signified by that word that was here intended Here 's one Baptism or washing then and yet not necessarily to be understood of dipping § 17. From the Priests let us go on to the Levites and see after what manner they were to be washed at their consecration to their office That we have set down in Num. 8.5 6 7. And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Take the Levites from among the Children of Israel and cleanse them And thus shalt thou do unto them to cleanse them sprinkle water of purifying upon them and let them shave all their flesh and let them wash their clothes and so make themselves clean See! not a word here of dipping them in order to their purification nor any other way of washing prescribed but that of sprinkling Thus shalt thou do unto them to cleanse them sprinkle water of purifying upon them And if it were not sufficiently apparent from hence that sprinkling and that of water was used for cleansing that of Ezek. 36.25 would make it appear where by way of promise of what God would do for Israel in after times he saith Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean Here 's another Baptism or washing yet not by dipping but even plainly by sprinkling § 18. From the Levites pass we on unto the People and for their purification after pollution is prescribed washing Maimonid in Mikvaoth c. 1. vid. Lightfoot Hor. Heb. in Matth. 6.3 pag. 47. Ainsworth on Levit. 15.5 11. But how by dipping so indeed if the Anabaptists will give us leave to believe them the Jewish Traditions say and that of the whole body hair and all and all at one dip and that so strictly that if but the tip of the little finger miss dipping he that is dipped is still in his uncleanness But does the Text say any such thing No such matter And they that strictly hold us to Text must press no more than Text upon us They must claim no benefit by Tradition to themselves that will not allow the benefit of it unto others Let them but allow us that and we shall have our Infants baptized presently And let it be by dipping with all my heart so no unlawfulness be affixed on the doing it otherwise § 19. In Levit. 14. we have the cleansing of a Leper prescribed And how is he to be cleansed By dipping That is not said How then Even by sprinkling For so 't is said in Ver. 7. And he i. e. the Priest shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the Leprosie seven times and shall pronounce him clean Sprinkling then again appears to be a way of washing and that for cleansing for after the Priest had so washed him by sprinkling he was to pronounce him clean But it is said v. 8. that he shall wash himself in water that he may be clean and again ver 9. he shall wash his flesh in water and he shall be clean True in order to his coming into the Camp and after that into his Tent. But still that washing is not said should be by dipping The original word is here also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lavit eluit abluit aquâ corpus faciem manus pedes vestes Leigh Crit. Sacr. and signifies only in general to wash and not specifically to dip or totally immerse as we have noted before And as the LXX here render it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall wash so lavo and abluo general words to wash or cleanse with washing are the only Latine expressions whereby the sentiments of other Interpreters Et lavabitur aquâ Vulg. Lat. Targum Onâ—el Lavabitur in aqua Transl Lat. Septuag Se autem lavabit in aquis Text. Heb. Samarit abluet se aquá Syriac lavabit sese Arab. of what Language soever are conveyed to us § 20. In Levit. 15. is prescribed the cleansing of Men and Women in their Issues and of Persons defiled by touch of them That cleansing among other rites is to be made not necessarily by immersion there is no dipping mentioned in the case but by ablution by such a washing as is termed bathing He shall bath himself in water so 't is said v. 6 7 8 10 11 21 22 27. He shall bath his flesh in running water v. 13. Now bathing surely doth not necessarily import in its signification a total immersion Men do not use always to plunge themselves over head and ears into their Bath a going into the water and a partial mersation of some part of their bodies with an application of water to other parts of them with their hands and a frication added thereto I think takes in the whole of what is necessary to or usual in bathing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Sam. 11.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Susan v. 17. Nor can I discern any thing more to have been done either by Bathsheba or Susanna to themselves in that washing of themselves which is vulgarly called bathing In aquis se lavabit Pagn Interlin lavabitur aquâ LXX Transl lat aquis Targ. Onk. in aquis Samarit lavet se aquâ Arab. totus aquâ Vulg. Lat. Vid. Bib. Polyglot And the Hebrew word the same we have noted before signifies no such thing strictly and specifically nor is so rendered by any Interpreter that I yet meet with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek and lavo in Latine and what comes of it being all the words that the Oriental Versions are rendred by So then no necessity of dipping in this case neither § 21. In Deut. 21. when uncertain murder was committed the Elders of the City next adjoining are appointed to wash their hands over a beheaded heifer v. 6. Here 's washing of the hands appointed but no dipping The Original word here also is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so doth not enforce to interpret it of immersion And as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which does not signifie to dip is the word the LXX use to render it by so lavabunt and laverint which do not signifie it neither I mean strictly and specifically are the words whereby the Oriental Versions of that place are interpreted unto us So here is another washing yet not by a total immersion § 22. In Exod. 30.18 19 20. Moses is appointed to make a laver of brass to wash withal and to put water therein for Aaron and his sons to wash thereat and they are accordingly appointed upon pain of death to wash when they went into the tabernacle But still not a word of immersion spoken of all this while The word for washing here too is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose import we have often enough declared to be for ablution not for immersion And besides though Moses be appointed when he had placed the laver to put water therein they are not appointed to put their hands and feet
by dipping into water but by having water poured upon him And whether that were so or not yet still the expression inevitably infers that Authors knowledge of a way of baptizing other than by a total dipping and even by a pouring on of water in his own age at least if not in former and even in the Primitive too to which the passage makes a fair pretension being quoted out of the Authors Poem of John the Baptist Item placuit ut quicunque parvulos ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat anathema sit Synod Milevit ap Magdeb cent 5. c. 9. col 835. Caranz fol. 123. § 60. In the same Age An. Chr. 418. the Council of Milevis decreed him anathematized who should deny baptism to Infants coming new from the Wombs of their Mothers Now certainly Infants in that condition cannot be looked upon as other than persons under great weakness and necessarily exposed to manifest danger of health and even life it self should they be put to the undergoing of the Severities of a threefold total Immersion which was the way of baptizing those that were dipped in those times even Infants and all if arrived at that hardiness for strength as to be able to endure it There must therefore be allowed a more favourable way of baptizing of new-born Infants which I presume also was never done but when the Infants were weak and not likely to live unless we will put such an Interpretation on the Councils decree as shall expose them to a severe censure for cruelty even to tenderest babes for that very thing whereby they designed the greatest mercy and kindness to them as if they meant to kill their bodies whilest they pretended to save their Souls Now I need not tell you what has been so oft already sufficiently intimated that the most favorable and so the most befitting way of baptizing in such case is that of Sprinkling § 61. Fst de Columbethra quae aquae in baptisterio receptaculum fuit ex qua aqua baptizato superfusa per interiorem meatum secedebat apud Socrat. l. 7. c. 17. The Centuriators tell us of a Font out of which baptizato aqua superfusa the water poured from above on the person baptized went away by a secret passage made for it below And this Font was in this Age. And this pouring water on the person baptized at it imports a baptism other than by way of immersion For this and the story appendent to it they refer us to Socrates l. 7. c. 17. That Author speaks of such a Font as had a conveyance for the water by a lower passage but mentions no pouring of the water from above on the baptized And because I am unwilling to force a meaning on them different perhaps from their mind though lying fair in their words it may be they did not by aqua baptizato superfusa intend water poured from above on but for the baptized Though by the way this is much the manner of baptizing in Russia Purchas Pilgrim part 3. p. 229. about An. Chr. 1557. according to a Relation of it that I meet with in Purchas's Pilgrimage For there as the Relation is when the water is Sanctified the Priest taketh the Child and holdeth it in a small Tub and one of the Godfathers poureth it all upon the Childs head Yet to come to the story in Socrates again there he tells us what is material to our purpose viz. a story of a deceitful Jew that having been baptized before by Atticus Bishop of Constantinople and made a practice of it in several places upon avaricious designs for mony to offer himself to baptism came to this Font offering himself to be baptized there also and that when he hanged his head over the Font the water vanished away once and again whereupon his fraud was discovered This happened in the Sixth Consulship of Theodosius An. Chr. 415. Now that which I note it for is this This hanging his head over the Font in order to his being baptized intimates what any man would think that should see a man in that posture hanging his head over one of our Fonts that his baptism was not to have been by an immersion or dipping of his whole body into the water but only by a Sprinkling of water upon his face or by a pouring of water upon his head at most by a dipping of his head only and no more of him into the water § 62. In the middle of this Century flourished Pope Leo advanced to the Papacy An. Chr. 440. He was for having the Solemn times of baptism observed Non interdictâ licentiâ quâ in baptismo tribuendo quolibet tempore periclitantibus subvenitur ut in periculo mortis in obsidionis discrimine in persecutionis angustiis in timore naufragii nullo tempore hoc verè salutis singulare remedium cuiquam denegemus Leo ep Decret 4. c. 6. pag 15 16. Nevertheless he would not inhibit that liberty which had formerly been taken to baptize at any time persons in danger of death in the difficulties of a Siege in the straits of persecution in the fear of Shipwrack Now this being so it must needs follow that he must allow of such ways of baptizing as the circumstances those persons were in would admit of Which might not be always by way of Immersion even for want of water as in sieges prisons ships and sometimes might not be safe as in case of dangerous sickness when to baptize by way of Immersion might be more destructive to the baptized than his very disease and a sure way to bring a certain death upon him here whilest we design to save him from a feared death hereafter And then not only partial mersation but even affusion and conspersion or Sprinkling will fall under the allowance of that 〈◊〉 and be the Practice which the Church in that â—â—ge took or had granted to it the liberty to make use of § 63. In the Year 499. was baptized Clodoveus King of the Franks Spondan Epitome of Baron An. Chr. 494. n. V. An. Chr. 499. n. IV. Georg. Cassand de Baptismo Infantum p. 713. Isle Clodovaeus primus Christianus fuit inter Reges Francorum à beato Remigio baptizatus Gotfrid Viterb Chron. part 17. col 433. See Werner Rolewinks Fascic Temp. fol. 53. Herm. Contract Chron. p. 419. Flosc Historici cap. 3. p. 204. Expedit ut per infusionem aquae fiat non per immersionem Cujus rei exemplum trahimus ab Apostolis Sancto Laurentio Remigio caeterisque pluribus qui aspergendo super infundendo aquam baptizabant Sic Sanctus Laurentius urcco aquae superinfuso baptizavit Romanum Sic etiam Remigius Regem Franciae baptizavit Agend Eccl. Mogunt Edit Mogunt An. 1551. fol. 22 23. first brought to believe the Christian Faith by his Queen Clotildis who was a Christian and after to profess it and be baptized partly by occasion of a vow which he had made to Jesus Christ
been baptized not only by dipping them but also by pouring water from above upon them Notandum non solum mergendo sed etiam desuper fundendo multos baptizatos fuisse adhuc posse baptizari c. Hoc etiam solet evenire cùm provectiorum granditas corporum in minoribus vasis hominem tingi non patitur Walafrid Strabo de Rebus Eccles c. 26. p. 415. and that they may still be so baptized This also uses to come to pass when the greatness of the over-grown bodies suffers not a Man to be dipped in the lesser Vessels which is the present condition of most if not all the Fonts in England so that there can be no way of baptizing persons of ripe years in them but by affusion or a partial mersation I wish those that give such credit to this Author in other things would be impartial and give the like credit to him in this wherein he is so full and clear as nothing can be more both as to what hath been and what may be § 82. Yet further in this Century An. Chr. 858. Praeterea si tibi ad Baptismum Baptismi cupiditas propositumque sufficit atque idcirco corum qui purificâ aquâ perfusi sunt gloriam quaeris ad gloriam quoque tibi sufficiat sola gloriae cupiditas Nicet Not. 21. in Gr. Nazianz. Orat. 40. Col. 1062. Edit Paris 1611. flourished Nicetas Serronius who wrote Commentaries on several Orations of St. Greg. Nazianzen And in his Commentary on the Fortieth Oration of that Father which is of Baptism If saith he a desire and purpose to be baptized serves you for baptism and you therefore seek the glory of those qui purificâ aquâ perfusi sunt who have had the purifying water shed or poured upon them i. e. have been baptized let then the only desire of the glory serve you too for the glory This if the Author be rightly translated who I suppose wrote in Greek is a clear intimation of that Author 's having in his mind a notice of a baptizing by way of perfusion shedding or pouring on of water which made him paraphrase baptism so nay more that he supposed others had the same notice of it too and would understand what he writ or else he would not so have written it Commentaries being designed not to obsuscate the Authors commented on by words less usual and of greater obscurity but to illustrate them by words more known and of greater perspicuity than their own § 83. In the Tenth Century amongst other Ecclesiastical Constitutions of King Edgar Si infans infirmus absque baptismo obierit Ethnicus hoc ex culpâ Sacerdotis evenerit amittat ille ordinationis gradum sollicite componat Et si amicorum negligentiâ acciderit jejunent illi 3. annos unum sc pane aquâ per reliquos 3. dies in hebdomada id semper lugeant Can. dati sub Edgaro Rege apud Spelman Concil Anglic Tom. 1. pag. 467. Can. 44. about An. Chr. 967. there is one Canon deposing from at least one degree of Orders the Priest that through his default should suffer any weak Infant to die unbaptized and imposing the penance of a three Years Fast on the Infants friends if the fault were theirs Now surely he must either never have had or else have lost his understanding who imagines that the Infant in the case supposed by the Canon was necessarily to be dipped For that were to oblige both the Priest and Parents under so great penalties as neither would be willing to undergo to expose the Child to a manifest peril of death rather than let it go unbaptized But the Church then could not but know what had been the practice of the Church in former Ages in the like case which was to baptize by aspersion or a gentler affusion and therefore it is to be understood to mean that the Children so strictly ordered to be baptized should be baptized after such a way as was most agreeable unto the condition they then were in and that must be by sprinkling and not that they must be dipped come on 't what could come life or death by their dipping § 84. And much about the same time or a little after Infans omnis intra 9. noctes matarè baptizetur sub poena sex orarum Et si infans aliquis intra 9. noctes per negligentiam mortuus fucrit componatur apud Deum absque mulctâ seculari Sed si exactis 9. noctibus per negligentiam mortuus fuerit componatur utique apud Deum solvantur praeterea illi parochiae 12. orae quòd infans tam diu fuisset Ethnicus Leges Presbyter Northumbr ap Spelm. Concil Angl. Tom. 1. pag. 469. Can. 10. were composed the Laws of the Northumbrian Priests probably by Oswald Arch-Bishop of York Amongst which there is one that under a certain penalty orders all Children to be baptized within nine Nights But what if a Child were so sick as not to be able to endure dipping Must it rather than not be dipped be let dye without being baptized That was not the Law-makers meaning which was to prevent the Child's dying without baptism Must he be dipped then though that dipping should cost him his life That is too irrational to conceive to have ever been meant by any wise Law-giver the end of whose Laws is the preservation and not the destruction of lives What then 'T is plain nothing else could be meant but that as the Child was not to be suffered to dye unbaptized so it was to be baptized in such a way as would not endanger its death and that is by sprinkling or pouring water in a befitting quantity upon it according to the practice of former Ages on the like occasions § 85. In the Eleventh Century the Magdeburgensian Historians tell us that Infants if weak Cent. 11. c. 6. col 260. were baptized even presently after their birth And as I have noted in another place they instance from Schafnaburgensis in the Son of an Emperess baptized by reason of his weakness and fear of his death within three days after his birth They tell us also of a Son of the Queen of Moguntia who was baptized presently after his birth and dyed presently after his Baptism But now who is able to imagine that any ordinary Parent much less Persons of such high Nobility would ever endure that their tender Infants in that extremity of weakness and sickness should be put to endure the hardship of a three-fold or even but one single total immersion into cold water How could they expect any other but that the Font which should be the Mother of their Spiritual birth would become the causer of their natural death and that they should be realy as well as Sacramentally buried in Baptism But Reason inviting and long Custom of otherwise baptizing Persons in such condition authorizing thereunto no doubt is to be made but that they were baptized in a
when this was done the improbability or rather impossibility of it will still the more appear It was when his strength was gone when he was an old man and near his death For the very next thing that our Author mentions of him after his performance of this great baptism is his perceiving his end to draw near Had he had the strength of Samson such a days work as the total dipping of Ten thousand men had been enough to have tired him to the death How much more unable was an old man with one foot in his grave to go through such a service And if it be argued from the inability of all the Ministers of a whole City to baptize by dipping but so many as came to be baptized at the mother Church only on one of the three solemn times of the year that because the greatness of the work of lifting of so many into and out of the Fonts exceeded the strength of the Baptizers therefore they baptized by Sprinkling how much more may it be argued from the insufficiency of one old and consequently a weak man for the total immersion of so many as Ten thousand at once that he did it not by dipping but by sprinkling § 32. And yet Thirdly if we consider the time of the year when this is said to be done it will still render it more improbable or rather impossible It was on no other than Christmass-day anciently called Midwinter-day It cannot I think be well imagined how one man should totally dip another in a River who is not himself in the same River with him Nor is any thing suggested to the contrary in all the Antiquities I have conversed with so far as I can call to remembrance So then Augustin must be supposed in that starving Season to stand in the same River all the while that he was baptizing them Now that an Old man should be able to stand either naked or clothed in a River and on a Christmas-day and till he had totally dipped Ten thousand men is so far beyond all degrees of probability that it can be concluded nothing less than impossible § 33. Either then there was no such baptizing of such a multitude in a River at that time especially and then why did Mr. D. urge that practice of Augustines upon us or else it was done in a way that was more practicable and then nothing can put in so fair a plea for it as sprinkling Nay Mr. Fox himself argues that either there was less to do about Baptism in Augustines time than in his own his words are that the Rite of it was not so Ceremonial neither had so many Trinkets at that time as it hath since or else it could not be that he could baptize so many in one day § 34. Now why Mr. D. would only tell us in general of Augustines baptizing great multitudes in Rivers and not tell us of these particularities of his baptizing them it is easie to conjecture even because he saw he could not relate them but that presently these or some such like remarks would be made upon them and so his quotation would either prove to be to no purpose or else to be against his own purpose § 35. And as for the storie of Paulinus which is a different thing from that of Augustines however jumbled together into one by Mr. D. it is plainly this as it is related by Mr. Fox pag. 109. col 2. lin 3. c. that having first baptized King Edwine with many other of his subjects with him at York he did from that time forth during the life of Edwine which was the term of six years more continually Christen in the Rivers of Gwenie and Swala in both Provinces of Deira and in Berenicia using the said Rivers for Fonts § 36. But first it is not here said that he dipped them in those Rivers And if it had been so said it had only proved positively that dipping was thenin use not negatively that sprinkling was not Secondly that Note which Mr. Fox makes concerning Augustines baptizing in Rivers viz. that it was because there was then no use of Fonts is not added also upon Paulinus's baptizing in Rivers though Mr. Danvers sets it after both as belonging to both Thirdly River-dipping was not the only way of baptizing used by Paulinus For neither King Edwine himself nor those many subjects of his that were baptized with him were by the Confession of Mr. Fox baptized in any River For he tells us in his Margin to that place where he relates the story that King Edwine was baptized in St. Peters-Church at York which he caused first to be made of Wood and that in order to his being baptized therein as Bede informs us which was after by St. Oswald builded of Stone Bed Eccl. Hist l. 2. c. 14. And if that baptizing was in the Church then it could not be in the River especially as the Church now stands unless afterward weary of standing so low it took its progress and walked up the hill And if it were in a Church that the baptism was then whether it were not in a Font and whether not by sprinkling or at most a partial mersation since we have no remains that I know of any Fonts of capacity for a total immersion unless of Infants it is free for the Reader to make his conjecture And he that five hundred years hence should read the story of the baptism of the Turk converted by Dr. Gunning and should see in the Churches then no other Fonts but such as we have in our Churches now would never imagine that Baptism to have been by dipping but would conclude that it was by aspersion or affusion or at most by a partial mersation § 37. As to what he saith concerning Germanus and Lupus the two French Evangelists viz. that they did in the Fifth Century baptize multitudes in the River Allin near Chester which we shall find hereafter I answer first that having neither told us where nor when we should find it we might well pass it over without further notice till we should meet with it But secondly having a desire to know further what might be discovered of them that concerned our present purpose and not having time to read over all that remained behind in his book for it I consulted his Index but it should seem what was said of them was not worthy so great a remark as to be put in there Notwithstanding out of a desire to be satisfied turning over the leaves of his book I found in pag. 228. that those two famous French men being sent over into Britain to help against the Pelagian heresie were instrumental to convert many and did baptize great multitudes upon confession of Faith in the River Allin near Chester But still we are but where we were before For 't is only said here that those two Evangelists did baptize many in the River Allin and 't is but the same man viz. Mr.
representation is made of Christ's Death Burial and Resurrection And no doubt it is so and very eminently where the Baptism is that way administred But there is a representation also made of these things by aspersion and perfusion as will be further shewed in Ch. 16. And therefore there being no opposition between what that Doctor asserts and I affirm I dismiss his Testimony as a thing alledged impertinently by Mr. D. as to the purpose in hand if it were as doubtless it was by him designed to be exclusive of other ways of baptizing besides Dipping And I conclude that by the alteration of this Rite from Dipping to Sprinkling the Symbol is not as Mr. D. saith it is quite spoiled nor made any other thing than the Institutor of it did design it viz. a Sacrament whereby his washing us from our sins with his blood is represented as the primary design of it and his Death Burial and Resurrection as the secondary And now after this Interruption to my Discourse in Answer to Authorities alledged by Mr. D. against my Hypothesis I shall proceed in what I intended CHAP. XIV The Churches Grounds for admitting of Sprinkling in general § 1. THat Baptism by other ways than that of a total immersion and particularly by pouring or sprinkling of water on the baptized hath been practised in the Church of ancient as well as later times hath sufficiently I hope been made to appear by what hath on that Subject already been delivered in these Papers Perhaps it may not be unprofitable to make Inquiry into the Reasons or Occasions of the Churches gradual declining from the first more general way of dipping to that less usual way of sprinkling which yet is now grown to be the more general way § 2. And truly I cannot think it proceeded from any wanton humour in the Church causlesly to throw off any Precept of Christ's or Practice of the Apostles Far be that from being thought of that Company of Men who are called to be Saints and who know themselves to be no further such than they keep both to his Precepts and to their Practice in things wherein their conformity thereunto is indispensably required What shall we think then in the case This as I humbly conceive and no more but this That when the Church saw that there was nothing in the Precept of Christ nothing in the Practice of the Apostles whereby it was bound up into so strait a room as to be confined in all even the greatest cases of necessity to one way of baptizing and particularly to that of a total immersion it made use of that power about the Rituals of Religion and Circumstantials of Worship wherewith Christ as his Trustee on Earth after his departure to Heaven for the managing of the affairs of his Kingdom here till his coming again had endued it * Vt instituendi alicujus ritûs si usus exigat ita ejus abrogandi si abusus requirat Ecclesia habet potestatem Voss de Bapt. disp 1. Thes 8. pag. 347. and in order both to the fulfilling of that which being the declared will of his Father must needs be interpreted to be his will too even that of having mercy and not i. e. rather than sacrifice and to the performing of that Precept of his Apostle whereby he commanded that all things in the Church should be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an honest decency on just occasions waved that severer way of baptizing by a total immersion and admitted the other more benign ways of affusion and conspersion § 3. How far the Church was from being enforced by any indispensable Precept of Christ's to keep solely to the way of a total immersion has been shewn and I would fain hope sufficiently in the foregoing Papers And if nothing else had been said to any modest Inquirer this methinks might be sufficient to perswade that our Saviour intended only a prescription of the substance of the Ceremony that Men should be baptized and not a description of the Circumstance of it or manner how they should be baptized in that whereas he knew there were in use among the Jews diverse washings called baptisms some total of all the Body some partial only of the hands c. having in a general term prescribed the matter he adds not one syllable to determine the manner neither saying baptizing their Heads nor baptizing their Hands nor baptizing their whole Bodies neither sprinkling them with water nor dipping them into water nor pouring water upon them nor particularizing any manner of way how he would have the application of water made to them and consequently that the Church keeping to the substance was by him left at liberty to determine her self as to the circumstance baptizing this that or the other way as reason from conveniency expedience or necessity should perswade § 4. And that she was not bound up to a total immersion by the Practice of the Apostles it sufficiently appears from this that whereas there are several Instances of baptisms by the Apostles which with great probability may be presumed to have been performed by sprinkling or pouring of water on the baptized no one example can be produced of any one Apostles baptizing any which carries with it any more than a probability of its being performed by dipping of no one of them by what is expressed in the Text can it certainly be said that it was a total immersion So then there being but probability against probability and no infallible certainty on either side what could the Church think other or what other can any Man imagine the Church should think but that in such case she had power to determine her self to one way or to be at liberty to use both or neither according to her discretion § 5. But methinks I hear such a Thunder in mine Ears about Philip's baptizing the Eunuch Act. 8.38 that I am not able to get any further before I say something to it Well then let us calmly consider the Case Philip having converted the Eunuch by preaching unto him Jesus as they went on their way v. 36. they came unto a certain water and the Eunuch said See here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized Philip hereupon consenting to it upon his further profession of faith in Jesus Christ v. 37. He commanded the Chariot to stand still and they both went down into the water both Philip and the Eunuch and he baptized him This is the case Now what is here that necessarily infers a total immersion The Eunuch said Here is water True but he doth not say how much of the water there was Here is water he saith that 's true indeed but he doth not say here is a River here is a Pool here 's water enough for me to be dipped into It is said John was baptizing in Aenon because there was much water there But here the muchness if I may so speak or quantity of the water is not by the