THE MINISTERS Office THE INFANTS Inheritance By JAMES HARWOOD B. D. Bulling advers Anabapt Cum id quod majus est Infantes habeant rem scilicet signatam gratiam Dei remissionem peccatorum Quis illis id quod minus est Signum Aquam videlicet denegabit LONDON Printed by R. W. for the Author 1659. To the Right Honourable THOMAS Earl of SOUTHAMPTON Baron of Titchfield Right Honourable THat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of favour which I have received from you bindes me in a strong obligation to return a thankful acknowledgement Some in these sad times have voted Charity an Heretick a Sect whose Faith is in the full their Charity in the wayne it is their belief they are for Heaven their works say they are for Hell these call themselves young Saints but are old Devils they profess much practise nothing full of science but make no conscience of their wayes these have a Bush at the door no Wine within A generation of Vipers who cry up Christ and Crucifie his Members My Lord here you have in full view these Arch Hereticks enemies to young and old all the young Infants in the Land and all the old Ministers of the Gospel We at this time in comparision ane as few as Gideons Lappers yet with those few sounding Trumpets the Lord I trust will throw down the Walls of Jerico to the ground Our Church much resembles the sweet waters of Hypanis through which a Well of incredible bitterness runs that as Heroditus and Solinus do affirm none of those sweet waters admit of any of the bitter waters to lodge within their source Here we live together as in the Ark clean and unclean incorrigible Hereticks and devout Conformists yet no hereticall brinish waters do we suffer to intermix with the waters that issue out under the threshold of the Temple Phideas his Picture was so made that it all appeared in every part of Minerva's Im ge but the Picture of Heresie God of his mercy hath kept from appearing in the face or dwelling in the tongue of us so much despised Divines There is yet a Sibboleth Shiboleth by which your Honour may discover who is the Gileadite who the Ephraimite who are the Sons of God who are of their Father the Devil My Lord it is no small comfort to us The Seers of Israel to behold such tall Cedars as your Honour standing upright in this our Lebanon who for all the storms of Schismes and Heresies hold fast to the Faith of Christ Crucified to the Doctrine of his Apostles to the practice of the Primitive Church It 's well known how you approve of the Ministerial Office as the highest calling as also Infants Baptisme and yet in these latter dayes perillous men are start up who debar yong Children from the Font and shut the Church doors upon us called to officiate their malice reaches from the Font to the Pulpit from the Pulpit to our Persons Their Germane Massacre makes us fear a second Parisian Mattens or else the Cicilian Evening-Song where they predominate they are most bloody none talk more and less reason they are ever questioning but never satisfied And thus I have taken to task unreasonable men whom though we inform they will never reform The Sun-beams makes clay the harder and the Beams of Gospel Admonitions makes these more obdurate a just judgement for their Capital crime their sin was against the Head and God gives them over to be headstrong Hereticks And now my Noble Lord since I have to do with such sons of Belial and so ill-opiniated I crave the shrowding my Manuel under the benigne shrine of your protection your gracious compliance shall oblige me to pray for your health here and happiness in heaven which is the Christian engagement My Lord of Your Honours most humble servant in the Lord James Harwood THE Ministers Office The Infants Inheritance Matthew 28.19 Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost THe occasion of these words lieth thus Our Christ who was attached arraigned condemned crucified and now is risen from the dead appears to Mary Magdalen and the other Mary verse 9. Christ giveth the woman a gracious salute An all hail and the woman again do him worship O! A word of Christ first to us is able to make us fall down at his feet and worship him O! Christ cometh to us via gratiae or we can give him meeting via Ecclesiae But it seems the two good old women fall a trembling but saith our Saviour Be not afraid He would have them fear him but not be afraid of him fear him as the Childe the Father not be afraid of him like Malefactors of the Judge Nay they have just cause to rejoyce and again I say to rejoyce for they have foud him whom they had lost they have found him whom their soul loves even the Lord Jesus God blessed for ever Amen These are his servants and he sets these to work verse 10. The two Maries must go tell the eleven nay more saith Christ Go and tell my Brethren Brethren But such Brothers as Josephs who had sold him so did some of them at best left him so did most of them the prime of them forswearing him so did Peter And yet he calls them Brethren Go tell Brethren and bid them go into Galilee and there they shall see me me lately left in the grave now the Lord of Life me and my side which the Jews wounded me and my head which Jews crowned with thorns me to whom all power is given in heaven and in earth But as the women so the eleven they are now come they come whither Christ did command into Galilee unto the Mountain Yea as the women so the eleven they worship him but the women begin this divine worship the Apostles are onely their seconds They at the Grave Christ newly come out of the grave these Apostles not till the two women instructed them And thus as our first Mother Eve by sin threw down the first Adam so now these two women throw themselves down at the feet of the second Adam as if not onely willing to bewail Eves evil and fall but also as a woman first wronged mankinde so these the same Sex first desire to do service to mans Messias These first after the Resurrection met with Jesus and Jesus sends them to tell his Disciples his Apostles They are met verse 11. now the Apostles see him they worship him even that Jesus who was delivered up to death for us all Rom 8. Yea this is he hath overcome him who hath brought to the ground all our Ancestours Death Death as sath the Apostle He hath swallowed up death in victory and therefore that sacred Christ-tide carrol is made in his praise 1 Cor. 15.55 O death where is thy sting O hell where is thy victory Ride on O Lord with thine Honor full of Majesty and Power thou who guidest
also all the now Papists and Conformist Protestants and the Presbyterians all concuring in the necessity of Baptizing children building the Structure of their Salvation in part upon this Foundation 2. We take John 3. ver 5. to be a good Scripture ground for Baptizing of Infants where is said Verily verily except a man be born of water and the Spirit be cannot enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Not without the one into the kingdom of Grace not without both into the kingdom of Glory I speak so far as is revealed to us we dare give no farther a warrant then God a precept and must tye our selves to the revealed means though not our God at all times to such tearms as he hath revealed himself to us But this place of Scripture the Anabaptists tell us is to be understood of men of years not of Children who are of less age then the tenth of one year As a reverend Doctor writes they might as well put in an Exception against women no more named then Children This they dare not that they ought not for our Saviour in that place speaks of man Specifice I mean of mankinde of every person sprung from Adam which since the youngest is defiled as well as the eldest as appears by Psal 51.5 therefore Infants while Infants ought to have the Medicine Baptisme administred to them as well as if elder people especially considering it is the onely Church cure to free such who are conceived in sin and born in iniquity from the guilt of Original sin of which Ordinance I take new born Babes to be capable though not Activè yet Passivè for in all the work they are passive being prayed for and belessed and washed and none can doubt but capable of this Seal of grace at those young years as well as the children under the old Law were capable of Circumcision at eight dayes old And this is that Murus Aheneus that Brazen Wall which all the Anabaptists are never able to leap over not yet lay flat but under this Analogy our Children will finde a perpetual shelter for baptisme in the greatest storm of Anabaptists 3. Acts 16. 33. wintnesses how the Jaylor was baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all that were his his children then were not to be excluded or if they had been to have been debarred doubtless our Apostle would have entred his Caveat against Infants Baptisme and as he said 1 Cor. 1. 14. I thank God I baptized none of you save Crispus and Gaius as also the houshold of Stephanus so â—ere he would have told us how all of the Jaylors household he had baptized but the young ones but his non-exception is a sure confirmation that old and young were there and then baptized 4. I answer how the Anbaptists can bring no express place of Scripture commanding us to give the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to women or for changing the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week nor finde they the Creed word by word in Gods word nor yet the words Trinity and Unity and Unity in Trinity and yet they acknowledge a Trinity in Unity believe the Creed observe the Lords day and give the Communion to Women why then not Baptisme to Children for which we have fair evidence how it belongs unto them And now the premises considered how that many things are approved of for Divine Truths not exprest at large in so many lines of the Text. Secondly since whole families were baptized our Apostle telling us whom he did not baptize but entering no Caveat against Infants Baptisme Thirdly Since Scripture tells us this is the way for man or mankinde to enter into the kingdom of Heaven by being born of Water and the Spirit this water charter being granted by the God of heaven to all men of what age of sex upon earth Fourthly since our Saviour assures us heaven belongs to our young children and that at their years there is no way to free them from their birth-sin and ensure them heaven but by Baptism with these few smooth stones taken out of the bag of the shepheard of our souls we have knockt in the forehead the Anabaptists great grand Goliah argument and made it of as little force as Samson when his locks were shaven And now to pass from our adversaries most material Objections to our Arguments which are as so many Champions to defend the baptizing Infants and my first is this This salve was never forbid us to apply to our Infants sores who are all over wounded with original sin by Adam let the Anabaptists point out where God forbids it and we will leave it methinks it had been time enough to cry out of us for baptizing children when they had shewed us Christs prohibition but where there is in Scripture so universal a silence I know no cause why they should make so open an out-cry we much desire they would cease to quarrel with us on earth till the God of heaven declare for them They tell us how we have no express place in Scripture to justifie what we do we tell them how they have not the least appearance in any text in Gods word which contradicts what we do it were wisdome in them to let us without disturbance baptize our Infants till they finde a Law to condemn us or a Gospel to forbid us The second Argument Our second Argument to justifie baptizing Infants is this Our Doctrine is Catholick and was practised both in the Primitive Church as also till this day in all Nationall Churches Christian You know what is said 2 Thes 2.15 Hold fast the Traditions which I have delivered unto you whether by word or our Epistle Now this Church Doctrine of baptizing Children being an Apostolical Tradition we hold it warranted by Gods word and a Doctrine not to be oppugned especially considering God hath promised to be with his Church unto the end of the world And though the Churches of Asia have their golden Candlesticks removed and are fallen from the Faith yet the Universall Church never erres and of this judgement are all our Learned Divines nor dare our Adversaries make the least Mutiny against it if the question seriously and soberly be propounded to them And now the Task I have undertaken is to prove Infants Baptisme a Church Tenet all the time of the Primitive Church for since it is undeniable for practised by the Greek and Latin Churches witness the Churches in all Graecia where there are Christians as also in Syria in India in Muscovia in Ethiopia And as for the Churches in this part of the world what I have delivered will appear to be truth by the confession of the English Scottish and Irish Churches by the practice of the Romish Church to which I may adjoyne as supernumerated up to my hand the Augustine Confession the Bohemian the Belgick the Helvetian the Saxon with many moe all asserting Infants Baptism for of such as saith our Saviour are the
Persons sent and therein first of the Ite then the Ergo. The Persons sent by Christ are ye the cause why they must assent to be sent lieth hid in this therefore Well the Sender being Christ the Messengers being sent and these Apostolick Ministers first they receive Order and then they go but not before for not authorized Mark and minde it Without Christ bid go he is an Intruder into Christ his Harvest hat undertakes his labour to Preach Baptize None must dare to go but such is have a calling for it while Christ was on earth it was a sufficient warrant ego mitto Matth. 10.16 or Ite go ye as here As out of his cloathes so out of his mouth passed vertue to fit and furnish those he called to go But what were they to go and do Read my Text To teach and baptize Mat. 18. to binde to loose John 20. to remit and retain sins yet more saith S. Paul 2 Cor. 5.18 God hath given unto us the Ministery of Reconciliation which stands in the dispensation of the Word and Sacraments But as none have these high priviledges till called by Christ to this high Office the Ministery so it plainly appears this was not a personal Legacy onely given to the then Apostles but Church Legacy legated to the Successors of those Disciples of Christ Jesus for I must tell you there were not onely Apostles but some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors some Teachers which were to joyn in the work of the Ministery for the gathering of the Saints Ephes 4.11 12. And as Christ ordained his twelve they the seventy so we being ordained by their Successours our Bishops our Ordination is acknowledged valid while with holy Prayers holy Imposition of hands is laid upon us as was upon Timothy by Paul 2 Tim. 1.6 Again since all Nations were to be taught and baptized and the commissionated could not by themselves do what commanded many ages succeeding after their departure out of this life and since all Saints to be born in all Centuries were to be gathered by the work of the Ministery hence necessarily it follows some debitated were to make Imposition of Hands upon some adjudged by the Church sufficient for so high a calling And as some few among many thousands in the Apostles dayes were onely thought sufficient to be cull'd out by Ordination to this high calling so since the Apostles deceased their supervivers or succcessors in office have trod in their steps chusing some to be admitted-into the Holy Office not daring promiscuously to lay hands upon all as do those Hereticks the Anabaptists And to make it more manifest how it is a Catholick and Fundamental Doctrine Imposition of Hands and that not upon all but onely such approved by Power Episcopal the Christian Church a most horrid sin suffered No never but in a distracted Common-wealth or a Kingdom God meant to ruine Portenta dira these are sad presages O ye presumptuous spirits who despise all Government and Order of God in his Church remember to your everlasting horror Nadab and Abihu and Uzza and their fearful ends for the like sins You who will ire praedicare know you have gone but the Lord sent you not you have preached but the Lord spoke not by you If you will yet take upon you the Ite know my Lord hath given me command to divorce from your ite praedicate and to joyn together to your eternal terror Ite maledicti If you have not so much learning as to know my meaning how dare you lay hands on these high Mysteries the Word and Sacraments After the ite in cometh the ergo therefore as much as if Christ had said since I have all Power in Heaven and Earth you who be but earth must obey me the God of Heaven you cannot have a greater to command then I nor I finde weaker to withstand then you Ite igitur Go ye therefore There is no resistance Ion as may be shipt for Tarshish but he who bid go to Nineve will finde him out unship him and make a Whale ferry him to the place he had his first commission for ite igitur go ye therefore Note it the power God hath over us must overawe us and prick us forward to go about the work of the Lord Ite igitur Go ye therefore Again Christ hath power to inspire us with his spirit Moses is a man of a stammering tongue the Apostles ignorant what to answer remember what is said to the commissionated in the same hour it shall be given unto you for God commonly furnishes them with gifts who are lawfully ordained Here is magna potentia Gods great power made manifest in weak contemptible Instruments Since it is thus Ite igitur go ye therefore Again our God our Christ hath power to defend us Thus Elias when an Army sent to attach him and an Host of Angels sent to relieve him thus Daniel in the Den the three in the Furnace and the Preacher Noe in the Ark when the whole world except eight persons where drowned Who so have Gods Commission to go and teach and baptize I mean to be Ministers of the Gospel let them not fear the arm of man God can preserve Ite igitur go ye therefore And the rather for that our Lord and blessed Saviour hath power to reward call to minde what is said and by that Minister of the Gentiles Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of immortall glory What though we have been in perils by land in perils by water in perils amongst false Brethren yet our reward is laid up in heaven a prize so good and a place so secure so that none can deprive us of it Here for preaching the true Doctrine of Christ Jesus and severing the tares from the wheat Heresies from Gospel Truths perchance we may suffer Imprisonment confiscation of our Livings it may come ad sanguinem to loss of life But that come ye children of my Father receive the Kingdom thaâ— venite commands this ite fince but this world to be lost heaven to be had and ensured at our end ite igitur go ye therefore And now to give you the Collect of all since we Teachers shall have our reward in the world to come since here if God think meet he can defend us from the violence of unruly men since he can fit us for this high calling the work of the Ministery and since to resist is to resist the power of God Ite igitur praedicate Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The act licensed is to teach The extent extends to all Nations go teach all Nations What and how must be thought of teach them verbum Christum verbum Christi Teach the word Christ for so he is stiled Iohn 1.1 It was Pauls religious ambition to know nothing but Christ and him crucfied saith he I count all as dung to