pretence of concord or decency in God's service we can but wish and speak for better L. But they say if nothing unlawful be imposed it is disobedience to refuse it And if disobedience be endured no Government can stand M. 1. Judge by what is said whether no Sin be imposed 2. Obedience to God being more necessary than to man all just Rulers should encourage a due fear of sin and do nothing that tempts men from obeying God. 3. God himself doth not silence eject or condemn men for all disobedience else none could be saved All sin is disobedience to God. There is disobedience in small things as well as in great and of ignorance and infirmity as well as of malicious wilfulness And what smaller matter can there be than Humane Forms and Ceremonies and where is ignorance more excuseable than in things so minute and so uncertain and hard that they must all be wiser than you and I that know them to be lawful and what Unity will be in that Church and Kingdom that will endure none but such as are wiser than you and I L. 8. Your 8th Article preventeth all the objections against Ministers power and liberty while all are under Law responsible But what if the Rulers be Bishops or men that distaste your desired discipline M. We are not choosing Rulers by the sword but only Pastors to guide us by God's word and if we shall have bad ones we must patiently suffer we cannot remedy such infelicities L. But both Papists and many others say That the Iudgment of Ministers Doctrine and Ministry belongeth not to the Magistrate but to the Church M. Iudgment is as various as Execution e. g. If one be a Heretick or turbulent in Schism 1. The Magistrate is judge whether and how he shall be Corporally Punished 2. The neighbour Churches are Judges whether they will owne his Communion as approved 3. His own Flock are discerning Iudges whether he be fit to be trusted and owned as their Pastor or to be forsaken by them We must not imitate Papists in exempting Ministers from the Magistrates Government L. 9. I confess your Reasons against Constraining Infidels to Profess Christianity are undeniable and agree with the sence of the Antient Church and Fathers But the Papists and many Protestants hold that when once men are Baptized they may be forced to Communion and all other Christian Duty M. What if they openly apostatize and turn Infidels Iews or Mahometans will they yet force them to Communicate in the Lord's Supper L. No but they will put them to Death as they Burn Hereticks M. That 's their way but not Christ's way Why should they put Apostates or Hereticks to death any more than Infidels that never believed L. Because they break their Covenant and because they sin against the Laws which they consented to M. And doth not sinning against God's Law In neither Consenting to nor Obeying it deserve as bad If God by many years Preaching call one man to Christianity and he derides it to the last and another took it up but by Education and the Law of the Land and never heard and understood the Reasons of it and turneth from it being taken prisoner by the Turks which of these is the greater sinner God binds them to Believe and Consent that do not and they sin against God's Law which is more than to break their own Covenant as such But both these deserve death and worse from God But if it were Christ's way to have men put one of them to death I see not but why they should do so by the other Torment or Death is no fitter way to make an Apostate believe than other Infidels It 's known that all the ancient Churches abhorred this forcing and punishing way I have wondered at the Impudence of Baronius Binnius and other Papists and justifie Martin for separating from the Communion of the Bishops that were for punishing the Priscillianists by the sword and Canonize him as a Saint and condemn these Bishops for it and yet are for for more cruelties themselves to far better men than the Priscillianists But where Fleshly interest is a mans Religion no wonder if it have neither consistency with Reason nor Modesty L. But if none but Volunteers be Christians or Communicants most will despise the Church and it will be empty M. All that are fit to be there will come in And those few will give the Pastors more comfort and lesser trouble than the multitude of the uncapable If your purse be not quite full of Gold will you fill it up with dung or stones The uncapable will do better for themselves and the Church among the Audientes or Catechumens It is their forcing in the uncapable that hath corrupted the Church and deprived the Flock of their due privileges choosing their Pastors c. because it 's made up of men unworthy of them And doubtless if you but countenance and preferr the Communicants before the rest it will draw in more than are capable without force L. If the Excommunicate be no further punished nor forced to repent the Church censures will be despised How little will men care for an Excommunication M. This is commonly said and much of it is true But 1. Can you force men to Repent or rather Lye You make him Repent that he brought himself into your hands and into suffering But that is not to Repent of Sin. Will you tell a man before hand If thou wilt but say thou repentest rather than lye in Gaol till death we will pronounce thee absolved and forgiven in Christ's Name Who can think ill enough of such an Absolution 2. Do not they scorn Christ that say he hath advanced his Church to the Dignity of Government by putting into their hands a Reed for a Scepter and a Leaden Sword that will do nothing without the Magistrate's Sword of Steel Hath he set up an useless mock-power in the Church 3. Did the Primitive-Churches for 300 years use any Sword but Spiritual Or did they find it so uneffectual and vain 4. Yea for some hundred years after there were Christian Magistrates did not the Church abhorr such a thing as forcing the Excommunicate to repent by imprisonment or the Sword 5. No man is meet to be a just Member that careth not for a just Excommunication And still this sheweth what a wickedness it is to force in the unmeet that despise God's Ordinance and the Church that they are in And then God's Ordinance must be debauched for their unfitness 6. The Sword doth the Keys much more hindrance than help when it is thus annexed to them for then it cannot be discerned whether Excommunication do any Good or none or whether it be only the Sword that doth the cure And do not they that profess Excommunication to be vain without the Sword teach men to call them as Church Governours Vain and to despise them And is it not all one as to say if any good be done
in Infancy and themselves at Age do own the Covenant and think that it was valid Baptism For to such the end of Baptism is attained If it were no Minister or were one unauthorized that baptized him it would not be a meer nullity as to the ends if by mistake it were supposed well done Factum valet was judged by some when Athanasius by a Boy was baptized in Sport. L. What is your fourth Objection against our way of Baptism M. That in personating the Child they say that they and so he by them doth at present Believe renounce desire c. falsely intimating that Infants are bound at present to do this by another And yet the same men plead that God doth not accept him for the Faith of his Parents As if his Godfathers Faith were his and not his Parents when as God requireth no Faith or Repentance of Infants but only that They be the Seed of penitent Believers devoted to Christ. And in the Catechism it is said that Repentance and Faith are required of persons to be Baptized And Repentance and Faith have a promise of Life and that Infants who cannot perform these are Baptized because they promise them by their Sureties which promise when they come to Age themselves are bound to perform Where note that the former Book had They perform them by their Sureties They perceived that having said Faith and Repentance are requisite Infants they saw must have at present what is requisite at present And they knew that they had them not themselves and so were fain to hold that the Sureties Faith and Repentance was theirs and a performance of that required condition But our new Bookmakers saw that this would not hold and so they say Though Faith and Repentance be required of persons to be baptized yet Infants are baptized because they promise them by their Sureties to be hereafter performed amending the former errour by a greater or a double one 1. Granting that Faith and Repentance are pre-requisit and yet confessing that Infants have neither of their own or Sureties imputed to them and yet are to be baptized 2. Or making a Promise of future Faith and Repentance to be present Faith and Repentance 3. Or like the Antimonians that say all that are Elected to believe hereafter are justified before they believe so they imitate that though Faith and Repentance be requisite in baptizandis yet God at present will justifie and save all that have it not in infancy because they promise it hereafter All plain contradictions as if they said it is requisite in persons to be baptized and it is not requisite L. How would you have them have answered these M. Professed Faith and Repentance are requisite in adult persons to be baptized And in Infants that they be the Seed of the Faithful devoted by them to God in Christ according to his offered Covenant of Grace L. V. What mean you by your fifth Objection M. Alas the worst is yet behind The common Perfidiousness that is committed under the name of Godfathers Baptismal Vows and Covenants Baptism is one of the greatest actions of all our Religion and Lives Our rising from Death to Life our visible new Birth our solemn Covenanting with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Our solemn Translation from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that we may receive remission of Sin and inheritance among the Sanctified What more holy great and venerable action can be done by mortal man than to enter a solemn Covenant with God and our Redeemer in which we wholly give up our selves to him and Covenant for a holy Life and are to receive the pardon of all sin and the gift of Grace and right to Everlasting Glory And if men turn this great Ordinance which is the Summ of all our Religion into perfidiousness and mockery how heinous sin must this needs be And here let us consider I. Who these Godfathers in England usually be II. What they do III. How they perform what they Vow and undertake L. I. They are usually some of the Parents Friends M. They are usually such as these 1. The poor that have no rich Friends do sometimes intreat a poor neighbour to do the office and sometimes hire any man that will do it Which I never knew tell in London by begging they made me understand that men do it as Labourer's work for their wages About half a Crown is the ordinary pay of Beggers or very poor Folks Godfathers But the Poor and Middling sort do use to try some rich Friend or Neighbour if they have any such in hopes of some small gift some give us for the Child a Shilling some half a Crown some a silver Spoon The Richer sort seek to persons rather above than below their Rank in expectation of a piece of Plate or some such bigger gift And in other Nations Princes are Godfathers to Children whom they never see nor perhaps the Land of their nativity And with us it is very often some that dwel not very near who oft sevre as Proxy to stand in their place and they only give the expected gift and bear the name II. What they are to do I told you before 1. To personate the Child and take on them to say as in his name I believe I renounce I desire when they are three and the Child but one and so three persons by fiction represent one and say that He doth that which he doth not either per se vel per alios 2. They Vow or promise solemnly to do all the things before named Ch. 4. Numb 7. viz. To see that the Child be taught as soon as he shall be able to learn what a solemn Vow Promise and Profession he made by them and that they call on him to hear Sermons and chiefly that they provide that he may learn the Creed the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments in the Vulgar Tongue and All other things that a Christian ought to know and believe to his Souls health and that he be virtuâ—usly brought up to lead a Christian and Godly life All this they solemnly undertake to God and the Church III. And so far are they usually from performing it That 1. I never yet knew one Parent that expected any such thing from them or that ever seriously asked them Do you understand what you are to promise and do you resolve to do it 2. I never in all my life knew one Godfather that made the Parent before hand believe that he intended any such thing 3. If he had it 's not credible that three persons should all intend to educate one child of another man's and perform it 4. Nor did I yet ever know to this 68th year of my age one Godfather that before adopted the child or took him for his own and took him home with him unless he was a Grandfather and did it as such and not as Godfather much less could all three do it 4.
Nor did I ever to this day know one man or woman that performed this which all three undertake A very few I have known that will ask How doth my Godson and say you must be a good Boy and learn your Book and perhaps give him a piece of Silver But usually they never look after them I confess with shame that I have been Godfather to four to one when I was a Child and knew not what I did but thought it was only to be a Witness of Baptism And to three more when I was twenty three years of age of all which I agreed beforehand with the Parents to be but a Witness and that they should stand there themselves as the undertakers and signifie it Two of these I never saw since a third now dead I never saw since his Infancy till a little before he dyed and the fourth never since till that lately he came a begging to me I confess one Bishop told me once that he knew one or more that had performed this Vow so did never I who have lived in many parts of the Land. Those that perform it not sure are guilty of heinous perfidiousness as breaking so solemn a Vow to God. And if this be so common in England that to this Age I could never know of one performer is not the case doleful and dreadful that the Nation should by such perfidiousness be made Christians L. But this is the Parents or Godfathers fault what 's this to the Minister or to your Assent and Consent M. If it be not nothing to the Canons and to the Liturgy it is not nothing to him that must Assent and Consent to all things in that Liturgy and must swear Canonial obedience And 1. Do you think that the Nation can so commonly live in this sin and the Church Governours and Orders be innocent in it Can those Canons and Orders be blameless that without any more opposition let such perfidiousness go to our Christening Can the medicine be laudable that so many miscarry in the use of it 2. By the Canon all men are constrained to get some Godfathers and they can force none that is unwilling 3. No Conscionable persons will Promise and undertake that which they never purpose to perform I never in all my life met with one godly man that if you opened all the undertaking plainly to him would say seriously I am resolved to do all this but would refuse the office when he knows it is expected 3. If there be hundreds or thousands in a Parish that are grosly ignorant of the nature of Baptism and what they do or that ere Atheists Infidels wicked men not Excommunicate the Minister can not deny to take them for Godfathers if they did but ever once receive the Sacrament And to this 68th year of my age I never knew one Godfather or Godmother questioned or refused by any Minister 4. If the Parent can get no man to stand he shall be ruined for it as not bringing his Child to be Baptized according to the order of the Church 5. Rich men will not give up their Children to the God-father's propriety or education Poor mens Children none will take And is it lawful to Assent and Consent to such orders of Baptism as cherish this If Parents were the undertakers we might urge them to performance But from such others who can expect it CHAP. XI Point VIII Of refusing to Baptize without such Godfathers L. YOV have been long on this Point I pray you be shorter on the next M. It needs not many words it is so gross We dare not Assent and Consent to deny Baptism to all Children of godly Parents that have not such Godfathers and Godmothers while the Parent offereth to do his own part professing his faith and dedicating his Child to God and promising a faithful education L. How prove you that you must put away all such M. 1. Did you ever know any baptized otherwise in the Church 2. The words of the Rubrick are There shall be for every Male Child to be baptized two Godfathers and one Godmother and for every Female one Godfather and two Godmothers 3. The Godfathers and Godmothers only are to speak and covenant without which it is no Baptism Meer washing without Covenanting is no Christian Baptism so that the Church of England doth make Godfathers essential to it And what it is to add to the Essentials of so great an Ordinance of God as was instituted by Christ's own mouth for so high an use as our Espousal to himself judge you 4. The Canon to which all must subscribe saith that he himself will use the form in the said Book prescribed in publick prayer and administration of the Sacrament and no other 5. The Act of Conventicles maketh it 20 l. the first time and 40 l. every time after for above four to meet to worship God otherwise than according to the Liturgy and practice of the Church of England And to baptize without Godfathers is otherwise 6. And then the Oxford Act banisheth them five miles from Corporations Is not here sufficient proof L. And why should any scruple so small a matter M. 1. Did I not before tell you why 2. Suppose they scrupled it through mistake shall every mistake or errour of Parents deprive the child of Baptism I 'll tell you why I dare no more Assent and Consent to this than I dare consent to cut off a hand or foot of every such child 1. Baptising is Christening and dare I causelessly deprive a Soul of visible Christianity 2. They themselves make it an Ascertaining means of Salvation as the forementioned Rubrick sheweth And would they have us shut Infants from Salvation for nothing yea they seem to confine Salvation only to the baptized while they conclude that they are saved as baptized ones and except the unbaptized from Christian Burial The best can be but to leave them as without any promise of life from Christ And how can we believe that God will give them that which he never promised them And shall I damn souls for want of a humane unnecessary if not corrupt invention 3. It is against the interest of Christ and the Church shall I make a Covenant to rob Christ and the Church of visible Members for nothing Murthering Infants is death by God's Laws and mans And Innocents day is one of the Christmas Holy days And is it a thing indifferent for me and all the Ministers of the National Church to make a solemn bargain that we Assent and Consent to keep out all from the Church and from the Covenant and in their sense the hope of Salvation on such an account as this L. The thing were dismal and unexcusable if it were as you make it But how can you say that they shut them out when they force all Parents to bring them in and to submit to their way when did you ever know any child refused on this account M. Many a hundred in my