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A42248
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The grounds of infant-baptism briefly explained
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1693
(1693)
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Wing G2138C; ESTC R222580
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20,167
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16
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THE GROUNDS OF Infant-Baptism Briefly EXPLAINED GOD's Word plainly declareth That it is sufficient Qualification for Baptism if Persons be Believers If thou believest withal thine heart thou mayest be baptized Act. 8. 36 37. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16.15 16. Now the Infants of Christian Parents are either Believers or Unbelievers or neither Believers nor Unbelievers but a third kind middle between both A third kind of Persons who are neither Believers nor Unbelievers but middle between both cannot be the Scripture knoweth none such it is contrary to the Tenour of God's Word and to the Grounds of Religion and to the Common Belief of Christendom and will Ubi ponis parvulos baptizatos Profecto in numero credentium August de Verbis Apostoli Ser. 14. infer one of these two impious Absurdities either that Infants are bruit Beasts or that dying in Infancy they are neither saved not damned but remain in a Third State middle between Heaven and Hell for ever If you suppose the Infants of Christian Parents to be Unbelievers then in reason you must suppose that they be all so and dying in Infancy Unbelievers they must needs be damned For Christ plainly saith That he which believeth not shall be damned he is condemned already he shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him Mark 16. 16. John 3. 18 36. And if all the Infants of Christian Parents dying in Infancy are damned Unbelievers we have much more reason to conclude that all the Infants of Heathen Parents dying in Infancy are so too But sure that Doctrine cannot be true which adjudgeth all Infants taken away in Infancy to inevitable Damnation for ever It remains then that the Infants of Christian Parents are Believers and therefore baptizable § II. Though Infants are not capable of actual Faith after the similitude of vigilant grown Men yet they are capable of the inward Seed and Root thereof after the similitude of grown Men in their Sleep while their Sleep 1 Joh. 3. 9. Luk. 1. 15 35. Jer. 1. 5. lasteth and as Jeremy and John Baptist were sanctified from the Womb and as the Infant Jesus was holy and as David was made to hope when he was upon his Psal 22. 9. mothers breasts The Soul of each Infant is a Spiritual Substance and being so it must needs be immortal and some way or other in act from the time that it is put into the Body and while it is in the Body it doth animate and quicken the Body and is the Life thereof and is always upon its way to Eternity without 1 Cor. 7. 14. all stop or stay and either it is by supernatural Grace inwardly holy in the sight of God and so in the way to Heaven or it is destitute of supernatural Grace and then it is inwardly unholy and unclean in the sight of God and so in the way to Hell Our Brethren the Opposers of Infant Baptism confess That from Their Confession of Faith p. 24. Adam and Eve the Common Parents of us all corrupted Nature was conveyed to all their Posterity descending from them by ordinary Generation being now conceived in Sin and by Nature Children of Wrath the Servants of Sin the Subjects of Death and all other Miseries Spiritual Temporal and Eternal unless the Lord Jesus set them free Now Infants being inwardly infected and defiled with Sin and Corruption as the Great Disease of lapsed Humane Nature they must needs be by Divine Grace capable of Cure and Remedy which Cure and Remedy cannot be without super natural Regeneration whereby their Souls are inwardly renewed and made Partakers of the Divine and Godly Nature conformably to the Image of the Infant Jesus whose Soul while he was an Infant did overflow 2 Pet. 1. 4. H b. 1. 9. 2. 11 12. Rom. 8. 29. Joh. 20. 17. Luk. 1. 35. 2.40 Joh. 3. 3 5 6. with the Seed of Divine Faith Hope Love Meekness Piety and all other Coelestial Graces a degree and measure whereof God worketh in all Elect Infants in respect whereof the Infant Jesus and they are Brethren and Fellows there is spiritual similitude between them The Infant Jesus is considerable two ways First In respect of the Natural Substance of his Soul and Body and so there is similitude between him and all other Infants for they also have Souls and Bodies no less than the Infant Jesus this similitude is natural and common Secondly In the Infant Jesus besides the natural Substance of his Soul and Body there is by supernatural Grace and gracious Donation and Endowment the Seed and Root of all Divine and Heavenly Vertues which are the Life of the Soul like as the Soul is the Life of the Body these Divine and Heavenly Vertues did emidently shine forth in the Life of Christ when grown up Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man The Seed and Luke 2. 52. Root of all Heavenly Vertues was by supernatural Grace in his Soul while he was in the Virgin 's Womb and as soon as he was born of her but did not appear till he was arrived to some maturity When he was grown to Man's Estate he did use to take his Rest in Sleep and while be slept the inward Heavenly Vertues and Graces of his Mind did not appear but the Seed and Root thereof lay hid in his Soul Now between such Infants as Jeremy and John Baptist who are by supernatural Grace born of God and holy from the Womb and the Infant Jesus there is spiritual and special similitude But between Infants unregenerate and unholy and the Infant Jesus there is no spiritual and special similitude Gen. 3. 15. Isa 42. 1. Rom. 9 8. but contrariety as between the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman between Non-Elect and Elect. No reason can be rendred why the Infants of Christian Parents should not be as truly capable of being Believers as the Infant Jesus was of being a Saviour Vnto you is born this day in the city of Luk. 2. 11. Mat. 1. 21. David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. She shall bring forth a Son and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins As if you suppose the Infant Jesus Christ not to be the Saviour of Souls it cannot be declared when he comes to be the Saviour of Souls So if you suppose the Infants of Believing Parents not to be a kind of Believers it cannot be declared when the Children born of Believing Parents come to be in the Number of Believers in what Year of their Lives If the Infancy of Jesus Christ could not barr him from being Jesus Christ the Mediator between God and Men the Head of the Church and the Saviour thereof when he sucked his Mother's Breasts By the same reason the state of
Infancy cannot hinder the Children of Believing Parents from being a kind of Bellevers and Members of the Church when they suck their Mother's Breasts Christ plainly says Whosoever shall offend one Mat. 18.6 Luke 18. 15. Mark 9. 36. of these little ones which believe in me c. And by comparing the Evangelists it will appear that by these lettle ones which believe in Christ he means Infants such as Christ took in his arms at least he doth not exclude Infants § III. The Adversaries of Infant-Baptism express their Doctrine in these words Those who do actually profess Repentance towards God Faith in and Obedience to Their Confession of Faith p. 97. our Lord Jesus are the only proper Subjects of Baptism And for proof hereof they refer us to two Scriptures in the Margin namely Mar. 16. 16. Act. 8. 36 37. Now from these very Scriptures it is already proved That it is enough for Baptism that Persons be Believers and that the Infants of Believing Parents are a kind of Believers and therefore proper Subjects of Baptism But no Scripture declares that those only who actually profess Belief are the proper Subjects of Baptism this is plainly an addition to God's Word and therefore to be rejected § IV. Christ's Commission to his Apostles is Go ye and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost Mat. 28. 19. That is Go ye and Christianize all Nations make all Nations Christians Saints Believers Disciples of Christ get them into Covenant with God through Christ and then Baptize them and solemnly enter them into the Church of Christ by the Rite of Baptism For like as Jesus made and baptized Disciples first made and then baptized Disciples so we may reasonably think that Joh. 4. 1 2. Christ's Commission to his Apostles was That they should first make all Nations Christians Saints Believers Disciples and get them into Covenant with God through Christ and then baptize them At the time when Christ gave forth this Commission the whole World was either Jews or Gentiles The generality of the Gentiles were for the present Worshippers of Idols under the Power Acts 26. 17 18. Eph. 2. 12. of Satan drowned in Ignorance Infidelity and false Religion The Jews had been long used to Circumcision the Passeover and the rest of the Old Testament-Ministry and Pedagogy too many of them were Unregenerate though Worshippers of the true God the rest who were truly Godly did yet need Instruction concerning the true Messias and that this same Jesus whom we Preach is the Christ of God the Saviour of the World the sole Mediator between God and Men foretold by the Prophets and prefigured in ancient Types and Sacrifices and that all the Old Testament-way of Worship was now to cease and give place to the New Therefore the scope and true meaning of Christ's Commission may well be thought to be this Go ye my Apostles and Ministers into all the World and Preach the Gospel to every Person capable thereof reduce them from their Ungodliness and State of Damnation to a State of Grace and Salvation make them Christians Saints Disciples Believers Members of the Church get all both Parents and Children into Covenant with the true God through Jesus Christ throw down the Middle Wall of Partition between Jew and Gentile and make both One Holy Society in Christ and having so done Baptize them and let Baptism be the Token Sign and Seal of the Covenant between God in Christ and them If then the Infants of Christian Parents be a kind of Christians Saints Believers Disciples Members of the Church in Covenant with God through Christ all which for substance denote the same thing and are convertible then by the Tenour of Christ's Commission they are to be Baptized Now the Opposers of Infant-Baptism own and declare that Their Confession of Faith p. 115 116. the Infants of Believing Parents under the Old Testament were in Covenant with God and therefore they must needs own and agree That the Infants of Believing Parents under the New Testament are no less in Covenant with God unless they can prove that God's way is not equal which they never can For certainly his way is equal as himself declares but the ways of Sinners are Ez. k. 18. 25. unequal § V. It is plain from Deut. 29. 10 11 12 13. that Little Ones together with their Parents did enter into Covenant with the God of Israel And from the time of Abraham God ordained that all his Male-Seed successively in their Generations should be Circumcised the Eighth Day by that Rite a Divine Bond and Engagement was laid upon the Infants Circumcised to be the Lord 's faithful Acts 7. 8. Gen. 17.9 10 11. Servants all their days it was a token of the Covenant between God and them And long before Circumcision even from the Beginning there were by Divine Appointment Sacrifices which were typical and symbolical of Eternal Redemption through Faith in the Death of Christ as future In those Sacrifices Believing Parents did Covenant with God Gather my saints together unto me those Psal 50. 5. that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice They did also inter their Infants into Covenant with God they did first devote and consecrate themselves to the Service of the true God and engage Themselves to him and then their Infants the resolution of every pious Parent being the same with Joshua's As for me and Jos 24. 15. my house we will serve the Lord. The mutual Oath and Covenant between the Nation of Israel and the Gibeonites did bind their whole Off-spring and Posterity Jos 9. 2 Sam. 21. which because King Saul some Hundreds of Years after did presume to violate therefore God did severely revenge the Breach thereof by Three Years Famine in the Reign of King David and would not be pacified but by the Death of Seven of Saul's Sons the Gibeonites so desiring From all which it is plain that Parents may by Authority from God lay a Divine Bond Oath and Covenant upon the Souls of their Infants which when grown up they are bound inviolably to observe § VI. There was a Covenant between God and Christ considered as Man That he should be obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross and be therefore Rewarded and Crowned with supereminent Joy and Glory in Heaven for ever The Foundation and Corner-stone of this Covenant was laid in Christ's Incarnation according to the Eternal Purpose and Fore-knowledge of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost And hereupon the Infant Jesus was Circumcised the Eighth Day in Token of the foresaid Covenant between God and that blessed Babe And about the Thirtieth Year of his Age he was Baptized by John in Jordan which was another Token and Confirmation of the same Covenant And look as Moses bore up his Heart in all his Sufferings by having respect unto