More PROOFS OF INFANTS Church-membership AND Consequently their Right to BAPTISM Or a SECOND DEFENCE of our Infant Rights and Mercies In Three Parts The First is The plain Proof of Gods Statute or Covenant for Infants Church-membership from the Creation and the Continuance of it till the Institution of Baptism with the Defence of that Proof against the Frivolous Exceptions of Mr. Tombes And a Confutation of Mr. Tombes his Arguments against Infants Church-membership The Second is A Confutation of the Strange Forgeries of Mr. H. Danvers against the Antiquity of Infant-baptism And of his many Calumnies against my Self and Writings With a Catalogue of fifty six New Commandments and Doctrines which He and the Sectaries who joyn with Him in those Calumnies seem to own The Third Part is Animadversions on Mr. Danvers's Reply to Mr. Willes Extorted by their unquiet Importunity from an earnest Desirer of the Love and Peace of all True Christians By Richard Baxter London Printed for N. Simmons at the Princes Arms and J. Robinson at the Golden-Lyon in St. Paul's Church-yard 1675. The PREFACE Reader THe first year of my Ministry I fell into a doubt about Infant-Baptism and I was so ignorant as not to understand the nature of that solemn Covenant and Investiture and the Parents duty of entring the Child into the Covenant with God and what the Vow was which then was made when time and light had satisfied me I retained as charitable thoughts of the Anabaptists as of almost any that I differed from About 1646 1647 1648. they made more stir among us than before Mr. Tombes living near me we continued in peace not talking of our difference For I purposely avoided it in publick and private unless any asked my opinion At last his Converts came to me and told me that if I would not answer him in writing they must take it as an encouragement to them to be Baptized and confessed that he sent them or that they came by his consent To avoid long writings one dayes dispute was thought a shorter way That dispute with many additions I was necessitated to publish with some returns to some after arguings of Mr. T.'s He wrote what he thought meet on the other side I thought I had done with that work for ever But in 1655 he sent to me again and drew from me the Letters here recited These without my consent he published with an answer in the midst of a great Book I left his answer these nineteen years or thereabouts without any Reply as also the rest of his books against me I thought it not lawful for me to waste my precious time on things so little necessary A man may find words at length to say for almost any cause I partly know what can be said against this and every book that I have written And I know what I can Reply And I partly foreknow what they can say to that Reply and what I can further say in the defence of it and so talk on till we have wrangled away our Charity and our Time and must all this be printed to ensnare poor readers But at last Mr. Danvers hath laid a necessity upon me I had silently past over all his vain Reasonings and all his accusations of my writings and all his falsifications of Authors had he not called me so loud to repent of slandering some for being Baptized naked And when I found it my duty to speak to that I thought it fit to say somewhat of the rest passing by what Mr. Wills hath done more fully in an answer to his book There are two sorts of men called Anabaptists among us The one sort are sober Godly Christians who when they are rebaptized to satisfie their Consciences live among us in Christian Love and peace and I shall be ashamed if I Love not them as heartily and own them not as peaceably as any of them shall do either me or better men than I that differ from them The other sort hold it unlawful to hold Communion with such as are not of their mind and way and are schismatically troublesome and unquiet in labouring to increase their Party These are they that offend me and other lovers of peace And if God would perswade them but seriously to think of these obvious questions it might somewhat stop them Qu. 1. How inconsiderable a part of the universal Church they hold communion with And unchurch almost all the Churches on Earth Qu. 2. Whether they can possibly hope that ever the Church on Earth will Unite upon their terms of rejecting all their Infants from the visible Church and renouncing all our Infant Rights and Benefits conferred by the Baptismal Covenant of grace Qu. 3. And whether if they continue to the worlds end to separate from almost all the Churches and unchurch them their employment will not be still to serve the great enemy of Love and Concord against the Lord of Love and Peace and against the prosperity of faith and godliness and against the welfare of the Church and souls and to the scandal and hardening of the ungodly THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART THE Preface pag. 1 Mr. Tombes's first Letter p. 5 B.'s Answer to it Ibid. Mr. T.'s second Letter p. 8 B.'s Answer to it p. 9 Mr. T.'s third Letter p. 10 B.'s Answer is divided by Mr. T. into Sections His Answers are confuted Sect. 1 2 3 4. The many Questions to be handled Quest 1. Infants were once Church-members p. 13 Sect. 5. Quest 2. It was not only the Infants of the Congregation of Israel that were Church-members p. 18 How far the Sichemites were of Israel and Church-members p. 21 Sect. 6 7 8 9 10. Of other Nations Ibid. Sect. 11. The Israelites Infants were members of the Church Vniversal p. 26. Sect. 12 to the 18. Infants were members of the Jews Church as well as Commonwealth p. 28. Sect. 18. Quest 4. There was a Law or Precept of God obliging Parents to enter their Children into Covenant with God by accepting his favour and engaging and devoting them to God and there was a promise of God offering them his mercy and accepting them when devoted as aforesaid c. p. 31 Sect. 19 c. Visible Church-membership what it is And that it is a benefit p. 32 Sect. 22. Legal-right to Infants Church-state given by Gods Covenant Mr. T.'s confuted and the case opened p. 35 Sect. 23 24. This Right is the effect of Gods Law or Covenant p. 44 46 Sect. 25 26. The proof of Parents obligation to enter their Children into Covenant what we mean by a Law Mr. T. maketh nothing of Church-membership p. 46 50 Sect. 27. Precepts oblige to duty and the promises give right to benefits p. 54 Sect. 28. No Transeunt fact without Gods statute or moral donation or covenant made the Israelites Infants Church-members proved to Sect. 44. p. 56 Sect. 44 45. Infants Church-membership instituted by God at mans creation and the constitution of Gods
work of a grant or promise to confer these and not directly of a precept Secondly the duty of devoting and dedicating the child to God and entring it into the Covenant which confers the benefit and this is the work of a Law or Precept to constitute this duty I am past doubt that you doubt not of either of these For you cannot imagine that any Infant had the blessing without a grant or promise that 's impossible nor that any Parents lay under a duty without an obliging law for that is as impossible Taking it therefore for granted that you are resolved in both these and so yield that such a grant and precept there was there remains no question but whether it be repealed which I have long expected that you should prove For citing the particular Texts in which the ordination is contained though more may be said than is said yet I shall think it needless till I see the ordination contained in those Texts which I have already mentioned to you proved to be reversed Nor do I know that it is of so great use to stand to cite the particular Texts while you confess in general that such a promise and precept there is by vertue of which Infants were till Christs time duly members of Christs Church for Christs Church it was even his universal visible Church Still remember that I take the word law not strictly for a precept only but largely as comprehending both promise and precept and I have already shewed you both and so have others So much of your endeavour as hath any tendency to the advancement of holiness I am willing to second you in viz. that at the age you desire people might solemnly profess their acceptance of Christ and their resolution to be his But I hope God will find me better work while I must stay here than to spend my time to prove that no Infants of believers are within Christs visible Church that is are no Infant Disciples Infant Christians Infant Church-members I know no glory it will bring to Christ nor comfort to man nor see I now any appearance of truth in it I bless the Lord for the benefits of the Baptismal Covenant that I enjoyed in infancy and that I was dedicated so soon to God and not left wholly in the Kingdom and power of the Devil They that despise this mercy or account it none or not worth the accepting may go without it and take that which they get by their ingratitude And I once hoped that much less than such an inundation of direful consequents as our eyes have seen would have done more for the bringing of you back to stop the doleful breach that you have made I am fain to spend my time now to endeavour the recovery of some of your Opinion who are lately turned Quakers or at least the preventing of others Apostasie which is indeed to prevent the emptying of your Churches Which I suppose will be a more acceptable work with you than again to write against rebaptizing or for Infant Baptism Sir I remain your imperfect brother knowing but in part yet loving the truth Rich. Baxter Mr. Tombes his second Letter Sir I confess Infants were by Gods fact of taking the whole people of the Jews for his people in that estate of the Jewish Paedagogy not by any promise or precept visible Church-members that is of the Congregation of Israel I do not confess that there was any Law or Ordinance determining it should be so but only a fact of God which is a transeunt thing and I think it were a foolish undertaking for me to prove the repeal of a fact Wherefore still I press you that you would shew me where that Law Ordinance Statute or Decree of God is that is repealable that is which may in congruous sence be either by a later act said to be repealed or else to be established as a law for ever This I never found in your books nor do I conceive that law is implied in any thing I grant and therefore I yet pray you to set me down the particular Text or Texts of Holy Scripture where that Law is Which need not hinder you from opposing the Quakers in which I have not and hope shall not be wanting of whom I think that you are misinformed that they are Anabaptists I think there are very few of them that were ever baptised and have good evidence that they have been formerly Seekers as you call them And I think you do unjustly impute the direful consequences you speak of to the denial of Infant Baptism and to the practice of adult Baptism and that as your self are deceived so you mislead others I yet expect your Texts knowing none in any of your Books that mention that law of Infants visible Church-membership which you assert either explicitly or implicitly and am Bewdly April 4. 1655. yours as is meet John Tombes Richard Baxters second Letter Sir If you will needs recall me to this ungrateful work let me request you to tell me fully exactly and plainly what transient fact you mean which you conceive without law or promise did make Church-members that so I may know where the competition lieth When I know your meaning I intend God willing to send you a speedy answer to your last April 16. 1655. Your fellow-servant Rich. Baxter Mr. Tombes his third Letter Sir The transeunt fact of God whereby Infants were visible Church-members was plainly exprest in my last to you to be the taking of the whole people of the Jews for his people which is the expression of Moses Deut. 4.34 Exod. 6.7 And by it I mean that which is expressed Levit. 20.24.26 when God said I have severed you from other people that you should be mine The same thing is expressed 1 Kings 8.53 Isai 43.1 This I term fact as conceiving it most comprehensive of the many particular acts in many generations whereby he did accomplish it Following herein Stephen Acts 7.2 and Nehem. 9.7 I conceive it began when he called Abraham out of Vr Gen. 12.1 to which succeeded in their times the enlarging of his family removing of Lot Ishmael the sons of Keturah Esau distinction by Circumcision the birth of Isaac Jacob his leading to Padan Aram increase there removal to Canaan to Aegypt placing preserving there and chiefly the bringing of them thence to which principally the Scripture refers this fact Exod. 19.4 Levit. 11.45 Nehem. 1.10 Hos 11.1 the bringing them into the bond of the Covenant at Mount Sinai giving them laws settling their Priesthood tabernacle army government inheritance By which fact the Infants of the Israelites were visible Church-members as being part of the Congregation of Israel and in like manner though not with equal right for they might be sold away were the bought servants or captives whether Infants or of age though their Parents were professed Idolaters And this I said was without promise or precept meaning such promise or precept as you
their own then as if they had never been baptized they cannot be saved What hurt then as to this doth their Infant interest do them 2. Yea doubtless it is a great help For 1. To be in the way of Gods Ordinance and Benediction is much 2. And knowing you deny that I add to be conscious of an early engagement may do much to awe the minds of Children yea and to cause them to love that Christ which hath received them and that Society to which they belong 3. If Children till Baptized have any thoughts of dying according to you they must have little hopes of mercy And God accounteth not the spirit of bondage best no not for Children They cannot well be educated in the Love of God who must believe that they are damned if they die and that God hath not given them any promise of life 4. Experience of many Moors servants among us and in our Plantations besides ancient history assureth us that delaying Baptism till age tendeth to make people delay repentance and think I am but as I was and if I sin longer all will be pardoned at baptism and I must after live strictlier and therefore as Constantine and many more they will be baptized Christians when there is no remedy 5. And experience assureth us that it were the way to work out Christianity and restore Infidelity in any Nation For had not Christ early possession and were not Nations discipled and baptized Christians were like to be almost as thin as Puritans now and the multitude being Infidels from a cross interest such as divisions cause would be ready on all occasions as they did in Japan and Monicongo to root them out I take this to be a very concerning consideration whether in reason Infant Baptism be like to do more good or harm The not calling men to serious Covenanting at age doth unspeakable harm To have a few good words about Confirmation in the Liturgie and such as Doct. Hammonds writings of it will not save ignorant ungodly souls nor the souls of the Pastors that betray them I have said my thoughts of this long ago in a Treatise of Confirmation But I must profess that it seemeth to me that if Christ had left it to our wills it is much liker to tend to the good of souls and the propagating Christianity and the strength of the Church for to have both the obligation and comfort of our Infant Covenant and Church state and as serious a Covenanting also at age when we pass into the Church state of the Adult than to be without the former and left to the expectation of adult baptism alone SECT LIII to LVIII R. B. THe law of nature bindeth Parents in love to their children to enter them into the most honourable and profitable society if they have but leave so to do But here Parents have leave to enter them into the Church which is the most honourable and profitable society Ergo That they have leave is proved 1. God never forbad any man in the world to do this sincerely the wicked and unbelievers cannot do it sincerely and a not forbidding is to be interpreted as leave in case of such participation of benefits As all laws of men in doubtful cases are to be interpreted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the most favourable sense So hath Christ taught us to interpret his own When they speak of duty to God they must be interpreted in the strictest sense When they speak of benefits to man they must be interpreted in the most favourable sense that they will bear 2. It is the more evident that a not forbidding in such cases is to be taken for leave because God hath put the principle of self-preservation and desiring our own welfare and the welfare of our Children so deeply in humane nature that he can no more lay it by than he can cease to be a reasonable creature And therefore he may lawfully actuate or exercise this natural necessary principle of seeking his own or childrens real happiness where-ever God doth not restrain or prohibit him We need no positive command to seek our own or childrens happiness but what is in the law of nature it self and to use this where God forbiddeth not if good be then to be found cannot be unlawful 3. It is evident from what is said before and elsewhere that it is more than a silent leave of Infants Church-membership that God hath vouchsafed us For in the forementioned fundamental promise explained more fully in after times God signified his will that so it should be It cannot be denied but there is some hope at least given to them in the first promise and that in the general promise to the seed of the woman they are not excluded there be no excluding term Vpon so much encouragement and hope then it is the duty of Parents by the law of nature to enter their Infants into the Covenant and into that society that partake of these hopes and to list them into the Army of Christ 4. It is the duty of Parents by the Law of Nature to accept of any allowed or offered benefit for their children But the relation of a member of Christs Church or Army is an allowed or offered benefit to them Ergo c. For the Major these principles in the law of nature do contain it 1. That the Infant is not sui juris but is at his Parents dispose in all things that are for his good That the Parents have power to oblige their children to any future duty or suffering that is certainly to their own good and so may enter them into Covenants accordingly And so far the will of the Father is as it were the will of the child 2. That it is unnaturally sinful for a Parent to refuse to do such a thing when it is to the great benefit of his own child As if a Prince would offer Honours and Lordships and Immunities to him and his heirs if he will not accept this for his heirs but only for himself it is unnatural Yea if he will not oblige his heirs to some small and reasonable conditions for the enjoying such benefits For the Minor that this relation is an allowed or offered benefit to Infants is manifested already and more shall be And this leads me up to the second point which I propounded to consider of whether by the light or law of nature we can prove that Infants should have the benefit of being Church-members supposing it first known by supernatural revelation that Parents are of that society and how general the promise is and how gracious God is And 1. It is certain to us by nature that Infants are capable of this benefit if God deny it not but will give it them as well as the aged 2. It is certain that they are actually members of all the Common-wealths in the world perfecte sed imperfecta membra being secured from violence by the laws and capable of honours and
him 2. That it is not only de praesenti but for the future called an everlasting Covenant 3. That this promise or Covenant doth manifestly imply and include Infants Church-membership as you confess 4. That yet here is not the least word that intimates an institution of it de novo but rather the contrary plainly intimated The promises before Gen. 17. are mainly about the multiplication of Abrahams seed What is that to Church membership except what intimates the promised seed of which anon Hagar hath a promise also of the multiplication of Ishmaels seed And the very precept of Circumcision is only one part of the Infant members viz. the males and therefore it cannot be foundation of their Church-membership which leaves out half the members 5. Note that the promise that God will be their God doth expresly contain the Church-membership of the seed 6. Note that this is more than a transeunt fact Ergo being an everlasting Covenant Had it been a natural transeunt fact that had left no permanent title behind it in the obligation of the Covenant then it had been null and void as soon as spoken then the word of God is but a bare sound and of no further force 7. Note that the Apostle as is said Rom. 4.10 11 12 13. doth fully manifest to us that this promise was made to Abraham as a believer and that Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had yet being uncircumcised and therefore that the chief part of the Covenant of having God for our God and his taking us as his peculiar people belongs to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews 8. And he oft sheweth that the faithful are Abrahams seed and therefore the chief blessings of the promise belong to all the faithful But one of the blessings was that their Infants should be comprehended in the same Church and Covenant Ergo the Infants of the faithful who are the heirs of the same promise must be comprehended in it too 9. I think it is not to be made light of as to this matter that in the great promise Gen. 12.3 the blessing from Abraham in Christ is promised to all the families or tribes on earth all the families of the earth shall be blessed as the Heb. Samar Arabic or all the kindreds as the vulgar Lat. and Chald. paraph. or all the tribes as the Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And doubtless it is by Christ that this blessing is promised and so a Gospel blessing Ergo the Syriac adds and in thy seed and the Arab. hath by thee And the Apostle fully testifieth that So that as tribes kindreds families do most certainly comprehend the Infants and as it was to such families that the promise was made before Christ as to the Jewish Church so is it expresly to such families or tribes that the promise is made as to the Gentiles since Christ 10. Note that as Infant Church-membership is here clearly implied in Infant Circumcision so they are two distinct things and as the sign is here commanded de novo so the thing signified I mean the duty of engaging and devoting to God as their God in Covenant is commanded with it though not de novo as a thing now beginning as the sign did So that here is in Circumcision not only a command to do the circumcising outward act but also to do it as a sign of the Covenant and so withal for the Parents to engage their children to God in Covenant as their God and devote them to him as his separated peculiar people So that here are two distinct duties concurrent The one external newly instituted the other internal not newly instituted And therefore the former may cease and yet the later stand and it is no proof that the later Covenant engagement of Infants to God is ceased because the sign of Circumcision is ceased no more than it proves that such Covenant engagement did then begin when Circumcision did begin or that women were not Church-members separated engaged dedicated to God in Infancy because they were not circumcised And no more than you can prove that all Israel was unchurched in the wilderness when they were uncircumcised for 40 years So that here you have a command for entring Infants as Church-members And so you see both promise and precept in Gen. 12.3 Gen. 17. And when I consider the Parents breeding and manners of Rebekah I think it far more probable that she was a Church-member from her Infancy than that she was entred afterwards at age or that she was a heathen or infidel when Isaac married her And as here are before mentioned standing Covenants so it is to be noted how God intimateth the extent of the main blessing of them to be further than to Abrahams natural seed not only in the express promise of the blessing to all the nations or families on earth of which before but in the assigned reason of the blessing which is common to Abraham with other true believers For Gen. 22.16 17 18. it is thus alledged because thou hast done this thing c. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice And Gen. 26.3 4 5. the Covenant is renewed with Isaac and the same reason assigned because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge my commandments my statutes and my laws How mans obedience is said to be a cause of Gods blessing I am not determining but taking the words as I find them in general I may conclude that they are here given as a cause or reason of it some way or other And though a special mercy may be given on a common ground or reason yet where there is no apparent proof of the restriction we are to judge the blessing common where the reason is common At least if a special blessing be superadded to Abrahams seed upon the freeness of Gods grace or the eminency of Abrahams obedience yet there goes with it a mercy common to all where the reason of the mercy is found It being therefore the case of every true believer to be faithful and obedient yea to prefer that before his own life and not a son only it may be hence gathered that God who blessed Abrahams seed on that account will bless theirs on the same with the same blessings in the main as to his favour and acceptance of them though not with the same in the variable superadditionals or overplus of external things In Exod. 12.48 there is a law for the circumcising of all the males of strangers that sojourn in the land that will keep the passover which comprehendeth their Church-membership as is shewed Reply To all this neither do I find any new thing calling for any answer but what the considering Reader can easily make His repeated sayings that if Admission be by Baptism I must make Parents Ministers to baptize a child may well answer There are more Parties that
even visible mutual covenanting make not Church-members visible what doth You see what he hath brought the ancient and later Church-membership Circumcision and Baptism to I think to nothing As formal Pontifician Church-tyrants when they have mortified some ordinance and turned it into an Image make an engine of it to trouble the Church and silence the Preachers and serious practisers of the Gospel with These men make nothing of Church-membership and then restlesly trouble the Church-about it SECT XXVI R. B. HAving thus opened the terms Law and Precept I prove the Proposition thus 1. If it was the duty of the Israelites to accept Gods offered mercy for their Children to engage and devote them to him in Covenant then there was a Law or Precept which made this their duty and obliged them to it But it was a duty Ergo there was such a Law or Precept For the antecedent 1. If it were not a duty then it was either a sin or a neutral indifferent action But it was not a sin for 1. It was against no Law 2. It is not reprehended nor was it indifferent for it was of a moral nature and ergo either good or evil yea sin or duty For properly permittere is no act of Law though many say it is but a suspension of an act and so licitum is not moraliter bonum but only non malum and ergo is not properly within the verge of morality 2. If there be a penalty and a most terrible penalty annexed for the non-performance then it was a duty But such a penalty was annexed as shall anon be particularly shewed even to be cut off from his people to be put to death c. If it oblige ad poenam it did first oblige ad obedientiam For no Law obligeth ad poenam but for disobedience which presupposeth an obligation to obedience 3. If it were not the Israelites duty to enter their Children into Gods Covenant and Church then it would have been none of their sin to have omitted or refused so to do But it would have been their great and hainous sin to have omitted or refused it Ergo. Now to the consequence of the major There is no duty but what is made by some Law or Precept as its proper efficient cause or foundation Ergo if it be a duty there was certainly some Law or Precept that made it such Among men we say that a benefit obligeth to gratitude though there were no Law But the meaning is if there were no humane law and that is because the Law of God in nature requireth man to be just and thankful If there were no law of God natural or positive that did constitute it or oblige us to it there could be no duty 1. There is no duty but what is made such by Gods signified will ergo no duty but what is made such by a Law or Precept For a Precept is the sign of Gods will obliging to duty 2. Where there is no Law there is no transgression Rom. 4.15 ergo where there is no law there is no duty for these are contraries it is a duty not to transgress the Law and a transgression not to perform the duty which it requireth of us There is no apparent ground of exception but in case of Covenants Whether a man may not oblige himself to a duty meerly by his consent I answer 1. He may oblige himself to an act which he must perform or else prove unfaithful and dishonest but his own obligation makes it not strictly a duty ergo when God makes a Covenant with man he is as it were obliged in point of fidelity but not of duty 2. He that obligeth himself to an act by promise doth occasion an obligation to duty from God because God hath obliged men to keep their promises 3. So far as a man may be said to be his own Ruler so far may he be said to oblige himself to duty that is duty to himself though the act be for the benefit of another but then he may as fitly be said to make a Law to himself or command himself so that still the duty such as it is hath an answerable command So that I may well conclude that there is a law because there is a duty For nothing but a Law could cause that duty nor make that omission of it a sin Where there is no law sin is not imputed Rom. 5.13 But the omission of entring Infants into Covenant with God before Christs incarnation would have been a sin imputed ergo there was a law commanding it 2. If it was a duty to dedicate Infants to God or enter them into Covenant with him then either by Gods will or without it certainly not without it If by Gods will then either by his will revealed or unrevealed His unrevealed will cannot oblige for there wants promulgation which is necessary to obligation And no man can be bound to know Gods unrevealed will unless remotely as it may be long of himself that it is not to him revealed If it be Gods revealed will that must thus oblige then there was some sign by which it was revealed And if there were a sign revealing Gods will obliging us to duty then there was a law for this is the very nature of the preceptive part of a law which is the principal part so that you may as well say that you are a reasonable creature but not a man as say that men were obliged to duty by Gods revealed will but yet not by a Law or Precept 3. We shall anon produce the Law or Precept and put it out of doubt that there was such a thing In the mean time I must confess I do not remember that ever I was put to dispute a point that carrieth more of its own evidence to shame the gain-sayer And if you can gather Disciples even among the godly by perswading them that there were duties without Precepts or Laws and benefits without donations covenants or promise confirming them then despair of nothing for the time to come You may perswade them that there is a Son without a Father or any relation without its foundation or effect without its cause and never doubt but the same men will believe you while you have the same interest in them and use the same artifice in putting off your conceits Mr. T. would first perswade the Reader that I mean nothing but Circumcision Reply Long ago I told you that 1. The Females were not circumcised 2. Nor the Males for forty years in the wilderness And yet were all Church-members by being Gods Covenanted people And so was Israel before Circumcision His terms of the hissing of a Goose and the snarling of a Cur and other such I account lighter than the least of his injuries to the truth SECT XXVII R. B. THE fifth Question requireth me to lay down this assertion that there is no Law or Precept of God which doth not oblige to duty and no actual promise
he never gave right to it by promise 2. And will not the ungodly put in for the like hopes If besides those that Gods Laws condemn or justifie God will save many in a neutral state why may he not saith the ungodly save me also for Infants once deserved punishment by original sin And if God pardon them without any reason in themselves he may do so by me 3. Or at least he may save all the Infants in the world for ought you know that die in Infancy And do all the promises to the seed of the faithful in the second Commandment and Exod. 34.7 and many another Text mean no such thing as they speak as if to be the seed of the faithful were no condition but only I will save my elect And why might not this Covenant I will save my Elect be made with Cain or Cham or Judas as well as with Abraham 2. He saith Abrahams Infants were visible Church-members but not by the Covenant barely as Evangelical Reply What a bare put off is that of a man that must say something Is it at all by the Covenant as Evangelical If yea we have our desire If not what meaneth barely but the nakedness of your ill cause 3. Then cometh next And if in any respect by virtue of the Covenant which it seemeth he yet knoweth not after all this talk or will not know it was by it as containing houshold or civil promises rather than Evangelical Reply See Reader some more of the mysterie Infants were Church-members in Abrahams house but Church-membership signified but houshold and civil promises Do you now perceive what the Jews Infant Church-membership was The Socinians perhaps will say the like of the Jews Covenant to the adult But we may yet mistake him For rather is not a negative It is Rather than Evangelical which is but a preference not a denial O for plain honesty in things divine SECT L. R. B. 2. THat the first fundamental promise is thus to be interpreted I further prove by Gods constant administration in the performance of it Concerning which I do make this challenge to you with modesty and submission to prove if you can that there was ever one Church-member that had Infants born to him while he was in that estate from the beginning of the world to this day whose Infants also were not Church-members Except only the Anabaptists who refuse or deny the mercy and so refuse to dedicate their Infants in Baptism unto Christ And whether their Infants be Church-members I will not determine affirmatively or negatively at this time I do again urge you to it that you may not forget it to prove to me that ever there was one Infant of a Church-member in the world since the creation to this day that was not a Church-member except the Anabaptists that refuse the mercy or deny it Reply Mr. T. 's Answer is a refusing to answer save a cross challenge oft answered and the instance of Timothy To which I say that if Timothy 's Father being a Greek countermanded his communion with the Jews he could not be a member of their policie or particular Church Though if he only delayed as Moses did to circumcise his Son that Son might be a member as the children in the wilderness were But his Mothers right alone might make him a person in Covenant with God as a visible member of the Church-universal SECT LI. R. B. BEfore I proceed to any more Texts of Scripture I will a little enquire into the light or Law of Nature it self and see what that saith to the point in hand And first we shall consider of the duty of dedicating Infants to God in Christ and next of Gods acceptance of them and entertaining them into that estate And the first is most evidently contained in the Law of nature it self at least upon supposition that there be any hopes of Gods entertaining them which I prove thus 1. The law of Nature bindeth us to give to every one his own due But Infants are Gods own due Ergo the law of Nature bindeth Parents to give them up to God By giving here I mean not an alienation of propriety to make that to be Gods that was not so before but an acknowledgement of his right with a free resignation and dedication of the Infant to God as his own for his use and service when he is capable thereof If you say Infants being not capable of doing service should not be devoted to it till they can do it I answer they are capable at present of a legal obligation to future duty and also of the relation which followeth that obligation together with the honour of a Church-member as the child of a Noble man is of his Honours and title to his Inheritance and many other mercies of the Covenant And though Christ according to his humanity was not capable of doing the works of a Mediator or head of the Church in his Infancy yet for all that he must be head of the Church then and not according to this arguing stay till he were capable of doing those works And so is it with his members Reply Here is so little said that needs but this remarke that Mr. T. knoweth not how to deny the duty of dedication handsomly which being Accepted of God is to Church-membership as private Marriage to publick where publication is wanting But he denieth that Parents may dedicate them by Baptism But if they may and must do it privately by heart consent it will follow that they must do it publickly in the instituted way As for my bold attempt in proving so much by the Law of Nature if he cannot confute it let him not strive and sin against nature SECT LII R. B. 2. THe law of nature bindeth all Parents to do their best to secure Gods right and their Childrens good and to prevent their sin and misery But to engage them betimes to God by such a dedication doth tend to secure Gods right and their Childrens good and to prevent their sin and misery For they are under a double obligation which they may be minded of betimes and which may hold them the more strongly to their duty and disadvantage the tempter that would draw them off from God Mr. T. Really Infant Baptism is a disadvantage 1. In that it is the occasion whereby they take themselves to be Christians afore they know what Christianity is and so are kept in presumption c. 2. They are kept from the true baptism c. Reply This nearly concerneth our cause I once inclined to these thoughts my self But I am satisfied 1. That Infant Covenanting and Baptism is no hindrance in Nature or Reason from personal serious Covenanting with God at age We tell our Children and all the adult that their Infant Covenanting by Parents will serve them but till they have Reason and Will of their own to choose for themselves And that without as serious a faith and consent of
Donative Instrument of God which saith He that believeth shall be justified may effect my Justification when I believe and not before though my faith effect it not at all but dispose the recipient But I deny that the Parents faith being put all the capacity of the recipient is put even when he is born For if it be possible for the Parent to consent for himself and not for his child and to devote himself and not his child to God part of the condition of reception is wanting As far as I perceive could I but hope to be so happy a disputant as to convince Mr. T. that Church-membership visible is any benefit at all it self or was to the Israelites he would grant me all that I plead for of the conveyance of it by Covenant And if I cannot it is a hard case SECT LXXXVI R. B. THe second Commandment Exod. 20.5 6. Deut. 5.9 10. I think is a law and containeth a promise or premiant part wherein he promiseth to shew mercy to the generations or children of them that love him and keep his Commandments of which I have also spoken elsewhere to which I refer you I see no reason to doubt but here is a standing promise and discovery of Gods resolution concerning the children of all that love him whether Jews or Gentiles to whom this Commandment belongs nor to doubt whether this mercy imply Church-membership And that this is fetcht from the very gracious nature of God I find in his proclaiming his Name to Moses Exod. 34.6 7. Mr. T. If this mercy here imply Church-membership to the Infants of them that love him to a thousand Generations then it implieth it to all the Infants in the world But there is nothing to prove that this mercy must be Church-membership or that it must be to all the children of them that love God or that it must be to them in Infancy I incline to conceive this a promise of temporal mercies chiefly to the Israelites Reply 1. That it is not only of temporal mercies the words Love and Hate as the qualification of the Parents seem to prove and the joyning the children to the Parents in the retribution And all the terms seem above such a sense It is the revenge of a jealous God on Idolaters and mercy to his Lovers that is spoken of And the joyning this Command to the first which setleth our relation to God with the Laws annexed in Deut. for the cutting off whole Cities Parents and Children that turn from God to Idols sheweth that it reached to Church-Communion and Life 2. And that it was not only to the Israelites whatever you chiefly mean is proved both in that it is in the Decalogue and the proclaimed name of God Exod. 34.5 6. and exemplified throughout the Scripture and in the Gospel 2. As to the extent we can hardly expect that the world should endure a thousand Generations Therefore it can mean but that God who boundeth the punishment to the third and fourth generation will set no bounds to the succession of his mercies while our capacity continueth And whatever the mercies be the exposition of this continuance concerneth you as much as me 3. As to the conditions I doubt not but it supposeth that the child at age imitate the Parents in their Love or Hatred duty or sin And that if on Repentance the Parent be forgiven his sin may not be visited to the third and fourth And if a child of Godly Parents turn wicked the right is intercepted 4. But the Commandment with the foresaid exposition shews that God meaneth that his Retribuâ—ion to Parents that Love or Hate him shall extend to their children as such unless they interrupt it at age by their own acts And if to their children qua tales then to Infants And it speaketh such a state of mercy as cannot in reason be conceived to belong to them without and can mean no less than Gods visible favour by which the Church is differenced from the world when Lovers and Haters are distinguished sides And when God hath Recorded this decreed granted distinguished mercy to the children of the faithful as such in the Tables of stone sure it is a visible notification which will make them visible favorites and Church-members as soon as they visibly exist And the quatenus seemeth to me to prove that it extendeth to all the children of the faithful because it is to them as such But it followeth not that it must extend to them all alike as to equal mercies nor yet that the sin of Parents after may make no kind of forfeiture But of this I have said more in my Christian Directory SECT LXXXVII to XCIV R. B. IN Psal 102.28 It is a general promise the children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee It is usual in the Old Testament to express Gods favour by temporal blessings more than in the Gospel but yet still they secure us of his favour As I will not fail thee nor forsake thee might secure Joshua more than us of temporal successes and yet not more of Gods never failing favour There is a stable promise to all Gods people in general that have children Psal 103.17 But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto childrens children And to be secured by promise of Gods mercy and righteousness is the state of none without the Church And if they were all to be kept out of the Church I scarce think that Children would be called an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb his reward Psal 127.3 nor the man happy that hath his quiver full of them Nor would the sucking children be called as part of the solemn assembly to the humiliation Joel 2.16 2 Chron. 20.13 There is a standing promise to all the just Prov. 20.7 The just man walketh in his integrity his children are blessed after him There is no sort of men without the Church that is pronounced blessed in Scripture A blessed people are Gods people and those are the Church separated from the cursed world One lower blessing will not denominate a man or society a blessed man or society If it were a good argument then Deut. 4.37 because he loved thy fathers therefore he chose their seed after them then it is good still as to favour in general So Deut. 10.15 Psal 69.36 Prov. 11.21 The seed of the righteous shall be delivered In Psal 37.26 there is a general promise to or declaration of the righteous that his seed is blessed and then they are Church-members In Isa 61.8 9. it is promised I think of Gospel times I will make an everlasting Covenant with them and their seed shall be known among the Gentiles and their off-spring among the people all that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed And cap. 62.12 They shall call them the
miserable than Heathens And if you can first believe that the Infants of all Infidels Atheists and ungodly Christians hypocrites have a promise of salvation you will next be inclined to think better of their Parents state than God alloweth you And where is this promise § 6. Some say that the new Covenant giveth grace and life to all that do not ponere obicem But I must have Gods Covenant in his own terms that I may have it in his own sense if I will be assured of the benefits Non ponere obicem signifieth plainly no Action or positive qualification as necessary but only a negation of some contrary action And it is certain that the terms of Gods Covenant to the adult are clean contrary It is not he that neither Believeth nor opposeth faith shall be saved or he that doth neither good nor harm as a man in an apoplexy or asleep But he that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned And except ye repent ye shall all perish And without holiness none shall see God But a meer negation is no holiness § 7. And if any will feign another Covenant for Infants let him shew what and where it is for I know but one Covenant of grace which taketh in the Infants with the Authorized Parents whose members or Own God taketh them to be and requireth a positive believing consent and dedication to God as the positive condition which is more than a Negative non ponere obicem though performed by the Parent for the child And so the promises throughout the Scripture run to the faithful and their seed § 8. I know that God promiseth to bless children through many generations for their faithful Ancestors sake But that is on supposition that fidelity continue in the line and that apostasie make no intercision Else all should be blessed for the sake of Noe even Cham's posterity as well as Shem's § 9. What then is the thing made necessary and sufficient by the Covenant to their salvation but that they be the seed of the faithful devoted by them to God that is that their Parents natural or at least civil whose Own they are and have the power of disposing of them for their good do enter them by consent into the Covenant with Christ which it is supposed that Faithful Parents virtually did before and will actually do when God doth call them to it § 10. As to them that say the thing further necessary as the condition of the Infants acceptance and salvation is A promise to educate the Child as a Christian if he live I answer 1. That promise indeed is included in his dedication and consent 2. But who but the Owners of the child are capable of making such a promise unless as seconds promising that the Owners shall do their duty For only he that owneth him can educate him by himself or others or dispose of him for his education who hath power to dispose of another mans child and educate him They that undertake as sureties to do it in case the Parents apostatize or die do plainly imply 1. That till then it is the Parent that is intrusted to do it and therefore that the Parent must consent to do it and therefore that the Parent must enter his child in the Covenant of Christ 2. And that if the Parents apostatize or die they will take the child themselves as their Own or else by what power can they educate him or dispose of him § 11. They that say God did not save one for the faith or consent of another must remember 1. That we are all saved for the meritorious Righteousness of Christ by the way of a free gift whose condition is but suitable acceptance And why may not a Parent accept a donation for his Child who hath no will to accept it for himself Shall he be certainly shut out unto damnation Or shall he have that gift absolutely which is conditional to all others Or is he not concerned in the donation at all 2. And remember that we have guilt and misery from our Parents and therefore though life and pardon be by Christ only yet it is congruous that the meer condition of acceptance may be performed by the Parents § 12. Perhaps some will lay all the right of Infants to the pardon of sin and salvation upon secret election only as if all that we knew of Infants Salvation were that God will save some whom he hath elected but that there is no Promise of grace and salvation to any particular Infant in the world as under any condition or qualification And if this be so then 1. No Infant hath any Right to pardon grace and salvation given him by the Covenant of Grace No more than any elect person at age hath before faith and regeneration Election gave Paul nor any wicked man no right to pardon or salvation Else elect Pagans and Infidels are justified if they have jus ad impunitatem Regnum Coelorum 2. And if this be so we have no assurance that God will save ten or three Infants in all the world For he hath not told us whether he hath elected so many 3. And yet we cannot be sure but that they may all or almost all be saved while the number of the elect is unrevealed 4. Nor can we know that any more of the Children of the Faithful are saved than of the Heathens or Infidels of those that love God and keep his Commandments than of those that hate him 5. And in a word we have then no proper hope upon Covenant right that God will save any one individual Infant in the world For we can hope in this proper sense of nothing but what we do believe and we can believe nothing but what is promised or revealed And so Parents must be thus far hopeless § 13. God who made man after his Image teacheth him to govern according to those principles which are his Image And all the Kingdoms in this world take Infants for Infant-members and the Laws give them Right to Honours and Inheritances the possession and use whereof they may have in the time and degrees that nature doth capacitate them And can we then think that God who made a Conditional Gift of Pardon and Salvation to all the adult persons in the world did wholly leave out Infants and that his Covenant giveth them no rights at all no not to be members of his visible Church § 14. It seemeth to me a matter of doubtful consequence to assert that God will save more yea so great numbers as we will hope are saved in Infancie than ever he promised to save and gave any antecedent Right to Salvation to I doubt we shall open such a gap to the hopes of presumptuous Heathens and Infidels this way as will cross our common doctrine If God may save whole Kingdoms and millions of Heathens Infants to whom he never gave Right to Salvation by any gift or promise
not receive them though we approve not of their way § 30. And were it in my power as a Pastor of the Church I would give satisfaction by such an answerable profession as this Though it be our judgement that Infants have ever been members of Gods visible Church since he had a Church and there were Infants in the world and do believe that Christ hath signified in the Gospel that it is his gracious will that they should still be so And that he that commanded Mat. 28.19 Go ye and Disciple all Nations Baptizing them would have his Ministers endeavour accordingly to do it and hath hereby made Baptism the regular orderly way of solemn entrance into a visible Church state and therefore we devote this child to God in the Baptismal Covenant Yet we do also hold that when he cometh to age it will be his duty as seriously and devoutly to make this Covenant with God understandingly himself and to dedicate himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as those must do that never were Baptized in Infancie And we promise to endeavour faithfully as we have opportunity to instruct and perswade him so to do hoping that this his early Baptismal dedication and obligation to God will rather much prepare him for it than hinder it § 31. Me thinks these Professions should put off the chief matter of offence and exception against each other as to the ill consequents of our opinions And if sober good men would by such a mutual approach be the more disposed to live together in love and holy peace how easily should I bear the scorns of those Formalists that will reproach me for so much as motioning a Peace with the Anabaptists even in the same Communion Who by making it a reproach will but perswade me that such as they are less worthy of Christian Communion than sober pious and peaceable Anabaptists § 32. And if with the partial sort of themselves such motions of Peace be turned into matter of contempt and they proceed in their clamours and reviling of me as an enemy of the truth for being against their way I shall account it no wonder nor matter of much provocation finding in all Sects as well as theirs that the injudicious sort are apt to be abusively censorious and the more mens Pride Ignorance and uncharitableness remain the more they will swell into self-conceit and trouble the Church with a mistaking wrangling hurtful sort of zeal § 33. And as I must needs believe as ill of some sort of Zeal as St. James hath spoken of it Jam. 3. and experience hath too long told the world of it yet I take it for truly amiable in men that they have a love and Zeal for Truth in general and a hatred to that which they think to be against it and that their bitterness against the truth and me is upon a supposition that both are against the truth and God for this beareth them witness that they have a zeal of God though it be not according to Knowledge and if they knew truth indeed they would be zealous for it § 34. I conclude with this notice to the contrary minded that the evidence for Infants Church-membership seemeth to me so clear both in nature and in Scripture that I bid them despair of ever perswading me against it But if they will have any hope of changing my judgement it must be by confessing the visible Church-membership of Infants and proving that yet they are not to be baptized and that Baptism was appointed for initiating none but adult converts and not to be the common entrance into the Church which yet I think they can never do while the plain Law of Christ Mat. 29.19 and the exposition of the universal Church doth stand on record to confute such an opinion But here they have more room for a dispute § 35. But though I expect to be censured for it I will say once because truth is truth that though Rebaptizing and Reordaining are justly both condemned by the ancient Churches and pronounced alike ridiculous by Gregory Mag. Lib. 2. Ep. Indict 11. c. 46. and many others yet were men Rebaptized but for Certainty to themselves or to the Church and to quiet their consciences and on such terms as in my Christian Directory I have shewed that a seeming Reordination might in some cases be tolerated and would not wrong Infants nor make it an occasion of division or alienation I know not by any Scripture or reason that such Rebaptizing is so heinous a sin as should warrant us to contemn our brethren No though it were as faulty as the oft commemorative baptizing used by the Abassines CHAP. III. A General View of Mr. Danvers book § 1. MR. Danvers book is entitled a Treatise of Baptism in which he giveth us the History of Infant and Adult Baptism out of Antiquity as making it appear that Infant Baptism was not practised for 300 years in his second edit it is near 300. And in his Append ed. 2. I cannot find that it was practised upon any till the fourth Century And he giveth us a Catalogue of witnesses against it By which those that hold their Religion on the belief of such mens words will conclude that all this is true and that Infant Baptism is a Novelty and those that are against it do go the old and Catholick way § 2. Having perused his testimonies on both sides I am humbled and ashamed for the dulness of my heart that doth not with floods of compassionate tears lament the pittiful condition of the seduced that must be thus deceived in the dark and of the Churches of Christ that must be thus assaulted and shaken and distracted by such inhumane horrid means The book being composed in that part of history which the stress of the cause lyeth on of such UNTRUTHS in fact and history as I profess it one of my greatest difficulties to know how to call them Should I say that they are so notorious and shameless as that I say not only a Papist but any sober Turk or Pagan should blush to have been guilty but of some page or line◠of them and much more a man of any tenderness of conscience the Readers would think that the language were harsh were it never so true and some would say Let us have soft words and hard arguments And should I not tell the Reader the truth of the case I might help to betray him into too much fearlesness of his bait and snare and I doubt I may be guilty of untruth by concealing the quality of his untruths And it is not matter of Argument but fact that I am speaking of § 3. But it pleaseth that God whose counsels are unsearchable as to permit five parts of the Earth to remain yet strangers unto Christ so to permit his Church to be so tryed and distracted between Church Tyranny and dividing separations Sects and parties as that in many ages it hath not been easie to
of Keturah Ishmael and Esau into the Congregation of Israel And so to extend Infants Church-membership further than the Jews Common-wealth For let the Reader judge whether the posterity of Ishmael Esau and Keturah were of that Republick or Proselytes either and not usually enemies 3. He is forced to extend Infants Church-membership to whole Cities that would be but their Allies as the Sichemites were For when he saith They were one people by consent he could not say that they were to be their subjects and so members of their Republick And they may be one people by mixture and confederacy without subjection And there is no intimation that the Sichemites were to part with their former Governours and be subject to Jacob And then if all the Kingdâ—ms about would but have been accordingly Jacobs confederates it seems Mr. T. must yield that their Infants had been visible Church-members SECT VI. R. B. IT was then the duty of all the Nations round about if not of all the Nations on earth that could have information of the Jewish Religion to engage themselves and their children to God by Circumcision That all that would have any alliance and commerce with the Jews must do it is commonly confessed that it must extend to Infants the case of the Sichemites though deceitfully drawn to it by some of Jacobs sons doth shew and so doth the Jewish practice which they were to imitate that the same engagement to the same God is the duty of all the world is commonly acknowledged though Divines are not agreed whether the distant nations were obliged to use Circumcision the Jewish sign The best of the Jews were zealous to make Proselytes and no doubt but the very law of nature did teach them to do their best for the salvation of others To think such charitable and holy works unlawful is to think it evil to do the greatest good And if they must perswade the neighbour nations to come in to God by Covenant engagement they must perswade them to bring their children with them and to devote them to God as well as themselves For the Jews knâ—w no other covenanting or engaging to God As the Sichemites must do so other nations must do For what priviledge had the children of the Sichemites above the rest of the world Mr. T 's Answer The argument in form would be thus If it were the duty of all the nations round about to engage themselves and their children to God by circumcision then it was not only the Infants of the Congregation of Israel that were Church-members c. Reply 1. You should have said that would have been Church-members had they done that duty But you can best serve your own turn 2. One Supream Power maketh one Republick with the subjects And many Soveraigns make many Republicks as all grant Therefore if all the Nations about had engraffed themselves into the Congregation of Israel but as the Sichemites did they had not made one Republick as to humane Soveraignty I presume to tell you my thoughts of such a case and so of the Sichemites It was the glory of Israel to be a Theocracy God was their Soveragin not only as he was of all the world de jure and by overruling their humane Soveraign but by special Revelation doing the work a Soveraign himself He made them Laws and not Moses He appointed them Captains under him by Revelation He decided cases by Oracle He gave them Judges that were Prophets and acted by his extraordinary spirit Though Moses is called a King he was but an Official Magistrate Captain and Prophet A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you like unto me c. saith he which had immediate respect to the form of Government and manner of succession as differing from the way of Kings which the Israelites sinfully preferred afterward casting off this special Theocracy though ultimately it intended Christ Now this being so the Sichemites or any other nations who would have taken God for their Soveraign and come under this special prophetical Theocracy which Circumcision engaged them to as respecting the Laws to which it bound them had been so far united to Israel But how far might this have extended To the rest that he saith I consent If you will not hold to this you must say that the Sichemites were to be of the same Communitie with Israel and not of the same Republick which signifieth either ungoverned Communities or various Republicks confederating SECT VII R. B. IN Hesters time many of the people became Jews Hest 8.17 who yet were not under their government And to be Jews is to be of the Jewish profession And it is well known that this was to be circumcised they and their little ones as the Proselytes were and so to keep the Law of Moses Mr. T 's Answer They were incorporated into the Jewish people c. Reply This needeth no reply but what is given to the former SECT VIII R. B. THE scattered and captivated Jews themselves were from under the Government of Abrahams successors and yet were to Circumcise their children as Church-members Mr. T 's Answer is the same and the Reply the same SECT IX R. B. WHen Jonas preached to Ninive it was all the race of man among them without exception from the greatest to the least that was to fast and join in the humiliation Ergo all even Infants as well as others were to partake of the remission If you say the beasts were to fast too I answer as they were capable in their kind of part of the curse so were they of part of the benefit but their capacity was not as mans They fasted to manifest mans humiliation And if by the humiliation of the aged the beasts sped the better in their kind no wonder if Infants sped the better in theirs and according to their capacities and that was to have a remission suitable to their sin Mr. T 's Answer Neither aged nor infants were visible Church-members c. Reply This only proveth by parity of Reason their capacity of it and that they would have been such if they had truely turned to God which yet I cannot say that many of them did not according to the terms of the Common Covenant of Grace made with Adam and Noe though they came not under the Covenant of peculiarity And if so as Repentance is to be interpreted in the best sense till the contrary be proved I leave it to the Reader whether Gods laying on the Infants their share as capable in the humiliation imply not such a share as they are capable of in the benefit And the case of the Israelites Infants sheweth what they were capable of Mr. T 's denial is no disproof SECT X. R. B. WHat I have said of Sem and many others and their posterity already I shall not here again repeat and more will be said anon to the following questions Mr. T 's Answer is none and needs no Reply SECT XI R.
Cause of Being and Motion as such As a free Benefactor he is the first Cause of all our Good as such And as a Sapiential Rector and Benefactor conjunctly that is by Paternal government he is the first cause of Right Being and Motion are the effects of Physical efficiency Jus vel Debitum is the very formal effect or object of Moral Efficiency by a Rector and the formal object of Ethicks To be a Church-member is to have a stated Relation consisting in Right to the Benefits and obligation to the duty as was said before He denieth this to be any Right and to have any such Civil-moral cause as Right hath but to be quid Physicum as Health strength Riches and an answerable Physical cause Let the shame of this ignorance reform the common error of Schools that teach not their children betimes the principles of Ethicks Politicks or Governing Order It is a shame that at 16. years old any should be so ignorant as these words import I must speak it or I comply with the powers of darkness that so shamefully oppose the truth SECT XXIV XXV R. B. 2. GOD hath expresly called that act a Covenant or promise by which he conveyeth this right which we shall more fully manifest anon when we come to it The second Proposition to be proved is that there was a Law or Precept of God obliging the Parents to enter their children into Covenant and Church-membership by accepting of his offer and re-engaging them to God And this is as obvious and easie as the former But first I shall in a word here also explain the terms The word Law is sometimes taken more largely and unfitly as comprehending the very immanent acts or the nature of God considered without any sign to represent it to the creature So many call Gods nature or purposes the Eternal Law which indeed is no law nor can be fitly so called 2. It is taken properly for an authoritative determination de debito constituendo vel confirmando And so it comprehendeth all that may fitly be called a law Some define it Jussum majestatis obligans aut ad obedientiam aut ad poenam But this leaves out the premiant part and some others So that of Grotius doth Est regula actionum moralium obligans ad id quod rectum est I acquiesce in the first or rather in this which is more full and exact A law is a sign of the Rectors will constituting or confirming right or dueness That it be a sign of the Rectors will de debito constituendo vel confirmando is the general nature of all laws Some quarrel at the word sign because it is logical and not political As if Politicians should not speak logically as well as other men There is a twofold due 1. What is due from us to God or any Rector and this is signified in the precept and prohibition or in the precept de agendo non agendo 2. What shall be due to us and this is signified by promises or the premiant part of the law and by laws for distribution and determination of proprieties All benefits are given us by God in a double relation both as Rector and Benefactor or as Benefactor Regens or as Rector benefaciens though among men that stand not in such a subordination to one another as we do to God they may be received from a meer benefactor without any regent interest therein The first laws do ever constitute the debitum or right afterward there may be renewed laws and precepts to urge men to obey the former or to do the same thing and the end of these is either fullier to acquaint the subject with the former or to revive the memory of them or to excite to the obedience of them And these do not properly constitute duty because it was constituted before but the nature and power of the act is the same with that which doth constitute it and therefore doth confirm the constitution and again oblige us to what we were obliged to before For obligations to one and the same duty may be multiplied 3. Some take the word law in so restrained a sence as to exclude verbal or particular precepts especially directed but to one or a few men and will only call that a law which is written or at least a well known custom obliging a whole society in a stated way These be the most eminent sort of laws but to say that the rest are no laws is vain and groundless against the true general definition of a Law and justly rejected by the wisest Politicians That which we are now to enquire after is a precept or the commanding part of a law which is a sign of Gods will obliging us to duty of which signs there are materially several sorts as 1. by a voice that 's evidently of God 2. by writing 3. by visible works or effects 4. by secret impresses as by inspiration which is a law only to him that hath them Mr. T. I assert 1. There is no such offer promise or Covenant 2. That though there are precepts for Parents to pray for their Children to breed them up yet they are not bound to believe this that upon their own faith God will take their Infant Children to be his and will be a God to them nor to accept of this pretended offer 3. That though Parents may enter into Covenant for their Children as Deut. 29.12 they do not by this make them partakers of the Covenant or promise that God will be their God Reply What a deal of the Gospel and the Churches mercys do these men deny 1. The very nature of our own Holy Covenant is that in it we give up to God our selves and all that is ours according to the capacity of that all And as our Riches are devoted hereby as capable utensils so our Infants as capable of Infant Relation Obligation and Right What is it that a sanctified man must not devote to God that is His If you except Liberty Health Life you are hypocrites And can you except Children It 's true this is but so far as they are our own and we say no more when they have a will to choose for themselves they must do it 2. I have fully proved Scripture commands for Parents to offer their Children to God and that signifieth his will to accept what he commandeth them to offer And his promises to shew mercy to them as theirs are plain and many which I must not tire the Reader with repeating Mr. T. addeth That if there were such a promise and duty of accepting the pretended offer and re-engaging yet this neither did then nor doth now make Infants visible Church-members Reply Reader are not the Anabaptists ductile men where they like as well as intractable where they dislike that they will follow such a Leader as this Promise and Duty of accepting and re-engaging aggravateth the sin of Rebels that reject it but if these performed
right to inheritances and of being real subjects under obligations to future duties if they survive And this shews that they are also capable of being Church-members and that nature revealeth to us that the Infants case much followeth the case of the Parents especially in benefits 3. Nature hath actually taught most people on earth so far as I can learn to repute their Infants in the same Religious society with themselves as well as in the same civil society 4. Vnder the Covenant of works commonly so called or the perfect rigorous law that God made with man in his pure nature the Infants should have been in the Church and a people holy to God if the Parents had so continued themselves And consider 1. That holiness and righteousness were then the same things as now and that in the establishing of the way of propagation God was no more obliged to order it so that the children of righteous Parents should have been born with all the perfections of their Parents and enjoyed the same priviledges than he was obliged in making the Covenant of Grace to grant that Infants should be of the same society with their Parents and have the immunities of that society 2. We have no reason when the design of redemption is the magnifying of love and grace to think that love and grace are so much less under the Gospel to the members of Christ than under the Law to the members or seed of Adam as that then all the seed should have partaked with the same blessings with the righteous Parents and now they shall all be turned out of the society whereof the Parents were members 5. God gives us himself the reasons of his gracious dealing with the children of the just from his gracious nature proclaiming even pardoning mercy to slow thence Exod. 34. and in the second Commandment 6. God doth yet shew us that in many great and weighty respects he dealeth well or ill with children for their Parents sakes as many Texts of Scripture shew and I have lately proved at large in one of our private disputes that the sins of nearer parents are imputed as part of our original or natural guilt So much of that Reply Mr. T. saith nothing to all that I think the Reader needeth a reply to SECT LVIII R. B. YEt before I cite any more particular Texts I will add this one argument from the tenour of the Covenant of grace as expressed in many Texts of Scripture According to the tenour of the Covenant of grace God will not refuse to be their God and take them for his people that are in a natural or law sense willing to be his people and to take him for their God But the Infants of believing Parents are thus willing Ergo. The Major is unquestionable The Minor is proved from the very law of nature before expressed Infants cannot be actually willing themselves in natural sense Ergo the reason and will of another must be theirs in law sense and that is of the Parents who have the full dispose of them and are warranted by the law of nature to choose for them for their good till they come to use of reason themselves The Parents therefore by the light and law of nature choosing the better part for their children and offering and devoting them to God by the obligation of his own natural law he cannot in consistency with the free grace revealed in the Gospel refuse those that are so offered And those that thus come to him in the way that nature it self prescribeth he will in no wise cast out Joh. And he will be offended with those that would keep them from him that are offered by those that have the power to do it though they cannot offer themselves For legally this act is taken for their own Thus I have shewed you some of the fundamental title that Infants of Believers have to Church-membership and our obligation to dedicate them to God Reply Mr. T. saith that some acts of the Parents are legally taken for the childs is not denied But here he denieth it and I leave his denial with my copious proof in my Treatise of Infant-baptism to the Readers SECT LIX R. B. YOu must now in reason expect that infants Church-membership being thus established partly in the law of nature and partly in the fundamental promise what is after this spoken of it should not be any new establishment but confirmations and intimations of what was before done rather giving us the proof that such a law and promise there is that did so establish it than being such first establishing laws or promises themselves And from hence I may well add this further argument If there be certain proof in Scripture of Infants Church-membership but none except this before alledged that makes any mention of the beginning of it but all speaking of it as no new thing then we have great reason upon the forementioned evidence to assign this beginning which from Gen. 3. we have exprest But the former is true ergo the later You confess that Infants were Church-members once You only conceive it began when Abraham was called out of Ur. Your conceit hath not a word to support it in the Text. The right to such a blessing was then new to Abrahams seed when Abraham first believed But when it began to belong to Infants of Believers in general no Text except this before cited doth mention Nor doth that promise to Abraham intimate any inception then as to the Church-membership of Infants but only an application of a priviledge to him that in the general was no new thing Reply To this Mr. T. still affirmeth that Infants Church-membership was proper to the Hebrews only Reader though they had their peculiarities is it credible that the Infants of that one small country only should be so differently dealt with by God from all the world else even Henoch 's Noe 's Sem 's and all from Adam to the end of the world that these Infants only should be Church-members and no others what unlikely things yea against evidence can some believe SECT LX LXI LXII R. B. NOW for the Texts that further intimate such a foregoing establishment 1. There seems to be some believing intimation of this in Adams naming his wife the mother of the living For it is to be noted what Bishop Usher saith Annal. vol. 1. p. 2. Unde tum primum post semen promissum mulieri Evae nomen a marito est impositum Gen. 3.20 quod mater esset omnium viventium non naturalem tantum vitam sed illud quoque quod est per fidem in semen ipsius Messiam promissum quomodo post eam Sara fidelium mater est habita 1 Pet. 3.6 Gal. 4.31 He put this name on her after the promise because she was to be the mother of all the living not only that live the life of nature but that which is by faith in the Messiah her seed So that as she was