Rich. BAXTER'S REVIEW OF THE STATE OF Christian's Infants Whether they should be entered in COVENANT With God by BAPTISM and be Visible Members of His CHVRCH and have any Covenant-Right to Pardon and Salvation Or whether CHRIST the Saviour of the World hath shut all Mankind out of his Visible Kingdom and Covenant-Rights and Hopes 'till they come to Age And whether he did so from the beginning of the world or after his Incarnation Occasioned by the Importunity of Mr. E. Hutchinson and of Mr. Danvers and Mr. Tombes who called him to this REVIEW in order to his RETRACTATION An Impartial Reading is humbly requested of those Dissenters who would not be found Despisers of holy Truth nor such as judge before they hear London Printed for Nevil Simons at the Princes Arms in Pauls Churchyard 1676. READER I Once more stew the World that is is in the power of other men if God permit them to hinder us from greater service to the Church by making things far less in themselves to become accidentally at that time more necessary By which kind of Impediments in Contentious times Satan frustrateth the better desires and designs of many of the Servants of Christ who would fain be better employed yea and useth herein the service of such men as in other respects are none of his Servants And thus though Scriptures be our General Rule the Providence of God and the great Ends of all our life are the Determiners of the Circumstances of our Duties The Cause of this REVIEW is a Letter of one Mr. E. Hutchinson sent me very large in considerable Oratory to let me know his Contempt of my last and former Book of Baptism and to humble me for the great sin of abusing the world with such frivolous writings which seem to do something but prove nothing and leave Mr. Danvers c. unanswered so that it is an Answer that he would have And he vehemently urgeth me to Repentance and Retraction of what I have written for Infants Church-membership Covenant and Baptism as did Mr. Tombes more than once before him Should I Print his Letter without his consent perhaps he might take it for an injury and if he would have it done it 's like he will do it himself But because it refereth to a Printed Paper of Mr. Danvers against me called his Third Reply which I never saw till his Letter informed me of it I thought that it was more than himself whom he importuned me to satisfie I have told him here truly how little the meer difference about the outward Baptism of Infants doth abate my esteem and love of any Godly Peaceable men Two sorts of Persons called Anabaptists I can live in as friendly concord with as with most I hold Communion with First those that deny not the Covenant-Rights and Church-Relation of the Infants of Believers confessing them to be Holy but only think that their Baptism being but the solemnization of their foregoing Covenant and the publick Investiture of them in their Relation may as the Coronation of an Infant King be deferred till they come to some understanding of which minde were Tertullian and Nazianzene Secondly those that being in doubt only of the Sufficiency or Lawfulness of Infant-Baptism do receive a second or a third Administration as some Marryed by Justices lately were marryed again by Ministers and as Mr. Humphrey pleads for a second Ordination especially if Hypothetically done to satisfie their doubting Consciences and then live in peace and orderly Communion afterwards with other Christians as knowing that in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth nor Uncircumsion but a new Creature I say none of these shall be more willing of loving Communion with others than I shall be with them But 1. If men will deny and scorn our Infant-Right in the Covenant of Grace and in Christ Pardon and Salvation and Visible Church-Relation and will so far deny the Kingdom and Grace of Christ as to maintain that he excludeth all mankind from any Visible Right or Hope of Salvation till Adult and hath given such Right no more to Christian 's Children than to Heathens And if they will make this Opinion the measure of their Communion and will divide the Church and Unchristen or Unchurch all that are not as unthankful and injurious to Christ and to the Holy Seed as themselves it is not I that separate from these men but they from me and all sober Christians And I will here add but these two or three Notes to the Reader 1. If he will peruse two short Disputations which I have lately published of ORIGINAL SIN the Primary and Secondary he will see it fully proved that both Naturally and by Supernatural Revelation God hath declared such an Interest of Parents and Children in each other as is much of the Reason of all that I here plead for And he that will accurately observe the whole current of the Scripture herein shall find this Conjunct-Interest asserted from end to end 2. I am past doubt that it is a principal design of Satan to mortifie our Christendom it self by keeping Parents from that intelligent and serious Covenanting with God in their solemn dedication of their Children to him which the greatness of the work and case requireth and to turn our very Christening into a Ceremony or lifeless Formality And it is not the least part of my Non-conformity that I dare not deliberately profess my Assent and Consent that no Parent shall be suffered in the Church to enter his own Child into the Covenant of God nor to speak one Covenanting Promising Undertaking nor Dedicating word nor must be urged to be so much as present But that Godfathers and Godmothers who never give us any cause to believe that one of many thousands of them take the Child for their own nor ever purpose to Educate him or do what there they Vow and Covenant to do must be the only Covenanting Undertakers and so that so much notorious false Vowing to God or Perfidiousness must defile our Baptism And now come these Anabaptists and instead of calling the Parents to Seriousness and Holy Fidelity in so great a work they tell them that it is none of their Duty at all 3. And how light soever some make of Unity I know that it 's even Essential to the Church As the Union of the Stones and Timber is to the House and of King and Subjects to the Kingdom and of the several parts to a Clock or Watch For the Form is Relative And do you think then that they befriend Christ or his Church who turn the Sacrament of our Union into the occasion of our great Division yea and Unchristen and Unchurch all the Christian World in Infancy yea and a thousand parts to one of the Christian Church of the Adult because they are not Re-baptised at Age. Passion and Prejudice and Partiality when men have espoused the Interest of a Cause as the best and holyest in their eyes may make men
Christ washeth and sanctifieth his Church he is the Saviour of his Body only And if they are not of his Church or Body he washeth them not nor is their Saviour effectively The same Text that saith He that believeth shall be saved saith He that believeth not shall be damned And He that believeth not is condemned already If therefore you allow them no participation in their Parents Faith but require personal Belief of them as necessary to their Salvation according to the Promise you must also require the same of them to save them from Damnation by the Threatning Did you but leave Christians no more hope than you do Pagans and Turks of their Childrens Pardon and Salvation I would not be ambitious of the Joy of your opinion much less if you positively condemn them And what do you less if finding them condemned by the violated Covenant of Innocency you totally exclude them from the Remedying Pardoning and Saving Covenant and from Christs Body which he doth save If you say that they may be of his invisible Church which is the saved Body I answer 1. What they may be tells us not what they are If they be not so much as visible Members who can say that they are invisible ones 2. They are by Nature visible Members of the Kingdom of Satan and Children of wrath and visibly under the Laws Condemnation Therefore 'till we can prove them visibly by grace translated out of this state of nature their visible Condemnation cannot be denyed And what a jumble make you if you make a great part of Mankind to be at once condemned visible members of the Kingdom of the Devil and invisible saved members of Christ Men may be visibly Christians Hypocrites and yet invisibly wicked but to be visibly condemned members of the Kingdome of Darkness and yet invisible members of Christ is strange to me especially considering that Hypocrites are visibly what they are not really and invisibly because they falsely profess what they have not But a condemned Infant doth not deceive men by dissembling but we actually know that as a child of Adam he is a child of sin and death It is truly so Therefore we must conclude that as Gods Word is true he continueth so till he be delivered by Grace And the Covenant of Grace is the Conveyance of and title to our gracious priviledges as the threatning is of wrath Shall not all that are judged be judged by Gods Law the Law which they were under And what Law shall Infants then be judged by If they are under no Covenant of Promise that giveth them title to life how can they have title by it or be judged by it Are they Justified or not Justified If not Justified they are condemned certainly and shall not be glorified for it is the Justified that are glorified Rom. 8. 30. But if they are Justified either it is by some Justifying Promise and Covenant or without If without 1. Do you not give hope also to all Heathens and Wicked men that though they are condemned by the Law of Innocency and not justified by any Covenant of Grace yet they may be justified without 2. And by what means is it by any or none If by any by what If by none how know you it But if it be by any Covenant-Grant that they are justified it must be by that of Grace which I am pleading for or none For we will not now receive another Gospel To talk therefore of meer Election is nothing to any of this that I have said Election Justifieth not nor dissolveth the condemning Sentence of the Law God judgeth not men meerly on the grounds of his unreveled Election but by his Word which is the Rule And were it otherwise if unrevealed none can prove it and therefore must not affirm it And were it reveled that God will save some that he promiseth not to save nor giveth them any antecedent right to it yet 1. No man could know by this whether any one in England or Europe or in the World in his age shall so be saved nor whether it be many or few or more than a dozen in the world 2. And no one can know who any of these be and so can have no notice of comfort for any of his own 3. Nor that Christians Infants shall be saved any more than the Heathens These things Sir are not to be submitted to by all Christians for fear lest you else revile them or lest Mr. T. sayes Their blood be on their own heads Austin is called Durus Pater Infantum for too sharp a censure on the unbaptized though many mistake him But we should be harder did we leave all visibly condemned without a pardoning word or any visible remedy and hope And truly me thinks you too much honour the Kingdome of the Devil if you make it visibly contain all the Seed of the Woman even of the Faithful till they come to age It is too great I will not feign it to be greater Were all the Circumcised Israelites and all the holy seed till Christ at once both in the Church and in Satans Kingdom If not sure it is not so now Sure I am that the Scripture tells us of a larger Church and a better Covenant and Promises and greater Salvation under the Gospel and do you bring it down to this to give us all up to the Devils visible Kingdom without any visible Remedy till we come to age And he is scarce so like to prove a member of Christ at age who is trained up in the Kingdom of the Devil till then as he is that is educated in the Houshold of God There is more of Gods blessing to be expected in his own Family than in the Devils Either it is a Mercy or no Mercy to be in Christs Family or Church if none why do you value it if it be why should we think that the Saviour of the world procureth it to no Infants nay that he came to leave them out Would you not take it for a Mercy if you believed that God in Scripture gave it to all the Seed of the Faithful dedicated to him I think you would For my part I believe that the Seed of the Righteous is blessed Psal 37. 26. and that the Children of Satan and the condemned unjustified seed are not blessed That blessed are they whose sins and iniquities are forgiven and covered and to whom the Lord imputeth not sin and that this blessing cometh even on the uncircumcised But not on them who are unpardoned and condemned already I hear many sad Mothers lamenting their dead Children for fear lest they are damned And though I never was a Father I can perceive what the concerns and bowels of Parents are But what would they do if they were taught to believe that no Infant ever in the world had any justifying pardoning Promise nor visible Remedy but all till age are under condemnation by the undissolved Obligation of the Law
swallow such things as these and think that they serve God in reviling all that are against them Were we agreed against Infants Covenant-Right when should we ever be agreed at what Age it is that they are to be received and when a Childs Profession were Valid But he that thinketh that 1. All the Christian World will ever Unite in the Renouncing of all Infants Covenant-Rights and Hopes 2. Or that without Unity in the Essentials or without Love and Peace the Church of Christ is in a prosperous State doth not judge as I do upon the most serious thoughts that I am able to exercise and as I doubt not but I shall judge to the last breath which is not like to be far off TO Mr. E. HVTCHINSON SIR WHen I read you general Accusation of my Firey discouraging of Reprovers c. I began to bethink me who they were in all my life time that had to my face reproved me and been discouraged by any unthankful passionate returns of mine and not remembring any one in my life unless you will call my Contradicting men in disputation and Altercation in case of differences of Judgment by that name I did read on in expectation of fuller information and I perceived that it was not any verbal rejecting any reproof of my present Monitors that you meant but my published Writings against those called Anabaptists I have long had far lowder calls than yours to Review my Life and Writings and to judge of them as impartially as I can Upon the Review I am Conscious 1. That I never meddled at first with Mr. Tombes till he unavoidably constrained me by sending those whom he had prevailed with to me to tell me that if I would not answer him they must lay their change so far on my refusal to satisfie them We lived to gether till then without any meddling with the difference by me 2. I find that when he had without my consent published these Papers which I privately sent him with his Answer I gave not a word of Reply to them till Mr. Danvers made it seem necessary to me though it be above 20 years since they were written Surely my silence was no furious Contradiction 3. I find that when Mr. Tombes published them so long ago and they have been in your own hands in Mr. Tombes his Book neither you nor others till now that I know of shewed me any such fury in them And those that I have spoke with say that there is no such thing but that his Reply is passionate which I leave to others judgment that yet may read them in his Book together 4. I find that in 1659. when I endeavoured to perswade Mr. Lambe and Mr. Allen to Christian Concord that I did not strive against their Anabaptistry but only to satisfie them that holding that difference they yet ought to satisfie themselves in that which they took to be their Duty and to hold loving Communion with the Churches and Christians of the other mind And when they had renounced their Separation it was not I but their own Light Experience and Consideration by what other helps I know not that made them Renounce their Anabaptistry 5. When before that there was a Treaty in London for the Reconciling of the Presbyterians Iudependents I did first at home to the Ministers of Worcestershire mantain by a set Disputation that it was our Duty to seek Peace and Communion with the Anabaptists and after sent up the Terms of that desired Concord to London to Mr. Allen who at some Meetings for that purpose told me the business went hopefully on till the Confusions in 1659. disturbed and overthrew all 6. I have above 20 years in Print and Pulpit frequently told the Churches that they are greatly beholden to Gods Providence in permitting the Anabaptists to call us so lowd to the serious confideration of of our Baptism and that if those that were Baptized in Infancy be not brought to as serious understanding and resolved a renewing of that Covenant as if they had never been Baptised before yea and pass not out of the state of Infant Church-membership into that of the Adult by a solemn transltion in owning of their Covenant these Church Corruptions will be continued which are the Scandal and Temptation of the Anabaptists And to that end I wrote a Treatise of Confirmation 7. I have Printed in this last Book recited by Mr. Barret in the end of his Queres such an Offer of Brotherly Concord with the Anabaptists supposing our continued difference in that point even the very words of such a Profession on which both parties may with mutual forbearance live in brotherly Love and Communion as never any man did to me accuse either of Rigor Unlawfulness or Insufficiency to that end And if you resolve that you will have no Communion with any in the world but those that are of your Opinion against Infant-Baptism your Communion will be narrower than mine and such talk as this of yours is never like to draw me to your mind 8. I have many years insisted more upon the terms and improvement of our Baptismal Covenant as containing that very Touch-stone or state of Evidence by which both our sincere Grace and our right to Church-Communion must be tryed than any man that I know of of which my Family Book is a full proof 9. To the Reconciling of men herein I have oft shewed that If our Childrens part in the Covenant of Grace upon their Parents dedication of them to God â—nd so their Church-membership were but yielded the rest whether they should actually be Baptized with Water would be much less cause of our distance and alienation than on both sides it is usually judged Yea if the Anabaptists would but say I Dedicate this Child to God as far as he hath given me power and heartily desire that God may be his Father Christ his Saviour and the Holy Ghost his Sanctifier And did ever any of you prove this to be a sin And we are ready on our part to profess that Infant-Baptism will save none at age that consent not to the same holy Covenant 10. I have oft told the world that though the Ancient Churches denyed not their Childrens part in the Covenant of Grace nor their right to Pardon and Salvation and Infaut Church membership by that Covenant yet the Time when Children themselves should be solemnly Baptized was left in the Churches for above 200 years to every ones free choice some and the most Christians usually Baptizing them quickly and others thinking as Tertullian that it would bind them faster if they stayed somewhat longer or as Nazianzene thought till they were three or four years old even as one that hath right to a Crown in his Infancy may have his Coronation performed either then or afterward 11. I have oft told the world that I would have this liberty and moderation again revived and that I would have no Anabaptist persecuted or
excommunicated for that his Opinion 12. I never persecuted any of them nor perswaded any to do it nor never endeavoured to hurt them nor denyed them any good that I could do them though I told you truly that even they of Mr. T 's Church that had seemed my old Friends sought my life or ruine by way-saying a man that told them he carryed Letters of mine violently taking them from him and carrying them up to London to the Council to Sir H. V. c. This is the account that my Reviewing Conscience giveth me of my dealing with the Anabaptists with whom to this day I still plead for Love and peaceable Communion upon terms of mutual forbearance And whether it be holy Patience and Humility that takes this for Fire and Fury and cannot bear it consider But yet Fury and Folly you copiously exclaim against and call me to Repent I thank you unfeignedly for that honest wholsome word Repent whether well or ill applyed But your many scornes at my Repentings scarce well agree with the invitation Were I like to have Life and Leisure for such a work I would resolve to Review all my Writings just in the method that Austin did and to tell the Readers what I dislike in them which having no reason to expect I have so dealt already with those that most needed it and corrected others in the later Impressions If you need no Repentance and have written as much as I and that without any fault you have been happier than I. And yet I intend not to give over Writing Preaching Praying praising God or Conference with men because I cannot do any of them innocently in a manner that needed no Repentance But upon the full perusal of your Letter I must say I never had a more Wordy Windy Empty Invitation to Repentance that I remember in my life I looked still when the fault was told me and some words at least named that were guilty of the folly or firyness mentioned or some of my particular sins proved that I might be convinced I looked to find some one Argument of my Books confuted and proved vain or fallacious But it renewed in me that grief and pity for the strange diseasedness of such Dissenters which Mr. Danvers had before caused to find such abundance of Rhetorical Invectives without one word of Proof As if you had prevaricated and had a design to have kept me from Repentance by telling me I had no particulars to Repent of that you could shew What do all your Generals of no answer and tergiversation and abundance the like signifie to any man of common sense unless this be the meaning of them It is Mr. Danvers his Opinion and mine that you are foolish firey injurious frivolous c. Therefore you must Repent of this though we say nothing that should convince a reasonable man But I must retract what I have written against Anabaptists for you invite me to it by a torrent of General Accusations and letting me know that Mr. D. and you do think me Hetorodox And just so doth Mr. Pen and the Quakers do also And so do the Papists and with as great confidence and Oratory perhaps as yours And so do the accusers of the Non-conformists in many Volumes and so do many other Parties And must I be therefore of all their minds Or why more of yours than of theirs if I have nothing from you but confident Gnerals which they can say as well as you Yea thus do the Infidels themselves now use me and must I therefore yield But I have written Fierily against Mr. Danvers 1. Did I begin with Mr. D. or he with me 2. Have I said any thing offensive to him besides the detecting of his marvellous audacity in strange heaps of untruths in matters of Fact and his lamentable injury thereby to the Church of Christ Sir I know you not and should I tell you what a Spirit in your self your copious outcryes and extream tenderness of our dissent and contradiction of you shews and how unlike to the voice of a sheep of Christ it is to cry so loud as if the knife were at your throat when we do but tell the Church of your Errours and Injuries to the Truth upon the urgency of your restless importunity Should I tell you what strange Partiality you shew in finding Meekness Truth and Reason in Mr. Danvers his Books and Folly Fire and No-answer in mine I could not expect that you should ever the more be convinced or Repent but rather take that also for Fiery as taking me for an uncapable Monitor But I desire you only to ask the Opinion of the judicious and impartial herein for Repentance to your self should be no odious thing And whereas you tell me over and over what all wise men now think and say of me and of my Writings am not I an unhappy man that never met with one of those wise men but your self and such professed opposites Anabaptists Quakers Papists or such like But what if I be foolish and you be wise Cannot you suffer fools gladly seeing you your selves are wise And is your impatient and general Invectives and your self-justifying an infallible proof of your great Wisdome Brother upon the deepest search that I am able to make in above 20 years Consideration I am satisfied that you heinously wrong the Mercy of God and the Church and true Believers and their Seed by denying them that part in Gods Covenant and Mercy which I have proved he hath stated on them in his Word I am fully satisfied that God never had Church-Laws on earth whether in innocency or since the Fall which extended not the priviledge of a Covenant and Church-state to the Infants of the Church if they had such on that supposition and that the Church from the dayes of Adam till now hath had Infants members by Gods appointment and that Christ so found them and so continued them and that it was then a thing that none did controvert I am satisfied fully that all that are Discipled are by command to be Baptized and that Nations should be Discipled and the Kingdoms of the world made the Kingdoms of Christ and Christ would have gathered to his Church the whole Jerusalem as the Hen gathereth her Chickens and none were broken off but for unbelief and therefore the Children of believing Jews were not broken off and that we are graffed into the same Olive I am satisfied that they that so hardly digested the forbearance of Circumcision would never have silently past over the Vnchurching of all the Infants without one word of exception nor Christ have so far countenanced the Excepters as to be angry with those that would have forbid Children comeing to him because of such is the Kingdom of Heaven nor the Scripture have talk'd so much of Baptizing Housholds I am not hardened enough to reject so plain a Text as The unbelieving Husband is sanctified c. else were your Children unclean but
now they are holy Nor in that one text to expound Sanctifying for Lawful Marriage and Holyness for Legitimation when the words are never so taken else in the Bible and ma-many hundred times in another sense nor to say that all Pagans Children are holy if they be not Bastards I am satisfied that man must not teach God how to speak but carefully enquire what he hath spoken And if but one Text of Scripture acquaint us directly or consequentially of his mind we must be faithful in observing it I believe that these are your thoughts as well as mine and that you verily think that you hold close to the Scripture and that I depart from it But as I am as willing to understand it as you are and at as hard a rate of cost or labour so I well know that one mistake once deeply received doth let in abundance more and fights against all the light that would detect and shame it And he that once accounteth Falshood to be Truth will account the Defenders of Truth to be its Enemies Otherwise how could you and such others bring your Consciences to wrest and wrangle against such abundance of plain Scripture Texts Were it but this one what could be plainer What is wresting Scripture if this be not to force a sense of Holyness and Sanctification upon one Text which is never found else in any Text and the contary or different sense neer six hundred times is this impartial dealing with Gods word And do you think that Paul mentioneth that as a great and comfortable priviledge of Believers which belongs to Heathens equally with them Why do you not your selves still use that language then and say that the Children of Infidels are holy when too many will scarce allow the title to any Adult Christians that are not of your Sect much less to the Children of Christians though dedicated by Baptism to God But being called by you to a Review I am again remembred that our Saviour himself was a Church member in his Infancy even the chiefest that is the Head Mr. Tombes confesseth it Let not your opinions interest draw you to deny it nor to call my assertion rotten dictating If you should I would ask of you at what age Christ began to be Christ and the Churches Head as we ask the Socinians At what age he began to be God And if an Infant was capable of being the Head King Priest and Prophet Relatively though yet he had never Ruled Sacrificed or Taught then there is nothing in the Infant Age which maketh it uncapable of being Members Subjects and Disciples of Christ And it is like that Irenaeus was not deceived who saith that he Sanctified the state of Infancy by being an Infant and we have reason to judge that he did thereby give us notice that the Infant Age is not unacceptable to him nor uncapable of Church Relation Truly Sir the serious thought of Christs Infant Relation is a very great confirmation of me against those that exclude all mankind in their Infancy from the Covenant and Church even as Christs ordinary Communion in the Synagogues and Temple is an insuperable argument with me against unlawful Separations And God himself calling Infants his Servants who do no actual service Levit. 25. 41 42. yea and calling them Disciples Acts 15. 10. prevaileth more with me than the words of any one that shall say They are uncapable of being Servants or Disciples If the Infant-age did not render them uncapable of being Subjects of Christs Kingdom and Members of his Church Universal and Particular before Christs Incarnation it maketh them not since uncapable of the like or same Relations And why should I suspect such incapacity are not Infants members of other Societies are they not members of Families and may not a Family be Sanctified by dedication to God are they not members of all the Kingdoms in the world and is it not the common light of Nature which teacheth all men so to esteem them are not Infants the Kings Subjects and why may they not as well be Christs Subjects as the Kings Have they not Right of Inheritance and Honour even of Crowns Lordships and Lands Do any Nations under Heaven level all Children as if the Parents communicated neither good or evil to them What reason then to suppose that Christ obliterateth even Natures Laws And if you deny not Original Sin why should you think that God is so unproportionably prone to punish and damn more than to pardon and save as that while all Infants are made sinful and miserable by their Parents yet not one in the world shall have so much as a part in Christs meritorious Righteousness and the free grace and pardon of his Covenant upon the Parents dedication of him to God and entering him by consent into his Covenant Doth sin abound so much more than Grace as that Condemnation is passed upon all Infants for and by their Parents sin and the free Covenant gift doth not pardon any sin to any one Infant in the world upon any condition which the Parent can perform nor any other You never yet by all your words for all words are not Light and Proof did convince me that it was no Benefit to Infants before Christs Incarnation to be Covenant-members of his Church particular and Universal Nor that Christ came to deprive them all of that benefit Mr. Tombes his pretenses that it is a Benefit to Christians to have all their Infants put or kept out of the Church State and Mercies is so absurd against Nature that I am asham'd to say any more against it If it be our Benefit to have no Covenant-gift of Christ Pardon and Life to our Children may you not next say It is our Benefit to have them damn'd And if it were so Nature teacheth us to be loath to receive our Benefits by such means as one would be loath that a Physitian should cure his Sickness by a draught of the heart blood of all his Children Sir I could the easilyer bear with your delay of external Baptism if you did not deny all Infants their part in the Covenant of Life But when you dare not only do that but reproach our assertion of Gods Covenant-Grace to them as Absurd and Heretical it is no Fieryness to say that I will not follow you Where there is no Covenant or Promise there is no Hope which we can call Divine and if we have no Hope of the Pardon or Salvation of our Children upon any Promise of God it is no Promise of Mans that can keep us from Despair We may not then say as David I shall go to it any farther than to the Grave Nay do you not do worse than deprive us of our hopes even lay such grounds as destroy and exclude them by a sentence of damnation For God addeth to the Church such as shall be saved And if Infants be not added to the Church are they not excluded from Salvation For
The Antinomians of late years have attempted to perswade men that secret Election justifieth from Eternity and dissolveth the Laws Obligation before it did oblige even to non-existent Subjects But few believe them the Errour being sufficiently laid open And yet what other than this feigned Antinomian Justification do the Anabaptists allow to any Infants in the world But the Obligation of a Law or Covenant to punishment must according to Gods established order be dissolved by a Law or Covenant even by the Pardoning Law of Grace No doubt but all elect persons before Regeneration are in the visible Kingdom of the Devil and heirs of hell and under the condemnation of the Law as undissolved and they not pardoned and is this the case of the best of Infants Had Infants Church-membership been a meer Jewish Ceremony or a meer piece of the Mosaical Policie giving no right to any spiritual benefits nor extended to any other but the Jews we should have judged of it as of the rest But I dare say that I have given full proof of the contrary in both my Books not here to be recited and have produced more than rotten dictates that from Adams dayes Infants were esteemed as under the Blessing or the Curse as belonging to their Parents interested in their actions conditions Besides that any heathen might have brought in his children as Proselites into Church-membership with the Jews whereas now you allow not so much to any Christians And it was before Circumcision was instituted that Marriage was regulated by God that there might be a Seed of God Mal. 2. 15. And I will not be so audocious as to expound that title of all the Devils Children that be not Bastards But still you say There is no Scripture President or Precept for Infants Baptism Answer 1. Abuse not your selves and others we are first to agree Whether Infants may be Church members and under the Covenant of Grace with their Parents And then we shall next consider at what age and in what manner they should be solemnly invested Confound not differing Questions the first must be first resolved 2. There is no Scripture president for Baptizing any Kings must none therefore be Baptized 3. Scripture tells us not all that was then done but all that must be done 4. When Baptism was first instituted and practised the Parents must first be Converted and Baptized 5. Yet over and over the Baptizing of Housholds is recorded 6. Infants Church-membership was a thing that they were before in profession of and no sort that ever I read of questioned it Therefore what need Christ institute it anew any more than to new make the Ten Commandments 7. If it had ever been his meaning to dispossess them all he would have told us so in some word of Scripture or some mention sure had been made of it 8. But certainly he told them that he would have gathered Jerusalems Children to him which is the Nation that was before Gods Church 9. And he took Children in his arms and blessed them and was angry with those that kept them from him and said Of such is the Kingdom of God 10. And how can we obey Mark 9. 36 37. and receive Children in Christs name and as belonging to Christ if none do visibly belong to him 2. But I answer fully There is a full Command for Infant Baptism Mat. 28. 19. Go ye Disciple me all Nations Baptizing them Where note 1. That it is not the effect that is made their duty but their endeavour else the Apostles had sinned when the hearers believed not and because all Nations were not Discipled Note that to be Disciples and to be Christians Acts 11. are made all one and to be Discipled and to be Christened 3. Note that it is not here and there one but Nations that they must endeavour to Disciple And as the Jews are called a holy Nation so it is said I will give thee the Heathen for thine Inheritance Psal 2. and Isa 55. 8. Mal. 1. 10 11 c. the Conversion of the Nations and Heathens is promised and the Word and our Experience have both said The Kingdoms of the World are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ But Kingdoms and Nations contain Infants and he Discipleth not a Nation that Discipleth no Infants in the Nation The Apostles were commanded to Discple whole Nations the Infants are parts of whole Nations therefore the Apostles were bound to endeavour to Disciple Infants Object It is only the capable parts but Infants and Ideots are not capable parts Answ I have before and else-where fully proved Infants capable parts as Christ was of being Head and as Infants are of Societies and of a part in Covenants with men and Ideots having not the use of reason from the birth are in the same case with Infants and the Distracted after at age are nothing to our case but are capable of being Distracted members and Distraction is not Excommunication nor Unchurcheth any Object 2. They must be made Disciples by Teaching Answ 1. If they be made Disciples any way they must be Baptized 2. As a mans hand or foot doth not understand by teaching and yet is part of a Disciple that 's made such by teaching so Infants understand not and yet are Infant Disciples as being naturally so much appertaining to their Parents that by Gods Law the Parents Will goeth for theirs in consenting for their good They are Subjects before they obey and servants of God before they serve him as those were to Abraham that were born to him in his house and as Christ was a Priest before he Sacrificed c. And so they are Disciples before they learn and made such by thes teaching which made their Parents such and taught them to dedicate them to God If the King should send Embassadours to perswade the Heathens in New England at once to become Christians and his Subjects would any man doubt but when the Embassadours prevail with all the Adult to become the Kings Subjects they do thereby make the Nations and so all Infants as dependents on the Parents to be Subjects also And if the same speech of the same men make the Parents both Christians and the Kings Subjects may it not as truly be said that that speech made the Infants Christians when the Parents consent as Subjects when they consent 3. If actual Learning or believing were necessary to the Christianity or Church-membership of all then whenever any one were Mad or Distracted or in an Appoplexy if not every night while he is asleep he should cease to be a Christian and Church-member And if Infants as part of Nations must be made Disciples and all that are Discipled be Baptized as the Investing act then here is a plain cmmand to Baptize Infants All that must be Discipled must be Baptized Infants must be Discipled Therefore Infants must be Baptized What have you more for Baptizing Kings And if men ask for
so far to confound the state of Christians and Pagans as to their Childrens blessing 5. What a sin so to enlarge and honour the Devils Kingdom as to give him all mankind visibly till they come to age 6. What a sin to rob Parents of so much of their due comfort 7. What a sin to deprive so many millions of Covenant-pardon Grace and Life by hindering the acceptance and consent 8. What a sin thus to change and take from the Word yea from the very Covenant of God 9. What a sin to vilifie so great Mercy as if it were none and to preach such ingratitude 10. What a sin so to dishonour Christ as if sin abounded so much more than his Grace as that all Infants being visibly condemned not one in the world is visibly pardoned or justified 11. Yea to make Christ so like Satan and contrary to himself as to come into the world to cast or keep all mankind in Infancy out of the Church and Covenant of Grace And when his Name is called Jesus because he saveth his people from their sins he will take none for his people till age nor save any Infant visibly from sin either guilt or habit and so be no Jesus to any but the Adult that we can know of when yet before his comeing it was otherwise And so to make the Gospel much harder than the Law and the yoak of Christ harder than the yoak of Circumcision 12. Yea and to make the Gospel Church more narrow and unhappy than all the Pagan Nations were before whose Children might have been Proselited with the Parents 13. What a sin is it to teach men to be thus unnatural and cruel to their Off-spring 14. What a sin to teach all that are not Re-baptized that they break no Baptismal Vow or Covenant nor sin against it because they never were Baptized 15. And is it nothing so to cross our Prayers Let thy Kingdom come and to pray and endeavour that Christs Kingdom may not extend to any of mankind till they actually at age believe But the great difficulty which it will be expected that I resolve is Whether I do not imply That all the Children of true Christians dedicated to God having saving Grace in their Infancy many after fall from it seing experience tells us that too many prove ungodly I Answer 1. So much of Scripture and so great and many Mercies must not be all denyed when a difficulty ariseth in the way which we cannot at the present answer Else what would become of most mens Christianity it self 2. This was no difficulty to the antient Fathers no not to Augustin and his followers and so to all the known Church of Christ for a thousand years after the Apostles who commonly held that even of the Adult many fall from true Grace Justification and a state of Life some appropriating perseverance to the Elect as Austin and some to the confirmed in Grace and some to both 3. It is hard that they that cannot extricate themselves out of such difficulties will but reproach those that offer them their help But this is not the first time that I have ventured upon their Ingratitude I speak of it still as a difficulty but what I have said in my More Reasons for Infants Church-membership seemeth most probable to me viz. 1. All Christians confess that Adam fell from a state of Salvation or right to Life at present 2. Adams Grace which he lost was a Power to Love God and obey him which he could use or suspend 3. Beyond a meer Power there is in the sanctified by the in-dwelling Spirit of Adoption Gracious Habits of Love and Obedience What Adam had of this I am not here to determine 4. Beyond meer weak Habits there is in some such Habits as are strong confirmed and radicated 5. And in Heaven above all these there is full Perfection Now I apply this 1. Actual and Habitual Love and Obedience is in the sanctified Adult by the indwelling Spirit For Actual Love and Obedience is their Duty which the Habit is joyned to 2. Vocation giveth Faith and Repentance in Act with some seminal disposition to the said Acts and Habits of Love and Obedience as Amesius Medull de Orat. not yet Habits and this Vocation goeth before Sanctification Faith being the Condition on which the Spirit of Adoption and Sanctification is promised 3. So much Grace may be given to Infants as was to Adam as to meer Power to do what he did not and as the Dominicans call sufficient or necessary Grace and perhaps such as is the innitial Disposition before full Sanctification And this much may qualifie them for present Pardon and Justification For Actual Love and Obedience is not their Duty and consequently not the proper habit beyond a Power and seminal Disposition as of necessity to their first state of Grace And as Adam lost this much so may they 4. The Sanctifying Spirit of Adoption is not promised to Infants to work such Acts in them as they are not yet capable of nor such Habits as in Gods usual order follow such Acts But he is Related to them as their Sanctifier because Christ will send the Spirit as they come to the use of Reason to help them in holy Acts and so to Habits if they forfeit not his help Which some do besides the perfidious neglect of Parents and so lose that Infant-Grace 5. But all Gods Elect shall certainly have more than this Grace of sufficient necessary losable Power and Disposition and shall at age have actual Faith Love and Obedience if they live 6. What ever Infant dyeth in the state of that Grace Disposition which we call sufficient in its nature was as loseable as Adams shall be perfected in his access to the perfecting Glory as all imperfect Saints are and is one of the Elect and shall by Promise be saved allowing degrees of Glory If there be no need or evidence of this solution and you have any other surer way then cast this by as rotten dictating Thus far I have given you an account of my Review But yet I here repeat again That if you would be contented your selves to satisfie your own Consciences to be Re-baptized as one that doubted whether he were well Marryed would secure it by being Marryed over again and would afterward live peaceably in communion with your Brethren and not appropriate Church-communion to your Sect. And if you would not deny our Infant part in the Covenant of Grace the promise of Pardon and life by Christ and our Infant Church-membership and only delayed the Baptismal Investiture as Tertullian desired for the more solemn inauguration and obligation Though I should not be of your mind I should live in as loving forbearance and Communion with you as with other Christians But if when we are for Peace you are for Church-Wars and cannot differ from us without Dividing Unchurching Unchristening avoiding and even Contemning or Slandering almost all the
proof and your charge of an Heretical Position is nothing but Christian Gentleness Your Phrase of a Covenant running in a Fleshly Line is your own The words of a position charged as heretical should have been truly recited Tell me where I ever used such I refer you to my late two Disputations of Original Sin besides my two Books of Baptism for full proof that God hath taken the Children of the Godly and the Wicked as participants into Promises of Love and Mercy and threatnings of punishment with their Parents How far I have there opened Your telling me that such Reference is to set you the task of Sysiphus shall not so befool me as to tempt me to write the same over again For by the like reason others of as great authority as you may call me to write it twenty times And if I give neer thirty Scripture Testimonies or Arguments for our Infant Mercies we that see no reason to invalidate them will not so despise God and his Laws and Benefits as to deny or reject all because such a man as you require it and tells us that they are all invalid If we must take our Faith on Trust it were more excusable to take it from Councils than from you I have told you my judgement herein so often that it is the more disingenuous in you to give it in such senseless or ambiguous words as A Baptismal Covenant running in a Fleshly Line Gods Covenant as Instituted runs no where but is recorded in the Scripture Preached and Ministerially applyed by his Ministers Mans Convenanting Act is absurdly said to run in a Fleshly Line But men that have Flesh as well as Souls do accept Gods Covenant and enter themselves and Infants in the mutual Convenant by dedicating both to God Natural Generation communicating essence maketh your Children to be naturally yours which is so neer an interest that Original Sin and suffering tells us that God esteemeth not our Children naturally guiltless of the Parents Crimes And he hath provided a Remedy for both and not for the Parents or Adult only And the Remedy is a pardoning saving Covenant procured by a Mediator This Convenant is Vniversal to the Adult as offered on the condition of Believing acceptance And is there no Promise no Covenant for Infants Why so Have they no need of Pardon and a Saviour or are they left remediless as the Devils Or is the Promise of their Salvation without any Condition If so is it to all or to some only if to all and so all are Christs members then all Turks and Pagans Children should be Church-members This were to make it run unto a Fleshly Line indeed If not to all to whom or to how many Is it to more than twenty in the world or more to Christians Children than others If it be a Promise of Pardon and Life and neither tell to how many nor to whom 1. This is a strange Promise and is no mutual Covenant Shew us where in Scripture we may find it 2. This then must be another Species of a Covenant of Grace distinct from the Baptismal Covenant and to feign and add a second sort of Covenant is another kind of adding to the Word of God than adding of Ceremonies is And who can say in all the world that any Child of his hath any part in such a Promise or that Pagans have not as much of it as Christians All Promises of Pardon to the Adult are conditional and some means for certain Title is prescribed Is there no means for the certain pardon of our Infants 2. But if you will say that it is conditional what is that Condition That which I have still said is this The Condition is that they be the Children of the Faithful dedicated to God not meerly that they be our Fleshly Line that doth but make them ours and with Gods Law enable and oblige us to dedicate them in Covenant to him But being thus in our power and our Wills for them as their own it is our dedicating them to God that is the immediate Condition And every true Christian doth dedicate himself and his Children to God as far as he thinks himself enabled This dedication is virtually in our own actual sanctification and actually when we have Children which is solemnized in Baptism What we devote to God by his Will he doth accept And we can shew his Promises to the Seed of his Servants and will not plead against our Mercies Should we Apostatize our selves the Mercies promised to the generations of them that love God would be intercepted and would not run to a Fleshly Line But an Infant by Believers dedicated to God is not unclean but holy and so better than a meer Fleshly Line To pour out your Clamours against our Proof full and plain proof of this from the whole current of the Scripture and to vaunt and talk with such Confidence as you do in the dark as if all this were un-proved and the very second Commandment were again cast out and Gods own Proclamation of his Name Exod. 34. 6 7. and to call for more Answers while you cry out of too much and to talk against dictating while you thus obtrude your Quaker-like Oratory Contempt Obtestations instead of Argument and Answers this must not make us unthankful Despisers of the Promises of God If you would thus Hector men out of their Inheritances or the title of their Infants to them few would think you argued cogently And should the words of such self-conceited singular persons which we take to be against the scope of Scripture and consent of Christs Church make us give up all Infants Convenant-title to Church-membership Pardon and Salvation You read frequently in the Gazetts that many set so much by their Dogs as to cry them about and offer great rewards to those that find them and will bring them home And shall all Christians set so little by their Children and so by all our own Infant Priviledges as to be hector'd out of our hopes and renounce their great and precious Promises which number them with the houshold of God and that by such Rhetorical Canting as a man of equal wit may use in almost any other Controversie As Cicero wondered at them that pleaded against the immortality of the Soul that ever men would be such enemies to themselves as to study for reasons against their own interest and hopes so I say Though our meer Interest prove nothing to be true it tells us what we should desire and when we find Gods word so excellently suited to our Interest let them dispute against it that will for I will not Let the Enemies of mankind or of Christians plead against the Interest of mankind and of Christians and not themselves It 's an unavoidable streight that we are in between them that silence and ruine us in this world among such other things for not professing our Assent that It is certain by the Word of God
on supposition of the Parents fidelity it had done though still at age they may be accepted upon Repentance and personal Belief Of which Mr. Whiston hath written more judiciously than any on that point that I remember Also I have been hereby made thankful that God kept me from the snare of Anabaptistry for though I lay not so much as some do on the meer outward act or water of Baptism believing that our heart consent and dedication qualifieth Infants for a Covenant Right before actual Baptism which yet is Christs regular solemnization and investiture yet I make a great matter of the main Controversie notwithstanding that I hereticate not the Anabaptists for the bare opinion sake nor would have them persecuted for now I better see than ever what God hath thus preserved me from 1. How much else might I have been led to that tendeth towards the denying the Kingdom of Christ and denying him to be the Saviour of the world yea how neer might I have been led towards the making him to be the Destroyer or Abaddon as comeing into the World to condemn the world and to take from them the Promises and Hopes of Salvation For 1. I find that all are lost in Adam and that God made an Vniversal Covenant of Grace with fallen mankind in Adam after his fall and renewed it with Noah I find that it is but a small part of the world that had the Law of Moses the Jews being to the earth but as one Village to England and to be King but of a Village is not to be King of England I find that the making of Abraham's or Moses his Covenant was no repeal of the Vniversal Law of Grace nor put them into a worse condition than he found them in And I find that past all doubt Infants were Church-members and in the Covenant before Christs Incarnation not only the Circumcised but the Uncircumcised Females and all the Uncircumcised Males in the Wilderness yea and out of the Jewish Nation as well as in it though the Covenant of Peculiarity was proper to them And yet notwithstanding all this I find 1. that many now do exclude all the world out of Christs Kingdom before his Incarnation except the Jews or at least a few rare individuals more when Abraham hoped there had been fifty Righteous in Sodome 2. That the same men suppose that since Christs Incarnation the old Law of Grace made to mankind in Adam and Noah is repealed and they that cannot have the Gospel are left under the meer Law of Innocency or none 3. And that all mankind in their Infant state is put or left out of the Church of Christ and the Covenant of Life And had I been seduced into all this 1. To hold that for 4000 years Christ had a Kingdom no bigger than England 2. That he came to deprive all the world that have not his Gospel of the former Law of Grace that was made to them 3. And that he came to cast out of their Church-state or Covenant-mercies all mankind while they are Infants and to leave us no hope that is grounded on his Covenant or Promise of any Infants Salvation or any description or condition whatsoever Alas what should I have been led to and what guilt against Christ and of furthering Infidelity should I have incurred under the pretense of promoting the purity of his Kingdom II. And if God had thus left me I had been likely as I see by others to have gone yet farther and narrowed the Gospel Church it self so much as to have confined it to the Anabaptists or to have thought all the rest of the Christian world uncapable of Church Communion I might have come to revile the Doctrine of Gods gracious Promise or Covenant to our Children as Absurd and Heretical and when Gratitude is the complexion of Gospel obedience this Ingratitude might have been mine III. And then I should likely have been left to a proud over-valuing of my own Opinion and the singularity of my Wisdom and Integrity as quite beyond all the Christian worlds that differ from me And out of a selfish unobserved adherence to my own conceits to have magnified the Sect that was of my own mind above all others IV. And then I might have been seduced to have had a hand in all the Turnings and Overturnings setting up and pulling down Praying and Unpraying Owning and Disowning Bloody dayes and Thanksgivings for them that were since Triplo Heaths-Parliament till 1660. and more than so to have justified them in others yea and that after Gods most remarkable disowning them yea and to have abhorred and derided the very name and motion of Repentance for them and to have despised the Religious Retreat of Nath. Ward a wise though jocular Interpendent though Repentance be the only Plank after Shipwrack and the great and merciful concession of the Gospel V. I might have been drawn hereby to divide Christs Kingdom and to set up Antichurches whose employment should be to cry down others and draw men into odious thoughts of one another and to destroy Christian Love and Concord in the world VI. And hereby I might have been one that prepared Professors to turn Quakers Seekers or Ranters to have finished the work that I began VII I might have been tempted to do all this as in the Name of Christ and for his Truth Word and Church and so to have entitled God to all and put his holy Name to these works of Darkness and pretended his own Commission for my opposing him VIII I might have been tempted hereby to write Letters as long and vehement as yours in as orâ—â—â—cal and pious a strain which should have been bâ—â—… birth of my ignorance and self-conceit and made â—… of Hypocrisie all along pretending that I am offended with my Adversary for want of an Answer or proof when indeed it were the success of his Answers Cogent Proofs prevailing with multitudes against my Opinion that was the true cause of my anger and when partiality had filled my heart with bitterness against my Brother for such success I might have been drawn to cover all from my self and others by accusing him of fieryness or folly in generals and by summoning him to Repentance and Recantation as the Quakers do by the dreadful Tribunal of God when I cannot resist the Scripture evidence which he bringeth IX And I might have been tempted when once Prepossession Prejudice Interest of Reputation had engaged me to so bad a cause to have studyed all that I can rake together to maintain it and to have stretch'd all my wits to have opposed all that is brought against it and to have made it the chief work and Religion of my life in which my thoughts affections time and industry should be laid out to carry on this mistaken and destructive cause and to keep the Churches of Christ from Loving-Unity Communion and Peace till they will all unite against Infants Church-membership and Baptism
which they never did nor never will do Yea and I must have taught all Christian Parents that though they must love their Children as they are their own as Heathens do yet that they must not Love any one Infant in the world as a Member of Christ or of his Church and in his Covenant X. And by all this what a Scandal should I have given to the Atheists Infidels Papists and Profane to harden them in their Contempt of Godliness and Derision or Accusations of Religious men as if all serious Religion among us were but Pride Contention Humour and Hypocrisie and a Cloak for our Malaâ—ies and Crimes Yea I might have tempted them to Persecution and quieted their Consciences in silencing Christs Ministers for the sake of such whom they think they use not so ill as they deserve XI And alass what a distraction and scandal should I have caused to the ignorant and weak when they see so many wayes and hear men calling them this way and that way and terrifying them with Gods Judgment and the charge of Sin if they be not of this mind or of that till poor people that have a plain Rule left them by Christ are driven out of all Religion or out of their Wits as not knowing of what side and way to be XII And I should have been like enough to have been drawn into the guilt of Persecution my self while I cryed out against Persecution I might have Persecuted my Brethren with my Tongue and thought it necessary to the promoting of the cause of God to blast their just Reputation and to make them by falshoods to become despised lest their names should hinder my design Yea who knows but I might my self have joyned with those whom you judged the persecuting Silencers of the Ministers of Christ and Ruiners of the Churches Peace by endeavouring the continuance of those same Impositions and keeping Ministers out of the publick Ministry and depriving them of all the established Maintenance which in the judgment of the Sectaries themselves is heynous sin and all this lest Repentance and Altering such Impositions unless they will do it as far as the said persons desire should weaken their Party and leave them under greater disagvantages and to have thus desired mens impenitent Continuance of that which is accounted heynous Persecution and Devastation of the Churches and starving many thousand Souls and undoing Ministers and their Families might have made all this to be my own by such consent yea and endeavour and the pitiful shift of opposing a Comprehension to keep off our own Sufferings or our weakening and the dividing of the Non-conformists might have been an Opiate to my Conscience for so heynous an Iniquity XIII Yea who knows but I might have come to that inhumanity and immodesty as to falsifie publick History against the common notice of all the Learned world and to have faced down mankind that the Novatians were against Infant Baptism and so were the Donatists and that Austin wrote divers Books against them as holding that Opinion and that the Brittains of old were of the same mind and the Waldenses since and Wickliffe also c. And if Learned men had wondred at my impudence I might have comforted my self that my followers will believe me yea and to have furiously calumniated those that detect my sin and call me to Repentance and to have reproached them as foolish and fiery who will defend the Mercies of Christ and their Infant hopes and title to pardon and salvation These and many more evils I might have been seduced into if I had yielded to those reasonings that would have drawn me to deny the Graces of the Covenant and which in my youth once did cause some doubting in me till I diligently studyed the point my ignorance of the true nature of the Covenant and Baptism and the weakness of many Writers Arguments against the Anabaptists being then my great Temptations And now Sir I thank you for calling me in the bowels of Christ as I will answer it at Gods dreadful Tribunal to a Review of the Cause which I was drawn by your Brethren to defend For it causeth me in the Review of the Nature and Reasons of it to renew my thankfulness to God for my preservation and that he hath made any use of me to vindicate his Covenant and the Mercies given by it to mankind and for saving me from this fore-described deluge and I solemnly protest in his sight that knoweth my heart that if I knew or by study could find out that Papists Conformists Separatists Anabaptists or Quakers were in the right I would quickly and joyfully declare my consent be glad before I die to joyn with them and recant what I have held or said or done against them But the Reasons which I have given in my two Books and which Mr. Jos Whiston above most others hath lately given seem to me unanswerable And yet I doubt not but Mr. Danvers or you can answer them all there being few Causes so clear that a man may not talk against as long as his talking faculty holds out But do not expect that I should offend you by Replying to words which I think need no Reply unless the necessities of such as are deceived by you do require it Blessed be that Mercy that will shortly Reconcile his dark mistaken wrangling Children in the World of Reconciling Light and Love in the perfect Vnity which Grace is now preparing us for and they that live in Faith and Love are breathing after And woe to them who by dead Formalities elude and hinder mens solemn intelligent owning of their Baptismal Covenant at age and thereby make Anabaptists and make Infant-baptism seem a Crime London Decemb. 31. 1675. Rich. Baxter Mr. Danvers his Third Reply Considered at Mr. Hutchinson's Invitation BEfore the Receipt of Mr. Hutchinsons Letter I knew nothing of Mr. Danvers his Third Reply which I have now perused Though by his Conclusion one would think that he took open Rebuke for a tolerable yea acceptable friendly office yet finding how impatiently he receiveth it and that the detection of his Voluminous Untruths doth but occasion him to defend them and to stir up all his Forces to render the Reprover odious and so doth but exasperate his Disease I thought my self disobliged from any farther attempts to bring him to Repentance And those that yet need more to save them from the belief of his Historicall Misreports are persons that I have not leisure enough to satisfie I again profess that the experience of these last fifteen years of the strange incredibility of some men on both extreams the Violent and the Dividing about notorious matters of Fact hath done more to bring me to great unbelief of all mankind so far as I find them pre-engaged by Contention and by a Carnal or a sideing factious Interest than all that ever I before had read or heard or seen I should once have thought that I had
so long I joyned together as the mode of their Re-baptizing their doing it in cold water or Rivers some naked and the rest the usual way next naked that is in a linnen Shift or Vest only to cover them I took that which in the hotter Countreys was safe to be in our frigid Countreys a breach of the sixth Commandment and can prove that he that said Go learn what that meaneth I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice would not have plunging over head in Cold Water to be the ordinary way with us I supposed that as among the naked Indians use maketh nakedness a less provocation to Lust than it would be here so also in the hotter Regions of the world their appearing publickly next to naked in one linnen Vest or Shift was less unseemly than it would be here David might dance so before Ark though Michel thought it impudent and they might usually were such Garments as would not have kept their Nakedness from being seen if they had gone by steps upon the Altar and such as if it were but turned aside would leave their nakedness as Noah's was to spectators Custome is of great signification in such things But I appeal to common Modesty with us in England whether it would not be a breach of the seventh Commandment to come to Church or walk the Streets or appear in Assemblies in our Shirts and Smocks Now this man first feigneth me to say that it is Adultery because I say it is a breach of the seventh Commaadment as if nothing but Adultery were there forbidden Next to prove that I mean it of them all that They Baptize naked he alledgeth that I said that all or most did it naked or next naked and are these all one pray doth he not disprove himself Is it not sure that he that saith some Baptize naked and others next naked doth not say of all that they Baptize naked What should one say to such a man as this But he saith that some naked and next naked are much at one Answer That 's but another of his Untruths from whom they flow so easily that I may not number them A grosser and lesser breach of the seventh Commandment are not much at one with me I never said or thought that they were If I had is that any thing to the question in hand Can he prove that I said All Baptized naked if I had said that I took next naked to be as bad 2. But de facto doth he deny the latter it seems here that he doth I profess also that I go in this but by Common Fame If they Baptize not next naked in one linnen Shift I never heard it denyed till now I renounce the mention of it if it be untrue but it is not in my power to disbelieve it But because I never saw it if he will say that they Baptize them all in hats bands and cuffs I will not peremptorily deny it But he will prove that I meant not Common Fame because I add Experience c. But sure I never alledged my own Experience I never saw any of them Baptize I never heard a Ranter Blaspheme though I have read Letters full of it nor I never saw a Quaker quake If you say that they never did so I will not prove it But how shall other mens Experiences be known to me but by Report or Fame And I think that the more common and uncontradicted the Report is it is the more probable I have not leisure to go on at this rate with such a Writer I again profess that I had rather Retract what I said than not if I could do it without lying but I cannot But Reader what 's all this to the Question Whether our Infants are in Covenant with Christ or Visible Members of his Church Is it not a meer Diversion But the last Question is Have I not wronged their Cause by wronging the Persons in believing Fame that ever any of them Baptized naked Answer 1. I have not the books now to peruse men of his Spirit though of another Opinion have disabled me at this time from confuting him by books But I am past doubt that I have read of their Baptizing naked in forreign Writers 2. But Reader Could one that had read this Book of his against me for this passage as injurious believe if he had not seen his other Books that it is this same man himself who in his two former Books maintaineth it against us that for many hundred years Baptizing naked was the Churches Practise Was this no injury Or shall the same man take me as injurious for believing the same of some of them for a very little time I hope I have almost done with such Disputers As to what he saith of Mr. Lambes and Mr. Allens who have left them exceedingly as he hears blaming me for broaching much more for defending this slander I answer 1. His Heresay's have quite lost their credit with me I believe it never the more for his hearing it They never blamed me to my face and I think that they are men likely to do it in that friendly way if any way and therefore at least I may hear from them hereafter and if so their reproof shall be willingly considered If it be true I suppose it is because they have mistaken me as he doth as if I had spoken that of their ordinary practice which I mentioned only as the practice of some only at that time which was as short and confined as the Quakers quaking 2. Is it a slander of Mr. Tombes his citing Vossius or of Vossius cited by him to say that some Baptized naked in former times 3. Is it then no slander of Mr. Danvers to say and stiffly defend it that the ancient Churches ordinarily did so Doth he who so pleadeth for Immersion because it was the first way now take it for well done in the ancient Churches and an intollerable slander that it should be said to have been done of any of late He next cometh to defend his false Report of a Paper which I read to some people that I preached to The first hour that ever I spake to them I openly professed that we met not there as separating from the publick Assemblies but for the necessary instructing of the people who else had none nor any publick Worship of God The Parish of Giles where I lived and the Parish of Martins where I preached are supposed to have 1000000. souls or neer of these it is supposed that not above 6000. can hear in the Parish Churches at the most and the incumbent of one had not officiated at all for many years it grieved me to think that while the King aintainerh a Corporation and Revenew for propagating the Gospel in America and the Jesuites are justly praised for doing so much to propagate it in the East Indies we should sluggishly suffer America and the Indies to come so neer Whitehall and so famous and
to me when they call me Hireling But Sir I am not so much as a Hireling much less the owner of the Sheep I would I knew which of these two you judge your selves to be for my part I am neither Christ is the Owner I am not so much as the Pastor of any Flock And that I may not discourage your contempt I add nor ever that I remember called to be such these 13 or 14 years Nor have I so long taken any Hire And did Paul flee like a Hireling when he went from places of less liberty to other more commodious places to Preach Did not Pain Weakness and want of Money for so chargeable a work disable me my Conscience would command me by the motive of Experience to go about Preaching from place to place though every dâ—g in the streets where I pass should bark nothing but Hireling Hireling The last Text is against Separation The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses his seat all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do but do not ye after their works for they say and de not for they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne c. And what from hence Ergo I should not Preach in the Parish Churches Or is it Ergo I should have bound heavy burdens for my self Or is it that I should not â—ave made such for others This is the likest sense fâ—r the best way of expounding Authors is by similar passages And were not this an untruth it would be non-conformable to the rest aforesaid But saith he is not this a strange Paradoxe that he should suffer at the rate for a Non-conformist at London and yet act the part of a Conformist to so high a degree in the Countrey Answ This is very conformable to the rest To Preach in the Parish Churches for his story of Reading the Common Prayer is like his Books is the high degree of Conformity This is expository I now perceive what it is in me to be for Conformity and against it for Popery and against it for Arminianism and against it as he saith The equivocation maketh all true I am for the Conformity and the Popery and the Arminianism of Preaching Christs Gospel in Parish Churches which the Papists say they sometime said Mass in and for the Conformity and Popery of Infants part in the Covenant of God for their Baptism and for the reading of Gods Word for the Creed the Lords Prayer and the ten Commandments and for the Love of Brethren and the Unity Peace and Concord of Christs Church however I be against that which the world commonly knoweth by the name of Conformity and Popery O what a high degree of Conformity did the old Non-conformists exercise in this mans sense I have lived long to little purpose it such a man by the bare names of Conformity Popery or Arminianism can frighten me out of my Christianity my Honesty my Charity my Minâ—stry and my Wits Next relating my story with more caution than usual with an If I be not misinformed O that this sentence had been twice or thrice in every page of his Books with some truth some mistake and more omission he subjoyneth that by Proxie that 's his fiction I suffer Imprisonment for a Non-conformist in London and in person out doe all the Non-conformists by his publick Preaching in the Countrey as a Conformist Answ 1. Reader by this you may see at what rates we Ministers must do our Masters work Woe to us if we Preach not And if we do one sort Imprison us and seek our Ruine and the other Revile us as if our greatest Duty were our greatest sin 2. You see what abundance of Enemies the Preaching of the Gospel hath when Satan can stir up such men of Zeal to take it for a Crime Paul might Preach even in the Jews Synagogue I must not in a Parish Church 3. You see how certain it is that the two Extreams are much of the same Spirit and that they that most cry out against Persecution are oft of a persecuting mind when such men as this would silence us or have us give over Preaching to the multitude that most need it as well as others And so would the Quakers 4. You see what they mean that cry down a Comprehension They would not have us Preach in the Parish Churches to the needy multitude unless they may have all first altered according to their desire Thus W Pen called me cruel for desirng a Comprehension as leaving the Quakers to the Dogs so that they would have us all silenced even by those Impositions which they themselves account sinful till they and all such have their will 5 You see here what a Reproach these men would bring on Non-conformity and what strong Invitations they give men to Conform by making Conformity to be Preaching in Parish Churches 6. Or you see what need you have instead of disputing longer with such men to pray God to give them tenderer Cnnsciences that may fear to multiply Untruths which thousands of Witnesses of whom some were Anabaptists and of other Sects are ready to confute Especially to Pray that the Churches and the peoples souls may be delivered from such as would not only Unchurch all mankind till they come to age but make it a sinful Conformity than to Preach the Gospel in the Parish Churches FINIS