of the Parents had not been a Beleever and so by his being a believer sanctified his unbeleeving Wife their children must have been Bastards whereas wee know their children had been legitimate being born in lawfull Wedlocke though neither of the Parents had been a beleever Marriage being a second Table duty is lawfull though not sanctified to Pagans as well as to Christians and the legitimation or illegitimation of the issue depends not upon the Faith but upon the marriage of the Parents let the marriage be lawfull and the issue is legitimate whether one or both or neither of the Parents be beleevers or infidels take but away lawfull marriage betwixt the Man and the Woman and the issue is legitimate whether one or both or neither of the Parents are beleevers or infidels withall if the children of Heathens be Bastards and the marriage of Heathens no marriage then there is no adultery among heathens and so the seventh Commandement is altogether in vaine in the words of it as to them Besides St. Pauls reason had no strength in it supposing the Text were to be interpreted as these men would have it Their doubt say they was that their marriage was an unlawfull wedlocke and so consequently their children Bastards now mark what kind of answer they make the Apostle give Were yee not lawfull man and wife your children were Bastards but because the unbeleeving wife is sanctified in the husband c. because your marriage is a lawfull marriage your children are legitimate What strength of reason is in this if this had been their doubt or question whether their marriage were not a nullity the Apostle by his Apostolick authority might have definitively answered without giving a reason your marriage is good and your children legitimate but if Paul will go about to satisfie them by reason and prove them to be mistaken it behoved him to give such a reason which should have some weight in it but this hath none set their doubt as these men frame it and the Apostles answer as these men interpret him together and you will easily see the invalidity of it We doubt say the Corinthians we are not lawfull man and wife and that therefore our children are bastards No saith Paul you are mistaken and I prove it thus Were ye not lawfull man and wife your children were bastards but because ye are lawfull man and wife your children are not bastards Is there any Argument or proofe in this Fourthly according to this their interpretation the Apostles answer could no wayes have reached to the quieting of their consciences there doubt was whether according to the example in Ezra they were not to put away their wives and children as not belonging to God as being a Seed whom God would not own among his people now what kind of quiet would this have given them to tell them that their children were not Bastards We know the Jewes did not put away their Bastards as not belonging to the Covenant of God Phares and Zarah and Jepthah and innumerable others though bastards were circumcised and not cut off from the people of God And whereas some object out of Deut. 23.2 That Bastards did not belong to the Covenant among the Jews because God there forbad a bastard to come into the Congregation of the Lord I Answer that is meant onely of bearing Office in the Church or some such like thing and not of being under the Covenant belonging to the Church as is manifest not only by what hath been now said of Jepthah and others who were circumcised and offered Sacrifices and drew nigh to God as well as any other but the very text alledged gives sufficient light that it cannot be meant otherwayes because in that place who ever is an Eunuch or wounded in his stones hath the same exclusion from the Congregation of the Lord and I hope no man will dare to say that none such are holy to the Lord if they should the Scripture is full enough against them That putting away in Ezra was of an higher nature then bare illegitimation and therefore it behooved the Apostle to give another manner of satisfaction to there doubtfull consciences then to tell them their children were not bastards Therefore I conclude that this holinesse being the fruits of one of the Parents being a beleever must be meant of some kind of holinesse which is not common to the seed of them whose Parents are both Unbeleevers and that is enough for our purpose Yet there remaines two Objections to bee answered which are made against this our interpretation First The unbeleeving wife is here said to bee sanctified as well as the childe is said to be holy and the Originall word is the same for both one the verb the other the noune if then the childe is holy with a federall holinesse then is also the unbeleeving wife sanctified with a federall sanctification and so the wife although remaining a heathen may be yet counted to belong to the Covenant of Grace I answer Indeed there would be weight in this objection if the Apostle had said the unbeleeving Wife is sanctifyed and no more as hee simply says the children are holy but that he doth not say he saith indeed the unbeleeving wife is sanctified in the beleeving husband or to the beleeving husband that is to his use as all other creatures are as the bed he lies on the meate he eats the cloathes he weares the beast he rides on are sanctifyed to him and so this sanctifyednesse of the wife is not a sanctification of state but only of use and of this use to be sanctifyed to the beleeving husband whereas the holinesse and sanctification that is spoken of the children is a holinesse of state and not only a sanctification to the Parents use That holinesse of the Children is here meant which could not bee unlesse one of the Parents were sanctifyed to the other which is the force of the Apostles arguing the unbeleever is sanctified to the beleever else were not the children holy but unclean but federall holinesse of children may be where the Parents are not sanctifyed one in or to the other as in bastardy Davids childe by Bathsheba Phares and Zarah Judahs children by Thamar the Israelites children by the Concubines Abrahams son Ishmael by Hagar c. in which cases the children were federally holy and accordingly were circumcised and yet the Harlot not sanctifyed in or to the Adulterer or Fornicator though a beleever I answer we must attend the Apostles scope wch is to shew that the children would be unholy if the faith or beleever-ship of one of the Parents could not remove the barre which lies in the other being an unbeleever against the producing of an holy seed because one of them was a Pagan or unbeleever therefore the childe would not be a holy seed unlesse the faith or beleevership of the other Parent could remove this bar Now
this can have no place of an Argument in any case where one of the Parents is not an Infidell but this was not the case among the Jews Hagar and Thamar and the Concubines however sinfull in those acts yet themselves were beleevers belonging to the Covenant of God and that barre lay not against their children as did in the unbeleeving wife indeed if a beleeving man or woman should adulterously beget a childe upon a Pagan a Heathen or Unbeleever there this objection deserves to bee further weighed but here it comes not within the compasse of the Apostles Argument Before I passe from this second conclusion let me further shew you why the Lord will have the children of beleeving Parents reckoned even in their Infancy to belong to him First his own beneplacitum his free grace and favour which moves him to shew mercy to whom he will is a sufficient answer to all But secondly he will have it for his owne glory It is the honour of other Princes that all who are born in their kingdome should be accounted borne their Subjects and the honour of great Masters that the children of their servants born in their houses should be born their servants Solomon counts it a peece of his glory that he had servants born in his house And on the other side it is a dis-honour to a King not to be able legally to lay claime to those born in his kingdome but that another King yea an enemy might legally challenge them to be his Subjects So is it with the Lord he having left all the rest of the world to be visibly the devils kingdome will not for his owne glories sake permit the devill to come and lay visible claime to the sonnes and daughters begotten by those who are the children of the most High And thirdly he doth it both for the comfort and duty of those who are in Covenant with him partly I say for their comfort and priviledge while they may see their children visibly to be provided for by a better Father under a Covenant of Grace to whose care and under whose wing they may leave them when themselves shall faile and partly to be an obligation to bring them up for God not to themselves much lesse to the devill but ever to look upon themselves in the education of their children to be but nursing Fathers and Mothers to train them up in the nurture and feare of the Lord unto whose kingdome family and Covenant they thus belong I have been the larger upon these two first Conclusions because indeed the proving of these gains the whole cause if the Covenant be the same and children belong to it then they are to be owned as Covenanters and to be admitted to the distinguishing or discriminating sign betwixt Gods people and the devils and this the most learned of the Anabaptists doe professe that if they knew a childe to be holy they would baptize it In the other Conclusions I shall be more briefe The Lord hath appointed and ordained a Sacrament or seale of initiation to be administred unto them who enter into Covenant with him Circumcision for the time of that administration which was before Christs incarnation Baptisme since the time of his incarnation both of them the same Sacrament for the spâ—rituall part though differing in the outward Elements both appointed to be distinguishing signes betwixt Gods people and the devils people both of them the way and means of solemne entrance and admission into the Church both of them to be administred but once and none might be received into the Communion of the Church of the Jewes untill they were circumcised nor into the Communion of the Church of the Christians untill they be Baptized none but the circumcised might eat of the Paschall Lamb none may but those who are baptized be admitted to eat the Lords Supper which succeeds in the room of the Passeover and this our Lord himselfe taught us by his own example who was circumcised as a professed Member of the Church of the Jews and when he set up the new Christian Church he would be initiated into it by the Sacrament of Baptisme Of this Conclusion there is no great doubt but because some of the Anabaptists doe deny the Sacrament of Baptisme to succeed in the roome place and use of Circumcision be pleased to observe how plaine the Apostle makes it Coloss. 2.8 9 10 11 12. where the Apostles scope is to disswade the beleeving Christians from the rudiments of the world and Jewish Ceremonies and observations upon this ground that we are compleate in Christ and that in him as in the head the Church hath all perfections and because he would take them wholly off from Circumcision the use wherof ingaged them to the use of the rest of Jewish Ceremonies he tels them that in Christ we are circumcised with a Circumcision made without hands a better Circumcision then the Jewes was in putting off the body of the sinnes of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ And whereas the Jewish teachers would be ready to object that the receiving of the inward grace of Circumcision did not make them so compleate as Abraham and his seed was because they also had an outward sensible signe whereby they might be farther perswaded comforted and confirmed to this he answers ver. 12. That neither is this priviledge wanting to Christians who have as excellent and expresse a Sacrament of it being buried with Christ in Baptisme the effect whereof he there sets downe and therefore they needed not Circumcision as their false Teachers insinuated thereby directly teaching that our Baptisme is in stead of their Circumcision And the Analogy lies betweene two Sacramentall types of the same substance regeneration to both Jews and Gentiles And in truth had not Baptisme come in the roome of it the Apostle could not have pitched upon a worse instance then that of Circumcision which was so much valued by them and was so great and usefull a priviledge unto them Nor had there been any reason to have here named Baptisme but that he meant to shew Baptism to Christians was now in the roome of Circumcision to the Jews That by Gods owne expresse order infants as well as growne men were in the time of the Jewes to be initiated and sealed with the signe of Circumcision Whether Jewes by nature or Proselytes of the Gentiles one Law was for them al if they receive the Covenant they and their children receive Circumcision and although as I touched before this signe was actually applyed onely to the Males yet the females were virtually circumcised in them as is apparent both because the whole Church of the Jewes were called the Circumcision and because by Gods expresse order no uncircumcised person might eate of the Passeover which we are sure the women did as well as the men And whereas some who see which way the strength of this Conclusion bendeth doe
holy that is the Fathers holy accepted in Covenant with God the children beloved for their fathers sake and when the vaile of unbeliefe shall be taken away the children and their posterity shall be taken in againe because beloved for their fathers sakes Now then if our graffing in be answerable to theirs in all or any of these three particulars we and our children are graffed in together Ob. But here is no mention made of our Infants graffing in Answ. We must not teach the Lord to speake but with reverence search out his meaning there is no mention made of casting out the Jewâ—sh Infants neither here nor elsewhere when he speakes of taking away the kingdome of God from them and giving it to the Gentiles who would bring forth fruit no mention of the infants of the one or of the other but the one and the other for these outward dispensations are comprehended in their parents as the branches in the root the infants of the godly in their parents according to the tenor of his mercy the infants of the wicked in their parents according to the tenor of his justice And yet plainer if plainer may be is that speech of the Apostle in 1 Corinth 7.14 The unbeleeving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbeleeving wife is sanctified by the husband else were your children uncleane but now they are holy the plaine scope and meaning whereof is this the beleeving Corinthians among other cases of conscience which they had sent to the Apostle for his resolution of had written this for one whether it were lawfull for them who were converted still to retaine their infidell wives or husbands their doubt seemes to arise from the Law of God which was in force to the Nation of the Jewes God had not onely forbidden such marriages to his people but in Ezra's time they put away not onely their wives but all the children that were borne of them as not belonging to the Common-wealth of Israel and it was done according to the Law and that Law was not a particular Edict which they did agree upon but according to the standing Law of Moses which that word there used signifieth and in Nehemiahs time the children who were borne of such marriages were accounted a Mungrell kind whom Nehemiah cursed Now hereupon these Corinthians doubted whether their children as well as their wives were not to be accounted uncleane and so to be put away according to those examples to which the Apostle answers No they were not to be put away Upon what speciall reason soever that Law was in force to the Jewes beleeving Christians were not in that condition the unbeleeving wife was sanctified in the beleeving husband quoad hoc so farre as to bring forth an holy seed were it with them as when both of them were unbeleevers so that neither of them had a prerogative to entitle their children to the Covenant of grace their children would be an uncleane Progeny or were the children to be reckoned in the condition of the worser parent so that the unbeleever could contribute more to Paganisme then the beleever to Christianity it were so likewise but the case is otherwise the beleeving husband hath by Gods ordinance a sanctified use of his unbeleeving wife so as by Gods speciall promise made to beleevers and their seed they were invested in and to the most spirituall end of Marriage the continuance of a holy seed wherein the Church is to be propagated to the worlds end and the case is here in Relation to the posterity for spirituall priviledges as in other marriages for civill priviledges as suppose a Prince or Nobleman marry with a woman of base or meane birth though in generall it be true that the children of those that be base are borne base as well as the children of Nobles are borne Noble yet here the issue hath honour from the Father and is not accounted base by the basenesse of the Mother This I take to be the plaine meaning of the Apostles answer But because the Anabaptists doe very much indeavour to weaken the evidence of this Argument I shall indeavour to cleare it from their exceptions They utterly deny that this place is meant of any Federall holinesse but of legitimation which they call civill holinesse and so interpret the Corinthians doubt to bee whether their marriage with Unbeleevers were not now a nullity and their children thereupon to bee spurious illegitimate or Bastards and the Apostles answer to bee that because the unbeleeving wife is sanctified to the beleeving husband that is their marriage remaines lawfull therefore their children are not spurious but lawfully begotten But that this cannot be the meaning I clearly prove by these foure Arguments First uncleannesse and holinesse when opposed one to the other are never taken for civilly lawfull uncleannesse indeed when opposed to cleannesse may be taken in severall senses an uncleane vessell an uncleane cloath an uncleane garment when opposed to cleane may signifie nothing but dirty or spotted but when uncleannesse is opposed to holinesse it is alwaies taken in a sacred sense referring to a Tabernacle use to a right of admission into or use in the Tabernacle or Temple which were types to us of the visible Church and holinesse is alwaies taken for a separation of persons or things from common to sacred uses Even the meats and drinkes of beleevers sanctified to them serve for a religious end and use even to refresh them who are the Temples of the Holy Ghost so that they have not onely a lawfull but an holy use of their meat and drinke which Unbeleevers have not to whom yet their meat and drinke is civilly lawfull And whereas some say 1 Thess. 4.3 4 5. that chastity a morall vertue found among Heathens is called by the name of Sanctification Let every one possesse his vessell not in the lust of concupisence but in sanctification and honour I Answer Chastity among Heathens is never called Sanctification but among Beleevers it may well bee called so being a part of the new creation a branch of their sanctification wrought by the Spirit of God a part of the inward adorning of the Temple of the holy Ghost So that the meaning cannot be your children are holy that is now they are not Bastards but rather whereas before both you and they were uncleane and might have nothing to doe with the Temple of God now both you and your Children are a holy seed according as was shewed to Peter in his vision where God shewed him that the Gentiles formerly no better then uncleane beasts and creeping things should upon their conversion to Christ bee no longer esteemed common or defiled Secondly this being so had this beene the meaning else were your Children uncleane but now they are holy else had your children been Bastards but now they are legitimate the Apostles answer had not been true because then if one