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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62864	Anti-pædobaptism, or, The third part being a full review of the dispute concerning infant baptism : in which the arguments for infant baptism from the covenant and initial seal, infants visible church membership, antiquity of infant baptism are refelled [sic] : and the writings of Mr. Stephen Marshal, Mr. Richard Baxter ... and others are examined, and many points about the covenants, and seals and other truths of weight are handled / by John Tombes.	Tombes, John, 1603?-1676.	1657 (1657)	Wing T1800; ESTC R28882	1,260,695	1,095

Which if Mr. B. hold as his words import I may well say he stands on pitifull ground a very quagmire however men judge of my proof from Gal. 4.1 c. of the repeal of the pretended ordinance of infants Church-membership Mr. B. proceeds But one Text more was named and that is my Text Matth. 28.19 20. Go disciple all nations c. Is not this brave proving the repeal before mentioned What saith this Text to any such matter Answ. The first question hath so much insolent folly that I think fit to give no answer to it To the second I say 1. This Text compared with Mark 16.15 proves that Christ appointed after his resurrection that his Church should be gathered in all nations by preaching the Gospel and baptizing and no otherwise and consequently the Church not gathered this way is not agreeable to Christs institution The forepart of the antecedent is plain For as Pareus rightly paraphraseth the words Com. in Mat. 28.19 Christs words have this sense Make to me Disciples gather to me a Church among all nations by your preaching bringing them to the faith of the Gospel And Piscat observ Matth. 28.19 By the coherence of the sentences it is signified first by the doctrine of the Gospel the nations were to be brought into the Church then to be baptized when they should enter into the Church and profess the faith And that neither the institution of Christ nor practise of the N. T. allows any other way of gathering the Church is proved in the 2d Part of this Review sect 5. c. 2. I say this Text excludes infants from being baptized as is proved in the same place and consequently from being visible members of the Christian Church The antecedent is confirmed from Mr. Bs. words Plain Scrip. proof c. against Mr Bed pag. 299 300. where he proves from Mat. 28.19 Mark 16.16 c. That in the institution and every example of Baptism through all the Bible the first grace is pre-requisite as a condition which he makes to be faith included in the term Disciple The consequence is also proved from Mr. Bs. assertion Plain Scrip. proof c. Par. 1. ch 5. pag. 24 25. and elsewhere proved from Mat. 28.19 All visible Ch●rch members are to be baptized Whence I infer All visible members of the Christian Church are to be baptized No infant is to be baptized Therefore no infant is a visible member of the Christian Church Now if no infants are now visible members of the Christian Church and the Church which is gathered without making Disciples by preaching the Gospel first to them and then baptizing them is not agreeable to Christs institution then Christ hath repealed the gift and ordinance of visible Church-membership of infants I expect now some brave answer from Mr. B. to these plain arguments without any bravery But what do I meet with Nay saith he I am confident the contrary will be proved from this Text also For if it be nations that must be discipled and baptized certainly all infants can never be excluded but must needs some of them at least be included I do not believe that men were to be made Disciples by force nor that all were Disciples when the King or greater part were so But that the Apostles commission was to disciple nations this is their work which they should endeavour to accomplish and therefore this was a thing both possible and desirable therefore when the parents are by teaching made Disciples the children are thereby discipled also As if a woman escape drowning the child in her body escapes thereby yet this is not by any natural cause but by force of Gods grant or Covenant Answ. Though Mr. Bs. confidence and his foolish admirations and exclamations have taken much with the shallow and heedless both Ministers and people of this age yet they appear ridiculous to me His speeches in this place are but dictates that if nations be to be discipled infants cannot be excluded that because they were to endeavour the discipling all nations therefore infants that when the parents are by teaching made Disciples the children are discipled also all which I deny and have demonstrated to be false so fully in the 2d Part of this Review sect 5. c. that I shall as soon expect the snow be proved black as any of them proved by Mr. B. or any other His similitude is frivolous no child being included in the parent in respect of discipling as the child in the womb is in respect of drowning If it were then also in respect of baptizing so that if the mother with child be baptized the child also is baptized as wel as discipled and then baptism of such infants after would be rebaptization Such a grant or Covenant by force of which infants are made Disciples is a meer figment If infants were made Disciples by a Covenant it must be of God to them wherein he promiseth it to them upon their parents bei●g discipled and if so then they are discipled ere they be born and consequently not made Disciples by the Apostles and so no part of the nation to be discipled by them nor they to endeavour their discipling unless they should actum agere do what is already done whence it will follow that they had no commission to disciple or baptize infants for they had no commission to disciple by Gods Covenant or to baptize such Disciples but those who were made by their preaching Disciples and as Mr Collings saith truly in his Provoc provoc ch 5. pag. 54. The Apostles notwithstanding that precept Matth. 28.19 10. did not think themselves obliged to baptize any but such as believed and confessed their sins Mr. B. adds When all that dwelt at Lydda and Saron were turned to the Lord the whole cities infants and all were discipled Answ. Though our last translation read Acts 9.35 And all that dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him and turned to the Lord yet in the Greek and agreeably the vulgar Beza c. And all that dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him who turned to the Lord which seems to import that all they who turned to the Lord saw him and so they that saw him is limited by them turned to the Lord which is not to be said of infants But were the reading retained as it is in our last translation yet it is a gross conceit of Mr. B. to apply this to infants For it is said of these 1. That they saw Aeneas cure 2. That they were converted to the Lord. 3. That by seeing the cure of Aeneas they were moved to turn to the Lo●d as Piscator in his Sch●lie saith to wit moved by t●e miraculous healing of Aeneas by Peter Now to affirm these thing● of infants is in my apprehension however it be in Mr. Bs. against common sense Besides me thinks Mr. B. should not be ignorant that fre●uently in the Scripture such expressions wherein the word all is used

without fear of forfeiting my Christianity And to Mr. Bs. proofs I answer Christ did come to make Jew believers children in some respect that is of their temporal enjoyments in Canaan miserable or under persecution and so in a worse condition and yet he is thereby no destroyer of mans happiness but a Saviour of them this worse condition working for their eternal good Nor is it any absurdity to say he that would not accuse the adulterous woman would leave out of his visible Church Christian all infants without accusation sith this leaving out was onely an act of Soveraignty as a Rector not of punitive justice as a Judge But the consequence is that which I denied before and now also and to his proof I give the same answer which he thus exagitates Can you imagine what shift is left against this plain truth I will tell you all that Mr. T. could say before many thousand witnesses I think and that is this He saith plainly That it is a better condition to infants to be out of the Church now then in it then Which ● thought a Christian could scarse have believed 1. Are all those glorious things spoken of the City of God and is it now better to be out of any Church then in it Answ. It is no shift but a plain truth which if there had been many more witnesses I should sti●l avouch as part of my faith and mee thinks if Mr. B. be a Chri●●ian and not a Jew hee should believe it too For were not the Jews infan●s by their visible Churchmembership bound to be circumcised and to keep Moses Law was not thi● an heavie and intollerable yoke I● it not a mercy to be freed from it What real Evangelical promise or blessing do infan●s of believing Jews now lose by not being Christian visible Churchmembers I challenge Mr. B. to shew me any one particular real Evangelical blessing which doth not a● well come to an infant of a believer unbaptiz●d or non-admitted to visible Churchmembership as to the baptized or admitted or any true cause of discomfort to parents by my doctrine which is not by his own Dare he say that the promises of savi●g grace or protection or other blessings are not belonging to them because unbaptized not admitted visible Churchmembers If he dare not let him forbear to calumniate my doctrine as unchristian and tragically to represent it as cruel and uncomfortable to parents and so not like a solid disputant or judicious Divine cleer truth but like an Oratour raise passion without judgement and end●avour to make me and that which is a plain truth odious which course will at last redound to his shame if it do not pierce his conscie●ce I said not as Mr. Bs. question intimates that it is now better to be out of any Church then it but that it is a better condition to infants to bee out of the Church now then to be in it then meaning that nonvisible Churchmembership to infants now is a better condition then visible Churchmembership was to them then And for that passage that glorious things are spoken of the City of God to prove the contrary it is ridiculously alledged For that speech is meant of Jerusalem or Sion preferred before all the dwellings of Jacob Psal. 87.1 2 3. not of all the Jewish Church and to it may be well opposed that of the Apostle Gal. 4.25 Hierusalem which is now in bondage with her children which proves my position Mr. B. adds 2. Then the Gentiles Pagans infants now are happier then the Jews were then for the Pagans and their infants are out of the Church Answ. It follows not from my position which was of Christian believers infants with those promises and probabilities they have and from thence followes not that Pagans infants out of the Church without those promises and probabilities Christian believers infants have are happier then the Jews were then But saith he I were best to argue it a little further 3. If it be a better condition to be in that Covenant with God wherein he bindeth himself to be their God and taketh them to be his peculiar people then to be out of that Covenant then it is a better condition to be in the Church as it was then then to be out of that and this too But it is a better condition to be in the aforesaid Covenant with God then out of it Therefore it is better to be in the Church as then to be in neither The antecedent is undeniable The consequence is clear in these two conclusions 1. That the inchurched Jews were then all in such a Covenant with God This I proved Deut. 29.11 12. What Mr. T. vainly saith against the plain words of this Text you may see in the end 2. There is to those that are now out of the Church no such covenant assurance or mercy answerable If there be let some body shew it which I could never get Mr. T. to do Nay he seemeth to confess in his Sermon that infants now have no priviledge at all in stead of their churchmembership Answ. If the Covenant be meant as I have proved before sect 64. it is of the Covenant of the Law concerning setling them in Canaan if they kept the law of Moses then the antecedent is not undeniable but it is most true that the condition of believers and their children now with the exhibition of Christ the promises and probabilities they have of saving knowledge of Christ and salvation by him is bet●er out of the aforesaid Covenant with God then in it But the consequence was also denied because Mr. B. means the Covenant of grace And if it be meant of the Covenant of Evangelical grace neither of his conclusions are true nor is the former proved from Deut. 29.11 12. For if it were true that all that did stand there before the Lord did enter into covenant yet they were not therefore in the covenant wherein God bindeth himself to be their God Their entring into covenant was by their promise to obey God which they might do and yet not be in the covenant wherein God bindeth himself to be their God si●h Gods promise is not to them that enter into covenant but to them that keep it yea if it were that they were in that covenant yet that covenant did not put any into a happy condition but those that kept Gods laws it being made conditionally and so not all the inchurched Jews were in that covenant wherein God bindeth himself to be their God Yea if it were as Mr. B. would have it that the promise of being their God were meant of Evangelical grace yet according to his Doctrine it is upon condition of faith and so it is either universal to all in or out of the Church or to none but those who are believers who were not all the inchurched Jews Nor is the second conclusion true there is the same covenant of Evangelical grace made to infants who