great pretended Proof is That all the Males of Israel were Circumcised Ans. 1. If you had proved that they were all saved you had said more to the matter 2. To open here the nature of the Iews Covenant of Peculiarity as one select Nation of whom Christ should come as distinct from and as conjunct with the common antecedent Covenant of Grace and to shew the reasons of the Institution of Circumcision of Abraham's peculiar Seed and not for all that from Adam and Noah were under the common Law of Crace would be a work which such a light occasion would not warrant me here to stand upon 3. The sign of Circumcision was but the seal anexed to the Covenant And the meer External Act as Water in Baptism entered them but into the External Church-state 4. Almost all the gross Sinners at least if presumptuous and impenitent were to be put to death by that Law And dead Men beget not Children But I have so largely handled this in my 3d Disp. of Right to Sacraments that while you leave it unanswered I will not repeat it on so slight a Cause § 6. And what if you had proved the Salvation of all wicked Christians Baptized Infants what 's that to our Question which extendeth to all not excepting the Children of profest Atheists Infidels Sadduces or Heathens that have but God-Fathers § 7. But pag. 8 9. you tell us that Infants by reason of their innocent harmless state seem to be Christ's Off-spring and to be a subordinate Root and Bottom to themselves and to stand by their own innocency under Christ and by his Divine Grace Look what Regeneration is to the Adult that in some sort the Infant-state may be to Infants that is All Infants are in a New and Second state by Christ So the word Regeneration doth properly import Pag. 10. Christ alone without Parents Godliness is able to the Salvation of all the Infant World I am not able to prove that bare having of Circumcision and Baptism doth save any nor that the bare want thereof doth bar any from Salvation Ans. 1. But what is this to Conformity Did you think that this was the meaning of the Liturgy that all Infants are saved when it saith All the Baptized 2. It doth not follow that Christ saveth all because he is able to save them 3. I have said so much to prove Original Sin and some participation of Guilt from our Parents Sins and to prove God's Promises to the Faithful and their Seed which are not made to the Infidels and Wicked in two Disputations of Original Sin that I refer you thither for your Answer to this unproved Fiction of the Salvation of all Infants and their Regenerate Innocency 4. Woful experience tells us as soon as they can but speak and go how far their Natures are from an innocent disposition And to be void of holy Dispositions is not to be innocent 5. If they be conceived and born Innocent what need have they of Baptism for Remission of Sin If you say that Christ Regenerateth all as he is the Giver of their Nature the Church hath condemned this in the Pelagians that make Nature as from Christ to be the same with Grace 6. If all be Pardoned all have the Holy Ghost for Baptism giveth right to both But that 's not so § 8. Page 11. Did you satisfie your Conscience in expounding But now are they holy 1 Cor. 14. after what we have said of it to Mr. Tombes Is it Your Children are pure to you as your Meat is § 9. When you ask me Why I say notoriously ungodly You consulted not the credit of your knowledg to tell Men in Print that you know not what Notorious signifieth no not in Notation or common use As if it signified more than ordinary Notorious is that which is certainly openly easily Knowable I have told you of some of my own Parishioners that live in the open opposition to Christianity seeking in their Converse to persuade Men that the Scripture is a Book of Lyes and Christianity a meer Deceit and they will bring their Children to Baptism for Law and Custom-sake and say all the Creed and words required it was in the time when I had leave to admit the Parent to enter his own Child in the Covenant with God We know now abundance of the followers of Hobbes and Spinosa and many that deride Scripture and the hopes of Heaven and the fears of a Hell and think Man is but a subtle sort of Beast Yet these will all have their Children Baptized and to avoid the penalty of the Law will receive the Eucharist And there are others who are common scorners of Serious Religiousness and persecutors of it to their power and hate him that will tell them of the evil of the common Drunkenness and Whoredom which they live in and glory in their Shame We look for better proof than your Wrigling-nothings to make us undoubtedly certain from God's Word that the Baptized Infants of all these are saved The Rubrick meaneth Quia qua Baptized and you mean Because innocent and Christ died for them and all the Unbaptized are saved But as I see none of your proof of the latter so I will not crookedly crawl into Conformity by the fallacious Exposition And you that were in your last Book uncertain your self of what you can now prove certain do so quickly Change and so quickly publish your Change that your judgment hath the less power by any reverence of it to the changing of mine QUEST II. WHether may Unconverted ones within the Church demand and receive the Lord's Supper Mr. Baxter saith flatly they may not Right to Sacram. pag. 140. The Confutation followeth § 1. Ans. I can bethink me but of one of these three Ends of this your Writing 1. Either barely to make a confession of your Faith and Judgment 2. Or to save me from my Error by Conviction 3. Or to save the Readers of my Book from the danger of them 1. If the first be your Work I confess your words I conceive are suitable But Confessions use to be otherwise concisely and orderly formed and no Adversaries names besides Pilate's needed to be put into your Creed 2. If the second or third be your Work you seem to think very contemptible of my Judgment and of every such Readers when you expect that when I have written and they have read full Disputations opening the state of the Question proving what I assert by many Arguments and Scripture vindicating twenty Arguments of Mr. Galespies from all that is answered to them we should after this be convinced that our Cause is wrong by one that neither will be at the labour distinctly to state the Controversy nor to reply to my Answers already given to all his Reasonings and much more nor to answer the many Arguments which I and others urge but saith little more of any moment than I am induced to think thus though I once
Vow falsly But the harder it is for him to know his own Mind the more excusable he is And a false entrance is not a Sin that is unpardonable nor is the Sinner uncurable but may be converted in the Church though he came in unlawfully § 6. While preposterously you tell us who you think hath right to Baptism and the Lord's Supper you pass over the Fundamental Controversie as if you knew it not which is What Baptism and the Lord's Supper are This is it that we are mostly disagreed about End this and end all I suppose you take Baptism to be the first Sacrament and that less is not necessary to the Lord's Supper than to it And I presume to tell you that Christ never ordained nor the Church ever used any other Baptism of the Adult than 1. That which delivered the present Remission of Sin and right to Life to the just receiver of Baptism 2. and that which contained on the part of the Receiver his present profession of saving Faith and Repentance that is his true consent to the Covenant § 7. The Scripture telleth us that Baptism saveth as containing the answer of a good Conscience to God And that as many as are Baptized into Christ have put on Christ and have professed that they are buried with him by Baptism into his Death and raised with him to newness of Life c. § 8. God in great Mercy hath delivered down to us from the Apostles the form of Baptism by a fuller Tradition than the words of the Scripture or any things else of our Religion are delivered All Ages and Churches to this Day have retained the same form as to all the Essential parts The very words of the Baptizer and the Baptized the Credo Abrenuncio c professed full shew that all used this one Baptism which was a professed Vow and Covenanting with God and renouncing of the Flesh the World and the Devil for present delivered pardon and right to Christ and Life See the long List in Gataker against Davenant of the Ancients that took all the Baptized for justified In a word If you make another Species of Baptism which hath lower Conditions and Gifts only than these I am past doubt 1. That you introduce a new sort of Christianity 2. That you hereby would change the very Essence of the Church and wofully corrupt it A worse thing than to impose new Ceremonies 3. That by denying the truth of so universal concurrent Tradition as the form of Baptism hath you will shake Mens Faith by weakning the Credit of that Tradition by which we have received the Bible It being a harder matter to keep all the words of such a Book than the Form of Baptism used on every Christian in the World 4. That you will too grosly reproach all the Christian Churches as if they had in all Ages and Places been ignorant what Christening and Christianity is and had used a false Baptism till of late 5. You will contradict the Church of England which you Conform to and all the Churches now in the World which in their form of Baptizing and their Catechisms and Confessions tell us of no Baptism but what is a present Covenanting with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as consenters to his Covenant giving up our selves to him in the foresaid Relations for present Pardon c. See Dr. Hammona's Pract. Cat. of the Baptismal Vow And is all this fit Work for two or three singular Men To deny the said History is to be grosly Ignorant or Immodest § 9. And now I am ashamed to trouble you and the Reader with the opening of all your Impertinencies and Contradictions of That Man will not be persuaded to consent to the Baptismal Covenant and to be a Christian indeed doth yet sigh and grown and pray for that which he would not have and that the Impenitent must penitently use this means for Penitence and because whosoever will must come and take the Water of Life therefore they that will not take it must take the Sacrament And that the outward Act which is false Vowing themselves to God and saying They consent to the Covenant when they do not is the means of Grace appointed for their Conversion in which they do well and are accepted And that Non-consenters may fly to Christ as a merciful Physician to save Souls and cast themselves at his Feet Repenting Praying and crying for Mercy which they would not have and yet if they come with particular ill intentions away with them Confute what I have written to the contrary if you would convince me or any Man that hath read my Five Disputations QUEST III. WHether a Minister may put from the Sacrament those of his Parish who be Christned People and come to Church and joyn in the Publick Worship and tender themselves to receive being under no sentence of Excommunication You say He may not Ans. § 1. 1. What 's this to the Primitive Churches that were not Parishes Or to the Countries that yet are not settled into Parish Churches Or to such Churches as are but tolerated among Papists Parishes 2. And all that is here mentioned the Papists did for the first ten Years of Queen Elizabeth 3. And remember that we have in our Parishes many that are open Atheists Infidels Sadduces Persecutors Scorners of the Scripture and Religion open boasting impenitent Whore-mongers Blasphemers Drunkards c. and many that openly deny the Ministry and Sacraments and yet to avoid Penalty and for Custom will do all that is here named though they deride it And that all these are to be received though also you suppose that they never so much as professed consent to the Baptismal Covenant you take on you to prove 1. Because it is the Will of Christ. Oh! Brother dread such additions to Christ's Words And how is that proved Why None but Dogs and Swine must be denied holy things Ans. 1. Where found you that None else 2. How prove you that none of these are Dogs or Swine 3. Yea are not all they swinish despisers of Grace who will not be persuaded to consent that God shall be their God and Christ their Saviour and the Holy Ghost their Sanctifier and give up themselves to him in these Relations § 2. Yet Page 30. the Case is this If the People being Christened do make a credible profession of true Christianity or a profession of true Christianity which we cannot prove to be false at least by a violent Presumption we must accept their Profession and admit them Ans. This is mine as cited and the plain truth But 1. Did you think that a credible profession of true Christianity is not a credible profession of Conversion Are not true Christians saved What else are Men to be Converted to 2. Do all such as are afore described make such a credible profession of true Christianity § 3. You tell us that the Standard that Christ hath set is that If now thou be
Equivocate it will embolden the Consciences of Men so far as that few Mens Lives shall have any security but be at the mercy of any Rogues It is a wonder of God's Merciful Providence that false Swearers murder no more than they do But such a Laxity would make our Case far more dangerous V. I that greatly fear lest God's late dreadful Corporation Iudgments Plague Flames Poverty and Divisions are inflicted for Corporation Sins and among those Sins eminently for Perjury am more inclined to call them in Bradford's words at the Stake Repent O England than to encourage them in such Sin and by Printing to persuade them not to repent VI. When we cry out of the Jesuits for stretching Oaths and Testimonies and all words by Equivocations and Mental Reservations to the endangering of Kings and Kingdoms and Mens Lives and Souls it ill beseemeth us to imitate or encourage them or to enable them to say that they stretch words no more than we VII It would be an unexcusable Sin in such a one as I who live not in another Age Land or Place where the Imposers sense could not be known but in the same Age and Place and have had so many Personal Treaties with the Bishops and the Lord Chancellor Hide who were the chief promoters of the Impositions and who know so many of the Parliament and Convocation that made these Forms and have had so great and satisfactory testimony of their Minds and Meanings and their Speeches and Reasons in Parliament upon these subjects and am fully satisfied in my Conscience that you satisfie their meaning It is not the sense of any Bishops that came in since that Act was made nor of any odd Person that is to pass for the Law-makers sense VIII People commonly think that Preachers should be so much more holy than they that if they come but near us they are safe And therefore if we stretch Oaths and Covenants they may do that and such as they count lesser Sins than Perjury and so we may harden them to Damnation IX It is a heinous aggravation of Sin to do it as for God and that we may serve him in the Ministry X. It is a dreadful thing to undertake to justifie thousands whom we never knew as well as the old Parliament Men whom we know and to prove that they ought not to Repent nor to endeavour Church Reformation if it should prove that by a Vow they are bound to such endeavour by lawful means XI I dare not provoke God to desert me in my Ministry yea and in my secret Comforts nor tempt Men to think basely of the Ministers as a Perjured sort of Men who cry down other Mens Sins while they have greater of their own XII It is a dreadful aggravation to do all this not by sudden Surprize but upon Deliberation and to make a Covenant against Duty and for Sin and to say I ought to do it and never to Repent yea and by justifying it to harden multitudes against Repentance Especially if it tend to corrupt the publick state of the Church and Worship For these Reasons I cannot use Violence with imposed Oaths Covenants or Professions but must expound them in the common sense of Men of that Profession till the Law-makers themselves shall declare that they mean otherwise And all this I speak but as the Reasons of our own Practice and not at all to accuse any Conformists Yea I so far excuse them against the Non-conforming Conformist that I do take the chief Men of them whom I have known to mean plainly as they speak I suppose they really Assent and Consent to all things contained and prescribed in the Books and really mean contrary to your stretching Expositions of Infants Salvation of Baptism Communion Burial and the rest And by Dr. Smith's Books and such others I believe they take such Conforming Non-conformists to be as the late Westminster Assembly proved the most dangerous underminers of their Church And when we have Confuted such as you our Work is all to begin again with the serious Conformists who deal plainly and go on other Principles The Second Part. Mr. Cheney's Five Undertakings Considered § 1. DEar Brother you and I have exposed our selves as Publick Warnings to Mankind to take heed of an overvaluing of their own Understandings and of a hasty confidence in their Erroneous Conceptions and of rash obtruding that upon the World as necessary Truth for want of Judgment and Time to digest things which will prove very dangerous Error and if received and practised alas what Mischief may it do Erring Men know not that they Err If I think it is you and you think it is I and a third think it is both the Reader greatly profiteth by us who learneth by our Harms to have a due suspicion of his own Understanding and so it be without unnecessary Scepticism to have humble thoughts of his Conceptions which have not had time and helps convenient to ripen them Especially if your Friend or you be Conscious that you have formerly or lately been as confident in that which you now see was your Error you should think that the same Mind is still in danger of Deceit and it 's as easie to reel into the other Extreme § 2. Oh what cause have we to pray Lead us not into temptation we little know what is in our Hearts or others till just Trial call it up Nor what great hurt even good Men may live to do And if one Error get in to how many worse it may open the Door And if we begin to roul down the Hill how little know we where to stop But though Satan desire to have us that he may sift us I hope Christ's Intercession will keep our Faith from failing But wo and alas that we must one or both which ever is in the wrong be instruments of Mischief against the Interest of our dear Lord and his Truth and Church and Mens Souls whilst both our desires are to live in the World for no other end but to build up that which by Ignorance Self-conceitedness Error and Rashness we are laboriously pulling down § 3. And if it be I that have by Error wronged the Church my Case is made worse by your strengthening my Temptation when instead of convincing Argument you give me little but naked Assertions and saying I conceive and run into such Singularities as all sober Men are bound to suspect and some condemn almost all Christ's Churches without one word of Convincing Proof § 4. That you Answer only in Print to the World the private Talk that I had with you whilst you gave me no Vocal Answer I take but for a small and modal Irregulatity Some Men have Humours and Ways of their own which they will follow Had you done it as judiciously and truly with fear of Erring and Seducing as you did it publickly the rest might be well interpreted But we must take it as it is QUESTION I.