Name of Jesus namely the gifts of the holy Spirit which were miraculous If you shall produce as somewhat you must say for your selves the example of Saul Cornelius and the Eunuch baptized in their elder years upon their conversion to and cofession of Christ and the commands of God to Ananias Peter and Philip c. to baptize them thereupon All this and as much more which you might have alledged of the same sort brings no advantage to your practice no age to your new business of Rebaptising the second time for that the mentioned above were their first and onely baptizings they being some of them Pagans born others aliens from the Covenant of Christ adverse and opposite to ignorant at leastwise of the Christian Faith were then frist of all baptized upon their embracing of it and never after baptized again No not the Black Aethiopian amongst them was ever dipped the second time And what is all this to your Redipping of two Women baptized before in their infancy as being born Christians and within the Covenant of Grace and Christ Yea more if the Pope of Rome should come over into England and turn Protestant or become one of your Sect a separate nor we would nor should you of right baptize him again having been baptized before rightly as to the Element and Words of Institution Therefore the Ancient Orthodox Church never Re-baptized Hereticks themselves upon their
is one and the same in both and both but one and the same baptisme as to the Essence they differ indeed in Circumstance John baptising into Christ as to come and to suffer and Christs Apostles baptising into Christ as come and suffered If you alledge the words of John against this Matth. 3.11 I baptise you with Water but be that cometh after me shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with Fire it is but a poor shift to shift off that to the baptisme of John and Christ which is put upon the persons of John and Christ for the words carry onely a difference of the Ministers of one and the same baptisme John dispencing it outwardly in Water by the hand of Man Christ dispencing it inwardly by the Finger of his Spirit which is as Fire It s but Popish sophistry to compare Johns baptism with water and Christs baptisme with Fire Johns baptisme with water is onely to be compared to Christs baptisme with water and then both the baptisme of John and of Christ are but one both in Authority for Christ Authorised and Appointed it John 3 3. Hâ— that sent me to baptise with water c waâ— God as also in Essence as I hinted for John used the right Element and matter and baptised with Water and the right Words or form invocating the sacred Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost is appears both because it was the form known to John and the Apostles who certainly baptised many before the death of Christ and before that form was solemnly and publickly declared Math. 28.19 after Christs Death and Resurrection besides that in the 19. of the Acts Saint Paul testifieth that John baptised into faith on Christ to come and so knowing Christ he could not be ignorant of the Father and the Spirit yea John 1.33 there is a manifest Testimony of the Father sending to him and telling him of the Spirits descending like a Dove upon him who was the Son of God So thirdly they were the same in effect and efficacy For John preached and practised the baptisme of Repentance for or unto the Remission of Sins Marke 1.4 the same which the Apostles did in and by their administration of baptisme And Christ himself testifieth that the baptisme of John pertained to the fulfilling of righteousnesse Matth. 3.15 and that the Publicans and People being baptised of John Justified God But the Phariseet despising the Counsel of God were not baptised Luke 7.29 Whereby it appears that Johns baptisme was a part of that All Righteousnesse a piece of the whole Counsel of God which they that partaked of Justified and declared God to be good and righteous Were it not so the Apostles themselves might be questioned whether truly baptised as who were no doubt baptised of John some of them being first his Disciples for where else should they be baptised seeing Christ with his own hands baptised none unlesse one of them should baptise another which is not probable And Lastly If Johns baptisme were not one and the same with ours that we have of Christs how do we injoy the same common baptisme with Christ who was baptised of John It will follow That Christ was baptised with another baptism than we are and so that our baptisme was not sanctified in the person and flesh of Christ like as the Jews circumcision was and so it will abate much of our Comfort that we have Christian Baptisme the members one and the same Baptisme with our head Thus I have driven you off this shoar of Jordan John Baptists Wharf where you see you cannot land or ground your dipping of Christians or your Rebaptising of Christened people as we speak Though I must withall prompt you here that our Quaere is in these tearms twixt Anabaptists and us Whether the baptism of Christ which is given to and received by infant Caristians or Christian infants may be iterated and you and they bring a Text to shew that the baptism of Iohn was iterated which as it is not to the scope and purpose so neither can you shew the same was iterated ever in the twelve Disciples or any other baptised of Iohn I say so long as you hold the baptism of Iohn and Christ to be two different and repagnant baptismes you cannot inforce upon us from Iohns baptismes iterated suppose so Christs baptism to be iterated It will be best for you therefore see how still and ever I am ready to give the best counsell I can to yeeld to the identity of both Iohns and Christs baptism as to the nature and substance of them and so indeed you may argue from the one to the other Hale in therefore again your Fly-boat to Iohn Baptists shoar and see if you can land there any thing to your purpose cast on this right side your net again into Iordan catch a frog Whatsoever you get you then and thus will lose your new and true friends the Papists and Jesuites for they row hard against you and these throw their nets on the other side holding that Iohn and Christs baptism are very far asunder and different in the very Essentials and do and will accurse you with Tridentine Book Bell and Candle and Lantern too of their ship none of which I know you can abide especially not the Book and Bell and Anathematise all who say that Iohn and Christs baptism are the same for substance and of the same force It is like to be a hot sea-fight as most an end the hottest fights are upon the water and there is most fire spit out or rather a cold River skirmish twixt you which I for my part do not intend to stand looking on though I have set you together by the ears but will thus leave you to fight it out to the last man and will passe away and on to another Text pressed and squeezed by some of your party for the Rebaptising of baptised ones It is Heb. 6.2 Where there is mention made amongst other Principles of the Doctrine of Christ The Doctrine of Baptismes Lo say they Here are Baptismes in the plurall as well as one Baptism in the singular and if your reason were good why the Apostle called it one Baptism because it is to be but once given and received may not we say say they our reason is good why the same Apostle calleth Many Baptismes two at least and so baptise you your Infants in their Infancy and we will baptise ours in their growth when they can make profession of Faith And so here are baptismes Truely this is somewhat like the discourse the Saduces had with Christ about one Woman who had seaven Husbands whose Wife she shall be of the seaven in the Resurrection I say and answer in Generall as Christ did Are yee not therefore deceived and do err because you know not the Scripture I could tell you here of the baptismes that of Iohn and the other of Christ to be here meant and you may remember if
is a great deal of distance and difference twixt a Warrant out of Gods word and a Command or Precept out of the same I shall I hope bring you forth some warrants out of the word for our Baptizing Infants but for a Precept or Command for the same I am not engaged no nor required to give by this your Quaere Warrants enough and those from the word I shall serve upon you for though a Warrant from a Justice be a Precept Missive yet a Permissive will of God which is no Precept for it may be a Warrant of an Action and such are and may be any solid Reason or good Consequence or like example drawn there from which though it will not be admitted for a Precept may serve for a Warrant A. first Warrant shall be this Reason which is but a recollection or recapitulation of somewhat immediatly said before If Infants of Christians are all of them capable and some of them partakers of the Spirit and Faith and other inward Graces Then they may and ought to be Baptized This is warranted out of the word and those Texts Act. 8.36 Act. 10.47 The one warranting Baptism to a believer the other to him who hath received the Holy Ghost whether young or old Infant or grown person If Thou believest saith Philip thou mayest be Baptized when the Eunuch asked what doth hinder me so Faith it was that made him capable and removed the hindrance though upon his confession of his Faith it being not otherwise discernable he having no other right pleadable he being one o' the Gentiles He was actually Baptized So can any man forbid water that these should not be Baptized who have received the Holy Ghost as we and so he Commanded them to be Baptized That particular Hypothetical if thou believest c. thou may'st be Baptized may and must be resolved into this general Categorical whosoever Believeth may be Baptized Man or Child Young or Old and howsoever Cornelius and the rest their receiving of the Spirit was in the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit then manifesting it self that way yet any other manifestation of the Spirit any word or act of God declaring that Persons do belong to Gods Covenant as some or other way the Spirit doth manifest it self in all that do belong to Gods Covenant is to us and ought to be to you a sufficient Warrant without any danger of will-worship to account them such and therefore to Baptize them be it this pouring out of extraordinary gists as here upon Cornelius and others or the Consession of Faith as in Philip or Repentance as in those that came to John the Baptist or be it a promise to believing Parents-and their Seed to be their God or Gods owning them as Persons belonging to the Church or any other ordinary Gifts and Graces of the Spirit or the Spirits supplying their infirmities in these cases can any man forbid water that these should not be Baptized This Interrogative and quaestionipropounding Speech may and must be resolved into a Nagative-Answer absolutely No man can forbid water rightly for that 's done that is rightly done or done of Right anless he will forbid that which God hath Commanded and some of these we have abundantly for the Infants of believing Parents where no man can forbid there God Commands that they who have received the Holy Gholst should be Baptized The resule also out of this is this general Proposition whoseever whether Infant or grown Person hath received the Holy Ghost whether apparently or secretly ordinarily or miraculously whether in sight or Faith hath a right to Baptism no man can forbid it and in one of the particulars Peter here Commands it See how I have gratified you beyond a Warrant with a little less than a Command for the Baptizing of Infants if having Faith and the Spirit as many yea all the Elect of them have whom we not able to know one from the other particularly do therefore Baptize all under the Covenant with God More briefly and syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it All Persons who have received the Holy Spirit or have Faith are Commanded by God in Scripture to be Baptized as appears by the two Texts here cited But some Infants of Christians have received the Holy Spirit or have Faith as appears by many Texts formerly cited Therefore some Infants are Commanded by God in Scripture to be Baptized A Second Warrant is This Reason It Infants of Christian Parents be in the Holy Covenant of God and have the same engraven upon them and established with them Then they are to be Baptized and to receive Baptism as the initial seal thereof This Reason is warranted or this warrant may be reasoned out of the word Gen. 17.9 c. and Rom. 4.11 for it s there apparent and the light there shining dazzles all Antipaedobaptists they cannot abide to look thereon that as Abraham and his Proselytes grown men upon their profession of their Faith were Circumcised so the seed or Children of Abraham and those Proselytes were Circumcised as Children of Parents in Covenant and joyned together with them in covenant and both these are there expresly Commanded and so this also that the seed of Abraham and his Proselytes should be Circumcised by vertue and reason of Gods Covenant with them which was to be sealed unto them by Circumcision Now as the Being of Infants in Covenant under the Law made them capable of and gave them a due Right to Circumcision the Initial seal of that Covenant under the Law so the being of Infants in Covenant under the Gospel makes them capable of and gives them a due or Right to Baptism the Initial seal of the Covenant under the Gospel The Covenant being the same for substance and in relation to the eternal wel are of the Soul as in the nâ—x I shall shew which being so if Anabaptists passing by this reason from the Covenant will insist still upon the meer and sole Commandement of God I must tell them the Text saith not Thou shalt keep my Command but thou shalt keep my Covenant implying that this Command of Circumcision had reference to the Covenant and was part of it For here God is to be considered not in his absolute Prerogative commanding but as God in respective mercy Covenanting with his people and all his Commands are to be taken as branches of his Covenant and all prounded upon his Free-grace in Jesus Christ therefore Gen. 17.10 and 13. God calls expresly Circumcision by the name of his Covenant to teach you and all others that will learn that the Covenant made Infants capable of the Seal and not Gods meer Commandement as you and your notional and metaphysical Masters do abstract who love to play with your own Fancies and Imaginations whereas the Seal is nothing but the confirmation of the Covenant and appointed and commanded so to be of God But the Covenant in order of Nature going before the Seal thereof
to the washing the Leprofie of original sin and as the Waters of Bethesda to the healing of other diseases whatsoever even their actual sins also when afterwards committed It is true that your Children dying without Baptism may be saved by the Coverant and Promise of God and his Grace many are so all are so that are of the Number of Gods Elect Yea I confesse the hope of salvation doth no lie so much in the Seal as in the Covenant and Promise to which the Seal is annexed Indeed the Lord having made a promse to you beleeving Parents concerning your Children born in original sin That he will be your God and the God of your seed in this case you must beleeve this his Word and Promise But where he hath ordained a Seal for the confirmation of your Faith you must take heed how you neglect to apply it you must not as more than too many do in these days think it a superfluous and idle figure and some also hold it a superftitious and Idol-service That which I may and do plead with you for is this that you would so account of it as it is that there is a necessity lying upon you to baptise your Children born in original sin I mean a necessity not absolute but conditional in case your Children be prevented of Baptism by death you may well hope of the salvation of them by the Promise and Covenant onely as I said of God and his Grace and if after Baptism they be taken away from you by death you may better hope of their salvation from both Covenant and Seal also But if you be carelesse and negligent and do also it may be purposely and prophanely omit your duty to put your Children in Covenant with your selfs under the initial Seal thereof you will very hardly answer such your course either to God himself or his Church yea or to your Children and I think at laft to your own Consciences But in the mean time what blindnesse and presumption is this in you Parents to tempt God and to cast your Children onely upon the hands of his Spirit when he hath also appointed Water for their Washing and Regenerating this is as if you should throw up your Children unto the top of the Pinnacle of the Temple when as you have a Ladder standing and reaching up thither to carry them up by or upon upon this glosie God shall give his Angels charge over them so his Spirit order over them and in their hands shall they bear them up and on his finger shall he hold them lest at any time they perish and come to destruction bodily or ghostly What Prophanesse and impiety is this in you Parents to slight and refuse the outward ordinary means of your Childrens spiritual and eternal good as it may be the freeing of them from the Guilt Dominion and Condemnation of original pollution c. and to refer them over wholly to the inward ordinary means Christ Jesus and his Spirit when as these have appointed and dedicated the former to be used and applyed also What carelesnesse yea cruelty is this in you Parents to leave and let your Children lie in the pit and under the bondage of original and natural pollution into the which your selves have been accessary to their falling and not to suffer a hand of Gods ordinance to be reached out unto them which is Baptism for their raising up unto newness of Birth and Life And whereas God hath made a Covenant with you for your selves and your Children yea a joynt Covenant with you both to be your God and the God of your seed what ingratitude is this and ungodsiness to God what inhumanity or apparent imparentnesse is this to with-hold your Children from the Seal of that Covenant and so in a manner to disinherit them as much as in you lieth of their just and due Joynture and inheritance spiritual and eternal Well be it so your infants dying without Baptism may be saved and I pray God they may be saved through the Riches of his Grace but you have not delivered your own souls because you gave no warning to have them baptised as you ought to do seeing the evil come and more a coming upon them But suppose you with-holding them from their means of Baptism blow no Trumpet give no warning to have them baptised God should also with-hold his Spirit of Grace from your Children which God forbid and your Children be taken away in their infancy and minority They shall die in their iniquity or original sin But their-blood will he require at your hands for your negligence contempt you have broken his Covenant Gen. 17.14 Ezek. 33. A fifth warrant or reason is this If Baptism now under the Gospel doth succeed Circumcision under the Law Then are the Infants of covenanted beleeving Parents to be baptised like as Infants of the covenanted professing Jewes were circumcised this warrant is reasoned out or this reason warranted out of Collossians 2.11 and 12. Where the Apostle plainly sheweth that there is no need of their being circumcised who were baptised Jews or Gentiles because such baptised ones had received the Circumcision made without hands namely Baptism the better and great Circumcision as the Antients call it If you deny this you must affirm that the Churches of the Gospel and all the Gentiles converted to the faith of Christ of whom especially they consist are left without a Sacrament of Inititiaon or admission thereinto for their infants and so without one Seal of the Covenant of Grace which ought not to be nor is indeed For the Condition of Christians and their Infants is better at leastwise as good under the New Testament as the Old the Grace of God by the cōing of Christ into the world is more ample and clear as ample clear at leastwise to us living under the Gospel as to the Jewes living under the Law To deny these things were to cast foul dirt into the bright Sun and to shoot Arrows of Contumely Reproach into heaven against our Lord Jesus Christ by whom came Truth and Grace 1 John 17. as the Law was given by Moses and to grant these things is to yeeld Infant Baptism under the New Testament And whereas it is or may be replyed that in that Text above and others where Biptism is conjoyned to Circumcision as its substitute and successor there also are conjoyned with Baptism Mortification of the Flesh Newness of Life Faith and other Graces mentioned it s easily taken off though one of your most difficult Replies as thus 1. They are no more conjoyned with Baptism than Circumcision and therefore as their Infants were commanded to be circumcised So ours are commanded to be baptised notwithstanding their iuoability and incapacity of doing such acts or having such Graces which is equal and alike in both 2. In such Conjunctions if the Texts speak of Actual Faith Actual indeavoring after Mortification c. And require
these in persons baptised they must be limited to such as were Adults grown in years converts from Heathenism such as Cornelius and the Eunuch for therefore doth the Scripture name them to shew the same when it mentioneth their Baptism and the conjoyned duties as required in such which is nothing against Baptism 3. Or if Infants should be meant it sufficeth that these have them Mortification c. not in the Act exercising and manifesting themselves in any deed or word professing the same but onely in Habit included and lying in the principle of Grace the Holy Spirit and why because infants are sinners not by any proper Act of their own but onely by an Hereditary Habit. Now who amongst you can or will say that infants have not thus the Spirit of God which bloweth where it listeth and hath listed to blow in some of them we know of and thousands more where it listeth that we know not of effecting and producing in them this habitual principle of Grace Of this see more before 4. Nor is it necessary that Baptism in that very moment it is received should effect all things it figureth out and doth signifie no more was it that Circumcision should do the like but it may fall to working them afterwards wherein present there is an impediment and hindrance that letteth actual fact mortification Repentance c. as in infants the want of reason doth Those Actuals are not for the present required in infants to be baptised who yet are required to be in present actualy baptised for they are required to be partakers of the death and burial of Christ that is the merit and power thereof to the killing and burying of sin and natural corruption of which Baptism is the sign and means More briefly and syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it If Baptism do succeed and is substituted of Christ now instead of Circumcision in the Church of the Gentiles then as infants were commanded to be circumcised then in the Church of the Jewes so are Infants commanded to be baptized in the Church of the Gentiles But the Antecedent is true being the very matter and substance of the Text above Therefore also the Consequent is such and so I have reasoned Infant-Baptism into another Command before I intended this as reserved for the latter argument But I serve too large warrants upon you Sir to whom I now return I have another or two brief ones yet to serve A sixt warrant therefore is this Reason If infants of Christian Parents be capable of all the good ends effects and benefis that Baptism bringeth with it and worketh or offereth them then surely they are both capable of Baptism and their Baptism is warrantable and justificable This warrant may be reasoned out of the Word or this reason warranted out of the Word 1 Gor. 4.15 1 Cor. 9.1 The Apostle warrants and reasons his Apostleship and the Gospel he preached to be true and right from the good ends effects and benefits that came thereby to the Gorinthians and they received That he had begotten them through his Gospel they were his work in the Lord and the Seal of his Apostleship were they in the Lord. So may I hence warrant and justifie our ministery and even the Baptism which we minister to the infants of Christian Parents to be good had true from the many good ends effects and benefits thereof of which Infants are capable and receptive and which are wrought and sealed in them thereby Our Ministery of the Seal of Baptism with such effects and successe may be also the Seal of our Ministery Now the ends effects and benefits of Baptism are these for which it was appointed 1. To be a means of entrance and admission into the visible Church and a kind of engrafting the party baptised into the body of Christ and an enrolling of him amongst the houshold of God as Members and Servants of Christ Acts 2.37 2. To be instead of Circumcision an annexed Seal and assurance yea conveiance of the good and grace of Christs word and promise covenanted the sum whereof is this of being the Parents God and God of their seed Rom. 4.11 3. To be a representation and Collation of the washing and clensing of the Blood and Spirit of Christ and of the Regeneration and New Birth Titus 3.5 1 Peter 3.21 4. To be a Tye or Obligation of the baptised to stricter Obedience of God and his Truth to make the parties more diligent to serve God and careful to abandon sin Rom. 6.1 to the 9. 1 Cor. 1.13 5. To be a means of Union with Christ and of Unity amongst themselves knitting them faster and bringing them nearer unto Christ 1 Cor. 12.13 Eph. 4.5 6. To be a badge of Christianity and for distinction of Christians from Unbelieving Jewes and Gentiles as the stamp and Character whereby they are known to belong to Christ being a kind of partition-wall betwixt Christians and Jewes and Heathens Ephes 2.14 Now Sir tell me which of all these our infants are incapable of that you should thereupon deny them Baptism in the mean time I tell you they are capable to them all and therefore are not to be denyed The promises of the Covenant the washing away of sin by Christs Blood and Spirit the admittance into the body of Christ c. may be sealed unto them as wherein they are but Passive and if you say so are they capable of the Graces signed in the Lords Supper and therefore may communicate I say how know you that you have no rule for that no glimpse of light from the Word for that whereas I have given you evidence enough of light for the other if you will see there is a Scriptural light that infants are capable of the Graces signed and sealed in Baptism we may be sure of it and therefore may admit them to Baptism there is but your supposal light which is below Traditional you so much write against that they are capable of the Grace signed and sealed in the Lords Supper are you sure of it and will you thereupon admit them thereto The Lords Supper is no initial Seal and for Reception into Covenant which I onely plead for for infants yet this Seal which is Baptism it servesto confirm all the benefits of the Covenant as the baptised grow capable of them and are made partakers of them and so is a good preparative unto the Christians Passeover or the Lords Supper afterwards in due time and order The Lords Supper is a Seal of Augmentation appointed for the nourishment and growth of those Graces which the Covenant promiseth and requireth particularly and expresly of all partakers of it That they must discern the Lords Body and try and examin themselves and therefore Infants are not capable of the Graces of the Lords Supper like as they are of them of Baptism for that they must be Active in that whereas they may be but Passive in this Those that are capable
found even of all which are done throughout the whole life Ambrose the Bishop of Millain by whom Augustine was Converted and Baptized in his Book of Abraham the Patriark lib. For the year 381. 2. Chap. 11. writing upon those words unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit See saith he Christ excepts none not the Infant not the prevented by some necessity c. Every age is obnoxious to sin therefore every age is fit for the Sacrament So also in his Epistle ad Demetriadem Virginem he mention eth the Baptism of Children Epist 84. lib. 10. speaking in that Epistle against Pride and Boasting of some especially Hearetiques and shewing the evill effects thereof to the defending false opinions extenuating of evil and sin and the evacuating of some good gives these two Instances amongst others Hence the sin of Adam is affirmed to hurt his Posterity by example not by passage or transition into them Hence is that Evacuation of the Baptism of little Children as if they should be said to have Adoption given there but not to be absolved from their guilt and again Though little ones not Baptized may or should be saved yet great is the negligence of those that hindeed their Baptizing In his Book de vocat lib. 2. cap. 8. he mentioneth Baptism of Children three or four times and once thus They speak very ill and unjurly of little Children who say Grace hath there what it may Adopt but the water hath not there what it may wash away speaking of such as deoyed sin in little Children Paulinus Bishop of Nola in Camqania For the year 379. a man famous for Poetry and Eloquence Piety and munificence a good acquaintance of Augustine and Hierom betwixt whom and Him there passed sundry Epistles a great favorite and familiar of Ambrose whose life he wrote as also of Sulpitius Severus to whom he wrote 14. Epistles As the Beginning of the twelfe Epistle to the same Sulpitius Severus hath these two verses whhich for your sake I must be fain to tranflate into English Thence from the Sacred Font the Priest did lead it The Infant white in body heart and habit Epiphanius For the year 376. In his first Book Haer. 8. The Figures were in the Law the Truth in the Gospel Circumcision which served for a time gave place to the Great Circumcision which is Baptism which Circumciseth us from sin and Sealeth us into the Name of God In His Book against the Cerinthians Circumcision had its time untill the Great Circumcision came that is the washing of the New-birth as is manifest to every one Surely he meant that which the Apostle calls so that is Baptism the washing or Laver of Regeneration and by calling Baptism the Great Circumcision he must intend Infant Baptism as Infant-Circumcision and speaks of them as of things manifest and wel-known the Carnal or fleshly Baptism as Circumcision In the end of his work calls Baptism and other mysteries observed in the Church which are brought out of the Gospel and setled by Apostolique Authority Traditions and then in his Time Baptism was ministred to Infants and observed Gregory Nazianzene For the year 375. In his 40. Oration of Holy Baptism largely speaketh of it the brief is in the Question and Answer What say ye of those who are of tender Age and perceive neither dammage or Grace shall we Baptize those Yes surely if any danger be it is better to be Sanctified without sense and feeling then to depart without the Seal and Initiation Circumcision bearing in a manner the figure of Baptism was offered to them who were void of Reason c. calleth also Baptism the Seal or Signet to such as enter into the Race of Life Basil the Great For the year 372. Bishop of Caesarea 1 Tom. Exhortation to Baptism wherein though the Baptism of Infants is not named yet I find these words There is a proper and peculiar time for this and that as for sleep for watching for warring the Time for Baptism is the whole life of man which he proves at large and again without Baptism there is no light to the Soul and then adds the Jew was compelled or forced to Circumcision because every soul which was not Circumcised the eighth day was to be cut off wilt thou defer the Circumcision not made with hands which is performed by Baptism in the putting of the flesh When wilt thou be a Christian Athanasius Q. 91. For the year 325. Of the Sayings and Interpretation of Scripture We dip or put the Infant thrice into the water and thrice bring it out insignification of the death and resurrection of Christ upon the third day I shall also here set down an answer of his Quest 2. to Antiochus because it confirmes what I have writ before of Infants having the Holy Spirit How shall we know that the Infant was truly Baptized and received the Holy Ghost in Holy Baptism when it was a Child but the answer is long and shall not need because I would be short The Question is enough to the purpose and sheweth both that Athanasius held both Infant-Baptism and therein affirmed them to receive the Holy Spirit the very question makes it unquestionable as to him Again in his Treatise of the Sabbath and Circumcision Hee calls Circumcision a type of Baptism Cyprian Bishop of Carthage and a Martyr For the year 247. The higher we go the cleerer the light shines for the Baptism of Infants for now here Cyprian with 66 Colleagues all Bishops do in a Councel at Carthage decree for it and so Certifieth his Friend Fidus in an Epistle to him third Book of Epistles Ep. 8. Yea that whole Epistle written by Cyprian and his 66 Colleagues sitting in Council with him The Title of it is of Infants to be Baptized and the subject of the whole Epistle is to justifie the Baptizing of them and answereth the objections of Fidus. As to the Cause the Baptism of Infants we all have judged that the mercy and Grace of God is not to be denyed to any Child born of man c. and that there is the same equallity of grace for the young Infant as the Elder God is no respecter of personages nor ages Yea he gives divers reasons why Infants and the rather and the sooner because Infants should be Baptized which for brevity sake I leave out here as who am onely upon the shewing having proved the Baptism of Infants before the Custom and Practice of Antiquity herein This Epistle also is owned and avouched both by Hierome Au-Augustine to be the true Epistle of Cyprian by Hierom as above is said and by Augustine Epistle 28. unto Hierome saying Cyprian did not here devise a New decree but kept and observed the true Faith or the faithful Practice and Custom of the Church Yea this Epistle of Cyprian was a very strong ground for them both to stand upon and they very much relyed
in your first Leaf with the good and old way of the Baptism of believers stand now therefore in the way and see ask for the old pathes where is the good way and walk therein such a one I have shewed you without your asking even this the Baptism also of Infants walk therein and ye shall find rest for your Soul as there it followeth but if ye say still as there it followeth also we will not walk therein then I shall look upon you as Saint Austins myracle and wonder that I may end with him with whom I began this who believed not when the world believed Practice not when the world Practiseth Seeing then you care not for looking behind you to Antiquity look before you and see the Reformed Churches in France Dutchland Scotland why not England if Infant-Baptism be not now in present the practice and Custom and so hath been of old of these and other Reformed Churches what then is your Church if you have any but a deformed one but a New upstart one who oppose this so General Custom both Ancient and Modern and have quite cast it out of your doors introducing instead thereof and setting up the Man-Baptism and Infant Rebaptism crying out daily for these your Great little Nothings Diana's of the Ephesian first love and first Baptism forsaking Anabaptists Let the advise you to lay your hand upon your mouth and cease declaiming and clamouring against this infant-Baptism for therein you reproach God and his Church God for appointing Infant-Circumcision and his Church for using Infant-Baptism yea to lay your hand upon your heart and in love to the Truth to return unto your First Love and Truth to enter again into Communion and fellowship with your Mother-Church of England and those other her Sister-Churches of the Protestants giving unto us the Right of Fellowship who are ready to reach forth the same to you and also to embrace you And if this be any Blook you stumble at in the way to our Churches that there are Rents and Divisions still amongst us whom may we thank for them even about this infant-Baptism I answer you in a word that our differences are not about Baptizing Infants but about Infants to be Baptized and so in the Point of Paedobaptism or Infant-Baptism we are all agreed and agrieved only at your Schism and Division which you have made in our Churches which are all against you therefore our care must be if we cannot hold fellowship with you to keep our Communion notwiststanding with all Christian Churches and if you will separate and depart from us and them we must let you depart a Brother or a Sister is not under Boadage in such Cases But God hath called us to peace peace as Christs Legacy left to his Church we are willing to have with all man so we may withall retain Truth And seeing whil'st we speak of peace you are still for dissention whil'st we propound truth you will still hold errors our care must be and shall be I hope in our particulars to maintain and preserve our peace and Truth and our Communion in both withall the Reformed Churches abroad in this point of Infant-Baptism which Churches as ours at home God hath blessed in this way with great increase of heavenly gifts and infinite numbers of renouned professours and Saints of those that have bin baptized in their Infancy And that knowing the time that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep Ro. 13.11 to repent of those sinful Scismes and Rents and Separations you have made between your selves and us and other true Churches to give over your charging us and them with iniquity wherein we shew piety and your putting a divine restraint upon Infant Baptism wherein God hath given them and us liberty and in excluding Christian poor Infants those privileges and helps to heaven which Christ hath indulged them And thus I have answered your last Quaere shewing unto you what warrants we have out of the word for our Baptizing of Infants namely the six warrants reasoned out of the word which are six Reasons warranted out of the word Now joyn all these reasons together with the Scripture out of which they are deduced and will they not make that Analogy or proiportion of Faith as to this point of Infant Baptism according to which we are to proceed nay may they not all arise to a Tantamount Command or a virtual or implicite Command or a consequential Command of the same yea I have made two or three of them to be such in their particulars I have been so used to give you Commands out of the word for our former practices being called ever upon by you for such Commands which so ring still in my ears that though the word warrant do not put me upon such a hot service as a Command which I believe notwithstanding you meant your Tongue either out-running or short-running your wit I shall interpret your challenge or Quaere to aim at what Command out of the word have you for Baptizing Infants And first what Command have you out of the word against Baptizing Infants of Baptized Parents if none Then you deny Baptism to those to whom Christ denyed it not and so in a manner you deny Christ to be your Master and if you deny him you deny also him that sent him if none then you have no authority to infring or Counter-command the liberty of the Church herein ye take too much upon you Sone of Muncer Secondly What Command would you have out of the word for our Baptising Infants of Baptised Parents do you mean an express and praticular Command in calling for this you grant an explicite Command for it and a general one I am glad of this and will make much of it as to my purposes for as general propositions are enough to infer their particular all Children of the Church and in Covenant are to be baptised and therefore the Infants of Baptised Parents are to be baptised So implicite Commands which are but folded up and wrapped in good reasons or good consequences are sufficient for all true Subjects and Disciples of Christ to do a work and this of Baptising the infants of baptised Parents as if it had been more expressed The words intimation or a deduction from the Word is to me and ought to be to you the Words Expression and an injunction from the Word For if you be so streit girdled and queasie-stomacht or narrow throated that nothing will down with you or can be digested but onely expresse Commands in so many Words Letters and Syllables as Infant-baptism doth consist of Then I pray produce such an expresse Command out of the Word for Children of Beleevers when they are grown to be instructed and baptised upon the Confession of Faith or for Baptism of Believers onely in Christian Churches to use your own words or for Woemens eating the Passeover and receiving the Lords Supper or for the first
day of the week to be the Christian Sabbath or for divers other such things that I name not And yet I have something more to shew you than a Rational and Consequential Command for Infant-Baptism There is also an Analogical I had almost added Typical Command for the same our Infant Baptism For Go a Command to Abraham and the Jewes to circumcise their Infants the Seal then in force and for that time of the Law The same Command binds us Christians to baptise our Infants the Seal now in force and for this time of the Gospel binds us I say by the just Analogy and Proportion that is between the two Sacraments and Seals of one and the same Covenant especially the one Baptism succeeding the other Circumcision Suppose a Jesuit who is of late in many poynts Anabaptised like as you Anabaptis are in as many Jesuited should oppose you and deny your Baptism of Beleevers onely to be a Seal as indeed he doth so denies both your and our Baptismes and the Lords Supper to be Seals or Signes will you not look back to Circumcision in the Old Testament where it is called a Seal and Sign for in the New Testament they are no where called either and thence fetch an Analogical proof that ours are also Seals our Baptism ard their Circumcifion agreeing in the General-Nature of a Sacrament By the like Analogy being questioned by you for a Command of Infant Baptism in the New Testament if there be none there I may go over to the Command of Infant Circumcision in the Old Testament and thence prove ours also our Infant-Baptism to be commanded and us therein bound and obliged to put the Initial Seal of the New Testament upon our Children Once more Do you think that Gods Command to Abraham and the Jewes to train up their Children in manner of worship which was then in force doth also command and bind us Christians to train up our Children in conformity to such Ordinances as are now in force I beleeve you think so and therefore I think you will beleeve at last that Gods Command to Abraham and the Jewes to Circumcise their Children and to give them the Seal of Circumcision then in force is also a Command upon us Christians binding us to baptize our Infants and to minister unto them the Seal of Baptism now in sorce And so now this is the use I told you besore I was like to make of your answering That the Jewish Children were circumcised onely by vertue of a particular Commandent of God for the same I say this use I may and shall make of it that by Vertue or Vice of such you answer I infer also there from yea therein a particular Command for baptising Christians Children there being such an Analogy and proportion between the two Sacraments of one and the same Covenant in the Essentials of it and the Rationals of it unto the eternal good of Souls This might be good enough against you because it answers you in your kind and meets with you in your own way howsoever my self still hold that the Jewish Infants were circumcised Circumcision being the Seal thereof and so both inforced by a Commandement or Word of Institution as I have said before But romember this also that Gods Commandement being out for Circumcising Infants whose Parents were under the Seal and no farther by the same reasons you blame our practice of baptising Infants you blame God for such a Command which you plead for the Circumcising Infants because Infants of Jewes were as much under state of Nature as Infants of Christians are and Infants of Christians are as much under the state of Grace as the Infants of Jewes If God were wise and good in commanding circumcising of Infants then we cannot be evil and foolish in practising Baptism of Infants commanded also here But because you New-light men regard not much the Old Testament for that it holds forth the Old-light of the command for circumcising of Infants by the which walking there may be proportioned out or Analogised a command for Baptising of Infants I will set upon a Text or two of the New Testament and that famous one first wherein you much delighted of old and from whence you would seem to have your New light it is Matthew 28.19 and 20. Methinks I hear you saying already with Nathaniel Can there come any good thing out of 2 Nazareth John 1.46 7. Chap. any command out of these words for Infant Baptisms Come and see and hear and whilest I am as Philip bringing forth some good thing hence for poor Infanrs be you as Nathaniel An Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile and not an Ishmaelite indeed in whom there is nought but mocking at young Isaacks devotions and young Childrens Baptisms Gen. 21.9 1. I may safely say here in this command of Christ is nothing meant or minded by him about your taking Children of Beleevers already baptised in our Church where the Gospel is planted and your rebaptising them again after your teaching them and their professing For the Baptism here commanded and to be executed was onely of Nations where the Gospel was not yet planted to be taught and baprised once 2. I may as safely say That the state of those Pagan Gentiles being not the same in poynt of Religion as is the state of us Christian Gentiles as is said above how can their as yet untaught and ungospelised their uncovenanted unbaptised condition and be a rule and precedent to a Taught Guspelised Covenanted baptised Nation already So Christs command here doth not infringe or counter command our Infant-Baptism yes you may say for doth not Christ command all Nations to be taught before they be baptised He doth so all pagan Nations who were without Christ being aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenant of promise Ep. 2.12 Without God in the world being carried away to dnmb Idols 1 Cor. 12. What is this to us but yet 3. I must tell you That this Commandement of Christ placing teaching before baptising doth not pronounce Christian Infants unbaptisealbe because unteachable if there be any such force of Argument from the order and placing of words I pray argue so out of Mark 1.1 Where Repentance is placed before faith and out of John 3.5 Where the Water is set before the Spirit Saint Peter will tell you that the Spirit goeth before the Water Acts 10.47 and you can tell your self that Repentance followeth after Faith as the fruit thereof again it is not to be read here first teach then baptise Christ doth not shew here which ought to go first and which last but leaves both to be done according to the condition of the Church for if it ba a Church planted and Christian as ours it then they are to be baptised and after instructed if a Church to be planted Heathenish then they are to be first taught then baptised Now the condition of
such were baptised and all their housholds such a one and All his by the Apostles is your imagination so strong and wide as to shut out the children first out of doors of those housholds that so next you may exclude them from the Apostles Baptism You must do so if there were any within doors or tell us that the Apostles passed by them in their baptisings or you must shew us that all the Women in those housholds were barren not a Mother of a Child or a young one amongst them all For though there should not have been in them Infants or Sucklings yet if but a youngling and a Child of some years all would have been but as one as to their Understanding and confessing Or you must thus divide the housholds as you are good at dividing houses and households setting the Husband against the Wife and alienating the Children from Father Mother which is a very bad practice and say that not all the Houshold was baptised whereas the Text saith expresly He and all his houshold were baptised but some major part or the most considerable part of the house and when it is said the house of Israel was circumcised its meant not of a part either major or most considerable but of the whole house as to the Parents and Children and Servants also or Proselytes under their education and instruction I do not wonder you cannot abide our University Arts and Sciences These cannot abide you and such reasonings and interpretations the Apostles baptised such and all their housholds that is the greater part the people of Growth for though sometimes such a word may be so taken where all are not capable of the thing done or spoken of you must prove it to be so here meant in all the places where the Apostles baptised such and all their housholds which you can never doe the express Letter which you are so for is expresly against you such and all their housholds of which many times also children are not onely some of all and a part of the whole but in your Tearms one of them at least the major part I say not the most considerable but I say a capable part too but if in all or any of these housholds there was but one infant or any one young stripling you are gone as to the Apostles practice who baptised the beleever and all his houshold and incapacity here is none to hinder either our interpretation or the Apostles ministration for if there had been any in the houshold uncapable The Apostle would not have baptised the whole houshold or the beleever and all his houshold and I have abundantly shewed before from the Apostle that Infants of Beleevers are capable of baptism Verse 32. Now if be said that the Apostle preached and spake the word to the Gaoler All that were in the Gaolers house so all might beleeve and be baptised it is true the Apostle did so speak the word to all capable of it but yet at the 31. Verse he speaks of the salvation of all the house upon the tearms of the Gaolers beleeving for that the promise and Covenant being so made at first held still to beleevers parents and their children and here also servants because it is said he and all his were baptised in the 33. verse So it appears to me that the Gaoler himself onely beleeved and had an inward work of Faith wrought in the heart upon some special evidence he received of Christ come in the flesh whereupon he and his of whom the other Pagans of his family there is nothing said as to their faith whether servants of growth or children under age the whole houshold were baptized immediately in relation to the Fathers and Masters undertaking and engaging for themselves and their housholds And indeed to keep to my particular if such in these or our housholds as did or do actually beleeve and professe were and are to be baptised onely why was the houshold as of the Gaoler before who onely there beleeved as I have shewed so the houshold of Lydia of whom onely it is said that the Lord opened her heart to beleeve in Christ baptised Surely the Apostles would not bring in a different Administration now in the housholds of beleeving Christians whether out of Jewes or Pagans from that which ever was in use and practice amongst the housholds of beleeving Jewes at first and therefore went here according the common custom formerly used in time of circumcision and where they baptised any beleeving Father of a Family there they did baptise or others for them the children of the same houshold or might have done Otherwise how could they the Apostes when they preached the Gospel to all Nations and so to their housholds how could they bring the blessing of Abraham into all Nations and their housholds according to the prophecy and promise thereof by God if they did not apply the Covenant and the Seal generally to them and theirs in the same manner as it was to him and his so that the children of beleevers might now be baptised as formerly they were circumcised And lastly I may add this That when men in those dayes were converted from Judaism or Pagainism they did probably at their admittance into the Church by baptism make an open and solemn League and Covenant with God before some people present to professe the Faith of Christ they and their housholds which Saint Paul may seem to put some of them in mind of Ephesians 6.4 Fathers bring up your Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord And therefore when the Apostles did baptise housholds of beleevers they did it in relation on to the Parents or others in their stead undertaking and ingaging for themselves and the children therein And thus now at last and at length too as all other point I have asserted unto you this Point also of Apostolical Practice and Examples for the baptizing of the children and Infants of believing Parents I have answered all your Quaeres and I hope have informed and setled your judgement better by my answers than you could do it by our Quaeres for I cannot yet forget how that at the end of them you say these your Quaeres are your judgement I proceed now to what you have more in your Letter of two sheets but do not mean to proceed as I have begun either to transcribe all your words of the second sheet all have done your words of the first or to bestow twenty and five sheets closely written in answering of your second sheet but loosely written as I have done upon your first sheet for I have dispatched hitherto but the one first sheet of your Letter and there is good reason for it For the first sheet for the most part put Quaeres to me in your number twenty one and they contained in them some material and substantial things to be answered of a large extent and great depth and therefore I thought
Baptism in a proportionable time if there be no intercoming excusable impediment like as the same were of Circumcision And now also before I set upon your next Consideration consider with your self whether your Doctrine of baptizing Believers onely and thereupon your not baptizing of Infants of Believers until they come to have actual Faith and to a confession of it doth not rather overthrow the state and nature of Christs visible Church under the Gospel I have largely proved before and that out of Texts you here cite to the contrary Romans 1.7 1 Cor. 1.2 c. That Christs visible Church under the Gospel consisteth and is made up of visible and outward members and professors some of which though unknown unto us are members also of the invisible Church under the Gospel and I have also clearly shewed you that Baptism is a means of entrance and admission into the visible Church whereby Infants who by vertue of Gods Covenant may also belong to the invisible Church as members are reckoned enrolled even made members of the visible Church Nâ—w then whether of us do overthrow the State and Nature of Christs visible Church under the Gospel we who help to uphold and increase it by our ad nitting and initiating of our Infants to be visible members thereof through our baptising of them in their Infancy or you who by your not baptising of them for the space of 15. or 16. years and more and sometimes as much more do all that while with-hold visible members from the Church yea and do all that while leave them to a visible standing and being under the kingdom of darkness though invisibly it may be otherwise which is most opposite to the Church of Christ Let the next Reader judge for you are neither fit nor able to judge herein as who are already prejudiced prejudicated and prepossessed with a Spirit of delusion as to the Nature and State of Christs visible Church under the Gospel 3 You bid me Consider That Infants babtism it overthrows the end for which true babtism was appointed For the Chief one of Christs true babtism of beleevers was to distinguish the true Church from the World Col. 2.12 Compared with Verse 20 Gal. 3.26 and 27 Act. 2.41 But Infant baptism overthroweth this distinction because all are admitted in by it and no distinction made Sir I not think of it until just now or else I should have asked you a Quaere Why you alwayes write it Bahatism when as you are so great an enemy to Babe-baptism I shall be bold to answer it thus because you do so babble about baptism For is not this in present as there hath been much of it before profane and vain babling which the Apostle bids you shun to talk of The end for which baptism is appointed and then to call it a Chief one And then to instance in the distinguishing of the true Church from the world as a chief one which is the inferiour one and lastly to cite holy Scriptures which are too no such purpose is not this prophane and vain babling But I answer to the matter 1. It is an unsound and lame assertion or proposition to say that Infants baptism is to be rejected for ever as you conclude your Considerations with and therefore mean so in every one if it should overthrow one chief end for which true baptism was appointed when as in the mean it upholds five other ends as chief if not chiefer which I have reckoned up to you in my fift warrantable Reason for baptism to which I refer you 2. How will you prove Infants baptism to overthrow the end why true baptism was appointed because it overthroweth the chief one which was to distinguish the true Church from this but how if there be the ends as well as the end why true baptism was appointed how if amongst the ends there be chiefer ones than that chief one you mention how if Infants-baptism do not overthrow those five chiefer ones though supposed onely it should overthrow one chief one Here be now some Quaeres for you But now how prove you also The chief one end of true baptism to be to distinguish the true Church from the world you cite Col. 2 12. and 20. There is mention made of baptism and the world and a spiritual end and effect of baptism that therein the Colossians were buried in Christ and risen with him alluding to the ancient manner of baptising by immersion and emersion to signifie them both they were freed from the Rudiments and Ordinances of the World that is of the Legal oeconomy of the Jewes and what 's all this to the purpose of baptisms being a chief end to distinguish the true Church from the Heathen World which is also but an external end And though the Text speak of grown persons and Heathens converted yet it is true also of all elect and regenerate Infant of which there are many you cannot deny it that they are buried with Christ in baptism and risen with him c. So that you get nothing by this Text against Infants-baptism They rather gain by you hence for their baptism But ther 's nothing at all gained for the distinguishing the true Church from the World by baptism as the chief end thereof So that other Text Galathians 3.26 Is nothing to your purpose yea against your purpose for it speaks onely of the inward and spiritual effects of Baptism and of baptism into Christ that thereby the Galathians had put on Christ and were so incorporated as they were one in Christ so that there was neither Jew nor Gentile bond or free So far is this Text from shewing the distinction of the true Church from the World to be the chief end of baptism that it rather and onely shews the spiritual Union of true Christians with Christ to be one end and a chief one which also all Infants regenerate and baptised into Christ do attain unto as well as these grown Galathians and converted Heathens I professe I never read in all my life time Texts of Scripture more impertinently cited and I had once thought to have let your Citations of the word alone and onely have replyed to your words But that I honor the word and you do dishonor it by citing it for that which is not in it even as Christ said he honored the Father but the Jewes dishonored him by saying he came not from the Father Your last place though it comes some what neerer that the former as to an external addition of the 3000. Souls unto the Church by baptism yet it as far from mentioning any distinction of the true Church from the world and making it the chief end of baptism as the other before 3. Infant baptism doth not overthrow but support that end the distinguishing of the true Church from the World that is from the World out of the Church which is the Pagan and Heathenish World you must mean this or else
regard them as little as you do our Students and the learned of our Universities but is there any such to be seen in the chair of Moses or to be read in the Pentateuch of his books all that I can meet with is this that when their children should ask their Parents the meaning of the Pesseover the Parents were to instruct or Catechiz them therein and so prepare them for a Passeover against the time should come that they under stood the service thereof in the mean the memorial of the Angels passing over them in Egypt and their passing over the Red Sea into the Wilderness was so held up even amongst their children Exod. 13.14 What 's now become of your old Quaere now what expresse command have you for such and such I retort it upon your self for childrens eating the paschal Lamb Every Male-child shall be Circumcised a command is expresse for the Circumsing of children Deus 16.16 and sure if chidlren had been to eat of the paschal Lamb there would have been as expresse a command for this and whereas Exod. 34 23. Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God the place which he shall choose whereof one time was the feast of the Passeover it s granted as a Commandement that such children who could hold the father by the hand and walk with him up to the Temple went along with him but wherefore namely to be instructed Catechized and blessed of the Priest but not to eat of the paschal Lamb unless they were of that groweth in years and in understanding of the mystery if otherwise they had other food than the paschal Lamb for them of lesser age and knowledge as also for the unclean as some might happen to be and uncircyncumcised both at home when they did eat the Passeover and also at the Temple as for the unleavened bread I suppose the children did eat of that because for seven daies together all leavened bread was to be put quite and utterly out of the house and burnt insomuch as they must not look upon any yea it was under Gods curse if any did eat any leavened bread during those seven daies which at other times ordinarily they did but for the paschal Lamb which was to be eaten up all in that one night and what remained of it to be burnt with fire in the morning I take it the children of the Jews did eat nothing of it at all who were there fore had to bed and laid to sleep whilest the Parents were celebrating their evening and night-service of the Passeover At other Sacrifices and Offerings which were not Sacramental it s expressed it shall be for Aaron and his sons for the Priest and his children as being a part of their maintenance Now this I the rather enlarge upon to perswade you from your opinion that you have taken up I know not where yes I believe I know where you have taken it up even where it lay in-Tombed that so you may be no occasion of reviving and raising up and old bruied error that hath lain quiet in its grave these thousand years and upwards and that is The administraing the Lords Supper unto Infants and children of Chriftians as necessary and decent This opinion was of force in the Roman Church in the daies of Pope Innocent the first I will not name some others of ancient and reverend remembrance in that Age who held the same thing and practice and did thereby shew that men standing too much upon their own conceited interpretations of Scriptures may fall from the truth and erre from the faith in some particulars as you Sir have generally done throughtout your whole Letter for then He and the rest of the Roman Church under him believed that Infants baptized could not be saved except they should participate of the Eucharist taking their ground from that Scripture John 6 53. Jesus said unto them Verily I say unto you except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you and therefore they held it the Lords Supper wherein the flash of the Son of man is eaten and his blood drunk necessary to the life and salvation of Infants But this was not the right interpretation of that Text as which is not meant of that Eucharistical or Sacramental feasting upon Christs Body and Blood but of a Spiritual Faith and believing in Christs Death and Passion And hereupon this opinion of Pope innocent the first and the Roman Church under him is since retracted and rejected by Pope Pius the fourth and the Roman Church under him in that Council of Trent whose Decrees are all held and canonised to bâ—â—â—lieved upon necessity of salvation as who have determined against administration and participation of the Eucharist as neither necessary nor decent for Infants How say you to this you Great Patrons and Imitators of the Church of Rome who say she cannot erre at leastwise hath not erred Did the Church of Rome not erre in the daies of Pope Innocent then is she now in an error doth she not now erre herein then did she formerly erre and conseq tently may erre hereafter But now if those above named had light upon your Tenet or error as I think it and could have made it hold up which you onely raise and startle having the Gift as any gisted Brother that ever I read to prove nothing and affirm any thing That the Infants of the Jews did eat of the Paschal Lamb and Supper they would have had a far fairer pretext and faster ground for the Infants of Christians to participate of the Eucharistical Cup and Bread of the Lords Supper for then they would have pleaded hard for a Commandement of Christian Infants to partake of the Eucharistical Supper even in or out of that Commandement you mention but shew not of the Jewish Infants to partake of the Paschal Supper and pressed it the rather for that the Eucharistical Supper succeeds in place under the Gospel unto the Paschal Supper under the Law and rather more for that the Grace of Christ now exhibited is of larger extent and greater latitude than when he was to come and be revealed And I tell you these reasons would have troubled much these Tridentine Fathers to have answered and refelled more than that Text of John above cited But I believe that you never had any such notion or dream in your head either sleeping or waking nay upon a re-view of your words I see I may answer to your Question and say as you mean and you never the nearer to what you aimed at for you say thus Did they eat the Paschal Lamb before they had a Commandent I answer They did not eat the Paschal Lamb before they had a Commandement you mean so do you not and so do I and what then therefore the Jewish children had a Commandement to eat the Paschal Lamb. But this followeth not well nor will before
you follow this better But some others whose opinion I rather think you follow than they yours they drive it on to another design as thus Because the Infants of the Jews did eat the Passeover as well as they were circumcised Therefore the Infants of Christians should eat and drink the Lords Supper as well as be baptized This structure is soon pulled down standing upon a false foundation even as the house fell built upon the slippery sand and therefore I shall but touch it and it sinks or slides Because the Infants of the Jews did not eat the Passeover but were onely circumcised Therefore the Infants of Christians are not to eat and drink the Lords Supper but onely be baptized So taking off the Argument against Infant-Baptism from its false and ruinous foundation of the Jewish children eating the Paschal Lamb you were best set it upon its own proper Basis and build Baptism upon the Lords Supper thus or rather pulâ— it down by the Lords Supper thus If Infants of Christians may be partakers of Baptism then also they may be partakers of the Lords Supper for why of one Seal of the Covenant more than another and if Infants may not be partakers of the Lords Supper why then not of Baptism no more of one Seal than the other besides they are capable of the spiritual part of the one Sacrament as well as the other So I have made the Argument as strong for you as I can if you can for t fie it yet more do it quickly for I am in haste to answer as desirous to make an end of these wearisom skirmishes as to my self and tedious discourses as to the Reader What! will you become of Antipaedobaptists now Propaedocoenists and grant Infants sometimes and sometimes deny them in Argument the Lords Supper that you may deprive the of the Lords Baptism You shall never do it by such ambidextrous inconsequences to which the Answer and Reason is very obviouâ— 1. Your own Reason and Answer will do it that from the one Seal ordered and appointed for Infants to another Seal not enjoyned or instituted for Infants the Consequence is vain and invalid the former I have largely proved and disproved the latter clearly let but the Argument rest till can can disquiet or disturbe it and I desire no more 2. From Baptism which is the Seal Initial and of Admission due to Infants to infer the Lords Supper which is the Seal Progressional and of nourishment to be also due in present and partaked of in infancy like as the other is as inconsequent an absurdity as to infer time to come from present or perfection from beginning or a man from a child and to joyn them in one moment state and age Can a man enter into his mothers womb and be born a babe again or as soon as he is born a babe can he run over the ages and become a man presently When I a child saith the Apostle I spake as a child and understood as a child I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things I mean Infants may be initiated by the Seal of Baptism into the Church and are fitted to have the Graces and Benefies of the Covenant sealed unto them but that they are presently perfitted to have the nourishment and growth of the same Graces sealed and confirmed unto them by the Lords Supper passeth mine and your as much as their capacity It is true that both Baptism and the Lords Supper do seal the same and the whole Covenant and the Graces of the same but both in their place order and time so as the prime and main use of Baptism is to be the Seal of Initiation and Reception into Covenant and the Lords Supper is the Seal of Augmentation and Confirmation of the same as to the main and prime use of it so as that Baptism seals the Infants entrance and admission thereinto which the Lords Supper doth not properly and principally but onely by way of supposition and testification of a spiritual life and entrance such doth the spiritual food of the Lords Supper imply and require aforehand So also as that the Lords Supper seals the growth and nourishment of the same Graces of the Covenant which Baptism doth not properly and primarily but onely by way of infusion of a seed or laying a foundation of such growth and nourishment such doth the spiritual life of Baptism tend and proceed to afterwards Lastly Though Infanrs may and ought to be partakers of Baptism yet may they not nor ought to be partakers of the Lords Supper in their infancy because the Lords Supper belongs onely to such as can spiritually examine themselves and discern the Lords Body as the Apostle expresly and directly saith 1 Cor. 11.27 28 29. whereas Baptism belongs unto Infants of Christians by right of their being in the holy Covenant of God and birth of baptized Parents for more is required to the Lords Supper than unto Baptism of Church-members by nature and birth whereas of Aliens and Strangers more is required of them unto Baptism than of Church-members unto the Lords Supper a publick profession of faith is necessary for the admitting of a Heathen into the visible Catholick Church by Baptism and his entring into the Gospel-Covenant for himself and his Seed and he may presently after be partaker of the Lords Supper upon the examination of his faith for the confirmation of the same But Infants being in Church-Covenant by birth have a just Title and Right to all the external Privileges in the Church as being free-born to them all in due time and order as to Baptism in their infancy because born members of the Church so to the Lords Supper when by reason of full age and use they have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil and this their Covenant-right remains until it be forfeited by a renunciation of Baptism on their part or by excommunication from the other the Lords Supper by the Churches power when they are either wilfull violaters of the Conditions of the Covenant or hate to be reformed by wholsom Censures If any farther reply He must be a better replyer than you That the Infant baptized can no more discern the Lords Body and Blood in Baptism than in the Supper nor the sign it self in the act of Administration of either Sacrament and therefore Baptism is as vainly given it as the Lords Supper I re-joyn That our Infants can and do as well discern the Sacramental Sign and the thing signified in Baptism as well as the Jewish Infants did discern the same in Circumcision So that if our Baptism be in vain to ours their Circumcision was also in vain to their Children and the Replyer doth but open his mouth against Heaven and chargeth God himself with vanity and folly for appointing Circumcision of Infants and also Baptism of Infants whereas the Axiom is God and Nature doth nothing in vain or foolishly As
what great difficulties and intricate Objections are laid upon the Point as pleaded and held to be derived from the faith or holiness of Parents and Ancestors the which for my part I have not found so easie to extricate and shake off though I have said something for it and enough against my Antipoedo baptist hare I do therefore refer this to better Confideration whether our Plea for Infant Baptism would not be stronger cleerer and more consonant to the Truth not that I any way do implead the other as weak dark or dissonant if it be made directly and primitively from the Covenant it self and the saith of which before much is said and the holiness of children themselves thereby I see indeed our worthy Divines do interpret and call the derivative holiness from Parents to their children a federal holiness too and so we all agree together in our general meanings but would it not be more properly and rightly called a federal holiness if it were said to be derived from the Covenant of God as to Parents so to children to both joyntly equally and indifferently made And methinks the Text above cited speaks clear for it somewhat clearer in the Original than in the Translation as to the former part but if the first fruit be holy And or so the lump is if the root be holy And or so the branches are And thus we shall not need to fly to Parental holiness as sometimes we are driven or faith of which before for the upholding of holiness in children seeing we may have federal holiness for them the which I know not but that it may be called a personal holiness sure it is not an abstract Metaphysical Metaphorical or an aerial imaginary notion I say a personal holiness being in or upon the persons of children as the Covenant is and as other relative privileges and the imputative righteousness of Christ are If I erre in any thing here I will not be either Hereâ—ique or Scismatique for I am ready to retract if convinced noâ— willing to divide from the differing Either way it will be still a federal holiness and good either way against you Sir And therefore also some of those our Divines do Expound the holy Root and first fruit in St. Paul to be the Covenant and in a good sense and sounding to that I have said it may be so upon which Abraham and his seed and so along all believing Parents and their children do grow together as holy lumps and branches and it is by vertue of such Covenant that Abraham and every believing Parent is called and meant the holy root and first fruits and their children or posterity the holy branches or lump For the holy Covenant stayed not and determined in Abraham and his seed Isaac and Jacob as some say because the Covenant runs in their names onely the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob as if that were meant when God Covenanted I will be thy God and the God of thy seed God often renewed this his Covenant with that people even after those Patriarchs were deceased and the Covenant entered into with Abraham was an everlasting Covenant and comprehended under it all Nations as the Jews even the Gentiles as many as the Lord our God should call to the saith of Abraham had a share therein and in the eternal privileges thereof both Parents and children and were both holy thereby before the Lord as in others and the Churches account For not onely the Jewish children the natural branches of their father Abraham if he be the holy root as he is but by vertue and in respect of the Covenant are holy and partakers of holiness and the other privileges thereof but even so Gentilish children the natural branches of their converted Parents or Parent being also a holy root as it s said the root of Jesse Esa 11. still by vertue and in respect of the Covenant are holy and partakers of holiness and other privileges thereof But to derive the Pedigree as I may so call it of holiness of children to its first original and root I think I may safely say that all Parents and their children both Gentilish and Jewish even up to Abraham and his seed Isaac were holy branches and partakers of holiness and other privileges from the Covenant it self as the first original and root of their holiness Another Text there is that doth eminently hold out the holiness of Christian infants by Covenant which is Gal. 2.25 We who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles of which because I have had a former occasion to say something I shall need to adde but a little there Jews by nature or birth are put in opposition to sinners of the Gentiles just as heâ—e the holy children are to the unclean And these two Texts seem to be parallel As therefore Jews by nature or born Jews in contradistinction to sinners of the Gentiles were holy federally by being born in and under Covenant and of Parents in and under Covenant so Christians by natures or born Christians in contradiction to born Heathens are holy federally by being born in Covenant and of Parents in Covenant our children must be one of the two holy or unclean Christians by nature or birth or sinners of the Gentiles but unclean they are not or sinners of the Gentiles or Pagans therefore tâ—â—y are born Christians and holy with the holiness external of the Covenant and also the holiness particular of the Parents and the chosen Nation in Covenant Besides that they are dedicated and consecrated to God and designed to holiness as Candidates thereof as some of the Fathers were wont to call the infants of Christians and therefore are holy as the Temple is holy the Sabbath is holy the Priests were holy Again Moses and the Prophets every where call the Jews a holy Nation and holy people in respect and by vertue of the Covenant and shall not the children of that Nation and people being also in Covenant be holy federally too yea in therefore called a holy seed Ezra 9.3 in Ezek. 36.38 a holy flock is the flock of Jerusalem and shall not the little Lambs a great part of the flock be holy too The visible Catholique Church is holy and so are particular visible Churches and all the members of the same are federally holy and therefore also little children are so who are members of the same even as the little finger is a member of the body and partaker of the bodily external cleanness Lastly is not the external Covenant it self holy why then sure all who are taken and assumed into it are Covenantly holy and they are Parents and their children And so now lastly I will shut up this Point as I have done often before even all along before with this Syllogism to bring you still into more love and liking of our University Arts and Sciences one whereof is Logical syllogising and it shall be this All
Theodoret useth who relateth it that they did it by pouring or sprinkling of water upon their head those Heretiques imitating therein as their manner is in those things there is no difference the Custom of the Orthodox And yet before these Athanasius who lived about 325. Orat. 3. Contra Arianos hath another more express testimony where having shewed that the Arians could not give a true and perfect baptism because they erred in the foundation and essence of it as who though they pronounced the words I baptize thee in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost believed not in the sacred Trinity as who deny the Son he hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that those who are sprinkled and aspersed of them that is baptized are rather polluted and defiled with ungodliness then washed for so I think the word ought rather to be rendred as having reference to baptism according to the sense and purpose of Athanasius in this place then as Petras Nannius doth Redeemed for though the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie also to be redeemed yet he shewed him self a true Translator indeed of the word in General but not so good an Interpreter of the sense nor word here in this particular which also signifieth and here must to be washed for the reason above I have given and so Vossius saith elegantly as pertinently polluere ait non abluere rather polluted then washed as I rendred it but that which comes hence to my purpose that Athanasius calleth and maketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sprinkling and aspersion of water in the right form to be baptism and that it is good and true baptism which is given in that way and manner But I can bring forth a testimony far beyond these for the Antiquity of aspersing or perfusion in baptism and that is of Tertullian living about the year 190 lib. de poenit cap. 6. I deny not saith he but that the Divine benefit Ablutio delictorum the washing of sin should be ready and safe to all that come to the water and then he addeth but they must labour also to come thither for otherwise saith he Quis tibi tam infidae paenitentiae viro asperginem unam cujustibet aquae commodabit if thou beest a man untrue to thy repentance thou makest who will let thee have one sprinkling of water in opposition or allusion to the Trine immersion as I suppose and meaning that if he would not come to the waters being in health to be dipt thrice he deserved not to be come unto in sickness to be once aspersed and sprinkled so speaking plain enough for sprinkling and aspersing the sick and weak especially the which also Cornelius a Byshop of Rome in Cyprians time maketh mention of in an Epistle to Fab. Antioch which is in Euseb lib. 6. cap. 43. where he likewise relates of Novatus the Heretique that when he was freed from the evil spirit and fell into a grievous disease upon his bed desired baptism and so was in his bed baptized i. e. perfusus aqua by water poured sprinkled upon him This was so customary amongst the Ancient to sprinkle and asperse the sick in bed if there they came to their first conversion that it was called Baptismus Clinicorum the baptism of the bedrid though they did not so highly esteem of such as were so baptized in bed upon sickness yea they debarred such from being of the Clergy because they thought they become Christians rather of necessity then good will And because I have mentioned such a thing as the Baptism of the Clinicks or such as were converted and baptized in their sickness and death beds I will put you a Quaere upon a supposition which often falleth out knowing you will presently run to your master of quaeres for answer and resolution Suppose one of your children or his or any your other brethren who by vertue or vice rather of your opinion hath been kept and detained from it's baptism during it's infancy and minority should be at 13 or 14 years of age visited of God with sickness and so scholed and enlightned by him therein and thereby for schola crucis est schola lucis that he should come to a good measure of knowledge of himself and God of his sins traduced at his birth and committed in his life of Gods mercies promised in his word and covenanted in Christ and so lying in bed under great distempers even fore-going death should upon and after confession of his sins and profession of his faith in Christ earnestly desire and require baptism as the Seal of Gods Covenanted Mercy and as a confirmation of his faith therein and a strengthening of him against the fears of death before and at his departure out of this world What would you now do here Dare you deny still and withhold baptism from him in this condition when as it may be and ought to be ministred unto him then will you be and are you guilty before God of a plain and palpable contempt of the ordinance of baptism which is and will be damnable to whomsoever Gen. 17.24 Exod. 4.24 25. And if you think it now needful for him to have baptism for that he is now capable of it according to your own tenet and the thing is now feizable and possible to be had I ask how and which way shall baptism be given and conferred unto him Will you remove him out of his bed in his clothes or in his bed and its cloathes to your Pond or cause to be brought to the bed-side some big Vessel or Tub of water which later is more then I need grant unto you in the point betwixt us and so either the one or the other way 〈◊〉 immerge his whole body in the cloathes or out of the cloathes which is still more then I need yeeld Then in all probability may and will you be guilty both before God and man of the death and destruction of the party the which is and will be as damnable to whomsoever Now advise and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me You cannot but see and say as David once you are in a great straight 2 Sam. 24.13 14. For according to your opinion and practice you must either let your child depart the world without baptism when it might have it if you would which will be prejudicial to your soul and your salvation or you must give it your dipping baptism which will be prejudicial to its body and its preservation as causing it to depart the world sooner then otherwise it would The onely way to come out of your straights is straightway to fall now into the hands of the Lord God with David and laying down your imaginations and every high thing of yours that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God 2 Cor. 10.5 to call for and suffer some lawful Minister of God to come and after such confession and profession heard by him
or testified by others to Asperse or sprinkle In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the holy Ghost a little water upon the face fore-head of your child in the bed gently washing therewith by the moving of his hands with prayer and supplication before and after Thus doing both dangers may be prevented and this was that I with the Ancients even now called Baptismus Clinicorum How long halt ye betwixt two opinions and thoughts if the sprinkling or aspersion be baptism follow it but if dipping and immersion then follow it And the people with their Dipper answered me not a word I will but add one Testimony more and that is of Walafridus Strabo de rebus Ecl. cap 26. Notandum non solùm mergendo sed etià m de super fundendo multos baptizato fuisse adhuc pâ—sse baptizari It is a thing to be noted as it is notable that many have bin formerly and may still be baptized not onely bydipping and immerging but also by sprinkling and pouring water upon them and so he also maketh mention of the baptizing of St. Laurence out of a Pitcher or Pot of water which was by aspersion or perfusion and 〈◊〉 was often as he saith when as the bigness of the bodies of grown persons converted would not suffer them to be immerged and dipped in the Vessel their Baptisteries and Fonts being too little for them And so I have done my Task which was to be a Task-master unto some of the Egyptians who have bin and would be still Task-masters over the Israel and churches of God and give out their commands for the dipping and immerging of our children in Ponds or Rivers when and then onely they shall be of years of discretion and confession as to their faith and I have drawn up this my censure of it as an Ark you will presently say I know of Bulrushes and therefore I say so in present myself afore-hand to prevent you The which how weak and mean a thing soever you may think it through Gods providence may be a means to preserve a Moses and more children of Israel from your immergings and plun gings of them for the time little else then drownings especially the Ark being daubed with slime and pitch cemented and closed together with Scriptures Reasons and Antiquity moreover More plainly I have passed my censure upon your late dipping and immerging in my Parish for a new business as I called it once and ever shall and if I could stand so long about it and the Reader would stay the while as to gather them up together or take a review of the evidences I have brought in against it for a new business I do think there would be a full Jury and a grand Jury of them the which propounded and given up to any indifferent Judge besides your self he would not onely passe a censure of novelty upon it as I hove done but might crie once and again Novitas novitatum omnia novitas Yea and he would give out a Sentence of vanity also upon the same and say vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas The Person dipping and baptizing an ordinary man no ordained Minister the Persons dipped and baptized Christians born and baptized before The manner the dipping and baptizing them in their cloathes the circumstances or ceremonies I omitted because they were not onely new and vain but foolish and immodest and the action of dipping the whole body over head and ears in the cloathes and lastly the place a common Horse-pond and weyr Novelty of novelties all is novelty yea Vanity of vanities all is vanity I will say no more of it though more might be said of it then that it was a new and a vain busines yea a taking of the Name of God Father Son and holy Ghost in vain I will now onely add a Corollary or two touching the whole business betwixt us and so I shall give a Vale or Fare-well to it and to your Letter and my answer or censure rather for so I must call it to the end who so stiled it in the beginning Coroll 1. §. 1 Immersion and dipping in baptism especially thrice as also Aspersion and sprinkling or rather perfusion and pouring on of water though but once were both the good old way in the manner as they were done and administred by the primitive Doctors and ancient Fathers of the Church And to do the cause and the truth right their immersion was the older way I say not the better way and is some years older then their aspersion as many years as Tertullian lived before Cyprian which by computation is not above two or three and fifty years difference or distance betwixt their times Yea but I will recal that Verdict and do reverse that saying as whereby I do immersion and dipping too much right and aspersion and sprinkling too much wrong as to their Births Right and Originals for I do remember a testimony before cited by me out of Tertullian lib de poenit cap. 6. in these words which may be repeated here again without any Tautollogy being to several and different purposes and proofs Neque ego renuo divinum beneficium i. e. abolitionem peccatorum inituris aquam omnimodo salvum esse sed ut eò pervenire contingat elaborandum est Quis enim tibi tam infidae poenitentiae viro asperginem unam cujuslibet aquae commodabit where you read and see in plain and evident words that aspersion of the adult and grown persons was in Tertullians dayes also and I might also now passe the Verdict the other way and say that immersion and dipping is the yonger way some years yonger then aspersion and sprinkling as many years as Cyprian is yonger then Tertullian about fifty two or three The truth then is They were both of them as twins as Esau and Jacob in the womb of Rebecca Gen. 25.24 as two manners of baptizing in the Church of God born much about the same time and as also Esau and Jacob did they lived and walked together a while and sometimes lived apart and assunder and the one was used in one place and the other practised in another place according to the diversities of the Churches and difference of the ages and variety of customs in and amongst them and so it continued for an eight or nine hundred years But what and if as it may be immersion like Esau being indeed the more hairy rougher and harder manner and way of baptizing might get out first and come forth into the Churches practise it was but a very little while before for aspersion like Jacob being indeed the plainer and smoother and easier way and manner of baptizing soon followed after and at the heels Yea as Jacobs hand took hold on Esâus heel and after supplanted him of the blessing of his Birth-right so aspersion if behind overtook immersion and wholy supplanted it of its primogeniture and so got away the blessing from it to be the onely