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A85020 The infants advocate of circumcision on Jewish and baptisme on Christian children. By Thomas Fuller, B.D. Fuller, Thomas, 1608-1661. 1653 (1653) Wing F2447; Thomason E1431_1; ESTC R202071 87,089 272

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THE INFANTS Advocate Of Circumcision and Baptisme on Jewish Christian Children DEUT. 29. 11 12. Your little ones shall enter into Covenant with the Lord thy God Origen lib. 5. ad Rom. c. 6. Ecclesia ab Apostolis traditionem accepit parvulis dare Baptismum quia essent in omnibus genuinae sordes peccati By THOMAS FULLER B. D. LONDON Printed by R. Norton for J. Williams at the Crown in S. Pauls Church-yard M.DC.LIII To the Right Honourable JAMES EARL of CARLILE my most Bountiful Patron AND To the Right Honourable LIONEL EARL of MIDLESEX my Noble Parishioner I Shall be censured for a Solecisme in Dedicating this my Infants Advocate unto your Honours not only for the meannesse of the Present but because the one of you being hitherto Childless and the other not as yet Married seem not so proper persons to be presented with such a subject But give me leave to acquaint your Honours that this my Treatise Janus-like looks backwards and forwards backwards to vindicate and assert the lawfulnesse of their Baptism which now arrived at Maturity were in their Infancy Baptized and in this capacity your Honours have an equal concernment in this subject with any others Forwards to justifie and avouch the acts of those Parents who hereafter shall fix the Sacrament on their Infant Children Your Honors in Gods due time may for the future be interested herein a favour the more fervently to be desired from Heaven both of you being the sole surviving Males of your Families and the single threds whereon all the hopes of your Noble houses do depend Give me Leave therefore who here am the Advocate to plead for the Baptizing of others to be also the Orator to pray for the Birth of your Children till which time may the blessings of the right and left hand plentifully fall and peaceably rest on you both which is the daily desire of Your Honours most obliged and humble servant THO. FULLER To the Right Worshipfull Edward Palmer Henry Wollaston and Matthew Gilly Esquires John Vavasor Francis Bointon Gent. with all the rest of my Loving Parishioners in Waltham Holy-Cross WHen I consider the many worthy works which had their first being within the bounds of this our Parish I may justly be ashamed that my weak endeavours should be borne in the same place For first the book of Mr. Cranmer afterwards Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and Martyr containing the Reasons against King Henry the 8 th his Marriage with Queen Katharine Dowager was compiled in our Parish whilest the said Cranmer retired hither in the time of a Plague at Cambridge to teach his Pupils Thus did Waltham give Rome the first deadly blow in England occasioning the Popes primacy to totter therein till it tumbled down at last The large and learned works of the no lesse Religious then Industrious Mr. Fox in his book of Martyrs was penned here leaving his posterity a considerable estate at this day possessed by them in this Parish What shall I speak of the no lesse pleasant then profitable pains of Reverend Bishop Hall predecessor in my place the main body of whose Books bears date from Waltham And shall my unworthy pamphlet presume to follow such able works from the same place However seeing my publike promise is solemnly past to you to Print the same hoping some profit may thence arise to you and others let it as a Page at due distance wait upon the works of those most eminent Authors Some will say this your Infants Advocate hath almost been as long in the breeding and birth as Infants use to lye in their Mothers womb so many moneths hath past betwixt the promise and performance thereof But let none grudge the time if it appear at last in its perfect shape coming forth soon enough for those who will reap benefit thereby Too soon for such who will take causless offence thereat Some perchance will take exception at the plainness thereof which by me was purposely affected herein It is a good leslon which may be learned from the mouth of a bad master even Rayling Rabshakeh not to deliver a message of publick concernment in a language which a few Courtiers only do understand but in a tongue whereby all the people on the wall may partake thereof And seeing the generality of our opposers are unlearned I conceived it my duty to decline all difficult words and phrases that all might more easily and perfectly perceive the truth therin Some perchance might expect a confutation of their practice which are Re-baptized a task needless for me to perform For such repetition of Baptism will follow of course to be vain if not wicked unneedful if not unlawful where the lawfulness and needfulness of Infants Baptism hath formerly been proved Baptism once wel done on Infants I may say is twice done which twice done is once ill done namely when it is iterated the second time without any just reason for the same What remains dear Parishioners but that I pray that my weak Preaching may be powerful and profitable unto you that you may do and suffer cheerfully according to the will of God Remember the addition of the name of your Parish HOLY CROSSE It matters not though Crosse be the sur-name if Holy be the Christian name of our sufferings whilest that God who sendeth them sanctifieth them unto us which is the daily prayer of Your unworthy Pastor in Jesus Christ THO. FULLER TO THE CHRISTIAN READER AMongst the many Lying Miracles reported by impudent believed by ignorant Papists in their Leaden Golden Legend it is not the last and least what they tell of one Rumball Son to an English King whose Saint-ship in those dark days was superstitiously adored at Brackley in Northampton shire Of him they report that he spake as soon as ever he was born and professing himself to be a Christian already in his heart requested or rather required that he might be Baptized which done he instantly ended his life I know not whether to call this a Childs fable from the subject or in the Apostles language an old wives fable from the inventors thereof Otherwise were this true and all children like him this our Infants Advocate were utterly useless and our pains for the present altogether superfluous which now we believe and hope may be profitable for those who cannot plead for themselves For though I cannot with Job be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame that is relieve their poverty out of a plentiful estate yet I will endeavour to be a tongue to the dumb and plead as well as I may in their behalf True it is I must confesse with that good Prophet not in respect of my age being past the vertical point thereof but of my other infirmities behold I cannot speak for I am a child and if a child be advocate for children the cause is likely to be poorly pleaded However I will endeavour to supply in integrity what I want
is answered first in general by the same argument one may conclude that under the Gospel no temporal or outward happinesse is promised to those that fear and serve God because no expresses thereof descending to the like particularities as in the old are found in all the new Testament I meet but with one in that nature tendering an exact Inventory of earthly wealth namely Mark 10. 30. And the same hath bitternesse as well as sweetnesse therein save that the close thereof maketh recompence for all the rest But he shal receive an hundred fold now in this time houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecution and in the world to come eternal life To come closer to their argument Though generally temporal blessings are only expressed in the Old Testament yet in and under them is spiritual happinesse contained Thus when in the fifth commandment long life in the land which God shall give them is promised to dutiful children eternity in heaven is included and so did the judicious amongst the Jews alwayes accept and expound the same Most true therefore is S. Pauls position 1 Tim. 4. 8. Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come But where hath it the promise of this life Chiefly in the old Testament where temporal good is largely and clearly spiritual briefly and dimly propounded Where hath it the promise of the life to come Principally in the new Testament where spiritual blessings are fairly and fully temporal shortly and slenderly presented Stock thy self with the one out of the Law with the other out of the Gospel with both out of the Bible So much for the Covenant made as inherent in Abrahams person come we now to consider it as hereditary and descending on his posterity I could name the Castle and rich Manour in England which was setled by Patent from Queen Elizabeth on one of her Courtiers But when the Grant came to be examined under King James those operative words to him and his heirs were found omitted in that emphatical place of the Patent where the estate therein should have been effectually conveyed Whereupon the Grant was interpreted meerly personal and forfeited to the Crown on the attainture of the foresaid Courtier God maketh sure work in his Covenant of Circumcision To prevent all miscarriages and to intail the same on Abrahams posterity how often doth he insert and repeat him and his seed Gen. 17 twice in the 7 th verse once in the 9 th verse once in the 10 th verse again in the 12 th verse and thy seed after thee If in after-ages a wicked son chance to descend from Abraham and the same prove a spiritual unthrift yet God hath put it past his power to alienate the spiritual inheritance of the Covenant from his children they shall not suffer for their fathers default the same being made over to Abraham and his seed and now we come to show what persons are included within the compasse of that relation CHAP. III. Of the several Acceptations of the Seed of Abraham in Scripture THe seed of Abraham as it occurs often in Scripture so severall are the sences thereof and all of them worthy of our especial notice But before and above all other Acceptions know first it is taken eminently and transcendently for Jesus Christ in whom all Nations should be blessed Even this seed of Abraham was Circumcised Luke 2. 21. Meerly out of conformity that Christ might shew himself born under the Law as sent not to destroy but fulfil it Indeed those few drops of bloud presumed shed by our Saviour at his Circumcision might both in their own Preciousnesse and Gods Appreciation of them have been satisfactory for the sins of al mankind But a Testament was intended by Divine Providence and that could not be made without the Testatours Death and therefore the very heart Bloud of Christ on the Crosse was adjudged necessary for mans salvation So much for Abrahams extraordinary come we to his ordinary seed This either was immediately or mediately begotten by him We find eight sons of the first sort namely Ismael begotten of Hagar Isaac of Sarah and six more see their names Gen. 25. 2. of Keturah Object How cometh it then to passe that the Apostle Paul Gal. 4. 22. saith Abraham had two sons the one by a Bond-maid the other by a Free-woman omitting all the rest as if no such persons in Nature Answ These two are mentioned eminently but not exclusively of others I will not say because Keturah though sometimes called the wife is elsewhere 1 Chro. 1. 32. stiled but Abrahams concubine therefore his Issue by her is left out by the Apostle but because though there was History of more yet there was Mysterie but in these two sons of Abraham whose two Mothers represented the two Testaments Had Abraham afterwards begotten an hundred sons they all had not amounted to the making of one Testament but were all reducible to one of the former Testaments compleated in Ismael and Isaac As for Ismael Luther is peremptory and positive that though the type of a carnal people yet in truth his own person was saved grounding his charitable opinion on that expression because it is said of him Gen. 25. 17. After death that he was gathered to his Fathers A phrase in the same chapter spoken of Abraham and not applied in Scripture to wicked men though it is said of Ahab 2 Kings 22. 40. which amounts to the same effect that he slept with his Fathers I will interpose nothing to the contrary but had been more confident of Ismaels final happinesse had it been said of him that he was gathered to his father Abrahams bosome being a noted place Luke 12. for blessed repose Abrahams immediate seed were either such as were begotten by him 1. In his life or 2. After his death Of the former were Esau and Jacob both of them being 15. years old whilest Abraham was yet surviving as may be demonstrated by the following Computation 1. Abraham was an hundred years old when Isaac was born Gen. 21. 5. 2. Isaac was fourty years old when he took Rebeccah to wife Gen. 25. 20. 3. Isaac was threescore years old when Esau and Jacob were born Gen. 25. 26. 4. All which years cast up together amount to an hundred and threescore years 5. Abraham when he died was an hundred threescore and fifteen years old 6. Ergo Esau and Jacob were fifteen years old before Abrahams death an Age capable of Instruction Therefore when God saith of Abraham Gen. 18. 19. I know that he will command his children c. to keep the way of the Lord. Esau and Jacob his Grand-children were literally intended The latter no doubt being as willing to learn as his Grand-father Abraham was able and industrious to instruct him Abrahams seed mediately begotten from him after his death were either 1. Literally and spiritually as the believing Jews 2.