Abrahams spiritual seed but also to unbelivers and to the whole world and this more plainly too and without a vail holding forth salvatorem exhibitum a saviour that hath already offered himself a ransom and salvation by him in common to all Iews and Gentiles bond and free even every creature that puts it not away from him when â—endered to him Mark 16.15.16 1 Iohn 2.2 so that the Gospel is as good now to the full to all men in its administration as it was of old and in many respects far better though no infants at all be baptized and so I have done with this argument and come to the next Disputation That opinion which destroyeth the comfort that the holy ghost administreth over the losse of our children by death is a desperate and ungodly opinion But such is the opinion of the Anabaptists concerning little children Ergo it is desperate and ungodly The minor proved It destroyes the hope that parents can have of the salvation of their children for it makes them in no better condition then Turks and Pagans and so our Respondent himself professed and when the Apostle saith 1 Thess. 4.13 I would not have you sorrow as those without hope the grieved parents might reply what hope can we have of our child who is in no better condition then the children of infidels what comfort can we have from the Covenant made with and the promises to our children c therefore why should we not sorrow as those without hope Our Respondent replyed to this that for ought he knew the children of Turks and Pagans might be all saved and one replyed Perhaps he thought the devils might also which was the end of the argument there being no other answer given nor to be expected Disproof As I replied then so I reply still that for ought I know the children of Turks and Pagans dying in infancy may be all saved yet will it not follow so much as probably that therefore in reallity or in my opinion either the Devils may be saved also which rude return is recorded by your selves to be then given and stands for ever before the world as the end of this your argument and of your Disputation also there being to this assertion of mine viz. for ought I know the children or dying infants of Turks and Pagans may be all saved no other answer given by you in the Dispute nor yet since in your Account nor yet ever to be expected But Sirs as great an Extasie as you seem to be in about this position yet I assure you if I had not learn'd it before yet I have learn't it since from your very selves who so strange at it to be a thing not so strange as true viz. that the dying infants of Turks and Pagans may be all saved and that the dying infants in your Christendom are in no better condition then the dying infants of Turks and Pagans for so I said and not as you here misrelate it then Turks and Pagans themselves for if the dying infants of infidels are in no worse condition then your dying infants then surely yours are in no better condition then they and that they are in no worse condition then yours nothing need hinder you more then me for ought I know from a belief thereof unlesse you will refuse to believe your selves who preach no lesse both to me and all men no further off hence then in the next page and the next save one above for do you not say there that unlesse we will violate Christian charity whose rule is praesumere c. to presume every one to be in a good condition till he appears to be in an evil we must believe and hope all things of the little children of believers since it cannot appear in infancy that they have barred themselves c. and if so why not of the infants of Turks Pagans and infidels specially to speak in your own dialect since it cannot appear that these have any more than the other by any actual sin barred themselves or deserved to be exempted from the general state of little children declared in the Scriptures which is this viz. That of such is the Kingdome of heaven You see then how you teach us this precious piece of truth your selves p. 4.5 therefore I hope you will learn it your selves viz. that we are to hope well of such infants as have not by actual sin barred themselves from Salvation and allow us to teach it too in time though hitherto you seem to be so far from giving way to us to teach the same that when we speak well of infants that have not by actual sin deserved exemption and hope well of their salvation so dying you so wretchedly forget it to be the doctrine your selves deliver that with detestation you protest against it as abominable as if there were as little hope to be had of the salvation of such dying infants as are not born in Christendome as of the salvation of the very devils but your first doctrine shall stand of the two for truth with me from which though you often contradict it your selves I shal not be frighted by your bigg words but still hope as well of one dying infant as another Secondly Risum teneatis amici it is enough I think to set him on smiling who is never so deep in his dumps to see what a most pat and pertinent place of Scripture you have here dragged in to the proof of infant baptism viz. 1 Thes. 4.13 from whence as the wheel barrow goes rumble to rumble so it followes that infants are to be baptised you might as well have said you may find it in the fifteenth of go look it as send us to a text of so little tendency as this is of to your present purpose for what if we are not to mourn over the death of Saints and Godly friends that sleep in Jesus as those that can have no hope of such friends as they see to dy ungâ—dly which is indeed the direct drift of the place will it therefore follow that all those infants that dy without baptism are universally and unavoidably damned yet no less then this is here told by your selves to be your tenet whilst you say our denial of baptism unto them destroies all hope of their salvation But Sirs is it so in earnest in your opinion that no baptism no hope of salvation Then thirdly I have a treble charge to draw up against you 1. of unchristian cruelty 2. Of point blank popery 3. of clear contrariety both to your selves and to those very authors you refer us to to read and learn by and also to the very professed doctrine of the church of England whereof you profeâ—s to be the Ministers First I must cry out oh the Vnchristian cruelty that is hatched in your hearts and here expressed not onely to these thousands of infants even of Christians that happen to dy unbaptized at least to whom baptism
is at this day denyed to be dispensed but specially to that numberless number of infants of Turks Pagans and infidels to whom in infancy your own Doctrine denies baptism as well as ours and consequently if your own bloody tenet of no baptism no salvation to dying inâ—ants were true all hope of their salvation T is your common course to clamor and cry out against us as having no christian charitie as being most inveterate and cruel enemies to infants only for denying the baptism of those few to whom you dispense it as well as those Myriads of little ones to whom your selves deny it together with us but I appeal to all people who are not already so perfectly prejudiced against us by your prating as to stand resolved to believe nothing but your blind dictates to judge between us whether we are so cruelly opinioned towards infants who barely deny them baptism believing the salvation notwithstanding of all that dy in infancy without it or your selves rather who deny that dispensation to all infidels infants which are twenty to one in the world and yet hold that dispensation so necessary to salvation that there is no hope of other then damnation to whomsoever it is denyed whereas in confutation of you out of your own mouths if your own sense of Mat. 18.14 be true where you contend to have the word little ones taken literally for infants Christ himself saies there that it is not the will of my Father that so much as one of these little ones should pâ—rish Secondly oh the palpable papistry which is here openly professed by you who yet would seem to protest against every inch of it for it is one of the grossest pieces of popery to hold no salvation to infants without baptism and one great controversie between them and protestants yet you give the cause thus far as to grant it to be necessary and effectual to salvation of infants whether ex opere operato or no as you are silent in it here so pray tell us another time that there need be neither doubt nor fear of such dying infants damnation to whom it s dispensed and can be no hope of the salvation of such as dy without it or at least to whom doctrinally it is denied Thirdly oh the wretched contradiction that is here given 1. To your selves who say above p. 5. that it is breach of Christian charity to presume otherwise then well of such little infants of whom it cannot appear that by any actuall sin they have barred themselves or deserved exemption from salvation and such are all infants in infancy whether baptized or unbaptized whether of Christians or heathens and yet here you say there is no hope of the dying infants of infidels and in case we deny baptism to them as little hope of the salvation of such dying infants as are born of Christian parents also Hay-Ho I dare say the dog is not good Mutton if this be not uniform Divinity Secondly not only to other writers on this subject as Mr. Cotton who p. 85. of his book called The way of the Churches in new-New-England saith one may remain a member of the invisible Church of the first born when yet he hath neither part nor portion nor fellowship in the particular flock and visible Church of Christ Iesus which shewes to the confutation of you and Mr. Baxter also who pins the salvation of infants so much upon their Churchmembership and baptism that infants may be supposed to be out of the Visible Church and yet be hoped to be in a state of salvation also I say not only to other writers but to the writers your selves will us to peruse viz. Calvin and Vrsin For first Vrsins Catechism as insufficient as it is to prove infant baptism furnishes us with enough wherewith to confute this unsavory stuff you have here recorded viz. the hopelesness of the salvation of such infants to whom baptism is denyed whose words are these viz. The want of the sacrament doth not damn persons that dy without it if those persons do not contemn it and whether infants in infancy can possibly be said to contemn it though their parents permit them to dy without it needs no great explanation again Christ doth not ere the more deny salvation to whom baptism is denyed Secondly Calvins institutions confesses at large that baptism is not so necessary to salvation as you seem to make it his words are these Li. 4. c. 15. S. 20. What mischief that opinion brings viz that baptism is necessary to salvation few consider and therefore they take the less heed in asserting it for where that opinon grows on once that they are all damned that dye unbaptized our conditiis worse then that of the Iews for hereby Christ may be thought to come not to fulfill but to abolish the promises if the promise which then was efficacious of it self to salvation before the eighth day be not now available thereto without the administration of the sign and a little below Sect. 22. he saith thus Infants are not shut out of the kingdom of heaven that dye before baptism therefore there will no small injury be done to the Covenant of God unlesse we rest in that alone as if it were not valid enough of it self when its efficacy depends neither on baptism nor any other matters accessary to it By all this it may be easily perceived not onely who they are that streiten the Grace of God under the Gospel and make it narrower then of old under the law viz. not our selves as you feign but your selves who say denial of baptism to infants destroyes the hope that else might be had of their salvation but also what an individuum vagum your Pamphlet is wandering and swarving clear aside from the stars you direct us to for light and would seem to steer your own course by Thirdly to the doctrine of the Church of England which though it own baptism as a sign and falsely enough as a seal of the Covenant of Grace that may lawfully at least be dispensed to infants yet rejects that tenet however as spurious and popish that makes salvation and damnation depend so much up-the dispensation or denial of it to infants that there 's no hope of the salvation of those infants that dye without it witnesse Rogers his Analysis of the 39. Articles of the Catholick doctrine of the Church of England p. 167.168 we condemn saith he the opinion of the Russeis that there is such a necessity of baptism that all that dye without the same are damned we may see how well the Church of England is serv'd among you whose own ministers swerve from the sense of those Articles she makes them sweare to If you mean that a denial not de facto but de jure i. e. not of baptism it self to infants but of their right to baptism damns them and that doctrinally onely not really they dying without it you might have said
present and I hope you will see the whole out in the end for all will not own so much some perceiving no doubt what a foundation it laies for us to build firmly upon all that in this point we contend for do rather choose to deny this truth that baptism signifies or at least that it resembles a death and resurrection then by owning it be forc't to own the true way of baptism indeed Your Dr. Featley little better then denies both at first p. 70. saying thus As for the representation of the death and resurrection that is not properly the inward grace signified by baptism but the washing the soul in the laver of regeneration and clensing us from our sinnes but I can little lesse then admire that he above all men who quotes the Rubrick with little lesse authority then he doth the bible and hath no question little lesse then an 100 times in his daies taught little children the catachism contained therein should quite forget to learn it himself for there it s set down plainly that the inward and spritual grace signified by the outward sign of baptism is death unto sinne and a new birth unto Righteousnesse and besides he knew that in true regeneration there is a death and resurrection Rantist However in the manner of baptism as it is administred in the Church of England there is a resemblance of a death and resurrection for though the child be not alwayes dipt in water as the rubrick prescribeth save onely in case of necessitie which would be dangerous in cold weather especiall if the child be weak and sickly yet the minister dippeth his hand in the water and plucketh it out again when he baptizeth the infant and these are the very words of Dr. Featly next following the words you quoted and therefore whether he be right in those or no I am sure he is in these for there is a resemblance of death and resurrection in our baptism Baptist. Whether the Dâ—s mind misgave him or no after he had asserted that a death and resurrection is not the thing signified and that which is to be resembled in baptism I know not but me thinks he speaks as if he feared whether that would hold water or no and therefore least it should be found to leak in the very next words which you now speak in as one supposing it the safest way to grant thaâ— there ought to be a resemblance of a death and resurrection in right baptism he rather goes another way to work viz. to patch up a proof of it that there is a resemblace of a death and resurrection in that administration of it that is used in England but t is in such a way me thinks as may well make all the seers ashamed and Divines confounded specially you that so dote on that Doctor as to give up your selves to be so blindly discipled by him as you do and would have others to do so also that ever such a piece of doctrine should be delivered and yet behold you justifie and side with it by Englands Doctors in Divinity It seems then you dare nor quite gainsay but that a representation of a death and resurrection is fit to be made in the manner of baptizing and that the Church of England hath prescribed that it shall be done in such a manner as may be tanta mount thereto viz. by dipping unlesse of necessity through the infants sicknesse it be done otherwise yet notwithstanding that prescription of the Church which of you priests did ever do any other then sprinkle the healthiest infants but because the subject of your baptism in England being an infant is too tender at all times to be dipt or buried in water where not that your false subject of necessity ingages you to forgo the true way of baptizing which your selves prescribe unlesse necessity forbid it because I say the child cannot conveniently be buried with Christ in baptism into death in his own person therefore ecce signum this visible death burial and resurrection with Christ must be all transacted for him per alium i. e. by the ministers hand that is dipped into water and brought out again as it were instead of the child And this is even very suitable to all the rest for all the rest of your service in the point of baptism is done by representatives as little as it represents what is mainly to be represented by it and one part would mock the other if this should not be done so too t is true all is done in the childs name and in the childs stead but nothing done that of right ought to be done either by or to the child himself The infant indeed is askt dost thou believe in God dost thou forsake the divel wilt thou be baptized c but others must answer and promise and professe assent to and vow all these for him others mouthes must speak his mind and there 's the profession again he is spoken to by the minister saying to him I baptize thee i e. dip or bury thee with Christ in baptism into death for so t is in a little plainer English and true sense and intent of the service but alas it s nothing but the ministers hand that is dipt buried raised again with the drips that hang upon which the infant is onely rantized and there is the resemblance of the death burial and resurrection but I trust Sirs you will understand at last that when Paul saies to the Romans and Colossians that they were buried and raised in baptism he doth not mean that the dispensers hands but that their bodies were put under water and brought out again in respect of which they were said to be buried into death and are raised again i. e. not spiritually onely and really in respect of the soules dying to sinne and living to righteousnesse but outwardly visibly bodily in water also and this significatively and representatively of the other and this is my third argument for total dipping Rantist Significatively I grant if you will but not representatively I know no necessity that in every sign there is to be a resemblance of the thing signified thereby Baptist. If that be granted you will not easily withstand the other yet that is granted by the most and must be granted by all whether they will or no as for Mr. Cook and Mr. Blake themselves they neither of them seem to me to deny but that such a thing as a death and resurrection are signified in baptism yea Mr. Cook affirms it yea who questions saith he p. 19. but our justification and sanctification or remission of sins together with mortification and vivification are signified by baptism and he saies right for none can and I think none doth deny it but Dr. Featley of all Divines that I know of yea Calvin and Zanchee both assert it in their several expositions upon these very places Rom. 6.4 Coloss. 2.12 This participation in death saith Calvin is principally to be
dominions the same for they rule but over all and you over no more then you can subject the subject matter of your churches the same viz. whole England whole Scotland whole Common-wealths the whole world at once if it would as Catholikely submit to your directory as it did once to the Popes in point of worships and payments at least whether godly in their conversations or no your parish form the same your Ministry a Ministry by the same orders and mostly of the same men new moulded not so much in mind and manners as in manner of ministration according to the laws for alteration in a word your whole Hierarchy though new suited so far the same that you are no lesse Cozen Germane to them then they two are one unto another why may it not I say be proportionably reproved notwithstanding a number of honest and godly men among those that are not more numberlesse then so godlesse that they may well say of themselves Nos numeri sumus fruges consumere nati 5. Specially since the best men are by so much unworthy to be justifyed favored in the false form they are found in by how much in some respects they do more wrong to the truth then the very worst that are in that wrong way with them For though the wicked Ministers are the worst both to themselves and to all others otherwise whether Popes Prelates Presbyters or Popish Priests of of any kind yet herein the best are worst and even more injurious then any viz. as they are greater stumbling blocks to some and by standing still in a superstitious way stand more in the way of such as living more at a venture by their example in all things then the word would else escape it then prophane ones are capable to do thus pious Priests that are adored as Popes in their several parishes more dazzle their peoples eyes from discovering the whole mystery both of iniquity and godlynesse then dissolute rude proud paultry ones possibly can when once the Gospel comes among them yea Pope Caelestinus Pope Clemens Pope Innocentius Pope Pius Pope Formosus Pope Vrbanus do more captivate their cures to continuance in crooked customes then either Leo or Helbrandus When men in a false Ministry are any better then ordinary in their persons though never so Antichristian in their performances yet how many are hardened to the heeding of these as Christian enough for their sakes but when they are not onely traditionary in their services but impious and impenitent in their lives this renders not onely their deformation more discernable but also reformation more desirable then else it would be so as corruptio optimi est pessima the pervertures of good men are most prejuditious if not pernitious to the truth ex malis moribus bonae nascuntur leges the parish Ministers immodest manners makes modest men look out for some better lawes and Gospel There 's one thing more I know you will charge me with for you Ashford Disputants did once before thousands when there was seemingly lesse occasion then now viz. that I am too sharp and Satyrical that I rail at and revile you in stiling you an Adulterous generation Antichristian Hereticall Schismaticall To which I say first that though some of you would have muzzled me up then by an Article from that which you call reviling least happily I should have unmaskt you too much yet in your sense that Article shall not bind me at this time with your leave for you call that reviling that is not so would you set your selves soberly once to reason things out i. e. to discern them properly as they are you would find that no man is reviled that is seasonably and soberly declared and denominated to be but what he is for be the titles we note men by never so grosse yet are they but their proper names if in all things suitable to the subject hence though I can excuse your ignorance in terming me Anabaptist for that 's impropriation indeed yet I le more then pardon you print me out how you will so you print me no worse then you prove me and as for me whatever stile I put upon you as I do it in a serious and not lusory way so I make it out to be your due as also what you Presbyters put upon the Prelates and you Prelates upon the Popedome viz. the denomination of Antichristian Strumpet Babylon and such like you make plainly enough appear to be their due and therefore I cannot possibly be said properly to revile you forasmuch as upon the self same Account as you cry out upon each other and use these disgracefull and opprobious termes as you term them towards one another I as justly cry out in the same language against you all unlesse you will yield to it as I know you will not that you are Revilers your selves If what I say of you be indeed more then the truth I le not onely expect your contradiction but accept thankfully your correction of me from the word but if you cannot from thence deny but that I call you what you are then as you will not be guilty of overcharging your selves as well as me you must acquit me from the guilt of reviling for as I lend you no worse language then you lend one another in the like cases so as I plead my innocency in it must you plead your own else can you be held guiltlesse no more then I but we must all be revilers togegether When the Pope challenges the Prelatical party for stiling him the Roman Antichrist and the mystical Whore of Babylon and the Prelates likewise come upon Presbytery for making them as much Babylon as the other for so doth Mr. Rutherford the Scotchman calling the two Governments of Italy and England the Popes and Prelates lawlesse Church Monarchy saying of the Prelate that he could not find his Father and was ashamed of his native Father Diotrephes i. e. the Pope and that the Pope was his Godfather and Rome his Godmother and that Antichristian Prelacy was but spilt Popery half dyed Papistry terming them also children of Babell when also I say you of the Presbytery are challenged by the Bishops and the Prelacy by the Popes for revilers in the words wherein you challenge us and wherein Paul was questioned for his term Thou wâ—ited wall viz revilest thou Gods high Priest you can excuse your selves no otherwise then he did i. e. we wist not that you are Gods high Priests but are assured you are rather what we call you even so if you shall say to my self revilest thou the Ministers of Christ I say Sirs I wist not that you are Ministers of Christ any more then the Pope himself i. e. as much as just nothing for as quod efficit tale must be magis tale vertually at least if not formally so nil dat quod in se non habet so that the Roman Antichrist being no true one
even therefore no true visible Church of God because it Rantizes Infants for that being undoubtedly a stragling from the truth and an undue administration of that ordinance not only as to the form of it but the subject also the name of the true visible Church of God is ipso facto destroyed from it were there no more error in it but barely that if Doctor Featly to whom you send us in your Review define the true Church of God aright for while he saies that meaning that only is a true Church where the word is truly taught and the Sacraments duly administred consequently that is no true Church where baptism is unduely administâ—ed and so it is or rather Rantism instead of it not only at Rome but in England also whilst to Infants therefore as the Church of Rome is but a false Church so the Church of England is no true one I utterly do therefore yea and did then deny that Infant-Baptism is at all practised by the Church of God and yet O full of all fallacy as if your Respondent were agreed with you in 't that the true Church of God did baptize Infants how finely have you foisted in this Epithite to the baptism of little children viz. practised by the Church of God and that in this very Account you give of our agreement about the very form and terms of the question that was yet to be disputed between us Report Thirdly That the Arguments used in the disputation should be only express Scriptures or arguments of necessary consequence from them All Authorities of Fathers and Churches laid aside though the practise of the Church was pleaded for yet would not be yielded to Reply 1. I agree with you that the Arguments should indeed have been such only by agreement but that one of those you then used or any of these few material ones for the immateriall being of no account with your selves you Account not for which you here expose to be perused is grounded upon express Scripture or any good consequence therefrom I deny as will I hope be manifested in my ensuing Re-review of them and Review of your Review it self Secondly if by Fathers whose authority you hang so much on you mean those that were some hundreds of years after Christ and were canonized more lately for such as Father Origen Father Chrysostome Father Ierom Father Cyprian Father Austin and the other objects of the Clergies Dotage and if by Churches you mean those that were in the ages when and places where these Fathers lived or any other since the primitive times which were the purest it is but a follie to stand arguing from them whose words and waies are no more the rule of truth to us then ours are to be to them that succeed us for verily they might and did speak sometimes not according to the word and then they were as Heterodox as others and our selves are in as good possibilities as they to speak according to the word and then we are as Orthodox and Authentick to the full as themselves I did therefore utterly disown all authority of these Fathers and Churches for I knew none they had to be a Standard to after ages yet though I counterpleaded your Plea from their practise it was not least your cause should be advantaged thereby for even the Testimonie of those Fathers is against you but because as they were subjected to the word so were they as subject to error as our selves but if by Fathers you mean the Primitive Prophets and Apostles to whom all your Fore-fathers are but Children viz. Father Peter Father Paul Father Iames Father Iude Father Iohn whose Doctrine was the foundation to the Churches and by Churches those that were then built upon their doctrine as that of Ephesus Corinth Philippi Rome c. before the falling off from the truth the Authority of these Fathers and practise of these Churches is pleaded for as seriously by us as the other superstitiously by your selves Report Fourthly Here you tell us t was propounded That the form of the Disputation should be Syllogisticall which I after many reasons alledged by you the Ministers to inforce the same at last yielded to Reply A very fit phrase for it for 't was inforced by you indeed yet more by strength of resolution than reason that 't was yielded to by my self is as true yet I must profess it was because the Disposition of your wills did put me 〈◊〉 as we say to Hobsons Choise for I saw you so desirous to draw your necks out of the coller and to make any thing an excuse to break off the Discourse that I must choose either that way or none and therefore rather than the work of that day should â—all as it must have done altogether else for you to the total failing of the expectation and hindering the edification of the people I could not but give way to your desires Nevertheless your many reasons which were but two and those as reasonless too as if you had said nothing were counter-mand with as many more and those also of so much weight that because you began to feel them sit heavy upon your Scholastick skirts you would have obstructed my delivery of them to the people for what great matters did you alledge whereby at that time and place to prove the expediency of such a form First that 't was given out as my desire to them is it never may be again by them of our party that I was a Scholar and durst meet with Scholars in discourse and therefore seeing I now was before Scholars it was expected that I should dispute in the way that 's most usual among them Secondly That the way of Dispute by Syllogisms for which some of you had little need to dispute considering their illogicall and un-syllogisticall doings that day wherein they were all-to-be-puzzled in their matter by fumbling so much about that form was the clearest and most compendious to the proving of things and the preventing of extrravagancies and disorder much what in such a manner did you utter your selves in order to inforcing your Proposition to which the reply was to this purpose Namely First that though I had been in the Vniversity and a Graduate there yet I pretended to no great Scholarship yea that I was a Dunce and a fool which very terms and no other I repeated again in my Position and was contented to be counted for no other as to that kind of learning of much of which I was willingly forgetful that I might know more of Christ and the plainness of his Gospel Secondly that I came not thither to dispute nor did I the Lord is my witness in that formal way you stood upon but in plainness to give an account before all to as many as should ask it according to my ability and what liberty you should allot me thereunto which yet was well nigh none at all of the way you call Heresie after which I and many others
did worship Thirdly that these Syllogisticall wayes of arguing and the foolish feigned forms of the Scribes and Disputers of this world which men might dispute in about the things of Nature and the world were utterly unsuitable to the seriousness of the things of Christ and the Gospel which were most effectually delievered for so Paul chose to hold them out in all plainness of speech and most commonly hid from people by the Logicall terms and Methods of mans invention and that the wise and prudent men after the flesh Doctors Schoolmen and Casuists had clouded the truth from the world for ages and generations togeâ—her by these their artificiall composures Fourthly that Christ and his Apostles the most of which were unlearned and ignorant men though they were scarce ever out of disputes about the Gospell did yet never dispute by the way of Syllogisms Fifthly That this way was fitter for the Schooles and very unfit for that Auditory where the people for whose sake we were chiefly come together to discourse knew not what belonged to mood and figure Sixthly that we our selves were now countrified by our long non-residence in the Vniversity and so might very well be to seek on a sudden and so I found some of you were to Syllogize so handsomely as we should do these were the heads though 't is like not the very words and order of that which with mighty much a do I had leave to return to your proposall Notwithstanding all which you standing still so stifly to have either your own way or none I said I would not decline it and so it was agreed to proceed in 't Howbeit give me leave to tell you now as then I did not sith you deem it such a wise way of Disputation to keep to the Rules of the Academies that for men of gravity in conference of matters of such eternall concernment it 's a most Pedantick toyish and boyish peece of business to stand fabling about moods and figures which are but the A. B. C. or first rudiments to a Scholar and as inferiour to judicious discourse indeed as spelling with the finger is to reading in full perfection and that which is as fit for a wise man to forget as it is for a fresh man to remember besides it 's the next way round about to the discerning the whole of any matter for all you then said for your way in Syllogisms which in substance was no more than this viz. That infants have the Spirit faith holiness many commendations in Scripture are such of whom to doubt their having the spirit is a breach of Christian charity whom to deny baptism to makes the Covenant of the Gospel worse than that under the law destroyes all the hope that parents can have of their salvation crosses the practise of the universall Church which one would think you should be ashamed to make a book of might have been expos'd to the consideration of your Respondent in much less than half the half quarter and given out plainly enough in a few positions for him to have replied to with your leave and silence but time was so spin'd out by your long productions and his Repetitions of your Syllogisms that there was but a very long-little in comparison of what else might have been delivered and Sirs I assure you of this one thing I beseech you to lay it to heart in time the generation of you Disputers is rejected by the Lord and a sort of plain English men raised up who notwithstanding the curiosity of your cudgel-play and those fine forms of your Fencing-schools whereby you shield your selves from the truth will by their upright down-right dealings with you and the word be impowered to beat your cudgels to your heads and though you seek to lap up the nakednes of your waies from the sight of the people for a time in a pair of Logick breeches yet these are wearing out a pace so that you shall see within a while what now you will not that all your Syllogisticall forms will not secure your Sylli-popicall matters Report Fifthly you tell us 't was agreed that I should be respondent which though there was little reason for in regard I invaded the practise of the Church whereof you the Ministers were Defendants and ought to have shewed upon what grounds I did it the confuting of which would havt tended more to the satisfaction of the Auditory was by you the Ministers yielded to at my importunity Reply O yes all manner of persons that were at the Disputation at Ashford give attendance here 's as pretty a prank as you shall likely see plaid by any save a Classis of Clergy-men and among them you may likely see the like again viz. a tale told transversim a thing storied out Archipodialitèr or with heels upwards and you of the Clergy that were there you specially that fingred out this Article heed what I say That I who invaded the practise of the Church for so I did not of God but of Rome England Scotland France and Ireland c. in the point of Infant-sprinkling wherein they are all Romishly devoted should come before 1000s of people before you Mis-ministers also professing my desires and the very end of my being there to be no other then because I was counted an Heretick for denying Infant-sprinkling to give account or to speak in yâ—ur own Terms to shew upon what grounds I did it moving urging earnestly claiming by the very University orders which your selves stood strictly to tye me to that I might have two hours or if not so but one or if not so but half a one wherein to lay down upon what grounds I denied Infant-spriâ—kling that you the Ministers Defendants of that way of yours might confute those grounds of mine if you could as that which would have tended more in my mind as well as yours to the satisfaction of the Auditors then any thing else for even all this I did that day at Ashford and that you the Ministers should be utterly against my giving this account and shewing my grounds which I would so fain have shewen rather then heard yours for no less then this do you confess your selves saying page 2. that before the Dispute I moved to make a position and page 10. that after the Dispute I made a motion that you would hear me preach that is give account or shâ—w the grounds of my dissent for so I spake leaving you a liberty to take your exceptions when I had done and that your selves onely concluded it un-necessary yea oppos'd it and made three or four frivilous pretences against it for even this also you confess your selves page 2. page 10. That you I say the same Ministers that did thus ponere obicem by your own confession should yet in the same paper write thus Namely that I ought to have shew'd upon what grounds I denied your practise that you might have confuted them to the satisfaction of the people
saie of this evil and adulterous generation that they maintained it against me but themselves for whether they do or do it not they cannot hurt me thereby but if they do it the worst will be their own for as they of old that rejected the true Baptism for none Luke 7.30 did reject the councel of God against themselves so do they that reject it for a false one as to the terms of evil and adulterous generation concerning which you first charge me and then acquitted me as not intending them to you I meant them then in verie deed of this Age wherein we live yet so long as you go a whoring from God after waies of mens tradition and teach people to do so as you do I see not how I could have been truly said to revile had I used them directly to your selves Report Thirdly that though I had once been of that opinion and a Minister of the Church and received orders from it yet now I was of another and did renounce both the Church and her orders to which say you 't was answered that it was no marvell that I that had forsaken the Church should afterwards revile and despise her and that God having suffered me to fall into so gross an error as to deny and renounce my first baptism did in his just judgement suffer me to fall further and further Heresie being like a Precipice where after a man hath begun his run he cannot stay till he come to the bottom Reply I was once of that opinion indeed and practise too together with your selves and had not a little zeal thereof though not according to knowledge when I acted in your false function by implicit faith and made the Directories Canons Catechisms Creeds of the Clergies compiling my Rule as many more did besides my self not comparing them so singly as I should have done with that true Directory of the word but I have since seen good occasion to recant it as you will undoubtedly do also first or last and O that it may be yet in time to your peace notwithstanding your now forwardness to uphold it I was also in your sence once a Minister of the Church but since going about to look for that Ministry of the Church and for that Church whereof I thought my selfe a Minister from thenceforth I could never find either t'one or t'other As for your Church of England I confess I received twice her holy orders viz. once from the Bishops in the daies of their Dominion by whom I was ordained a Deacon i. e. in Scripture-sence to look toth'poor but in their sence half a Priest for in that capacity we might sprinkle if allow'd and give the wine to people also in the Supper but not by any means the bread unless very specially licensed thereunto till we should come into the full order of Priest-hood for so ran the phrase in the old English horn-book which as to that part was stiled The book of the Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons once also by the Presbyters so called since the time of their Parricid or cutting the throats of their fathers the Bishops that gave the being of Priesthood to them and inducting themselves to reign in their stead as the Bishops themselves had dealt not long before with their old father the Pope who gave the being of Priesthood to them both from whom not as a Priest-hood but a true Presbytery as they say I was in orders to practise their refined Popery more perfectly which I might do before but by the halves but now I know not where this Church of England is if you speak of a true Church of Christ unless you can prove things to have their true being without either their true matter or true form for as the subject matter whereof it consists is false being not baptized believers so the form into which the Pope cast it some 600 years since in to which also the Prelate and Presbyter have new cast it being and that subpaena too National Provinciall Parochiall is utterly false and her fellowship as good as none at all because not free but forced and as for the true Ministry thereof I know not where it is neither if that onely be a true one as you were wont to say it is that can derive it self by a line from the very Apostles neither can you make good your interrupted succession from them unless the Pope from whom your Series comes was even then a true Minister of Christ when he was also an Antichristian Deceiver and unless Apostacy and Apostolicy can so stand together as that Rome was even then an Apostolick Church when 't was palpably apparent to be an Harlot neither if I could tell where can I tell very well which is the Ministry of your Church of England there are so many Ministries in it now namely Prelaticall High-Presbyterian Presbyterian-Independent each of which lay claim to that title but being both themselves and their adherents for such different forms of government cannot all three be the Ministry of one Church unless your Church of England that was of old so full of uniformity is now become capable of tri-formety in its discipline and Ministry and yet to be intirely but one Ministry and Church of England still which if it be it s a tr-iform monster then indeed As to your answer to this third head I wish you to weigh how rawly you utter your selves whilst just after your selves had clear'd me from the guilt of Reviling and before I had us'd any new terms that could have the least savor of reviling you return to charge me of it again but no marvel when every round reprover and renouncer of your Romishness is as much a reviler with you as your selves are at Rome for renouncing that grosser Popery that 's there Howbeit in truth he reviles your Church no more that calls it a very Harlot if it be so then your selves revile Rome in calling her a Harlot because she is so you hint at my renouncing my first baptism can a man renounce that he never had for what was dispenc't when I was a child as t is no signe to me now for I remember not that I ever saw it so I learn by the hear-say of it that it was not baptism at all as for this last which is also the first baptism that ever was administred to me I see no cause to renounce it as yet nor yet I am well assured ever shall As for heresie or believing and doing besides the word t is a Precipice indeed where after men have begun their run unless the Lord mercifully prevent them as he hath done me and many more of late and I desire may your selves in due time who are all gone astray from primitive truth after the doctrines and commandements of men they cannot well stay till they come to the bottom even the bottomless pit it self into which that Arch-Heretitk the Pope who open'd it
as if we feared to answer you so positively whether those things viz. Infants Iustification without faith and their freedome from that which not so much in Scripture language as by an Epithite of mens own coining is called originall sin be heresie or no I answer no as to the first though Iustification of Infants by works is the Heresie of a Romish Clergy whether by works we mean the work of faith Ioh. 6.29 or any other yet Iustification of Infants without that work of faith or any other work either of their parents or their own is the truth as it is in Iesus and such sound Doctrine as notwithstanding your outcries of gross popery and I know not what upon it you will never with right reason refute while you breath as for the other of those things viz. infants not having originall sin two questions may be askt concerning this viz. whether they have it secondly whether they ever had it if you ask whether they ever had any I answer that as to hold dying infants to be damned unless they believe which is your doctrine is as to the poor little ones at least that cannot believe somewhat too damnable a Heresie so to say that infants never had the sin of Adam so much as imputed to them how farr forth it may possibly be to a person in whom yet is no inherent corruption is seen in Christ who had the imputation of sin to him though none in him is for ought I have ever found yet to the contrarie nor a truth but if your quere be whether infants have any guilt as from Adams sin abiding on them after birth I reply that as in order of nature Infants must stand guilty by the first Adams sin before they can be said to be justified by the righteousness of the second so in order of time I believe them universally to be no sooner guilty as from Adam then clear'd by Christ which Tenet he that tryes it will find it I perswade my self so farre from meriting to be cried out on for Heresie as it is at random by the Clergy that it rather comes as nigh to truth as 4 pence to a groat but such a Bug-bear makes the Priest of what ere suits not with his wonted imagination that almost all is damnable that differs from him and what ere he meets out of the Kings high-way or sees Sectarizing from the common Rode of his own Cloudy conception and Clericall Cassicall Convocationall Canonicall constitution he draws at it presently as a thief that comes to Rob him commits it to prison and condemns it all to be hang'd for Heresie before he hears it Report You relate that after that none did propound any more questions Reply As if all men had been so astonished at your understanding and answers as they were at Christs that none durst open their mouthes before you any more that day yet some would with the help of Christ have ventured to have told the truth in your presence but to your praise be it spoken as you speak below of your selves you would not let them Report So say you the Congregation was again dismist Reply An argument of your itching after an end and being well nigh betwatled to be gone if the people had not been more forward to quere after truth then the Priest was willing to Answer for all his liberty granted in the seventh Article and his pretended forwardness to resolve page 27. where disswading men from going to seducers you advise them as from God to ask the Priest and if others had not been more free to both then the Preachers were either to Preach or hear As for what follows 't is not so much a model of mis-reports and mis-representations as thus farre of your Account is for the most part as of true reports and representations of some few more of the Ministers mis-apprehensions mis-affections and mis-actions under a colour of acting for the truth Report You say that your Respondent hindred their departure by making an unseasonable motion viz. that they would hear him preach Reply Emphatically even to a scoff that they would hear him preach alià s Sirs give Account in an intire discourse and this too after his offer to hear any of you first if you would but you would not of what he held and why which was the very business he profest to come thither for more then to dispute aliâs to shew upon what grounds he invaded the practise of the Church of England Scotland Rome c. in her infant sprinkling which say you in words in the fifth Article he ought to have done but here in your deeds and denial of it that he ought not Do you think that all save such as have eyes and see not discern not your dawbing your double-dealing and your Egypt-like requiring men to make brick allowing no straw delaâ—ing that 't is our Duty to shew our grounds yet prohibiting our discharge of it pressing people to prove all things yet not abiding they should hear all thâ—ngs tesâ—ing your Respondent that in reason he should have been opponent yet yielding him no opportunity on that day to urge so much as one argument though he offere'd it much less yielding to be responsible to him on the next magnifying preaching as much as any yet withstanding it more then all and making it an unseasonable motion almost at any time save when time comes by course to make mention of it as if any time were unseasonable for that which is strictly to be attended at all times by Christs Ministers both in season and out of season also 2 Tim. 4.1 2. Report This required some time to debate Reply As well it might being a matter of weighty concernment on both hands viz. of consequence too advantagious to truth as well as dangerous to your falshoods besides the more time was taken up in debating against it so much the less time if it fortuned to be cast that way that it must be done would be left to do it in Report The Ministers opposing it Reply And lying in the manger having no mind to hear themselves nor yet that those should who had a mind to it having the key of knowledge the keys and power of that place yet neither abiding there nor abiding that others should abide there to so precious a purpose which is so much to their commendation that men must needs see them to be not like Christs Ministers for if they had they would have rejoiced in Christs being preached whether in pretence or in truth of envy or good will well knowing all should have tended to the furtherance of the Gospel Phil. 1.15 16 17 18 Ob. And if they object that preaching of error will hinder it Ans. I say that publishing whether of error or truth gives that advantage of trying all things which as it is that duty men cannot do unless they hear all so that which they might not do by any means in ages above when the
if you be not sanctified one in to and by the other as lawful man and wife by your union formerly contracted notwithstanding your now disunion in Religion then your children are unclean and this is truth for so the children are in this civil sense if begotten and born out of matrimony whether the parents be believers or no buâ— the other is not truth for whether both or but one or none of the parents believe the infants for that cause alone and without respect to matrimony are in no sense ere the more holy or unclean Thirdly and this will yet appear more plainly if you consider that faith alone in either one or both the parents begetting out of wedlock cannot sanctifie the seed so begotten with this civil holiness here meant no nor with that faederall holiness you plead for nor could it do so even then when that holinesse or birth priviledge you talk of was in force as now it is not viz. in the daies of the law for if two believers came together then out of marriage their seed were not onely base born and so unclean in this our sense but also to the tenth generation uncapable to be admitted into the congregation and so consequently unclean even in your own Deut. 32.2 whereupon how Pharez and Zarah were dealt with it matters not sith they were born before the law was given Ieptha was exempted from any inheritance with his brethren because he was the son of a strange woman Iudg. 11.2 and Davids unclean issue by Bathsheba that in the wisdome of God was taken away by death on the seventh day might not surely without breach of the law have been accounted holy and of the congregation if he had lived beyond the eighth whereupon your selves also are much fumbled about the holinesse of bastards and the baptism of base-begotten babies so that you scarcely know how to behave your selves about it though the parents sinning be believers at least en-churched in your Churches yea it s generally known saith Mr Cotton that our best Divines do not allow the baptism of bastards and though he is pleased to say they allow it not sine sponsoribus without Sureties yet I wonder sith Deut. 32.2 Gods denial of such of old is made the ground of their denial of such now to enter into the Congregation as unholy that our Divines dare take on them to admit cum sponsoribus and so to go besides their own Rule viz. the order of things under the law wherein God gave no such allowance but to let that tolleration pass which they take to themselves you may learn thus much of your selves if you will that though wedlock without faith make a holy seed in our sense yet faith without wedlock in the parents can make a holy seed neither in our sense nor in your own nor any at all for the infants of the married are holy but believers bastards are both civilly and federally unclean inso much that your selves see cause to refuse as federally holy the spurious seed euen of those whose lawfull issue you unlawfully sprinkle Fourthly if you more seriously consider that the holinesse in the Infant here must needs be the fruit and result of that and that must needs be the cause of the holiness here spoken of in the infant quo posito ponitur sanctitas sublato tollitur which being in the parents a holinesse must necessarily be thereupon which not being in the parents a holinesse cannot be in the seed for positâ causà ponitur effectus sublata tollitur abstract the cause and the effect cannot be suppose the cause and the effect cannot but be now that which if it be not in the parents the holiness is not but being in them the holinesse is consequently in the infants 't is not the faith but the conjugal or marriage Relation of the parents for as for the first of these viz. faith it may be in one yea in both of the parents and yet no federal holinesse at all be in the infants witness Ishmael the seed of Abraham the father of the faithful and his Sons by Keturah also born of him after Covenant made with him and his seed in Isaac and Iacob and yet neither of them in that Covenant witnesse the base born children of true believers among the Jews suppose David and Baâ—â—sheba which for all the parents faith could not by the law be admitted in thâ— Congregation nor have that birth-priviledge to be reputed holy which from the parents faith you universally intail to the infants moreover this birth-priviledge and Covenant-holiness by generation which did inright to Church ordinances which once was but now is a non-entity and out of date might be then when it was in being in children in whose parents faith was not found at all for most of the Iews were unbeiievers yet all their legitimate children were holy federally therefore faith in the parent cannot be the cause of such a thing yea if you will believe Mr Blake himself the strictest pleader for a birth-priviledge of federal holiness in Infants that ever I met with and that from this very place he condescends so far as to contribute one contradiction to himself toward the helping of the truth in this case viz. That faith in the parâ—nt is not the cause of this holinesse whilst making the holinesse in this text to be a birth priviledge or Church-Covenant holinesse and to be the fruit and result of the faith of the believing parents and consequently their faith to be the sole and proper cause of the same he confesses flatly elsewhere page 4. that a loose life in the parent and mis-belief which is as bad in some cases worse then unbelief for which is worse to believe false things or not to believe true yea Apostacy from the faith which all if they be not inconsistent with faith I know not what is do not divest nor debar the issue from having that holiness which himself saies is meant in this text Babist Perhaps he means not by faith strictly the parents true believing but in generall his being in the covenant and faederally holy himself and so a cause of this federal holiness in the issue Baptist. First Paul means true believing here in 1 Cor. 7.14 whether Mr Blake do or no. Secondly what will he get as to the point in hand by his Synonamizing faith and faederall holiness for still neither the one nor the other is made here the cause of the holiness of the seed for the holiness here spoken of may be where neither of them is and may not be in the seed even where they are both in the parent as for example in Ezras time Ezra 10 3. we find abundance of the Jews both Priests and people that were in the faith or at least in faederall holiness yet the children were put away as unholy as well faederally as otherwise because their marriage was unlawfull and that bed adulterous wherein they lay with strange
to believe witness not my self only who am of little credit with you but Mr. Cotton also none of the least of your Champions that appear for infant baptism whose very words p. 48.49 of his Way of the Churches in New England these are viz. It is not the seed of faith nor faith it self that knitteth a man to this or that visible Church but an holy profession of the faith and professed subjection to the Gospell of Christ in their communion Be ashamed therefore of such a monstrous position that persons not appearing to believe in Christ can conclude no more against their faith in Christ then against their reasonable souls Determination The seed of faith sown after discovers it self when the season comes Detection Yet so audacious are you that whilest it is but in the seed at most by your own confession as in infancy to attempt a discovery of it to all the world to be in these infants viz. of believers and not in those viz. of infidels before the season Determination The testimony of Scripture concerning their faith and the proofs taken from thence are equivalent to the best testimony and profession of any man concerning his own faith Detection O Sapientia as if the Scripture did as punctually personally and particularly testify concerning this and that individual infant which you sprinkle that it doth believe and those infants that you deny to sprinkle that they do not believe as men at years do to us by their words and works that they do or do not believe Secondly there is but one testimony of Scripture alledged by your selves where you say it s asserted of infants that they do believe viz. Mat. 18.6 and that as I have shewed First speaks not of little ones in your sense but of little ones in Christs sense viz. believes indeed and his disciples whom he stiles little ones also a little above Matth. 10.42 a place where we read not that any infant was among them Secondly that Scripture testifies of those of whomsoever it speaks in actu secundo that they do believe and so to do your selves yield is impossible for infants therefore it cannot be meant of them Thirdly if it did speak of little ones properly so called so as to say they do believe yet that they were believers and not unbelievers infants is a thing which a wise man may fumble himself 55 times over and become a fool before he once find it so to be Fourthly 't were but a Prosopopeia however Determination If it be further askt how faith is bread in them it is answered by the holy spirit whose waies are inscrutable who ties not himself to means works where he will and how quo magistro quam cito discitur quod docet saith Cyprian Detection And yet you scrue so farr into the inscrutable waies of the spirit in this matter as though he works where he will and how both to bind and bar him and to determine both where he doth and must work faith and where he doth not and must not viz. in believers infants not in infants of infidels else why do you refuse to baptize the one upon non-appearance of faith and yet plead for the baptism of the other as in whom it appears to you so clearly that by argument you say you make it more plainly appear to any one that will not deny Scripture and reason that they have faith then the profession of any one particular person that ever I baptized can make it appear of himself for thus you peremptorily conclude p 5. and then as prettily unconclude it all ore again p. 18. saying unlesse it could be certainly presumed what children have the habit of faith what have not for the working of the spirit is not known to us there can be no conclusion made why also do you say the promise is to believers and all their seed which is as much as to say God is bound upon his word and covenant unto these children not unto others and therefore must be as good as his word for I hope you all agree that God will not lie p. 14. though I confesse p 18. you unsay all this ore again and grant that he is not bound to work it in all the children of Christian parents nor bard from working it in any of the children of infidels O fine whifles Determination If it be inquired how faith can be said to be in them without their consent the answer is as well as originall sin to which they never consented and that Christ is more powerful to salvation then Adam to condemnation Detection That original sin is in infants so far as it is in them without their consent I do not deny it being a matter more imputative as I have shewed above then inhaesive and that Christ is more powerful to salvation then Adam was to condemnation is an undoubted truth which makes me believe otherwise then once I did viz. that whatsoever befel whomsoever meerly by Adams sin is as universally as well in respect of the subject made miserable thereby viz. whole mankind as of the misery befalling that subject by the coming of the Second Adam taken away for which tenet I could give more proof then you can easily disprove were it not besides the Argument I am in hand with but that faith is in any persons without the consent of those in whom it is is a lesson that I shall never consent to learn while mine eies are open I have found many Divines defining faith by the very term of an assent or consent unto the things promised preacht profered or propounded to us to believe and making assent or consent such a necessary ingredient to the very essence being or nature of faith that faith cannot be faith without it thus Mr. Baxter your fiercest fellow-fendent of infants baptism the very essence of faith saith he p. 98. lyeth in assenting that Christ is king and saviour and consenting that he be so to us Yea he denies them to have any true faith who do not thus assent and consent but of all the faiths that ever I have heard or read of and of all the kinds of believing that ever were broacht in the brains of men I never yet heard of a believing of things whether one will or no I mean a real believing and not such a feigned forced faith as that of those who must say they believe as the Church believes when happily they know not what that is nor did I ever hear of believing without assenting to the things believed since I was born till I met with this figment of yours nor ever shall again I am perswaded while the world stands from any men but such as having uttered one absurdity are resolved rather then to recant it to uphold it with an 100 worse then it self Determination It is further added that there is no other way revealed for the salvation of little infants but by justification and that by faith that way of the
purpose but nothing to their own viz. that when Christ saies go reach and baptize and he that believeth and is baptized in these expressions he speaks of persons at years not of infants for such must be taught first but that hinders not but that infants may be baptized before teaching and this is the very common wind away of you all to all whom as to them then so I say now again if the Scriptures and commands of your own assigning do speak of persons at age onely and there 's no mention at all of children in either of them for in those words Dr. Featley expresses all your minds concerning Mat. 28. Mark 16. when brought by us against infant baptism where are the Scriptures that do mention infants so as to institute their baptism if I should assert this that Christ commanded that infants should eat at his table and being put to assign what Scripture it s commanded in should name 1 Cor. 11.28 and when it s argued against me to the contrary saying that place permits them onely to come that can examine themselves as infants cannot therefore t is no command for infants to come should answer thus viz. there 's no mention at all of children in that text much lesse any prohibition of infants to come when Paul saies let a man examine himself he speaks of persons at years onely but that hinders not why infants may not come without self-examination would you not say I were half out of my wits yet thus do you all almost as well concerning places of your own assigning as those we bring viz. Mat. 28. Mark 16.16 Act. 2. Repent and be baptized Act. 8. if thou believest thou maiest return thus viz. those phrases speak of adult ones and not of infants and so say I of these and every Scripture else that speaks of baptism and I trow where is that place that makes mention of any such thing as the baptism of infants Secondly in president of which you send us to the housholds wherein your selves cannot tell that there was any infant therein at all which is as much as to say and urge ab exemplo thus viz. t is not certain by any one instance thereof that any one infant was baptized in those housholds which are said to be baptized in the primitive times Ergo no doubt but by the same example infants ought to be baptized now Again some of you urge Mat. 28. as the institution of Christ for baptizing men of ripe years at least yea and infants also as Mr. Marshall some of you again deny this saying that Mat. 28. is not an exact platform of Christs commission concerning the matter or subject of the administration of baptism as Dr. Holms p. 7. both which men direct their different doctrines to Mr. Tombes in order to his direction but how shall that man be resolved which shall he cleave to whose words shall he take the Doctors or the Divines Again some of you say that semen carnis a fleshly seed is intituled to the promise for even this seed with you is semen fidei some of you say semen sidei the spiritual seed onely i. e. as many as are of the faith and so faith the Scripture are blessed with faithfull Abraham but then semen fidei with you is no other but semen carnis the fleshly seed and that of such too as are Abrahams seed not after the flesh nor after the faith neither thus you wander in a wood and trace too and fro in a thicket moap up and down in a myst are rapt up in a cloud of confusion contradiction and unanswerablenesse about the proof of a popish practise dancing round and crossing the way one of another ever and anon and yet ken it not nor consider how all mens eyes that are but half open are half amazed at your shufles Again some of you pin your practise upon the score of the infants faith and of these again there are several subdivisions for some ground it on seminall faith onely i. e. the habit or on infants having faith denying utterly their capacity to act it i. e. to believe as Mr. Willcock and many more Some again deny that they do build it upon seminall faith but say they go upon more certain grounds as Mr. Blake p. 24. to Mr. Blackwood who saith of faith in the root or of this semniall faith this faith is not our ground for infants baptism being undiscernable Some again upon their acting faith which they assert infants capable to do though against their wills as well as to have it as to the clear contradiction of themselves Mr. Willcock and many more do whilst they with him and he with them speak of children in this phrase viz. that they do believe and thus they speak whilest they interpret that clause Mat. 18.6 i. e. these little ones which believe in me of little ones litterally taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere i. e. to believe expresses not the habit onely but the act of faith as to know to read to teach to love to learn do sound out non munus non actum primum onely but actum secundum also Some of you again put that practise upon score of the parents faith not the childs and of these which are also subdivided some the faith of the next parents onely as Dr Holmes who in his to Mr. Tombes p. 216.217 saith thus the children are not to be baptized whilst the next parents are unbelievers i. e. though the grand parents be believers and Mr. Cotton also who p. 87. of his book stiled the way of the Churches of New England saith thus God never allowed his Church any warrant to receive into Covenant the children of godly parents who lived a thousand years ago nay rather the text is plain that the holynesse of the children dâ—pendeth upon the faith of the next immediate parents or one of them at least as if the seed of parents were not their seed at two or three generations off others the faith of the remote parents as Mr. Rutherford Pres. p. 164 where he saith all infants born in the visible Church what ere the wickednesse of the neerest parents is are to be received into the Church by baptism yea p. 173 Joshua had commandement of God to give the seal of the Covenant to their children who were as openly wicked against the Lord as murderers drunkerds swearers c. also Mr. Marshall and Mr. Baily who commends Mr. Cottons learâ—ed maintenance of infants sprinkling in p. 132 and yet contradicts him in this thing no further off then p. 134. saying although the parents are wicked meaning the immediate parents yet the Lords interest is in the children i. e not of the 3 â— and 4 th but of the 1000 th generation and by this shift the Ishmaâ—â—â—ts the Edomites the Turks are of Abraham though not of Isaac and so Gods by birth yea we and the whole world are of Noah though not of Abraham and
so belike must be baptized and Mr. Blake in p. 24. of his birth-priviledge who saith If the ground of a childs admission to baptism be not the faith of his immediate parents but the promise made to Ancestors in the faith whose seed is though at a greater distance then the loose life of an immediate parent can be no bar to his baptism this is plain if Josia have no right from his father Ammon yet he is not shut out in case he have right from his father David or his father Abraham yea even all the national Clergy I think excepting your new English and congregationall men and lastly they themselves too witnesse Dr. Holmes who p. 11 makes the remote father Abraham he upon whose belief those 3000 Iewes in Acts 2. were to be baptized aâ—d Mr. Cotton himself Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus who p. 79. of his grounds c. affirms all the seed and then surely the seed to many generations as well as the nearest to be holy by adoption and wearies himself and his reader in about 20 pages to prove remote Abraham to be the parent upon whose faith the Iew shall be taken in at last viz. from p. 79. to p. 100. Some again put the practise of infant baptism upon the score of neither the childs nor the fathers faith necessarily but on the faith of Christian Sponsors and of these there 's two sorts too considering Sponsors as either witnesses or sureties aliâs Gossips or Guardians first some sprinkle them upon the witnesses or gossips faith thus all that still retain the old English deformation after which yet the New English Christians that were born here were Christâ—ed by the Priests saying I baptize thee when they did but Rantize which practise though the directory allow as the ordinary way yet the common prayer book did not save in case of necessity which Priests when they should by right baptize the spâ—nsors professing their faith and repentance from dead works and desires to be baptized in that faith in these words we forsake them all all this we stedfastly believe that is our desire instead thereof take a child of what parents it matters not out of the midwifes arms putting two or three drops of water upon the face of it and so there 's an end of the business this is that which Mr. Cotton the great Gamaliel of New England though after that fashion possibly himself was sprinkled is now utterly and bitterly against professing for himself and those Churches p. 88. of his way of the Church of new England that they know not any ground at all to allow a faithful man liberty to entitle another mans child to baptism upon the pretence of his own promise to have an eye to his education unlesse the child be either born in his house or resigned to him to be brought up as his own and then he is confident but from no other law then that of circumcision from which I may be as confident that males onely and that on the eighth day must be baptized it may be done Some upon the faith of the sureties or guardians as Mr. Cotton who from Gen. 17 12.13 grants but very doubtfully and therefore whether damnably or no let him look to it so much liberty to a Christian Sponsor i. e. Surety that if a stranger or a very wicked man should give him his child from his infancy to be brought up as his own it may be baptized as his own in confutation of which I le quote no Author but Mr. Cotton who in that same 88. page where he speaks this but two or three lines above it saies thus The Covenant is not intailed to Sureties i. e. to such for whom they undertake but this is the utmost bounds of liberty Mr. Cotton saies he can give and I wonder who gave him power to give so much in this case he allowes a little bit and no more because he is not sure he may allow that but by his leave from that inch I le take an ell for if a wicked mans child may be baptized then it may and then why not a 100 as well as one in the like case and so at least the promise is not entailed to faithful parents only and their seed yea his grant p. 88. intailes baptism to the children that have believing Guardians as well as to such as have believing parents and so he gives the question as stated concerning believers children only Some again put it on the score of neither the childs nor the parents nor the sponsors faith but at least either the fathers or the Mothers membership in a gathered Church so as if this be not the parents though otherwise never so faithful may not have their children baptized thus the Churches in New England yea and I think all of this indifferent semi-demi-Independent way both in Old England and New and elsewhere witness Mr. Best Churches plea p. 60 61. who saith thus A man must not only be a Christian and by profession within the covenant only but also a member of some visible Church and particular congregation â—re his child be baptized For which Mr. Rutherford rounds him about again and takes him to do p. 174.175 of his Presb. and flatly contradicts him thus saying Baptism is a priviledge of the Church not of such a particular Independent Church and the distinction between Christian communion and Church communion in this point is needless and fruitâ—ess for none are to be refused baptism whose parents professe the faith c. howbeit not members of a settled Church Which also contradicts Mr. Cobbets Castle of come down whose whole structure is settled upon that same dainty distinction of Church choice and true choice of this mind also was my beloved friend Mr. Charles Nicolls of whom I have more hopes yet then I have of every one of his own form that he will fully own the truth in time forasmuch as he doth more fully appear for it against that Truth-destroying thing called Tythes then those of his way do in other parts of Kent who either per se or at least per aliâ—s take them not to say rake and rack both Christs flocks and the parish flocks also for them still which Mr. Nicolls preaching publiquely at Dover in my heaâ—ing Ian. 1650. whether he fetch his doctrine out of Mr. Cobbets book yea or no I cannot tell in page 17. whereof the same is found declared himself to be of Mr. Cobbets mind by the delivery of this doctrine viz. Thaâ— an enchurcht believers natural seed is faederally holy from 1 Cor. 7.14 which position I have also since seen under his hands so narrow a corner is the ease crouded into now that it is not the believing but the enchurcht belieuing parent i e. who leaving the perochiall posture betakes himself to membership in some seperated society who sanctifies the unbelieving parent and the seed else were the children unclean but now are they holy i. e.
from the time of one or both parents entering the borders of a seperated society and so by this means if an old man or woman that hath ten or twenty children the youngest whereof is no less then twenty years old they all though never so morally wicked yet from thenceforth are faederally holy but not before no though their parents believed before Upon this Account the Churches in New England deny their Nullity sprinkling to infants of such parents as are either not yet joined to them or for which they are very oddly also at odds among themselves excommunicate from them in justification of which Gambole Mr. Cotton lapps himself up in such a manglement of discourse p. 81. to the 88. as betokens that wisdome is perishing from the wise for mans tradition sake which they hold up against Christs institutions yea he sticks not to assert p. 81. Thâ—t the Apostles and Evangelists gathered men whom they baptized into a visible church estate before they baptized them unless they were church-members before they preached to them Which is as if he should say they brought them first into the visible Church that they might be baptized and then to go round again baptized them that they might be brought into the visible Church for unlesse he contradict all those thousands of Old England now becoming New whilest New England growes old who after sprinkling still used this phrase viz. We receive this child into the congregation of Christs flock as in the English refined Masse-book the Priests universally did preaching baptism to be the entrance into the visible Church not in word only but in deed also by placing their Fonts at the Church doors unless I say he be contrary to all Paedobaptists who hold baptism to be the way into the Church and not the visible Church the way into baptism and then what another cross whet doth he wipe them with we must needs take Mr. Cotton in that manner and yet to say the truth the Clergy is cross enoâ—gh to themselves in this case for this is but like that of them that say believers infants are born in the bosome or within the pale of the Church and so must be baptized and must be baptized and so enter within the pale of the visible Church or else they are out and in no better condition than the children of Turks and Pagans What prety Gim-cracks are here yet surely not much above the tyth of those round abouts and contradictions to themselves and one another that are to be found among the Paedorantists should I stand upon a full discovery of them but verily I am weary to see Old England New England and Scotland all together by the ears about their infants sprinkling and had rather if it were possible gain them all to be at peace in that point by laying down their dispensing it any more to infants and pitching all upon the undoubted subject of true baptism i. e. a professed believer without which it is impossible to reconcile them till they have routed each other and stormed themselves out of their strongest garrisons with their own hands Among whom and so to make an end what hold and keep is there likewise about the sprinkling of bastaâ—ds may be seen by Mr. Cotton page 88. of his way c. Some and those the best Divines holding the baptism of Bastards but not sine sponsoribus i. e. not without witnesses or sureties Others holding it without witnesses for ought I find of which sort is Mr. Cobbet who brings in Bastards to baptism by a certain fetch beyond his fellowes viz. the faederal interest of those bastard infants that are born in the Church saying Though the parents faith do not sanctify such yet the force of Abrahams covenant fetches them in which I much marvel at sith the law or covenant of Circumcision admitteth not such into the Congregation unto the tenth generation Others again denying that the Scripture warrants any such thing at all as the admitting of Bastards to come by baptism into the Congregation as his neighbour Mr. Cotton who gives liberty to Christian Sponsors to entitle wicked mens children to baptism by their undertaking for them yet can scarce find in his heart for ought I find to allow them the like to entitle a bastard alledging out of Deut. 23.2 that in the old Testament a Bastard was not to enter into the congregation of the Lord unto the 10 th generation and so indeed he was not upon any terms for ought I see whether the parents repentance or the childs good behaviour when at years after once that particular statute was delivered yet takes upon him to deviate from his old Testament Rule so far himself as to admit such a one into the congregation and to baptism either when the parents repent notwithstanding his bastardy or when the child professes better in his own person p. 87.88 By which kind of often interfearing of so able a man as Mr. Cotton I perceive and therefore believe believe and therefore speak it that the nearer men come from Rome towards reformation if they come not to the perfection of it according to the word the more miserably a great deal are they bewildred with any human tradition that is remaining among them unremoved in so much that the Papacy is lesse troubled with contradictions quarrels quirks and foolish quiddities about their infants sprinkling then Praelacy Praelacy then Presbytery Presbytery then Independency for though they hold none but believers and that all those are to be baptized yet the Pope carries it clearly to all infants born in his Christendem without streining these being all believers with him as in opposition to Turks The Prelate to the infants of Protestants onely that are his believers in opposition to Papists But the High-Presbyter to the infants of protestants universally though with him not 10 of 100 in his parish are believers when they administer the supper The Independent to none but the infants of those that are inchurchâ— with him though himself believes there are 1000s of believers that are not of his way those I say that are most reformed in other things are more muddled and lesse capable to maintain that popish practise of infant-sprinkling then those that are deformed in all other parts of outward order besides it and as they stand in the narrowest streit to hold it up so are they for the most part at the nearest step to lay it down not a few discovering dayly more and more the absurdity and unsuitablenesse of it to so pure a posture as they pretend to and quod fieri non debuit factum valet availing more to the keeping off many from the true way of baptism then any arguments they have whereby to satisfie themselves in the sufficiency of that way of sprinkling Thus we see what a laborinth you Clergy-men would lead poor creatures into if they should follow you yea I know not how a man can follow you unlesse he go
among flatternes that are minded to leave things as foul well nigh as they find them and I am sure there 's no rubbing succedaneous to your sprinkling which is any ingredient to your dispensation for what the priest drops on the midwife rubs indeed not on but off and so as that is no washing so if it were I hope you do not allow the midwife to give equal influence with the priest unto the dispensation of baptism Besides both sprinkling and powring are vertualy implied in plunging and burying in water but these are not at all supposed in the other every lesser wetting being contained and included in the greater not so the greater in the lesse Fiftly which quirk of his concerning a necessity of abiding 3. daies under water answerable to Christs 3 daies buriall if we will needs urge an necessity of resembling him in his death burial and resurrection is so fond that a fool may find enough wherewith to refel it for Mr. Cook knows that nullum simile currit quatuor no similitude answers in all things besides t is the truth and substance of the thing not the circumstance or quantity of time of abode which is to be respected here for a burial is as true a burial when a person abides but 3. minutes wholly under the element wherein he is buried as if he abode 3. daies and a burial is as truly represented by being once under water as if one continued under altogether and the resurrection a little better by being brought up again alive then if one lay till he were altogether dead Sixthly and lastly which assertion of his uttered in favour of his assertion viz. that the Scripture no where requires the washing of the whole body is so much the more savouring of either ignorance or forgetfulnesse in him or both by how much one of the very Scriptures that are quoted by himself as speaking in reference to baptism doth require it for its said Heb. 10.22 let us draw neer with a true heart c. and having our bodies washed with pure water which clause if meant of baptism as undoubtedly it is requires not a sprinkling but a washing and that 's more then your sprinkling is and this too not of the face only which is the only part you sprinkle but of our bodies which word whether we shall take properly to signifie the whole body indeed or run to figurative acceptations when we need not and take the body by a Synechdoche of the whole for a part to signifie so small a part as the face only I need not wish a wise man to determine for every unprejudiced man that hath but common sense will see cause enough to take it plainly as it lies Rantist But all this while me thinks you make it appear so plainly as you not must before I believe or receive it that it is so needful as you would make it that there should be a resemblance of the thing signified in that sign of baptism at all that 's the thing I wait to see proved for let Mr. Cook make what suppositions and grants he will of a resemblance yet I see no reason at all to urge a necessity of such a thing nor will I speak so much as ex hypothesi if there must be for none need be â—or ought I know What I hope there are an hundred signes of things which have not any analogy at all with those things they signifie Baptist. Having thus blown away the strange mist whereby Mr. Cook endeavoured to thicken the air so that men might not discern clearly the true intent of those Scriptures Rom. 6. Col. 2. nor the truth at all in this point of total dipping I come now in answer to his and your and Mr. Blakes flat denial of any word or warrant for any representation and also to his demand p. 27. to shew how we gather from reason and your own authors and those very Sciptures you oppose the diping of the whole man over the head and under the water and that a similitude of Christs death burial and rising again to be represented by dipping into the water is signified there But first I must tell you I observe you know not greatly what to say among you against our urgings of a resemblance of Christs death and burial and resurrection from these Scriptures for some of you stand it out as much as you well can that there is not to be any representation of a death and resurrection as Dr. Featley and Mr. Cook both do the Dr. keeping at such a distance from it that to fence it farr enough from him he denies any such thing to be so much as signified Mr. Cook yielding that that very thing among others is signified and that the spiritual grace or thing signified is to be represented too only you must excuse him as to that piece of the spiritual grace all the rest but that he will give way to have resembled but fearing least it can hardly be so cleerly evaded but that t wil needs be proved against them that a death burial and resurrection must be represented they fall a proving it that there may be and is a death burial and resurrection reselmbled in their way of sprinkling and infusion as much if not more then in our way of dipping but either of them shift for themselves in severall wayes the Drs way wherein he proves there is a resemblance of death and resurrection in the manner of baptism as it is administred in the Church of England is this though the child be not dipped in water himself saith he yet the minister dippeth his hand in water und plucketh it out again when he baptizeth the infant where note that the Doctor doth conceive that though sprinkling may serve to represent a death and resurrection as well as our dipping yet it is upon this absurd account viz. in that there is a certain dipping accompanies their sprinkling whereby that resemblance is made viz. the divping the hand of the Administrator but Mr. Cook though he be not so gross as to imagine with the Dr. that the burying of the ministers hand wiâ—l serve instead of burying the persons body which is if any burial be at all to be buried in baptism yet he is as grosse in his conception another way while he goes about to prove sprinkling or infusion it self to resemble a death burial and resurrection as sufficiently as dipping and this too by such a coined Chymaera such a crude and immature imagination as is ridiculous viz. of the old worlds being drowned and buried by no more then sprinkling and the fall of rain for verily neither was the rain a resemblance of a death burial and resurrection or any thing like thereto nor yet was it the rain but the overflowing of waters by reason of the rain that drowned them and though that orewhelming was a lively emblem of death and burial as baptism is to be yet there was nothing that resembled a
it then t will if we put you to it to disprove a lineal succession of our baptism for if we cannot name the particular persons that baptized one another in this way wherein we do it successively from the persons of the Apostles in answer to this question who baptized you and who him and who him and so upwards till we come thither are you able if we ask you who sprinkled you and who him and who him and who him c. to particularize more punctually then we are you able to assign who began our way of baptism first of all in the world unlesse you begin as high as Iohn the baptist nay verily though Dr. Featley would fain father it upon Stock yet it s most manifest unto you all that infants sprinkling was denied by some ever since it was known to have a being for it was controverted in the daies of the fathers and that it would not have been had there been none that had then denied it and denied it could not be by any but such as pleaded the baptism of believers in those times and were the right way baptized themselves You have not one president of one infant sprinkled nor proof that such a thing was so much as talked on for at least an hundred years after Christ but we are most certain and your selves cannot deny it that the baptiâ—m of believers began at Iohn the baptist and the Apostles and if we could prove a succession of it de facto no further downwards then so yet it is enough to us that we find it then was so whereby to prove that it ought to have been so in all ages since and is to be de jure at this day One word more and then we have done with this if none at all save such as are baptized themselves may in any case dispense baptism to others save such also as are by ordination true ministers of the Gospel then your selves who pretend solely to the title of baptizing are no right administrators as being in truth neither baptized nor ordained in such wise as the Scripture requires that your baptism is null I have cleared it enough already and that your ministry is no lesse is apparent sith whilst you indeavour to derive it from the Apostles you can derive it thence no other wise then the Pope doth his for if a line of succession be a proof of true ministry you may indeed derive it as well but not one jot better then he he can shew you his line of succession if not from Peter yet at least from Linus himself that lived in the daies of the Apostles and you can shew us the line wherein you came from the Pope and so through his loines from the other there is no other way for your ministry to prove its pedigree from the Primitive times but this no way for you to climb up to the Apostles as the fathers and founders of your function but by a chain of many linkes whereof if one happen to prove unsound and t is a chance but a flaw may be found in some of them that have been trailed for many hundreds of years together through the hands of that Apostaticall harlot the intaile is clear cut of your pedigree and descent from the Apostles as a ministry perishes is spilt upon the ground and can never be tact on again any more for ever you have hitherto owned your ordination as handed by an uninterrupted lineal succession from the Pope to the present Presbytery and if we put the question to the veriest novice or youngling among you who ordained you and who ordained those that ordained you and who them and who them and who them you can find your function flowing in a continual stream from the Primitive fountain no other way but through that stinking sink and corrupt channel of the holy chaire Pope Gregory the great gave power of ordination to Austin the Monk when he sent him over into England about a thousand years since he to the Popish Bishops they to the Protestant Bishops they to the Presbyters and the Presbyters to their present Preachers thus what Ministeriall power you have hangs upon the Protestant Bishops theirs upon Austin Austins upon the Pope the Popes upon Peter you came i. e. descended from the Pope the Pope came i. e. departed from the Apostles and thus from the Apostles you came all but thither you must go again letting go your sweet succession and from their words which are the same now as then begin your businesse again before you can be right or know any thing cleerly where you are for if he whom your selves call Antichrist made you a ministery of Christ you may be the Ministry of the Church of England if you will which if it be vere Ecclesia a true Church at all yâ—t is such a one as had its parochial posture from whence you had your power and therefore fit enough each for the other but of the Church in England which is vera Ecclesia the true Church indeed you shall never be the Ministry for me till you repent and be baptized As for my self whom you deem to be no Minister of the Gospel I must not lead you so far from the other work in hand as to stand upon the proof of that now having transgressed as some will think too far already though else it were no impossible thing to prove it and therefore I say this only in short that whether I am now a true Minister of the Gospel or no t is now my utmost aim to preach and promote the truth of it as t is in Jesus but as for the time in which I was owned a Minister of the Gospel I was at that time no true one at all yea though I have obtained mercy and such mercy as to be made a Minister thereof since because I did what I did ignorantly yet so far was I then from a Minister of the Gospell that I rather rejected the counsell of God against my self being not baptized of them that preached it and disputed much against it as well as you And now as unto your third quaery viz. what Commission have any to baptize in that manner that is by dipping which you stile such an irraâ—ional and undiscreet way t is that which I have resolved you in so satisfactorily before that unlesse you have more to say against it then to miscal it as you do before you have proved it to be so base as you are pleased to stile it I shall rejoice in Christ Jesus that hath chosen such foolish and base things as dipping in water is in the account of men however excellent in it self and in proof of its warrantableness unles it be occasionally add no more Rantist I have referred you already where you shall find exception against all you have said before as concerning the truth of the way of baptism and I desire that you would find your self work a little therewith I mean
which I dare say your memory is more tenacious of then of any other and I shall examine them as exactly as you you shall desire me Rantist First then let it be well considered what they say to the first thing This dousing over head and ears and under water saith Mr. Cook that you plead for as essential to baptism seems directly against the sixth Commandment and exposeth the person baptized to the danger of death For first suppose the party be fit for baptism as you account in the sharp winter as now believing professing c. he must immediately be taken to the River as your tenet seemes to hold and there plunged in over head and ears though he come forth covered with yâ—e But if he scape perishing with cold how can he scape being choaked and stiffled with the water if he must be plunged over head to signify his death to sin Secondly be kept under water to signifie his burial And Thirdly be taken up again as A. R. and you seem to reason But whatever be the danger of freezing or suffocation it seems this you hold the only baptism and therefore must not be swerved from p. 21. Thus he but more largely and plainly Mr. Baxter p. 134. That which is a plain breach of the sixth Commandement Thou shalt not kill is no Ordinance of God but a most haynous sin but the ordinary practise of baptizing by dipping over head in cold water as necessary is a plain breach of the sixt Commandment therefore And Mr. Craddock in his book of Gospel liberty shewes the Magistrate ought to restrain it to save the lives of his Subjects c. that it is flat Murder and no better being ordinarily and generally practised is undenyable to any understanding man for that which directly tendeth to overthrow mens lives being willfully done is plain Murder but the ordinary or general dipping of people over head in cold water doth tend directly to the overthrow of their health and lives and therefore it is murder here several answers are made saith Mr Baxter some vain some vile First Mr. T. saith that many are appointed the use of bathing as a remedy against diseases To which I reply saith he 1. though he be no Physitian yet his own reason should tell him t is no universal remedy 2. Few diseases have cold baths appointed them I have cause saith he to know a little more then every one in this and I dare say that in Cities like London and amongst Gentlewomen that have been tenderly brought up and Antient people and weak people and shop keepers especially women that take but little of the cold air the dipping them in the cold weather in cold water in the course of nature would kill hundreds and thousands of them either suddenly or by casting them into some Chronicle disease I know not what trick a covetous Land lord can find out to get his tenants â—â— dy apace that he may have new fines and heriots likelier then to encourage such Preachers that he may get them all to turn Anabaptists I wish that this devise saith be not it that countenanceth these men and covetous Phisitians me thinks saith he should not be much against them Catarrhes and obstructions which are the two great fountains of most mortall diseases in mans body could scarce have a more notable means to produce them where they are not or to increase them where they are Apoplexies Lethargies Palsies and all comatous diseases would be promoted by it so would Cephalalgies Hemicranies Phâ—hiseâ— debility of the stomach Crudities and almost all Feavers Dissenteries Diarraeas Colicks Illiack passions Convulsions Spasmes Tremors c. all Hepatick Splenetick Pulmoniack persons and Hipocrandriacks would soon have enough of it in a word saith he it is good for nothing but to dispatch men out of the world that are burthensome and to ranken Church yards But Mr. T. will salve all this for he saith that there is no necessity that it be in cold water To which I reply saith he 1. But then he forsaketh the generality of his partners in this opinion so much as we can learn who usually baptize in Rivers and ponds 2. And his warm bath would be very dangerous also 3. Where should this bath be prepared if in private it will scarce be a solemn engaging act if in the meeting place of the Church then 1. It will take no small room and require no small stir to have a bathiag place and water to dipp people over head 2. And if they do not run home quickly before they are well ingaged the hot bath will be turned to a cold one to them and make them repent this badge of repentance except they will have all things ready and be â—rought to bed also in the Church before the people 3. And it will be long ere Mr. T. can clear out of his reading Antiquity what Church had such a bathing place in it but me thinks they that call for Scripture for infant baptism should also bring Scripture for their baptizing in warm water but some say they may stay till the heat of summer when the water will be warm To which I reply saith he where is your Scripture for that I have proved the constant rule and Example of Scripture is clean contrary and requires that men be baptized when they are first made disciples and not stay till summer But some desperately conclude that if it be Gods way he will save our lives how probable soever the danger may seem I answer saith he that this is to begg the question nay I have shewed and am shewing that it is not Gods way God hath appointed no ordinances contrary to his great morall commands 2. God must not be tempted this was the devils trick to have drawn Christ under pretence of Scripture and trusting God to have cast himself into danger of death 3. So you might have said to the disciples that if it were Gods command to keep the Sabbath then they might not rub the ears of Corn for God could sustain them without 4. If it were a duty yet when it is inconsistent with a greater duty it is at that time a sin for it is alwaies a sin to prefer a lesser duty before a greater for the duty of self preservation is a morall naturall duty and baptizing is but positive c. God hath not appointed ordinances in his Church that will destroy men except they be preserved by Miracles for then it were a tying himself to a constant working of Miracles c. So that I conclude saith Mr. Baxter if Murder be a sin then dipping over head in cold water in England is a sin and if those that would make it mens religion to murder themselves and urge it on their consciences as their duty are not to be suffered in a Common-Wealth any more then High way Murderers then judge how these Anabaptists that teach the necessity of such dipping are to be suffered Thus you
be out of the Nation too for ought I know and cannot well see what is done by you in it but to let that passe Here is thunder enough but no lightning a shrill sound but an empty barrel such is Mr. Baxters book indeed specially this twofold fardle about murder and adultery in which whether there be more noise or non-sense I know not but sure I am there is ten times more twittle-com-twattle then truth this doctrine would make a terrible rumbling in a Country Church as they say and make all the people amazed to hear what manner of men these Anabaptists be but he that sleeps there with his eyes open will be sâ—und no more at the hearing of this clamor then by the barking of the bells in the steeple I must needs confesse that this is matter of weight indeed and a stone is heavy and the sand weighty but a fooles wrath is heavier then them both this soon shot bolt is big enough to hurt where it hits but as it happens it hits not us and so happens to hurt them most that mannage it as for us against whom it is managed it rejoices us rather then otherwise sith it reproaches and reviles and saies all manner of evil against us falsely for Christs sake Mat. 5.11.12 1 Pet. 4.13.14.15 if our dipping were such evil doing i. e. murder and adultery as these men say it is we had reason to hang down our heads indeed and might well be ashamed in suffering from them in this particular but sith as Paul said Act. 24.13 they cannot prove the things whereof they accuse us we are not ashamed but glorifie God on this behalf Of these two accusers of the brethren Mr. Cook is more candid and a little more modest then the other and yet he utters so much that he hath much reason to be ashamed of it for howbeit he does not so audaciously charge us with that foul fact of naked dipping as the other doth yet by some simple supposals First that persons cannot be rightly baptized by dipping with a garment on as if they may not be put under and covered and buried therein cloathed aswell as naked and as if a soaking or steeping in water Mr. Baxters bald conceit of our dipping were not a washing or burying Secondly that it is as unwarrantable to baptize garments as t is for the Papists to baptize bells as if those that baptize persons in garments did as directly and intentionally baptize garments as the papists do baptize bells or as if it were more unwarrantable for us to wet the cloathes that persons are baptized in when we baptize their bodies then t is for the priests to wet the head cloaths of infants when they rantize their faces By such silly supposals I say as these that there can be no true totall dipping unless the persons be uncloathed he subtly insinuates the world into a certain supposition at least a shrewed suspition that dipping naked is the onely baptism dispensed among us for which hee 'l once be ashamed but as for Mr. Baxter he is so uningenuous impudent and uncivilly foolish in this present parcel of his you have here spread before us that I professe against it as having in it much falsenesse and more immodesty then I ever saw expressed at the totall dipping of any person that ever I saw dipped in my life for he not only makes a long supervacaneous discourse of his dislike of dipping women and maids naked in which is such a needlesse and over often nomination of those termes too as tends more to the offending of chast and corrupting of unchast consciences then to any use of edifying at all but also most rashly relates it to the whole world to be the usuall ordinary known practise of a people that are as abhorrent of such abominations as himself As for his Argument it is a fallacy called Ignoratio Elenchi for he concludes not the point in question for they who stand most for baptizing by totall dipping are all for ought that ever I heard of as much against naked dipping as himself yea so far are we all if any had been otherwise minded Mr. Baxter would surely have assigned them whose design was to vilifie us what he could so far are we all from countenancing such a practise that I dare in the name of all the Churches of the Baptists through England declare their unanimous utter detestation of it in Mr. Baxters own words viz. that it is a breach of the seventh Commandment an intollerable wickednesse an immodest action an incitement to uncleannesse likely enough to raise jealousies in Ministers wives yea and other womens husbands too and so to foment continuall dissention a means to debauch people and bereave them of all common civility modesty ingenuity and humanity to turn Gods worship into contempt and make it meerly ridiculous to bring a general reproach upon the Christian profession among all the enemies thereof yea amongst the most sober and discreet to discredit the truth and prejudice men against it yea verily t is scandal reproach and discredit enough in that it is but belied by Mr. Baxter to be so base how much more and more justly would it be reproached if his reports were as true as they are full of falsehood we I say acknowledg the practise of naked dipping to be as bad as Mr. Baxter proves it to be therefore quorsum haec to what purpose doth he with such prolixity proceed to prove what no sober minded man of either party doth deny This is aliud a negato a plain absurd a berration from the question which is not whether it be a sin ordinarily to dip naked or no but whether we ordinarily use that kind of dipping The first which none doubts of he indeavours to make evident as one that light a candle whereby to shew men that the sun shines The second which is unknown utterly among us he proclaims to be our usual notorious known practise but he offers no proof of this at all Such silly Sophistry as this Mr. Baxter uses also in almost every of these Arguments whereby he professes to disprove our practise as unwarrantable concluding all along another point than that in question for whereas our tenet is that persons at years professing to believe of what parents so ever born are to be baptized he most simply and sinisterly concludes against us as he supposes in a matter of four or five Arguments that the children of Christians may not be baptized when they come to years and that this practise of baptizing of Christians children is utterly unconsistent with the Rule of Christ as for us we say as much neither is it our practise or opinion to baptize Christians children at age upon that account meerly as they are Christians children any more then the children of them that are no Christians unlesse they professe to be believers and Christians themselves as their parents do and upon that account viz. as they professe
to believe we baptize heaâ—hens children as soon as them Thus the man busies himself beyond measure in beating the aire and wearyes himself ad ravim usque and his reader ad nauseam in refuting non entities about the proof of such things as no body denies and per ignorationem Elenchi concludes that which is as clear to his Antagonists as to himself and leaves that utterly undemonstrated which is the onely thing denyed by them the absurdity of whose way he pretends it to be his businesse to discover For verily those against whom he fights under the name of Anabaptists are as clear in it as he can be that no Christians child qua talis is to be baptized when he comes to years saving upon the same account on which an heathens child may be at years so baptized as well as he viz. his own personal profession of faith and desire of baptism Again they hold dipping naked to be intollerable wickednesse as well as he yet these things he be labours himself not a little in making good but that which is denyed indeed viz. that it is our usual practise to dip women and maids naked this he charges us with most stoutly most desperately and tells a tale of us most absurdly to the base abusing of himself the true Church and the whole world also but he is so impertinent and impertinently imployed in proving naked dipping to be a sin that he either forgets or has no while to prove it to be practised by us at all But Sirs who but he that sees the right eye of the idol shepheard to be utteâ—ly darkned would ever think that from such a man as Mr. Ba. desires to be accounted such a piece of paultry should proceed that such a messe of balterdash as here is should ere be broached by him that such a mad report of the walkers in truth should be publisht by one that goes for a publisher of the truth among thousands of deluded people Me thinks I see Satan gone forth and become a lying spirit in the mouthes of the prime among their prophets perswading and in the just judgement of God prevailing with multitudes of meer formal Gospellers to be strongly deluded and to believe lies out of their mouthes that they may be damn'd because they receive not the truth that was troden down for 42 monthes and now rises again and shines forth in the love therof that they may be saved but have pleasure in unrighteousness and superstition and have no pleasure in the truth Me thinks I see National Ministers of singular piety in peoples eyes prove men of singular pravity singularly bewitched into an implicit belief of the base tales that vain fellowes raise of the way of truth and singularly bewitching their people into implicit belief of them that so it is as they say that neither Priest nor people may obey the truth but both stumble and fall and be broken and snared and taken and ashamed each of other in the end Good Lord how is the practise of the truth made a reproach unto thy people and a derision dayly for I have heard the defaming of many report say they and we will report it possesse the pulpit and make the Priest believe it and then all the Country shall ring out and the people soon be diabolized into the faith on 't but hear ye rude reprochers of that people that are reprovers of the wayes whereby you run a whoring from the Lord you shall not prevail by such sleights such plausible pretences you shall be greatly ashamed you shall not prosper and unlesse you repent of your belying the truth of God your everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten It is too bad to be credulous to flying reports worse so violently to vent them worst of all malevolently to invent them I dare not say nor dare I deem Mr Ba. to be guilty of the last but of the two first I cannot clear him sith I perceive that he takes it for a truth that we ordinarily dip naked and thereupon disputes against it as our usuall practise and then not confidently onely but of a certain relates to the whole world that it is no bare word nor any doubtful thing but an experience a known practise if he can clear himself he hath leave to do it for me who also summon him in the name of Christ Jesus whose true disciples he hath done such dispite to the Lord keep him from despiting the spirit of grace the people of whose love are the people of his wrath to prove it our practise ordinarily to dip naked yea to produce but one instance of any women oâ— maids that ever he saw dipt naked in all his daies and I le abate him much of that I now accuse him of in the court of my conscience but if he say as indeed he does in effect that he never saw any dipt at all whilst p. 134. he saies that all that ever he saw baptized had water powred on them how can he say Epertus loquor it is his experience he having never so much as seen such a thing unlesse it were upon the brazen fac't front of Featleyes book where he fasly feignedly and filthily describes men and women dipping in that fashion or else upon the Titlepage of Ephraim Pagit who there paltrily pictures out this people practising thus and there I believe he hath experienced it or if he only hath it from the the mouthes of such as heard it from the mouthes of others who never saw it but receive it by tradition as well as he and that originally too from the mouthes of some that made it and in such a manner very likely it was first bruted for I am perswaded there was never such a thing done of late in England unless by some Arch Knave and Arrant Whore in way of mockage to the Gospel which is rather a glory then a shame to Christ his truth then let Mr. Ba. bear the blame of his blind blaspheming the people of the everliving God Or if he know indeed that such a thing as baptizing maids and women naked hath been done in serious wise by any persons I further challenge him to make some proof of it and to print the names of such men as have done it and such maids and women that have suffered themselves to be dipped naked and the names of such credible eye witnesses as will testify it as in the sight of God which if he can though I shall not give place to him thereupon so as to be satisfyed therby for his overlashing in asserting it to be our practise to dip naked or for condemning and denominating a whole party much more their cause by the defects abuses of some persons whom the cause disclaimes for then there was 12. devils because one among the twelve and then what an Augaean stable is your Church of England by many members of which notorious roguery is committed every houre Yet I shall satisfy him
is before him here Eccl. 8.14 and the 9.1.2.3 yet sith he speaks of ruinating judgements let the consequence passe as valid but then his minor is utterly false for the Anabaptists are not all ruinated yet nor will be till the Clergy are quite cashiered as evident as it is that they have every where withered and suddenly come to nought heretofore and since he speakes of spiritual judgements e. g. that practise saith he hath never helped but hindred the work of God where it comes nor hath God blest their ministry to conversion of soules as he hath other mens but rather they have been instruments of the Churches scandal and misery Secondly that hath been the inlet to most other vile opinions few stop at it but go much further God hath usually given up their societies to notorious scandalous wicked lives and conversations more then others that professe godlinesse and never prospered them so far as to have any established Churches which should credit the Gospel I grant that some of these are sad emblems of a people none of Gods onely Mr. Ba. hath here saddled the wrong asse for this way of baptism hinders onely the work of mans Tradition which would make void the commandement of God but being it self the work and way of God is hindred where ere it comes by Priestly malice preaching Gods fear after precepts of men nor hath God blessed the Nationall ministry to the true conversion of soules as he hath done theirs but to the conversion of them to a Gospel of their own making for repent and be baptized was the Gospel that Peter preached and that is it that is now practised by us and how many are converted and baptized accordingly is so evident that it needs no proof at this hour but repent and be not baptized is the Gospel the Priesthood preaches and if you call that conversion which indeed is confusion we confesse their converts are more more then ours such instruments of scandal and misery to the true Churches are the Priests in all places by their reproaches nor is baptism the inlet of any vile opinions any more then the same was in the primitive times wherein many that were baptized did turne hereticks when they had done as they do now but what wise man then imputed it to their baptism and yet some of those opinions Mr. Ba. calls vile will be proved to his conscience in due time to be the truth yet many that are baptized do run out to very vile opinions and practises no better then their principles and stop not there indeed as he saies but go much further and degenerate into wayes oâ— wickednesse more abominable then ever in former time and of these Ranters Mr. Copp is none of the least attainers whom Mr. Ba. p. 148. hath very well set forth in his colours for I believe God in Iustice hath given him up and many other besides him to more notoriousnesse of error and enormity then ever any that profest godlinesse But what then shall we impute that fault to his being baptized I trow not for howbeit Mr. Ba. so imagines yet it was because he honoured not the truth when he had owned it nor walked in Christ after he had received him in which case how often God gives over to strong delusions is evident not only by the word which declares that when men like not to retain God in their knowledge he oft gives them over unto vile affection But also by sad experience in the world in these last times wherein 2 Pet. 2.1 1 Tim. 4.1 and the 2.3.1 doctrines of divels are rife among them that once owned the faith yet the faith not a whit in fault for all that but departure from the faith before expressed And that the fall of these men is into worse then ever before it is no argument against but rather for the way they newly fall from the sensuality of such as separate themselves from the true Churches in the later times i. e. congregational after these are once separated from the false ones i. e. the nationall being prophesied of 2 Pet. 2. Iude 19. of old that it should be greater then that of all beastly men that were before them besides corruptio optimi pessima the higher the rise into reformation the more desperate the fall into deformation of those that reform and prove deformed again that greater depth of hell therefore men fall into that fall from us proves the hight of our Churches to be neerer heaven then that of yours for if after they have escaped c. 2 Pet. 2.20.21.22 when Cop was in his standing in the Church of England I remember very well for I knew him better then then ever since he had some bounds from conscience to his corruption but having been once inlightned higher then Mr. Baxter ever was yet in the will and way of God and tasted of the heavenly gift and made a partaker of the holy spirit and obeyed the truth as it is in Jesus and yet fallen away his conscience is seard with a hot iron and I have small hope of his renewing against by repentance who thus denies the Lord that bought him and crucifies the Lord afresh and is twice dead pluckt up by the Roots a raging wave of the sea foaming out his own shame But what is all this to those that yet walk in truth of baptism more then to warn them that they depart not from it as he hath done lest they come into the same condemnation with him doth it prove baptism to be the cause of that grosness that often followes when a person is baptized in no wise for his non abiding in the love of the truth and that doctrine of Christ gives God occasion to give over to the height of wickednesse I appeal therefore to the conscience of Mr. Baxter 1. Whether the Pope may not by as good consequence charge all these errors that are upon Protestanism saying Thus the Ptotestants stop not there but run out further from Episcopacy to Presbytery and to Independency and so to Anabaptism and so to all it is true Protestanism is occasio or causa sine qua non for such as sit still in the smoak of the Popes Traditions are not acquainted with the new found fancies of the Ranter But Protestanism is not the true cause 2 Whether Mr. Ba be so well aware as he should be what time of day it is when Peter and Iude point out these things so plainly and yet he wonders at them as a Mystery 3. Whether the few owning and the few abiding in the true way of baptism doth not prove it to be the streit and narrow way that leads to life which few find 4. Whether he think we lay not to heart their misery and madnesse that run off from us as well as he and strive not to warn and watch over them as much as he and if so why he blames us more then himself that do what we can so
he drawes as he saies from Deut. 28.4.18 32.41 blessed shall they be in the fruit of their body that keep the covenant and cursed in the fruit of their bodyâ— i. e. that break the covenant c. he may well say he drawes it for there 's no such thing as he draws flowes freely from that or any other Scripture he produces he drawes indeed but at such a distance that I see nothing followes from thence at all he does not fall flatly upon it nor deal down rightly with the text alledged nor doth he interpret the blessing and cursing to be membership and non-membership so as to say that by blessed shall be the fruit of thy body is meant thus i. e. thy infants shall be inchurched and by cursed shall be the fruit of thy body thus i. e. thy infants shall be dischurched for that had been too palpably to pervert it but he keeps a loof off from it and doth not draw neer to the heart and center of it but syllogizes in a circumference and fetches it from far for fear I think least it should fly in his face The Argument that I fetch hence is this That doctrine which maketh the children of the faithfull to be in a worse condition or as bad then the curse Deut. 28. maketh the children of covenant breakers to be in is false doctrine But the doctrine which denyeth the children of the faithfull to be visible Churchmembers doth make them to be in as bad or worse condition then is threatned by the curse Deut. 28. Therefore The Minor of which Syllogism is most false for infants may be both unbaptized and no visible Church members and yet be in a better condition then such as are under the curse and the captivity threatned Deut. 28. and so are all these to whom baptism and admittance into the visible Church is delayed by yourselves who in the Church of England in old time were wont to defer the baptizing of all infants to two times in the year viz. Easter and Whitsuntide and so are all those also to whom we deny it for both those to whom you delay it and those to whom we deny it dying in infancy without it may be saved without it as well as if they had it And at the same rates as they dispute them to be under cursing to whom we deny baptism and visible Church-membership and our doctrine to be false that denies it may we dispute those infants to be under cursing to whom they delay baptism and visible membership though but for a week during the time of their delaying it and their doctrine to be false that delaies it if we retort the same Argument on themselves which I shall do and leave it That doctrine which makes the children of the faithful in as bad or worse condition then is threatned in that curse Deut. 28. is false But that doctrine which delaies baptism and visible Church-membership to the infants of the faithfull till the tenth twelfth or twentyeth day of their age till Plumcake be made maketh them during the time in which t is delayed in worse Condition then is threatned in that curse Deuter. 28. Ergo t is false Till then you have ingrafted your children into the Church by baptism they are it seems with you in worse state then if they were in captivity and all the poor innocent infants of those parents that are in England to which your selves O Presbyters deny baptism unlesse the parent will confesse his faith before the Bason are in worse and more cursed condition then if they were in captivity And if an Indians infant should be born and bread up here in England and be in never such a hopeful way of comming in time to the knowledge of the truth yet all the time he remains unbaptiz'd and not visibly added to your corrupt church of England he is belike under a worse curse and condition then if he were in slavery or captivity I wonder where Christ or his disciples ever preached such kind of Gospel His 21 plain Scripture-lesse proof for infant-Church membership and baptism runs upon this disjunction viz. Either they are in the visible Church of Christ or in the visible kingdome of the Devil for there is no third state saith he in which they are but if they be not in Christs visible Church they are visibly out of it and if they be visibly out of that visible Church then they are visibly in Satans Kingdome This is the summe and substance of what he laies down and the basis upon which he builds a necessity of admitting the children of the faithfull into and reckoning upon them as in the visible Church of Christ or else we must saith he say they are in the visible Kingdome of the Devill which to say saith he is false doctrine the rest is but amplification and augmentation rather then Argumentation of this position now howbeit a wise body that is not resolved to trouble himself and fill the world with curious pryings long proofs and prolix prates about matters which the wisdome of Christ in the word of his Testament which was written to for and concerning men and women and not infants is pleased to be silent in would surely have sat down satisfyed with that sober saying which Mr. B. himself cotes out of Mr. T. Apol. p. 66. viz. that infants are neither in the Kingdom i. e. visible church of Christ nor Satan visibly till profession For really so it is and no otherwise properly and quoad nos who have no warrant to take cognizance of them as in either one or in the other visibly but as at years they visibly appear to cleave to either neither are these two viz. the visible Kingdome of Satan and the visible Church of Christ the adaequate dividing members of the whole world but excepting infants of the adult ones in it only which visibly obey either Christ or Satan neither doth Satans visible kingdome consist of any infants visibly at all but of such as visibly are acted by him even the children of disobedience in whom he works Ephes. 2.2 nor Christs visible Church of any infants visibly at all save when some were inchurched and incovenanted as a type for a time but of such onely as visibly obey him these I say are visibly the subjects servants disciples and children of each Rom. 6. his servants ye are i. e. visibly to whom i. e. visibly ye obey whether c. 1 Ioh. 3.10 in this i. e. doing or not doing righteousnesse are manifest i. e. visibly the children of God and of the devll so Iohn 8. They are visibly of their father the devil who do the works of their father i. e. in Gospel account for else in the lawes account they as Abrahams seed were then the Churches children howbeit I say any one that is not willing to be wise above what is written and to have vision of more then is visible would rest in this yet sith Mr. B.
i. e. the Pope is the native Father of the Bishops and therefore he must be at least the Grand-father of you Presbyters Yet some of you are so ashamed to have it said that as Ministers of Christ you receive your orders and standing as such from Antichrist that you professe not to act in your ordinations to and executions of the ministerial function as from Gregory the Great but to renounce that and to ordain now not as Presbyters that were in orders from such as were in orders from the Pope but rather as persons deputed so to do by the ordinances of Parliament extant to that purpose and by the power and appointment of the Civil Magistrate who say you is he that only hath power to raise all again since the treading down in matter of both Ministry and Ordinances and may as well do it with his own hands if he please as appoint you to do it making him the chief officer that Christ hath set in his Church to redresse all that 's amisse in it such a Mish-mash as this was once more largely uttered by Mr. Glenden in a discourse at Swevenock in order to the proving the Ministry of the Church of England to be a true Ministry But if the Magistrate were any Church officer as at all he is not so as that men that have their orders from his ordinances as it seems the Junior Sophisters of this age have are as to the outward call or ordination true Ministers of Christ yet that makes nothing to the proving of you to be so that stand Ministers of the old stamp from the hands of the old Lord Bishops besides some yea it may be the most of you that hold your present authority to ordain in from the Parliament scarce held the Parliament while it stood of any authority at all since the last new modelling of it so discontented were you that your Northern model was in no more request yea though you held it such a lawful and sufficient power when they made an ordinance for Tith and Trebble dammages that you held your selves bound in conscience to God or rather your own good to obey it and improved you selves to the utmost to see it executed on conscientious delinquents against it yet when ordinances for double service came as solemn fasts witnesse that of Iun. 13.1652 so strictly enjoined to be observed by the Ministers of every parish how many of you drew your necks out of the coller as not owning the then Parliament to be a power that you might lawfully submit to thus an ordinance that is charged topful of benefice you durst venture to let off but when one came that had nothing but bare office in the mouth of it then they by whose orders you pretended to stand in both benefice and office might give order to discharge it twice before you would once discharge it And as your meet Mongrell Caesarean Magistratical Pope-episcopall kind of Ordination together with that unworthy unPastorlike forcible Obtrusion of your selves as Pastors on people without their free election so your Popelike practises and unministerly management of your selves in all other particulars doth proclaim you plainly to be no true Ministers of Christs Gospel nor true Pastors of the flock but rather to be Wolves Theeves Robbers Hirelings that come not in by the dore Jesus Christ but climb into the folds some otherwaies to wit the recommendation of great men and sometimes buying the gift of the spirit i. e. a spiritual living yet modestly saying No thrice as the Bishops when they had given a thousand pound for the place and improvement of your interest in your Patrons and do come into spoil steal destroy and serve your own selves of them as well as you can while you are with them and so away again to make a prey of some other parishes for verily if you can spie out any flocks that have better fleeces then other leaving those you lived with before to shift for themselves without their leave with the leave of such as pretend to the power of presentment you l be their Pastors whether they will or no but if any of you be chosen for their churchmen by a poor people that want a great Benefice for their Cure they must for you want the Benefit of a Curaâ—e Yea what maintenance is in this or that vacant parish which you are harping after is one of the main Questions thats about it yea Ye minister for maintenance ye teach for reward ye preach foâ— hire ye divine for money ye turn the Gosspel into a meer trade to the learning of which you put men out as Apprentices about some seven years to the universities and then allow them as free men therof to set up for themselves and get as good livings by it as they can where you may be sure of sufficient wages you will tell men a little of the truth and truely t is not much of it that you know but you care not how little you preach of that little you have to preach where you can hope to have but little pay for your pains Wo to yee O ye National PPPriesthood t is too too eviden that you are not the Shepheards of the sheep yea you are the idol-shepheards that leave the flock to provide for your selves not regarding their welfare when by sâ—incking away from them you can provide but a little better for your own you are exceptis excipiendis saving some few hundreds among many thousands Hirelings ' that flee to prefer better secure advance or advantage your selves because you are Hirelings and care not for the sheep you are Pastors that are become bruitish you have not sought the Lord but your selves for the most part therefore shall ye not prosper but your sheep shall be scattered away from you Ier. 10. yea verily you drive them from you dayly more and more not onely by many pieces of your dry divinity but specially with your terrible doctrine of trebble damages in which you drive so furiously upon them that you drive them both out of your dores and their own also you have an evill eye of covetuousnesse and greedinesse upon the tenth of every mans substance and therefore you loose no time while the law of man favours you in it though not the man Christ Jesus and spare no pains but take scrape strive streign ride run rake wrangle weary out your selves and neighbours and all Courts and Committees in City and Country to have something out of every thing for doing worse then nothing till you not onely trebbly endamage but totally undo many poor mens wives and childrens bodies and your own souls too except ye repent little considering that an inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning shall not be blessed in the end you devour widowes houses and for a pretence make long prayers and therefore will receive greater damnation you Tith mint and rue and all manner of herbs corn lamb
a number of ignorant Mass Priests Monks and Friats who blind guids as they were of the blinder people fell with them into the ditch of Superstition Heresie and Sensuallity and say I the English Antichrist i. e. the Arch-bishop of Canterbury a chip of the old block that was an Apprentice at Rome in old'n time till he set up for himself here and became indeed what the old Caiaphas Pope Urbane the second prophesied of him in a complement about 1099 little thinking then God wot that he would serve him such a trick as to set up his posts against his posts and take away his custome and trading here in England Papatus alterius Orbis this English Antichrist I say hath multiplyed many teachers and feeders that are far better â—ed then taught in matters of either God or man and as few Scholars as are among the true Churches if there were none the truth would stand without them and God delights in no mans legs but if there were need of that to the making ministers of the Gospel there is proportionably fewer among your churches considering how little Christs flocks is and how voluminous the fold of the WWWhore and how few truly are so that go under that name among the people with whom hand tam cultus quam cucullus facit monachum for though you talk of secular learning yet if that were so necessary to a Minister as the Ministry say it is it would not onely cut off Peter and Iohn from that denomination who were though better gifted yet lesse learned in that sense then the least of you but most of you CCClergy also among whom throughout your whole dominion of Christndome there 's few Country Curates are well studied Scholars indeed in Logick and other arts and sciences and as for the tongues and original languages of the Scriture I speak it to the shame of the Ministry who unminister themselves in saying it is so necessary there is scarce five of 20. know the originall in the old Testament and not twenty to 5 so well as you should do in the new and as for the onely true learning and original of all wisdom the fear of God growth in grace and the knowledge of Christ and misteries of his kingdom and the spirit that Christ promised to his people to teach them all things which it were better for you by all your learning that you had more of unlearned Peter himself may truly tearm the most of you such unlearned ones as wrest the Scripture to your own destruction Act. 4.13 2 Pet. 3.16 yea so ungifted are the most of you so much as to pray and then well may you be to preach and that is to be unlearned as to the ministers office that unlettered or at least unspirited Artificers may be the proper name of some Clergy men as well as of the teaching tradesmen Dr. Featly speaks of for these receive the holy spirit that gifts them to it but not many of the Clergy are gifted to pray extempore without book if I onely said this you would not believe me but sith your great Patron Dr. Featly to whom you send us is my Patron as to this you must believe it whether you will or no unlesse you would have us believe him whom you will not believe yovr selves who gives this good reason p. 95. why its necessary to have set formes for the Ministers of the church of England to pray by if they pray at all in publique for there is not one Minister saith he or Curate of an 100 specially in Country Villages or Parochial churches who hath any tolerable gift of conceived as they term them or extempore prayers which if so you have smal reason to cry out of others as illiterate yea verily your selves will appear to be as the Anabaptists are stil'd by you an illiterate and Sottish generation in things principally pertaining to Christ and to Ministers of Christ to be skil'd in for that indeed is to be truly learn'd or unlearn'd in quoquo genere viz. to be raw or ready either in that which men supremely pretend to excell in as the Divine doth to excell other men in the things of God or else in that which is most excellent in it self and most worthy ouâ— being learn'd in as the highest and most excellent objects that are knowable being Christ and the mysteries of his kingdome those consequently are the best Scholars in the world that are most deeply insighted thereinto though elsewise never so ignorant Si Christum nescis nihil est si caetera noscis Si Christum noscis nihil est si caetera nescis Now count which of these two waies you will the greatest Clerks will appear to be the greatest Novices the greatest Doctors the greatest Dunces the greatest Schoolmen the least Schollars the prime of the Priesthood the prime Ignoramus's that the Christian earth doth carry for howbeit O yee PPPrists some of you for the most of you will never be mad with much learning even surfeit on inferiour literature viz. arts tongues c. and are taller then other men by the head in the reading of History Oratory pieces of pibald Poetry and such like yet as to the misterious plain Gospel wherein are hid and whence are handed out unto us the treasures of eternity in earthen vessels i. e. the homely base foolish weak wayes and dispensations which are of Christs chusing which it concerns Christs Ministers of all men to be more clear in then in any thing else they are low and therefore too high and wonderful for you high studied men to reach to they are far about out of your sight Yea I thank thee O father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hidest these things because seeing they will not see them from the wise and prudent and revealest them unto babes yea O Lord how great is the multitude of meer Humanists that feed onely upon the common Theory of that Theology they have framed to themselves and relish nothing but what is of man how are thy depths even thy downright deliveries of soul saving truth in plainess of speech by the mouths of stammerers stark duncery to them how will not a poor marred mocked misreputed Saviour and gospel in any wise down with them who did of old and who do still stand out most stiffly against thy gospel O Christ but the proud self conceited Pharisees Priests and Lawyers who while the people believe and justifie God being baptized with the true baptism do generally reject the councel of God against themselves being not baptized therewith where had thy message by the mouth of Paul lesse acceptance then at the university of Athens where hath the word now lesse then in the Academies Christian Academies seemingly reforming Academies where if thou didst not tell us that Christ crucified should be foolishnesse to the wise men after the flesh and disputers of this world who could believe that the Princes of Zoan should be such fools
a tradition though more antient and reverent then some others as Mr. Rogers said of it and of which the church hath been posâ—est for 1500 years as Mr. Marshall a little more then he could undoubtedly prove too said of it is confest not onely by the Italian Clergy as Bellarmine who said it could not be proved by Scripture but as simply as our Clergy wrests the Scripture into the proof on t by the Remonstrants also who held it but as a very antient Rite that could scarcely be left off without great offence yea and Dr. Gouge also that would not be intreated to say ay or no to it at Dr. Chamberlains request now he sees people begin to pry into it did once acknowledge that it was a tradition of the church see Dr. Chamb. to Mr Bakewel p. 3. where he saies he hath under Mr. Barbers hand that he said so and used it as an argument to perswade him to take the oath ex officio And I desire all men to understand by these presents before whom we may happen to dispute this point hereafter that we declare against infant-sprinkling as a novelty in the faith and when we plead the dipping of believers as we are not in jest intending otiosam disputationem such idle dribling demi disputes and dainty dispatches as the Priesthood put us off with wherein he flams us i th mouth for an hour or two with the flap of a fox tail and lends us two or three licks of Latine and Logick and away again but a more serious earnest and constant course of conferring till the truth be tryed to the utmost so what we are so careful to contend for it is no new one but that old faith and baptism which was once delivered to the Saints this course of continued discourse though it suits not with such as seeing see not whose waies and courses are so much the more suspitious to be naught by how much the lesse they abide the light And a Modern Author whose Learning and Judgement lives in the Memories of many of our Kentish Clergy passed this sentence on it Pruritus disputandi scabies Ecclesiae yet I say is that the very life of the truth is so far concerned in that there 's very little of it comes to light in the CCClimate of the CCClergy by reason of their subtle sneaping things as much as may be out of sight that make against them I know the perverse disputings against the truth of men of corrupt minds destitute of the truth supposing that gain is godlinesse that t is reformation enough to mend the means of Presbyters out of the Bishops superfluities is the scabb of the Church of England indeed but I speak not of the pravity but purity of the disputation when plain minded men destitute of all self ends are minded to be serious and self denying and single-hearted in this work in order to more then either money or meer dispute it self nor is it Pruritus disputandi an itching simply after dispute for who are we simple Coblers Cartars Smiths Fishermen Farmers c. to stand before the wise and the Scribe and the disputer of this world in that work if God had not rejected them and made his wisdome foolishnesse but it is pruritus disprobandi a deep desiring of disproving your practises as Popish dispelling your smoak of errors and endeavouring to the utmost of our power according to what you have sworn us to in that kind to root out not by the civil sword but the plainnesse of the word your superstition heresie Schism and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound doctrine that disposes us to desire it Indeed The Heathen said it was a wicked custome to dispute about the Gods for thereby things certain are oft called into question nor have they said thus without reason considering what little strength of Reason they had wherwith to assertain it that their Gods were Gods at all but me thinks it should not be counted therefore a wicked custome among true Christians that own the true God unless to put forth such curious questions about God as the Schoolmen do viz. An deus potius non fuisse whether God could have chosen whether he would have been God or no and such like fooleries to dispute about their God and about his worship for fear it should grow more doubtful by discussing and howbeit considering the strong causes that commonly stiffen and harden the CCClergy in their Heresies or the utmost of their ends in disputing and some of those sorry effects that ensue there is but little encouragement to that work of disputing with them yet sith truth can likely be no looser by comming to the light nor is diminisht but displayed the more by how much it is discussed I see no reason why it should be declined and why Heteticks are not to be disputed withall and here it cannot be amisse If we consider 1 the Causes 2 the deâ—ign of Hereticks 3 the Common effects of disputation with them Among the causes of the CCClergies Heresies may be reckoned Amor sui a conceit of themselves a fancied perfection and purity in them more then others Amor sui primum aedificavit civitatem diaboli saith St. Austin self love first set up the divels Kingdome Even that great City BBBabylon that in three PPParts reigns over the Kings and nations of the earth for though there were many superstitions grown in uppon the Christians before in the first three hundred years yet the pompous Kingdome of Priests had no foundation whereupon to rise so long as the Roman Empire remained Heathen for then the very Bishops of the Church of Rome whom the Devil hath since made his Vice-gerents in the world were persecuted to the death by the devil himself acting in the heathen Emperors in bloody butchery against Christians yea the Ministers went under miserable martyrdome as well as others and kept indifferent close to the truth but when once the Dragon who fought against Michael and his Angels with open rage before and acted against them under the very name of Christians by his Angells the heathen Emperors and massacred Millions of Christians when he saw the Emperor himself Constantine the Great turned Christian and resolved to vindicate Christs cause and rescue the Christians from their bloody sufferings and finding that Michael and his Angels did now prevail against him and his cruel Cutthroats so that place must be no more found for them in heaven i. e. the high places of power in the Empire and that he could execute his wrath now no longer by them against the saints as Christians a Christian being now come to the Crown he had no other remedy now then to play his cards about another way and turn Christian also himself that he might have the fairer advantage to crush the true Christians that kept the commands of God and the faith of Jesus under the new nicknames of Hereticks Schismaticks c. that
Church and Schismaticks in the Church c. wherewith you astonish the vulgar but I protest this day before God and men not onely against him against whom you are Protestants also but against your selves also his Schismatical sons who own his ordinations and still walk in some of his ordinances viz. Rantism Parochial posture c. as those that are little lesse ignorant then he and his good sons of both the true Church and true peace thereof whilst the truth to which she should submit is not regarded by you and the very things that make a true visible Church and are de esse and constitutive of it so that abstract them and you null it viz. true matter i. e. believers baptized and true form i. e. free and not forced fellowship both which are so in the Churches of England Scotland Italy France and Spain are not onely wanting but also trodden under your feet Fourthly the peaceable way wherein we propagate these opinions were you as sure they are erroneous as I am that you 'l once find them to be truth will yet excuse and acquit us from all guilt of disturbing the peace of either the world or your Church which is the world in reference to the true one and unlesse you can say the Gospel of peace which where ere it comes occasions dissentions is the cause of them as in no wise it is but mens lusts rather that rage and take on against it you cannot say our Gospel is for it propounds them to the world in no other way then that and that way was no other then bare propounding them and as Christ and his disciples did not judge them here though they will judge them most severely hereafter who reject their words by the power of the Magistrate by the civil sword by nailing to pillories cutting off ears slitting noses whippings â—ines confiscations prisons bonds banishments fightings fire and fagot the bloody wayes whereby BBBabilon hath edified it self to that height of abomination the Arguments whereby the CCClergy were wont to convert Hereticks quickly from all error to dust and ashes so if any man hear our words and reject them well may we rebuke him sharply as they also did but we judge him not in that way whereby the Tribe of Levi that hath levied war for his lusts sake against the whole earth hath bereft all men of peace neverthelesse the words that we speak to him being those that Christ and his disciples have spoken in the world the same will judge him at the last day Secondly why sith it must needs be supposed there be many Godly men among the Ministers of the Nations though the most of them be wicked yet I do not except and exempt them when I inveigh so heavily against the CCClergy or why I do not rather forbear and spare to speak so broad at all and so generally as I do against that generation as an evill one for the sake of those good ones that are among them To which I say First that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 godly men properly are those onely that worship God aright i. e. according to his own will and institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which well weighed might possibly put the best men among you to your trumps to make good your title to that title and denomination of godly by Scripture record sith while you stand among the rest even you as well as the worst do preach and practise for doctrines of Christ some traditions of man if you had no more enjoined you by them on whom you wait for your instructions then barely the sprinkling of infants by which you make void what in you is the true baptism of Christ. Yet not denying but that there is a sprinkling of honest hearts quorum meliori luto finxit praecordia Titan whom the sun of righteousnesse as he lightens every man that cometh into the world hath hatcht up into a higher predicament of Godlinesse then their fellowees who are drawn up into some higher streins of devotion then the rest I adde further Secondly what are these littles to the lump what is the gleaning to the vintage here and there one good man to the whole corrupt crue of them that like Locusts and Caterpillars have spread themselves together with the smoak of errors over the earth in three several swarms or armies can some scores of well meaning Priests give the denomination of an holy PPriesthood godly Ministry to those legions of them that lie in wickednesse you may as well say there 's a million of Saints among the men of the world therefore reprove not the world for their sakes such as these who out of meer simple honestly rather then sinful sophistry and mystical iniquity do stand and act and argue against the true way as they do are Rarae aves very few to the multitude of humanists and sensual ones and subtle subverters of the Gospel which yet they would seem to be Ministers of for their own ends by whom they are commonly so hated too so far as they have any more strictnesse and sincerity then ordinary that they are among the other of their brethren as I was for querying after truth while I stood among them as owles and bats baited by other birds which few good grapes were they better then they are cannot denominate the whole vintage as una hirundo non facit ver BBBabilon is BBBabilon still and SSSodom is SSSodom and must be called so though Lot live in it and he called out of it too unlesse he mean mean to perish with it Thirdly those good men that are there the mores the pitty that they are so ought not to be suffered nor spared but spoke to the rather themselves and that very roundly too for being and abiding in a bad way and not the way it self and those many bad men that are in it scape declaring against as bad because of them there must be down-right dealing with upright men when they are in a wrong way and that indeed is the most upright dealing with them of all yea Sirs you that are upon the Account of these times for godly Ministers let me say this to you for verily I have sorrow of heart for some of you of my old acquaintance my own flesh and blood for whose sakes fâ—esh in me would fain be silent as knowing flesh in you would fain be let a lone but I must urge you to be serious in seeing how unsafely you satisfie your selves in your present fellowship with a carnal Clergy what make you among the prophane Ministry of the Nations that hath in all ages sate with such weight upon them as to sink them into a gulf of error so that all truth almost is heresie with them now and under hazard of being smoothered as soon as it peepes out from under that veil of traditions that hath covered it what make you keeping a Court of guard among the Babilonians to help to hold them in
is told to and by me and Iohn Brain Both being once of thine one children twain Thou seest yet wilt not see this but remain Silent least friends turn foes and thee disdain But some must shew 't or else they see 't in vain Through England Scotland Italy France and Spain Amen Hallelujah TTTripartita Tribus Tribulaes Tribulusque Triunus Discipulis Christi Triplexque Tricepsque Tyrannus Trico Tricornis Trifurcifer atque Triformis Tristificus Sanctis toti Ter damnifer Orbi Ter decimas sapiens capiens rapiensque Triarchus Reges ipsa regens ipsos super omne triumphans Te credens proh vana fides genus esse deorum RRRoma O RRRoma Tibi mulier formosa videris Attamenes MMMeretrix vix heu pendenda Triuncis Viribus ipsa tuis te perdis quo peritura es Tempus adest aderitque brevi tibi Terminus ipse Dixi haud magis malus Piscator ac tu ac tui O SSSacerdos estis Pessimi Pisces qui nisi resipiscamini Reiiciemini in eternum Mat. 13 48. In Domino viz. via Domini Salvetote FINIS * Witnes the Letter sent to me in the name of more from from one of the opponents which in fuller satisfaction concerning my call to this work is extant at the end of this Epistle * In which sad winter visitation I may not but take notice here in satisfaction to the deluded world how miserably I was misreported to have met the Divel in a field to have been out of my wits and senses stark mad bound down in my bed to have renounced and that with raging that way of the Gospel which throw Gods goodnesse I stand fast in to this hour of all which not the least Jota is true and this too not onely by much people but in part also by such of the Priesthood as lived neer enough to me to have given truer intelligence had they or their Earwigs been either of them any better then they should be * Dr. Featley Dr. Holmes Mr Marshall Mr Bayly Mr Blake Mr Cotton M Cobbet Mr Cooke Mr Symson of Smardens soveraign preservative against Anabaptism Mr. Baxters Plain Scripture proofs * Whose â— words in his return to mine are these viz. as for that most reverend Clergy whom in general you spatter with so much dirt with what fingers a blind man may discern I shall leave them to vindicate themselves and their profession from such immerited obloquiest Expedias persâ—ta co suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 picasque doce as verba nestra canari That 's the dreadfull phrase whereby you also term your selves ghostly fathers to awe poor ignorants into the greater observation of you and yours express the holy spirit else the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be Englisht by the word spirit at all times as well as some both in translations treatises and discourses b Dr. Blechenden c Mrs. Chute as she was then cal'd now Mâ—s. Dean d Habent artificium quo prius persuadent quam docent veritas autem docendo suadet non suadendo docet Tertull. as cited by your quondam friend Mr. G. C. in his second letter to me e Dr. Austin and Dr. Blechenden e Infans of non fans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f See Mr. Blake in birth priviledge p. 5.11 g P. 87 88. of the way of the Church in N. England 1 Cor 10.1 2. 1. Argum. h Featleys dip dipt p. 178. 2. Argum. i See Mr. Baxter p. 109 297.298 k See Mr. Blake p. 4. 3 Argum. m p. 9. of his grounds and ends of baptizing children n p. 35.36 of his grounds and ends c. o p. 58. of his animad on Mr. Tombes Exercit. p p. 63. of the same book q Demonstratio est ex prioribus notioribus et causis r See Pareus p. 357. and Kekerman System log p. 12. tignum est quod seiâ—lum sensui et preter se aliquid animo ostendit or Râ—sâ— preter speciem quam iâ—gerâ— sensibus aliâ—d asiquid saciens incognitionem venire Taia enim debent esse â—t res invisibileâ— significent â—i enim debent esse adminicula fidei oportet percipi externo sensu quo movetur sensus internus quod enim non vides non est tibi signum qui facit signum invisibile implicat contradictionem et facit signum non signum res sunt invisibiles non signa alioqui signa non possent significare res multo minus confirmare quia incertum confirmaretur per aeque inceâ—tum hinc veteres sacramentum ita definiunt sacramentum est signum visibile invisibilis gratiae p. 212.213 of his reply to Mr. Tombs s Privatio sacramenti non damnat â—i non accedat contemptus christus non adimiâ— salâ—â—em eis quibus adimiâ—â—r baptismus t Quantum damni invexerit dogma illed male exposâ—â—um baptisma esse de necessitate â—alâ—â—is pauci animadvertâ—nt Ideoque minus sibi cavent nam ubi invalâ—it opinio perditos esse omnes quibus aquâ— tingi non contigit nostra conditio deâ—enor est quam vereris populi quasi restrictior esser Dei gâ—â—â—ia quam sub lege venisse enim Christus censebitur non ad implenâ—as promissiones sed abolendas quando promissio qâ—ae â—unâ— ante octâ—vum diem saluti confeâ—endae per se erat satis effiâ—â—x nunc absquo signi adminiculo rata non esseâ— Non arceri a regno caelo rum infances quibus è prae senti vita migrate continget antequam aqua mergi dâ—tum fuerit atqui jam vi sum est fieri nou leveÌ„ injuriam dei saederi nisi in eo acquiescimus â—csi per se infirmum esset qâ—um ejus effectus neque a baptismo neque ab ollis acestionibus pendeat * ubi vides ibi fides where we see it is there we say it is nati Discipuli sacti nati Eunuchi casâ—rati x p 37. to Mr. Tombs y p. 120 121. of his Animadv on M. To. Exercit. Non cum Iesu Itis qui Itis cum Iesuitis Reason Reasonless Reason Reasonless Reason Reasonless Reason Reasonless Reason Reasonless Reason Reasonlesse Reason Reasonlesse Reason Reasonlesse a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a In eundem in quem nostra nunc intendunt Scopum et vetera illa spectarunt nempe ut ad Christum diâ—igerent pene manu ducerent aut ipsum potius ceu imagines representarent ac cognoscendum proferrent b Eam promionem in evangelio datam per sacramenta nobis magis declarat Deus nempe per analogiam signorum cum rebus quae per ea significantur sicut similitudo declarat id cujus est similitudo haec enim
three fat parsonages or special benefices together t is a shame that for all the night is so far spent here in England yet even here there is such endevouring for preferments still such heaping up of more spiritual dignities and Ecclesiastical emoluments then one and pluralities of profitable places ingrost by single persons and such as would be singularly accounted of too but never will be by wise men had in so little as single shame whilst they harp so much after such double honour the Pope and Arch-bishops in the Popish times were till of late they grew more corrupt complainers and correcters of this greedy practise Alexander the third and 301 Bishops in a Lateran councel saies Mr. Den in a Sermon of his concerning Iohn the Bap. p. 64. concluded no Priests should have 2 benefices 1179. 1231. Richard the costly Archbishop of Canterbury complained to the Pope that Priests in England held more livings then one and though it hath been thought that many livings are a good step to a Bishoprick yet I have read of one John Bland saith he elected Archbishop of Canterbury but refused by the Pope chiefly for holding two livings without dispensation 1233. and John Pecham Archbishop of Canterbury made a Canon that no Clergy man within his province should hold two livings 1304 what a stinking shame is it therefore that to this day there is such inhauncing ingrossing for my part I am well assuted that though it be not yet yet long it will not be before stick and stone of the whole fabrick of the tripple BBBabel or National Ministry will fall and all their severall sorts of forced maintenances fall with them throughout Europe but first here in England for the tenth part of the City i. e. the Clergy here falls first yea as there have two woes to the Clergy fell on them here already which have cast out the two corrupter sorts of these spiritual men and all their spiritual maintenance and revenues the first whereof fell upon the flat Popish false Ministry viz. Cardinals Votaries Friers Abbots Nuns and Abbeyes and with them all their maintenance and the foolish forms of their false ministrations viz. their golden legend and book of false miracles bulls indulgences Masses dirges â—igintals and other trumpery the second upon the second part of the great City or Clergy viz the Archbishops Bishops Chancellers Comissaries Dears Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and their Officials and with them fell all their land means and maintenance together with all their false manner of ministration viz. the Common-prayer liturgy book of ordination of Priests and Deacons Homilies and all the Crutches of that lame and lazy Clergy so the third is now nigh to come upon the Presbyterian Clergy whether they see it or no for the face of the skies and Scriptures do both look and lour alike upon them with whom will fall that their still pleaded for maintenance by Tithes Gleabs Parsonages Vicarages and all their Ecclesiastical Profits and emoluments whatsoever together with all their Church constitutions Synodical directories and formes of worship and government Classes creeds Catechisms parochial posture yea their Euphrates too is dayly drying up in the hot sunshine of the Gospel though they for the most part scorched with great heat rather blaspheme the name of God that hath power of these plagues then repent to give him glory Rev. 16.9 I say most certainly all these false national parochial constitutions of Church and Ministry Babi-baptism and maintenance must down in due time but in the mean time though I wish its fall yet I heartily wish that you Clergy were so charitable as to share the maintenance that 's yet alloted you as the National Ministry a little more evenly among your selves and not be so basely covetous as to sherk one another without reproof and to suffer some to have two or three livings or if but one yet that worth two happily three perhaps four five six or 700 per annum as some livings are and some as honest and painful and worthy in their way and godly in suo genere as the other to be pincht within the income of as few scores as the rest have 100ds by the year some having but seven some six others but five others four three two and some scarce a score of pounds to bring the year about with and yet have not a farthing worth of help from the high flown favorites of their times Dr. Featley had two livings while he was alive as it seems by himself in his Epistle to Mr. Downham to whom he complaines that both his pulpits were taken from him but though Episcopal Parasites did hold no more then they could get yet we being six or seven years past the darknesse of those times me thinks now the Clergy should cry out upon each other when they see any clambering beyond a competency and consider the incompetency of their fellows voluntarily whether the Parliament augment one out of another yea or no but no bubble stands higher then the rest of the water it rides on for a while but t will break within a while and be level'd to the residue of its element in the mean time they have enough among them if they can be contented to enjoy it in equal portions and not fall out about the shifting it so much is yet left though so much already is confiscated that moderate minded men that mean not to erre from the faith by the love of money more then of Christ need not set up their Notes to the State to administer more I le tell thee what thou hast had and yet hast oh HHHireling SSShepheard within this Island of Brittain nay in England which is but the one half the whole of which is but a poor patch of about a tenth part of the rest of Christndome and this out of thy own mouth I mean a man of thy own fraternity see Helin Geog. p. 464.465 an Episcopal Clergy man vaunting of the greatnesse of thy maintetenance which mouth of thine is still opening in some or other of the younger brothers of the present Presbytery to this day to call out for more The Clergy saith he meaning of England onely was once of infinite riches as appeareth by the Bill preferred to King Henry the fiâ—t against the Temporall revenues of the Church which were able to maintain 15. Earles 1500 Knights 6000 men of Arms more then a 1000 Almes-houses and the King also might clearly put up 20000 pounds as they now are not so rich so are they far more learned and of more sincere and Godly carriage wherein they give place to no Clergy in the world and for learning I dare say cannot be any where paralleld neither are they so destitute of the externall gifts of fortune but that they are the the richest of any Ministers of the reformed Churches For besides 5439 Parochial benefices being no impropriations and besides the Vicarages most of which exceed the competency beyond Seas here
are in England 26. Deaneries 60 Archdeaconries and 544 dignities and Prebends all of which are places of a sur revenue And as for the maintenance of Priests Monks and Friars before thâ— reformation Mr. Camden reckoneth 90 Colledges besides those in the universities 110 Hospitals 3374. Chanteries and free Chappels and 645 Abbeys and Monasteries more then half of which had above the yearly imcome of 200 pounds in old rents in Many above 2000 and some 4000 almost So studious were our Ancestors both in those times of blindnesse and those of a clearer light to encourage men to learning and then reward it thus far he concerning the wealth of the English Clergy so that here was no lack yet I think but of a law that some should not sink and the rest swim in superfluity and hold two livings as Democritus would weep saies Mr. Den to hear some pluralists plead they do out of Charity it may be out of it indeed but t is in no charity to their brethren but oh the bottomlesse pit of the Priestly purse beyond sea where poor Peter reigns in his posterity who had neither silver nor gold in his own person Act. 3.6 of the gettings of that one great man the Pope to say nothing of the endlessenesse of his Priests eagerness after money there is no end nor yet weight number nor measure of his treasures t would make your eyes dazzle to see it and will make your ears tingle to hear what a deal of this ministerial maintenance is at Rome and her immediate Territories where there are no lesse then a million of Officers mendicants and others maintain'd at other mens cost themselves disbursing not a penny The ordinary Temporal revenue of the Papacy saith Helin Geog. 192.193 Boterus makes to be better then two millions of Crownes the extraordinary and spiritual to be wonderful Pius Quintus who ruled six years onely got from the Spanish Clergy fourteen Millions Sixtus the sixth took from the Iesuites at one clap 20000 Crowns of yearly Revenue because they were too rich for men that vowed poverty and having sate but five years had coffered up five Millions four of which his Successor Gregory the fourteenth spent in lesse then a year Out of France they reap no lesse then a million of Crowns yearly out of England when it was the Popes Puteus inexhaustus they extracted no lesse then 60000 Markes which in our present money is 120000 pounds being at that time more then the Kings certain Revenue And this was in the time of Henry the third before their Rapine was fully come to the height Let other Countreys be rated accordingly Next adde the moneys received from the particular pardons for dâ—spensing with unlawful Marriages the profits arising from pilgrimage from greats mens deaths and funeralls from the indulgencies granted unto Abbies and Convents in all which the Popes have a share and it would passe a good Arithmetician to passe his Entrado Here take the saying of Sixtus the fourth that a Pope could never want money while he could hold a pen in his hand yet is their Treasury seldome full for 1. the State they keep because of their height of honor above all Princes 2. the large allowance they give unto their Legates Nuncios and other Ministers and 3. their greedy desires to enrich their Sons or Kinsmen with the Churches Lands or money with which humour Pope Sixtus the fift onely was never touched keep their coffers exceeding low Adde to this the exceeding Gorgeousnesse of the Papal vestments and especially that of the tripple Crown for when Clement the fist transferred his seat to Avignion we read how with a fall from his horse he lost a Carbuncle with which his Crown was thick set worth 6000 Ducats at the least Thus he And saith Lord Napier on Rev. 9.21 and note q thereof It is more nor notorious what Abbies and Bishopricks from simple Princes what lands and yearley Revenues from landed men what money and goods from men of all estates hath been deceitfully stollen for indulgencies pardons remissions of sins trigentals soul masses dirges de profundis and other superstitions stealing thereby not onely mens goods but even their souls If all this treasuring up of trash be not covetousnesse excuse me if I know not what else to make of it it would make me laugh as sorry as I am for all such hereticizing and Schismatizing among the Ministers from primitive plainnesse as hath been to see a Clergy man stand up and tell me now that much maintenance is a necessary means whereby to enable ministers of Christ to promote the Gospell specially if they consider how this covetousnesse hath caused the CCClergy in all CCChristendome to erre so miserably from the truth thereof after the traditions of one another that some of the great Ghostly Fathers that had the greatest maintenance if that could have maintained them in or had not rather bewitcht them from it did not onely turn rank Hereticks but stark Atheists by their sin of covetousnesse when maintenance increased so much upon them if either lucre or learning could prevent the corruption or cure the ignorance of the Ministry the Popes had not proved such incarnate devills as the richest and the learnedst of them did Leo the tenth was indeed a great favourer of learning and layer up of wealth but so little favoured he of Religion that he was oft times heard to say Quantas nobis divitias comparavit ista fabula Christi a speech saith Helin so blasphemous that Lucian Porphirie or Iulian the Apostate could never match it in his time began the reformation by Luther and t was but high time for thee Lord to begin who wilt make an end also in thine own time for men yea thy ministers for so they all call themselves have throw covetousnesse utterly erred and universally made void thy law But enough if not too much saith Helin and so say I of these Ghostly Fathers and of their sanctities I will as he does p. 185 end with the Painter who being blamed by a Cardinal for colouring the visages of Peter and Paul too red reply'd that he painted them so as blushing at the lives of those men who stiled themselves their successors I have done with the causes of his heresies and come to his design The design of the Heretick even this Heretick of Hereticks the CCClergy is to propagate his Error and as his grounds are wicked so are his manners in mannaging of them intrat ut vulpes regnat utleo he pretends verity but intends onely victory that he may reign over the kings and people of the earth and that they might all stoop to his commands directions and under pretence of verity at first he did get victory at last over the whole world so that Pape Oh strange the whole world wondered after him and doted upon him as their Lord God and became slaves in chains to his Priestly will yea as he loved to