more so the Reader cannot know the particular here of them until he take the Bible and look farther so ready I am not to blazen abroad but rather to go backward and cover your nakedness as Cham. But What have I done I thought indeed I had done and replyed to all your Letter But I perceive that it is undone as who have omitted one of your Texts which is in your last line of all John 14.15 and in these words of Christ Jesut If you love me keep my Commandements What a bad-sighted man am I that I should take no sooner notice of these last words of your last Text in your last line words like Apples of Gold with pictures of Silver as spoken in season a Text like a bundle of Mirth worthy to be laid betwixt the breasts A line Sir I speak seriously worth all your Letter besides and had it not been for this last line it had been so far from being any Love-Letter or Message of Jonathans to David that rather it would have been as Davids Letter against Vriah or a Johnathan's Maranatha Letter writing bitter things as Marah and breathing out not onely excommunication but even damnation whose mouth I have stopped notwithstanding If you love me keep my Commandements John 14.15 saith Christ to his Disciples This is a text to purpose which few or none of the former were brcathing love at last the best thing to end a Letter with and to make some recompence for all your hateful horrid hellish and malicious calumniations of your Mother and Brethren in the beginning thereof Above all things and so in the beginning and after things and so in the end Put on love which is the Bond of perfectnesse The Law maketh nothing perfect but love doth for the end and so the perfection and fulfilling of the Commandement is Love out of a pure heart and a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned at leastwise Christ Jesus whom we love as who loved us first is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth if Christ Jesus be the end of the Law and the Commandement and love the end of the Law and Commandement Then the love which is of Christ sure or Christ who is love for God is love must needs be the end of the Law and Commandement and therefore is ye love me keep my Commandements saith Christ John 14.15 a Text worthy to be thrice mentioned and repeated This is the one onely Text that you and I shall not differ in I hope and which you have rightly applyed and both my self and all of us do take to belong unto us to love the Lord Jesus Christ and to keep his Commandements yea I adde if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ Let him be Anathema Maranatha 1 Cor. 16.22 And in testimony of our love we walk in obedience of his Commandements but I will say to you asit is Jam. 2.8 9 If ye fulfill the royall Law according to the Scripture That shalt love thy neighbour as thy self ye do well but if ye have respect to persons ye commit sin and are convincedof sin as transgressors For he that said If y love me keep my commandements said also Thou shalt love thy neighbour or Brother and keep that Commandement also of his amongst others and this Commandement have we from him that he who loveth God loveth his brother also 1 John 4.21 If a man say as it proceedeth vers 20. If a man say I love God and Jesus Christ and hateth his brother he is a liar whosoever the man be for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen And again Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore love is the fulfilling of the law also Rom. 13.10 I confess I could now much refresh my self in this sweet rosie Discourse of this point of our love of Christ and our Brethren after my wearisome travelling through other sharp and thorny Disputes but I resolve this Page now in hand shall be the last and determine both Onely I shall minde you that amongst these your Neighbors and Brethren we the Ministers of Jesus Christ are to be accounted and taken in by your leave Sir for by his leave Sir we are so accepted of to be his Neighbours and Brethren his Neighbours as whom the Lord hath brought nigh unto himselfe to do the service of the Tabernacle and Temple Number 16.9 and also his Brethren For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one for which cause he is not ashamed tocall them brethren Hebrews 2.11 whether sanctified by Grace from him or by Office under him and if he called and owned the Hearers and Doers of his Word his Brethren sure he owneth for such also the Preachers and Doers of the same Yea see how Christ Jesus not onely owneth them for such but oneth them also as himself if I may so speak saying He that heareth you heareth me he that receiveth you receiveth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me Matthew 10.4 Luke 10.17 And truly I must tell you that when our People were let alone and left to themselves and our Ministers and before they were befooled and bewitched by you separation from us as the Galathians were by creepers in amongst them they did as the same Galathians Paul receive their learned pious and industrious Ministers as Angels of God even as Christ Jesus Galath 4.14 And will do so again I believe or hope by that time they have had a little more trial and experience of your courses and seen the difference betwixt the new light or flashings of your blazing Comets and the old light and lustre of their own fixed Stars But I give over proving against you or reproving seeing you have given over accusing of us and reviling and are fallen upon love in your last line love I say and that of Christ Jesus the most lovely Object for a fair conclusion from those foul Principles of malice in your former lines malice I say and that against the Church of England and her Ministers the least deserving hatred from you because serving you by love shewed if not saving you by faith Preached to you My advice I know will seem strange and irrational to you in the form of my words and expression Forsake your Principles and leave them hold fast your conclusion and keep it but it is good and religious in the matter of sense and my intention which is this Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice Ephes 4.31 this was your Original sin and bad Principles And again Be kindly affectioned one to another in brotherly love love as Brethren be pitifull courteous of one minde having compassion putting on the bowels of mercies Rom. 12.19 1 Peter 3.8 Goloss 3.12 And thus your latter end hath been better than your beginning and your conclusion
leave them destitute of the ordinary way and means or shew from Scripture some other of their Righteousness and Salvation Yea if Infants be saved without Faith they must then be saved without Christ for as there is none other name or person under Heaven given amongst â—â—en whereby we must be saved than the Lord Jesus Act. 4.12 So there is none other means or grace under Heaven given amongst men whereby we may apprehend the Lord Jesus save Faith Matth. 3.16 and Heb. 11.6 Remember your own words nothing but Faith answereth the Promise If Infants have no Faith to answer the promise nor works to answer the precept how shall they do for the answer of a good conscience towards God or a saving Baptism 1 Pet. 3.21 Or what shall they do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall they answer him Job 31.14 If he will contend with them they cannot answer him one of a thousand Job 9.3 unless in Christ by Faith they be and then all is answered I could wish some others of a more vigorous body and brain would prosecute these and many other Scriptures to the proof of Faith in Infants Elect and saved the which as I take it would best stop the mouthes of the gainsayers of Infant-Baptism who now not satisfied with their being in Covenant with God also or his giving of spiritual grace to them never leave calling for Faith Faith in Infants so would it set opener and wider the way of Infants to their Baptism even in the opinion of the adversaries thereof If you question how such could believe in Christ Christ who tells you so gave them to do so and so may give to others Is thine eye evill because he is good may he not do with his own as him pleaseth Take that thine is and go thy way it may be he will give unto this least even as to thee Though Intants want the outward Means of Faith which they are not capable of as the Hearing of the Word by which Faith ordinarily is gotten yet there are other besides what you will say extraordinary and so you will fly now your self to extraordinaries who have taxed us of extraordinaries no such matter for besides the ordinary outward Menas of Faith in the Church which an Infant wanteth and is not capable of there are ordinary inward Means of the same Faith which it may find and of which it is capable namely Christ the Author of Faith and the Spirit of Faith both these are internal but ordinary Means of Faith in the Church and avaylable when the outward are wanting and the outward unavay leable where those inward are wanting But you can discern no such matter of Faith in Infants these shew no such thing as Faith what then what evidence of expression do you see or they shew of a reasonable soul in them by this reason you may conclude them unreasonable as well as unbelievers Even Childrens souls are equal and like as yours and mine are in the essentials which are as large and ample to all intents and purposes though pent up for want of room as our souls are and are capable of Grace They are Rational Creatures Seminally and in the inward Principle of human Nature which is a reasonable Nature though through defect of age they are not Rational Productively and in the fruits or external proceedings or operations of reason and so they may be Believers as to the Root and Fountain of Faith the Spirit of God in the first act though they may want the second act thereof which is the increase of it in themselves and the deriving the knowledge of it to others So then Infants in the Church may have Faith and all the Elect of them have fot it is called the Faith of Gods Elect Tit. 1.1 and you as you cannot descry it in them so you cannot decry it Therefore by your own Tenet and Rule they going for Believers and Elect may be Baptized yea all ought to go so out of a charitable perswasion and opinion that ought to be in us and you howsoever it goeth with them as to the Truth and Reality and therefore all should be Baptized for by the same reason you Baptize any of those you call Believers we Baptize all Infants of Believers and unless it were so none at all were to be Baptized Those that come to you one by one in a profession of Faith you have but a good and charitable opinion of his Faith and Election you can have no sure and certain knowledge of the same For this and that Person may be an Hypocrite and Reprobate yet you Baptize him and him Now therefore may not we do the like there comes presented to us this and that Child one and another in the evidence of Gods Covenant engraven as it were upon them by their birth of Parents in Covenant we have also a charitable perswasion of their Faith and Election and can have no more for there are also Infants born in the Church that are Reprobates and so we Baptize them But if onely the true Beleevers and Elect were to be Baptized then you and we must have a certain knowledge of every Infants and every mans Faith and Election as the ground of our and your Baptizing them the which because neither we nor you can have in any ordinary way neither of us by this Rule must Baptize any at all You hope the best of all and so do we your old Limitation may do well here so far as man can judge which in this case is just nothing and that 's all can be said on both sides but still I must prompt you that it is not knowledge of the Infants being in Election and the signs of it or being in the Faith and the prosession of it but the being in the Covenant and a relation to it that is and ought to be the ground of Baptism in the Church of God now because we find and know all Infants born of Christian Parents within this Covenant Relation know not which of them is Elect or not for if we knew who were Reprobates we neither would nor ought to Baptize them we do therefore Baptize all of them lest otherwise we should and might deny the Seal of the Covenant to some of the Elect Children of God Me thinks you who assume so much of the Spirit to your selves Take heed you do not presume too much of your selves therein there be they who separate themselves having not the Spirit Jude 19. should not be so Covetous or Envious and it may be refistous and then it is blasphemous as to deny some degrees of the Spirit and the graces thereof to Infants when as the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and thou canst not tell whither it goeth when as also the Dove-like Spirit of God hath a neer compliance with and a great complacency in Child-like meekness mildness humility patience of which graces he is pleased to stile himself the Spirit more
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
of all the good ends effects benefits of an Ordinance they are not to be forbidden to come or to be kept back from it as being a good and valid Ordiance to such But Infants and little Children are capable of all the good ends effects and benefits of the Ordinance of Baptism Therefore Infants and little Children are not to be forbidden to come or to be kept back from it it being a good and valid Baptism and beneficial to them The first proposition is clear from the 1 Cor. 4 15. 1 Cor. 9.1 already cited to which I add Matth. 19.14 which clears it as to this particular The second proposition is not questionalbe that they are capable as having reasonable souls belonging it may be to election and so having the Spirit and Grace as before and the Letter of the Text sheweth it For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven c. Except ye become as one of these little ones ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven To shut up this reason the sum and result is this That Infants of baptised parents are in capacity to partake of the ends effects and benefits of Baptism and of the inward Graces of the same and many of them are actually and really partakers of them as well as grown persons who are visible professors and there being in us no infallible ground of certainty but of Charity that either the one or the other have those inward Graces yet they may be accordingly baptised And the visible right to the Covenant and the many promises made to the seed of the faithfu added to their Capability of the Graces of it are as good evidences to ground a baptism of Infants as the external professions of grown men can give yea and to ground a judgement of their partaking of the invisible Graces like as the others And Experience hath and doth shew it that of those that have been baptised in their infancy our Ministry of the Word afterwards following upon our Ministry of Baptism sweetly winning upon them and drawing them to grow in Grace and to bring forth other fruits and duties of the Covenant to which they were bound by Baptism as the Jewes were by their Circumcision to be obedience of the Law Gal. 5.3 there have been as humble and meek as mortified and sanctified Christians both Men and Women as any amongst you to say no more not to say more sound in the faith sorrowful for sin zealous in love fervent in prayer religious in their houses and devout in the house of God sincere in their dealings grave in their behaviour modest in their attire exemplary in their lives mourniful in Spirit and vexed in Soul for to see the unclean conversations and the erroneous courses of others as well as you nay far better than any of you in many of these are or do Now though it be so that God sometimes doth bring good out of evil as light out of darknesse at first yet usually and ordinarily God doth it not and therefore in a visible constituted Church where he proceeds ordinarily he doth not from a false Ministery and an unlawful Baptism produce such good effects and lightful converses I do not mean your new light so full of darknesse the which let it be to the stopping of the mouths of all gainsayers with whom nothing is more rife and frequent than to revile our Ministery and Baptism as false and Antichristian evil and unlawful A word more from hence to you Parents That if you regard the above-named good ends effects and benefits and now know your Children capable of them and desire indeed they should be partakers of them bring them to Baptism a means to those ends a work to that effect an office to such a benefit So whom God destinates to an end he destinates to the means whom 〈◊〉 appoints to an effect he appoints to a work whom he designes to a benefit he designes to office What moreover and above are you not willing your Children should have the privilege to be accounted as belonging to the family and houshold of God upon earth That they should have an obligation upon them to bind them to the duties of the Covenant of God as they grow of capacity to perform them that they have a good Title afterwards to that other Seal of growth and nourishment in spiritual Graces Why then do you with-hold them from Baptism are you not desirous they should as members of the visible Church have a place in the Communion of Saints and a share in those prayers that are put up to the throne of Grace for the welfare of the Church and particularly for a blessing upon the Ordinances thereof and that they should have a Seal to plead not only in the persent day of their initiation but throughout all their life time as to the Covenant for all those good things whereof it is a Seal so to the Condition for fulfilling the good duties and so gaining the answer of a good Conscience and in which case it is said to save Why then bring them forth present them unto Baptism Be not like unto the Ostrich in Job 39 16. She is bardened against her young ones as though they were not hers her labour is in vain without fear because God hath deprived her of Wisdom neither hath he imparted to her Vnderstanding which leaveth her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in dust and forgetteth that the foot may crush them and that the wild beast may break them it needs no application but this Be not so hard hearted to your Children as to leave them in the earth and dust of their natural Generation so every foot they may be crushed your seed not onely bruâ—sed of the Serpent but broken but bring them out to the water and it may be the fire of Baptismal Regeneration The Apostie tels you and you are I beleve very expert in that Lesson and experienced in that matter that if any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house and kindred he hath denyed the faith and is worse than an infidel but if you provide not for your own Flesh and Children and their Spirits not only giving them bedily provision but not giving them also such provisions as God hath made ready for their Souls you leave them as bad as infidels in a manner unbaptised denying them a means of faith and the Seal of the Covenant I say no more but what Man is there of you whom if his Son ask Bread will be give him a Stone or if he ask a Fish will be give him a Serpent as Psalm 147.9 The young Ravens cry to God for their food to be given them So your young infants methinks cry to you and in their crying and weeping seem to call to you for their Water of Baptism as their milk of the Brests to be the one the relief unto their Souls against original guilt and misery as the other against
generally set down at the 3. verse and specified in two particulars the one of chastity along to the 6. verse in whcih verse is another particular of justice and at the 7 verse the reason of both is yielded For God hath not called us to uncleanness but holiness which if understood only of Matrimonial uncleannes which is Fornication and holiness which is chastity then the Argument must run thus let no man go beyond his brother in bargining for God hath not called us to fornication but to chastity and so you alone shall run with it for me and follow the consequence thereof which I hold to be of no consquence And fourthly Such another consequence is this uncleanness and holiness or sanctification is put by St. Paul to the Thessalonians for fornication and chastity suppose it so though I grant it not so and therefore the same is meant by St. Paul to the Corinthian when he saith the husband is sanctified by or in or to the wife else the children were unclean but now they are holy as if the same words may not bear divers senses in scveral Text of Scriptures according to the diversity of the matter and scope and how will you shew that chastity among the Heathens and unbelievers is ever called sanctification in Scripture the spirit only being the Spirit of sanctification and the bodies of Heathens and unbelievers being not the Temples of the Holy Spirit and yet you see the Heathen or unbelieving husband or wife is said to be sanctified in or by the believing wife or husband And Fiftly and lastly The Apostle speaketh to the Thessalonians grown persons converted to Christ and tells them for the present and time to come that it is the will of God they should abstain from uncleanness and fornication from fraud and injustice for the one of which you cite Heb. 13.4 also the only tâ—xt you ciâ—e according the sense of it and what 's all this to the unbelievers being sanctified by the believers or their childrens being holy Here was no such mixt conjugal societies of Christians and Gentiles or Heathens and children born of them as appears in that the Apostles saith Let every one of you possesse his vessel in sanctification and not in the lust of Concupisence even as the Gentiles which know not God I am sure the Apostle neither speaks nor means a natural holiness or cleanness that is not born of Fornication as you strangly and inconsiderately blurt out which words I leave to you to put into some Genitive Case for the birth of I know not whom the fathers or children of these Thessalonians for you make no Genuine sense here either of fathers or childrens Natural holiness or cleanness There is a parcel of your third Consideration clapt in by you not belonging to the matter in hand there which according to my custom of right ordering and methodising of your confused stuffe I reserve untill anon to come in its due and proper place I proceed now that I have answered your Allegation for a Natural you would say if you were acquainted with the best spoken of your Sect Matrimonial sanctification Holiness and cleanness to give you my Reasons to the contrary of your Opinion 1. When the Apostle saith the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife c. and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband this cannot be meant of Matrimonial sanctity and holiness that their Marriage was good and lawful and chaste for both parties knew that of themselves before nor needed they nor did they here propound any such Quaere unto the Apostle Whether they were at first or still rightly man and wife or were joyned in lawful way of Wedlock whilest they were Heathens And that case was also determined before by the Apostle as the 9 and 10. verses let not the wife depart from the husband and let not the husband put away his wife But the Quaere here was whether the believing party might depart and seperate from the unbelieving party a Brother or a Sister as its more explicated at the 12 and 13. verses so that it seems this Quaere arose from something in difference of Religion that troubled the Conscience of the believing party after his or her conversion as whether it would not be defiled in remaining joyned to Idolaters and Infidels Now suppose the Quaere had been sent to you for answer for I will see how good you are at answers who are so much in Quaeres what will you answer to these Corinthians why thus you do Be content Sirs you have a natural holiness cleanness or your Matrimony is lawful notwithstanding the difference in faith you may live together for all that you are no Adulterers and Adulteresses increase and multiply your children are no bastards but Legitimates But Sir do you think this would have answered their Quaere satisfied their scruple or pacified their Conscience would they not have replyed to you in the words of Job to his Friends We have heard many such things miseralbe Comforters are ye all Job 16.2 Tell us that we know not answer us to that we Quaere you speak that we have not heard we have heard many such things we know all this that we are lawfully man and wife and our children are no Bastards but Legitimater if this be all you can say as good hold your peace for you speak no peace to Conscience Miserable comforters of Conscience are ye all or as in the margent troublesome comforters of conscience are ye all and by this your resolution make our Consciences more troublesome and miserable than before they were Our doubts are whether we that are converts and believers may put away or go from our husbands or wives which are Infidels and unconverted and also his or her children as not belonging to God for part of his people or seed and being as a grief and vexation if not pollutionto us what do you tell us of lawfulness of our Marriages or Legitimacy of our children Can you shew us there is any sanctification betwixt us and our unbelieving consorts whereby we may be induced to live and dewell together any holinesse of our off-spring and children that we may own them as members of the Church of God do this and do somthing else it s nothing you say But I will take off these Corinthians from you Sir and from baiting of you for which you may thank me and will direct them to a more happy and peaceable Comforter ever their own Apostle St. Paul who here fully answereth their doubts and quiets their Consciences telling them that the unbelieving husband is sanctisied by or in the word in the Original beareth all the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by or in the husband meaning though not expressed the believing husband and the believing wife I blamed you Sir before for expressing it in the text where the word believing is not for mentioning it as the fense and scope which my self
doth fully remove those jealousies that might arise in their minds from another Text perhaps they knew of Deut. 7.4 3. ver I shut up the Point with this That howsoever the just and righteous man shall live by his faith yet as the Apostle saith the unbelieving husband is sanctified by his wife and the unbelieving wife by her husband though it may be not to life or salvation this sanctifying which the Apostle mentions of the unbelieving party is a result of the faith of the believing Consort so the unbeliever is twice said to be sanctified but not the Believer and the Believer doth sanctifie the unbeliever or else I can make no sense of the Apostles Argument And so now by a kinde of back skip I shall return from your third Consideration where you ended about the unbelieving Consorts sanctification by the believing one unto your first Consideration where you begin about their childrens being unclean or holy Do you not see what a great deal of trouble your want of good order and method your ignorance of our University Arts and Learning doth create to me Truly you might pitty me as much for the one as I do you for the other For so the next Quaere or scruple of Conscience in the Corinthian Believers unto the Apostle was what they should do about their children they had or should have begotten of their Infidel husbands or wives whilest they lived and remained in wedlock with these and whether they should look upon them their children as any part of Gods people belonging to the Church and so what he thought of them To which the Apostle answereth they were not unclean but holy But the words are not barely propounded as his Resolution of the Corinthians second Doubt or Quaere but as an addition or proof unto their first Quaere or doubt as the form and manner of the speech sheweth Else were they unclean but now they are holy The like is 1 Cor. 15.29 Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not So here The unbelieving husband is sanctified by his wife c. else were your children unclean but now they are holy As who should say This farther proves that Sanctification because your children are holy which else would be unclean Thus the Apostle here one of these Doubts or Quaeres necessarily flowing from another as one sore breaking out by another by the resolution of the second as it were a Playster laid upon it both salveth that and also spreads and dilateth the same to the more perfect cure of the first But I will give you the precedency of speech as who love to hear you speak first and it is indeed my place to be but an Answerer and so to take into consideration what you put to me Say on therefore and speak out Consider farther first if this holiness here spoken of be a holiness of sanctification such as is the way to heaven and salvation as some will affirm then I pray let me ask you this question from whence this holiness cometh What some will affirm I know not do you then you know the future opinions of some as well and indeed as well as the present minde of the Spirit in this Text. But it s not material to my answering of you what some men will affirm let me hear what either they or you do affirm or tell me the names of those some and then I shall tell whether they do affirm but what they will affirm I leave it to you to foretell and from henceforth to begin to be a Prognosticator or foreteller of weather which you may be better than of the wills of men Again holiness of sanctification Manhu what is this I do not think any will affirm it besides your self either to speak such words being both one not distinct things holiness being the quality or habit and sanctification being but the act and operation of the same so that rather both you and they should have said if you would speak right English or sense The sanctification of holiness than The holiness of sactification But now farther neither is holiness of sanctification here spoken of as to the children in question and under doubt for because you do not specisie whom you speak of and of whom you affirm or deny this your holiness of sanctification let me I pray ask you this question Of whom Parents or their children sure of the children and their holiness for of the unbelieving Parents and their sanctification you have done speaking and your asking me whence this holiness of sanctification cometh and your answering your self Either from the lawfulness of the marriage of their Parents or from the faith of the Parents or from the Covenant these do make clear what you held in obscurity that the holiness here spoken of to be a holiness of sanctification such as is the way to Heaven and Salvation as some will affirm no matter who is intended by you to be or at least questioned if not refuted as to the being of it in the children of Parents whereof one is an unbeliever And now I have another question to ask you Why you joyn together in the children onely sanctification of holiness when as the Apostle divided them betwixt the Parents and their children giving sanctification to the Parents the unbelieving wife or husband is sanctified by the believing Consort and leaving holiness to their children Else were they unclean but now they are holy And lastly for I cannot forget how when time and place was you wearied and tired me with your quaeres I ask you another question If your conjunction holiness of sanctification be not a tautologie or vain repetition whether your limitation following such as is the way to Heaven and Salvation be not a Battologie or needless restriction For is there any holiness or sanctification which is not the way or tending to Heaven and Salvation And now Sir to your question you ask me From whence this holiness that is of children cometh and as soon as you asked this question and before I could open my mouth to make you answer from whence away you are gone to your suppositions If it come from the marriage of the Parents or if from their faith or if from the Covenant and who are you like to herein I will not give you neither time or scope to answer but without all supposition shall say you are like to Pilate who asked Christ this question What is Truth and as soon as he had said it went out unto the Jews as not having the patience to stay for the Answer John 8.38 Whether Pilate were able to answer that question himself What is Truth I know not it seems you are and therefore made such haste away from me to take my breath as it were out of my mouth or rather to stop it and to undertake the answer your self for presently you follow on If it cometh from the lawfulness of the
return and reversion to the Faith who were before baptized nor the children of Professors though baptized by Hereticks or heretical Ministers if rightly according to the Ordinance but rather condemned it and pronounced it a Heresie to hold it or to practise so a Rebaptization For the Sacrament of the Eucharist there is a Quotiescunque it should be received as oft of the same Person as may be conveniently for that our growth and augmentation in grace ought to be daily and continually whereof the Eucharist is the Sacrament But I never read of above a semel of the Sacrament of Baptism that it should be received above once of the same person because our Spiritual Birth and incision into Christ is but once whereof Baptism is the Sacrament The thing is acted but once and therefore is signified but once I acknowledge indeed that it is no where expresly written that baptism should not be irerated and received the second time so it s no where said there are three Persons of the Deity though the word of persons is no in sacred Writ yet the will of God about the things signified by the Word is revealed and expressed in the same So the Will of God that baptism should not be iterated and once baptized should not be re-baptized or baptized the second time appears partly out of what I have alledged 1. That Circumision was never iterated none ever circumcised twice and Baptism succeeds Circumcision 2. That there is mention made of an Iteration or often Receiving the Lords Supper but not a syllable of Intimation there or elsewhere of the like of Baptism 3. That in the very Place and Scripture where Christ instituted Baptism which yet had been the very proper place for it there is no order at all for re-baptizing or iterating baptism 4. That among all the many examples of persons baptized There is not one recorded to have been re-baptized no not Simon the Sorcerer nor Demas the Revolter not one of the Cormthians nor of the Galathians relapsed but onely were called upon to Return to the Grace of the Covenant sealed in their first Baptism by Repentance and Faith I suppose the grand reason of your re-dipping and re-baptizing in elder age is this for that you hold your first dipping and baptizing to be vain Invalide frustrate which was transacted in your infancy for so one of your Sect told me the other day that when he was a Child he was Christened but he was then also but cozened As I warned him so I wish you to take heed unto your wayes that you offend not in your tongue or thought so as in either of them to reproach the Living God or blaspheme his holy and effectual Baptism by thinking and calling this a Cozenage and him a Mocker Did God cozen the whole Church and People of Israel when he appointed and commanded their children even but of eitht days old to be circumcised how then doth he cozen the Church and people of the Gentils in our Infants baptized seeing baptism is the Circumcision made without hands Col. 2.11 Nay seeing both Circumcision and Baptism are the signs and seals of that one and the same Everlasting Covenant of Grace they neither are nor can be any cozenage or frustrate things to the right Partakers of them until they be frustrated by themselves the Partakers as by Esau was his birth-right and also his circumcision and them God is rather mocked and cozened then a Mocker and Cozener but they are valide and of force to the spiritual good ends and purposes of either and therefore being rightly once imprinted are of vigour and vertue of frait and efficacy during life and so long as the Covenant lasteth which is everlasting as I said and so need not to be repeated and reiterated but are often to be revolved and revived in our mindes memories and meditation and the Tenor of the Covenant daily to be studied and practised and the Conditions thereof on our part to be observed and performed accordingly Rather your self Sir and your two Sisters were cozeded and cheated and never so much in all your lives as when you renounced that your first Christian Infant baptism and received this your second novel youthful Dippism Nor can that be any good reason of your re-dipping or rebaptizing your defect of Faith in the time of your Infancy or sithence days of age your Eccess of sins such as have vacated the gracious Covenant and vitiated a good Conscience For you must consider that the Covenant is sealed in Baptism or Baptism is added to the Covenant on Gods part as well as mans God promising there Grace and Eternal life and man stipulating for Faith and new Obedience Though therefore you might or did fly from the performance of your Promise by Hypocrisie or Apostasie and upon such default on your part lost your right and claim of eternal life God notwithstanding stood and standeth still firm to his Promise on his part as who never breaketh Covenant with any nor ever loseth his right to any party baptized by any default made on his side These things if they be true as they are most true God being not as man that be should change and alter to what purpose was it that you should or did entâ—r anew into a Covenant with God and reiterate the seal thereof Baptism and so be rebaptized and re-dipped which was but will-worship of yours fruitless and a tradit on of men needless no where commanded you of God no where exemplified to you by the men of God the Saints This rather you should have done as that one and onely necessary thing you should have repented of your evil ways and works and so have returned unto God in Covenant already and still with you sealed in your Infant-Baptism though forfeited on your part yet not released on Gods part This you should have earnestly pleaded with God confessing your sins and by Faith firmly embracing it through Christ your Advocate and Mediatour Thus you would have set your former Baptism on work and your self too in performing the conditions thereof and so you should have recovered and received all the fruits and benefits of the Covenant of Grace sealed to you by Baptism in your Infancy This every where in Scripture do the Prophets call upon Covenant-breakers on their part and his revolting and relapsed people to repent and to return to their first Covenant with God sealed in their Circumcision not to any re-circumcision as you may see Jeremy 3.1 12. Hos 2.7 and 6.1 And so the Apostle cals to the Corinthians and the Galathians who were far gone from God yea fain from Grace not to put off their old baptism and to put on a new but to put off the old man and to put on the new to Repent of sin and to return to the Grace of the Covenant to perform the condition of their baptism and to grow up in the fruits of the Spirit minding them
of washing and nourishing spiritually By which may be put back what the aforesaid Hunnius objecteth as that we have no word of institution none for substitution and whatsoever is not of faith is sin all which are blunted by our keeping still to the minde and meaning purpose and intention of Christ as to the end and use of the elements in general though the particular elements themselves cannot be procured And whereas he puts a man so baptized under some perplexity of conscience and under the temptation of Satan for I will instance but in that see you are not baptized with water but with some other liquor which was neither sanctified by any Word of God to this use of washing away sin neither hath it any such promise in Scripture adjoined therto he may be taken out of the same tentation by this answer of a good conscience That water was sought out for and none could be gotten and he was in danger and extremity of life and in distresse and want of Christ and his blood to wash his sins away There being some wine in a vessel in the house a Minister affecting no innovation but his good and salvation and the sacramental application of Christs washing blood for his further confirmation and consignation which he so earnestly desired took wine when he could have no water and poured of it upon him using the words I baptize thee in the Name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost and so he may hope ye doubt not but God hath accepted of him as rightly baptized and interressed in Christ If it be said what analogy in the Lords Supper is there of water to wine seeing this is made up of many bunches of grapes or in baptism of wine to water seeing this hath a vertue to wash and cleanse I reply such particular analogies though they may be profitably thought of where the proper Elements to each Sacrament may be possibly gotten which are not negligently to be omitted yet are they not so precisely to be urged and strictly pressed the one against the other in the times of the scarcity of each Though if so I can say That the water also is made up of many drops of Rain and the wine hath also a washing and cleansing vertue It is sufficient that there is here a general analogy for the testifying of our mutual Communion and spiritual ablution as here is in that we use the same kind of symbols as drink and meat also and washing which are common and usual amongst us in defect of the proper and special and specially in that we hold one and the same faith in conjunction with and sanctification by one Christ and Saviour If indeed though in a case of exigency and scarcity of water any should substitute or use such a matter as hath no power at all in it self to wash or cleanse off the filth of the body so not to signifie the blood of Christ which cleanseth from the guilt of sin it were to be disallowed as that Baptismus Arenarius spoken of by Nicephorus lib. 3. cap. ult how that a young man of the Hebrews being desperately sick and calling for baptism in want of water was superfused with sand and miraculously recovered immediately whom notwithstanding the Bishop of Ascalonia being consulted with thereabouts sent away unto Jordan to be truly baptized the former baptism being indeed as the house in the Gospel built upon the sand and could not stand I know no History of a sandy Supper of the Lord as I may so speak to parallel with that sandy baptism as it was called unless it be that sucacoena that dry Communion and Supper the Popish Priests do give to their people for they also as to the one material part of this sacrament give them not that which doth and should represent the blood of Christ and satisfie their thirst as who give them no wine nothing at all instead of it and is it not all one to give them nothing and to give them that which doth not nor can signifie the blood and satisfie the thirst I am sure nothing doth neither But why do I thus enlarge I return to you and your Pond water And here again I must tell you it was a new business for the ancient manner of the Church in the purest times was to baptize as out of the Church so in Wels and Rivers Floods and Fountains so Walafridus Strabo saith in the 26 Chapter of Ecclesiastical things For thus Christ and all the other multitudes of people were baptized of John in the river Jordan as is expresly said by the Evangelists two of them Matth. 3.13 and 6. Mark 1.5 9. and where it is said John baptized in water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beza noteth that Jordan is meant in that Story wheresoever it s mentioned in the singular number as there Matth. 3.11 And whereas John 3.32 John was also baptizing in Aenon neer to Salim because there was much water there either Jordan overflowed hither also and these were other rivers about Aroer and and by the river Arnon mentioned in the Books of Moses oft and meant here by the many waters like as Acts 8.36 they came to a certain water and the Eunuch said See here is water thereby is meant the river Eleutheras lying without the borders of Aegypt where Philip overtook or found the Eunuch and baptized him saith our learned Beza Yea and that Text Acts 16.13 and 15. that Lydia and her houshold were baptized by a Rivers side of the Apostle St. Paul Now tell me who of old as old the Gospel as the Acts of the Apostles was ever baptized or as you speak dipped in a Pond True in the 5 of John there is mention made of a Pond or Pool Stagnum a standing or pent up water whereinto whosoever after the moving or troubling the water by an Angel descending stepped in first was made whole of whatsoever disease he had but this being a special Pond of water extraordinarily assisted of God and miraculously for medicinal cures of bodily diseases maketh nothing for Ponds generally and ordinarily appointed and mysteriously used for baptismal washing of spiritual sins of the soul Where is now your zeal for Scripture examples and patterns that you so much pretend to make shew of How are you still taken tardy in those defaults as you make them in us of humane inventions is this your conformity to the Word is it not rather your difformity from it and its presidents and so indeed this people have committed two evils you have forsaken the clear Fontains and Rivers and Well-springs and have sought out muddy Ponds Pools and Well-springs and have sought out muddy Ponds Pools and standing waters to dip your proselytes in and so leaving the Scripture examples embrace your own inventions we our selves do not therefore baptize no not in Rivers or Fountains nor do we press the same For such examples are not we know left upon the record of