liberty to out-stand or anticipate the eighth day at your pleasure hence the birth day is as warrantable with you as the eight yea in case of imminent danger of death in which case circumcision might not alter ti 's a learned question among some Infant-sprinklers whether the mid-wife may not sprinkle it before it s born i. e. while is hangs yet between the womb and the world but too soon is too soon in all conscience and again when it fits better with your plum-cake occasions the tenth twelfth or eight and twentyth day must be as acceptable to God as the eighth yea when it seems good to the wisdom of the Church i. e. the Clergy it may be deferred for no less than two or three hundred daies together witness the old Rubrik which saith that in old time baptism was not ministered but at two times in the year viz. at Easter and Whitsontide but that custome being grown out of use for many considerations I know not any but the Clergies good will and pleasure cannot now well be restored Thus you ride people to and fro as you list and run manie miles from your own rules as well as Christs for if Circumcision be your Rule for the time of Baptisms administration keep punctually to the particular time of the eighth day as well as to the generall time of Infancy or else you may tell me the eighth day is a circumstance not to be regarded whilst I tell you'tis such a substance that Moses was like to be slain for overslipping it yet by your favour Sirs and by the same reason that you take an inch I 'le take an ell yea if you can acceptably go a fingers bredth besides the rule of Circumcision I may go an hundred furlongs and by the same Authoritie that you delay the Dispensation beyond the eighth to the tenth twelft or the hundreth day I may delay it unless belief withall the heart do ingage to it before to the ten thousandth day or more nor can you question me why do you thus Secondly whereas for my undertaking to rectifie you in your gross misapprehension and reduce you from the misconstruction I saw you make of my speech which leaves you without excuse in this rude recording you record me as recalling what I said I protest against that as another of your sigments which you had need both to recant and repent of there was but one thing recalled all that day that I know of viz. that Iohn Baptist spake so soon as he came out of the womb that being rashly uttered by one in a Black coat was indeed as readily recalled as for my self what I said then I was so far from recalling that I 'le give you the advantage of saying the same over again hear therefore you deaf that you may understand bring me the children of three or four years old not instructed only for so the wickedst heathen may be but instructed to conversion and profession of faith not verbal onely for a Parret may be taught to prate but real as may seem at least and to desire baptism In Christs name yea more bring me the Infants of three or four daies old thus truly discipled and blame me for ever if I be not as forward to baptize them as your selves are to rantize them undiscipled This is the sense I then spake in the Lord knows my heart to whom I appeal ultimately to judge between us I have spoken it thus over again you have now my mind more fully among you mistake it not but take it dexterously and make your best on 't Report Next you relate and that most fictitiously that I having asserted circumcision to be a seal of the righteousness of faith to Abraham only and not to his posterity and being urged to shew any Scripture that did import a change in the signification and told that such a change must needs intimate that the same covenant was not made with Abrahams seed that was made with himself I was so foundered that though you ingaged to become Anabaptists if I did it yet I answered nothing that carried any sense or reason to the purpose Reply This I say is another of your your sigments for first to let pass the Sophisticall terms you used whilst you askt how or wher Circumcision ceased to be a seal of the righteousness of faith even to Abrahams posterity as if I had granted that Circumcision was once a seal of the righteousness of faith even to Abrahams posterity as well as himself and then was changed ceased left off to be so wheras I told you then that though 't was so to Abraham himself yet it never was so to them at all do also tel you now that when a man saies of a thing that it never was so it is but an illiterate kind of quere to ask him again when it ceased to be so Secondly confessing that I then affirmed and also still affirming the same viz. that Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith to Abraham only and not to his posteritie I profess thirdly before the world appealing to your own consciences to witness that as it is most plain in the Scripture so I then made a most plain discoverie of it from the Scripture that there were other ends uses and significations of Circumcision to Abrahams own person though in some respects there were also the same then those for which it was dispensed to his seed and that notwithstanding many things which were promised to Abraham were promised to all his seed together with him yet there were somethings also promised to Abraham in the Covenant of Circumcision which his seed had no promise of at all as namely First That he should be the Father of all Believers This I am most certain I then instanc'd in and according to your then demand cleared by Scripture even that very Scripture which was then quoted by your selves Rom. 4. 11. and repeating the whole verse whereof you for your own ends mentioned but a part I told you t was evident even thence that Abraham had one preheminence and priviledge that none of his posteritie had ever after him which he obtained of God by his preheminence in believing viz. the Fatherhood of the faithful of which eminent faith of his which was imputed to him for righteousness as well as of that eminent prerogative the Fatherhood of the faithful which God gave him upon that great faith Circumcision was given him as a seal in such a sence as t was never given to his seed a Seal I said for it was a sign only but no seal to his posteritie to honor the greatness not to strengthen the weakness of his faith i. e. to confirm him that was so great a believer even beyond hope in that honorable title which God put upon him therfore I told you it runs thus viz. he received the sign circumcision i. e. circumcision which in its ordinary use was a sign a
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 thâ—…t 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 be 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 presentment of the righteousness of Christ without faith is 〈◊〉 figment of the Anabaptists without ground or reason from Scripture the Covenant of the Gospel being the righteousness of faith Detection To which I contradictorily reply that there is another way revealed for the salvation and justification of little infants from all the guilt that lies upon them in infancy which is no other then that which comes upon them for the sin of Adam onely and from all that mischief which comes on them onely meerly and simply for that sin then that way of faith and that is the presentment of the righteousnesse of Christ to God on their behalf without faith and this way is no figment of the Anabaptists as you No-Baptists do foolishly fancy but that which hath such strong ground and reason from Scripture as you will never overthrow while you live although to men at years that have acted transgression in their own persons and are capable to act faith and other good as well as evil the Gospel is granted to be a Covenant that gives righteousnesse by Christ in no other way then that way of faith and obedience to him We usually put cloaths upon infanâ—…s but men put their clothes on themselves and so must we put on Christ by faith in order to justification when we come to years of discretion Gal. 3. 27. and not before I know the multitude of Scriptures that speak in general or at least in such indefinit terms as are in sense equivalent to universal concerning salvation to all them that believe and nothing but condemnation to all them that believe not as Mark 16. 15. 16. Iohn 3. 15. 16. 18. 19. 36. 11. 26. Act. 10. 42. Act. 13. 43. Rom. 1. 17. 3. 22. 25. 26. 28. 30. 4. 6. 24. a most monstrous mistake of all which as also of the whole Scripture makes you miserably misbelieve this matter viz. the way that all dying infants are saved in for you deem or rather dream that the Lord by these expressions whosoever believeth in me shall never dye he that believeth not shall be damned he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life c. delivers his will and testament not onely concerning persons at age but concerning infants in their very infancy also whereas if you Divines had not Divin'd your selves to very dotage you could not but understand that little infants are not intended in any of these or any other places that hold out faith as the way of our salvation for do but judge in your selves were it not shameful senslessnesse to read thus out of those places viz. God so loved the world c. that whosoever infants in infancy as well as men believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life those infants that do believe on him are not condemned but those infants that believe not are condemned already and why because they have not believed in the name of the onely begotten Son of God And this shall be the condemnation of infants as well as men that light and life is come to them and yet infants believe it not neither will come unto Christ that they might have life but but love darknesse more then light because their deeds are evil for thus you may read it if infants as well as men be there meant and so were it not sottish to read thus out of Rom. 4. 23. it was not written for Abraham onely that faith was imputed to him for righteousnesse but for infants also to whom it shall be imputed if they do believe on him that raised up Iesus our Lord from the dead c. so would it sound any whit savourly in the ears of one that 's of a sound judgement to read Mark 16. 15. 16. so as to understand infants together with others viz. go preach the Gospel to every creature who ere believeth and is baptized shall be saved but whoever believes not man or woman old or young infant or suckling shall be damned would not this grate harshly upon charitable ears but surely infants are not spoken of here nor are they in any other Scripture for ought I can find with the best sight I have where faith is spoken of as the condition on our part without which nothing is to be expected but condemnation I am sorry Sirs to see you Clergy men cloath your selves with such darke conceits and confusednesse of mind as not to know of whom and to whom things are spoken in the word nor whom in general the Scriptures you professe to be so profound in concern and preach to and I beseech you be not too wise in your own conceits to learn one lesson at least from him that is a fool among you for Christs sake viz. whereas you say infants must believe or not be saved the Scriptures declaring no other way to salvation but faith in Christ that the Scriptures were written only for our instruction that are at years to understand them and
that the infants of believers are really the seed of Abraham the seed of faith the spiritual seed so as Zacheus himself was that is by believing doth that Scripture so much as implicitly say any such thing either that the seed of believers do believe or that they are the seed of Abraham when it saith v. 7. they which are of faith the same are the children of Abraham and ver 9. they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham doth that phrase I say they which be of faith signifie believers infants or believing infants quid â—…ides such folk as those though some are ashamed to say they see yet some are not ashamed to say are to be seen in the world or doth it signifie such as are true believers indeed which of the two think you doth it expresse such persons at years onely as are in the faith or onely the natural fleshly seed of such or if you say both that that one phrase viz. they which be of faith should express two kinds of persons so differently descended of two so different births viz. believers themselves born of God by faith in Christ and also the meer fleshly seed of believers who are no higher born then of their bodies is so far from truth that it is more then flat folly to conceive it And if you mean it not of their being Abrahams children really by faith so as thereupon to be assured heirs of salvation but of their being counted of the faith so as to outward membership in the Church onely t is plain that Gal. 3. 7. 9. speaks of such onely as are truly in the faith i. e. faithful as Abraham was so as to be not onely outwardly inchurched but eternally saved also as none can say all believers children are some of them proving wretches when they come to years for as many as be of faith saith he i. e. faithful as Abraham was are blessed and shall be justified and saved with faithful Abraham whose faith was imputed to him for righteousnesse as faith shall be imputed to us also Rom. 4. 22. 23. if we believe on him that raised up Iesâ—…s from the dead c. answerable to that also is Gal. 3. 26. 29. ye are all the children of God by faith in Iesus Christ if ye be Christs i. e. by faith then are ye Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise i. e. the promise not of the law or old covenant or earthly Canaan for the Galatians were never heirs according to that nor yet of meer membership and participation of ordinances in the Church that 's more pertaining to the preceptory then the promissory part of the Gospel but of the eternall inheritance it self which is made not onely to believers and their seed as you lace it up but to all men and their seed on terms of believing and comming in at Gods call and made good to as many as are so effectually called so that they obtain the promise of that eternal inheritance indeed compare Heb. 9. 15. with Act. 2. 39. answerable to that also is Rom. 9. 7. 8. where its said in a figure that as the seed of Abraham himself by Ishmael were not children of God i. e. as to the old Covenant so as to be counted heirs of that Canaan and members of that Church though they were his true seed and the children of his flesh as well as Isaac was because Isaac onely and his seed were the children of that promise Gen. 17. 19. 2â—… 21. for in Isaac shall thy seed saith he be called the children of Abrahams flesh the Ishmaelites these are not the children of God in the old legal sense but the children of the promise are counted for the seed so even the seed of Abraham by Isaac himself are not at all children i. e. the children of God as to the new covenant so as to be counted heirs of the Gospel Canaan and members in the Gospel church though they were his true seed and children of his flesh as well as Christ was because Christ onely and his seed are the children of this promise for in Christ who was the true Isaac of whom the other was but the type must Abrahams seed now be called i. e. they that are the children of the flesh onely whether of Abraham or of any other man in thâ—… world these are not now as of old the fleshly seed of Abpaham Isaac and Iacob were the children of God but the children of the promise are counted now for the seed T is true to Abraham and his seed the Gospel promises were made as well as those of the law but mark it he saith not unto seeds in plurali as of many but of one and to thy seed in singulari that is Christ Gal. 3. 16. of whom being born by faith we are his seed to whom in and with him the promise is made for as the believer himself as a believer i. e. as Abrahams spiritual seed had no share in the old covenant promise i. e. Canaan if not descended from him by Isaac after the flesh because to Abraham and that fleshly seed onely in a type of something else and yet truly too those promises were made so a believers fleshly seed as barely a believers seed though born of believing Abrahams own body as the Iews are at this day and that 's a higher birth one should think to entitle to the Gospel if any fleshly birth could do it then to be born of our Protestant believers have no share in this new Covenant promise if not born as I may say of Abraham by Isaac i. e. Christ after the faith or by faith in Christ and so personally even every individual for himself not Catervatim or domesticatim whole families whole nations of parents and children at once ingraffed as branches upon the root and spirituallized into that stock or family of Abraham i. e. the visible Church in which his own natural branches much more any other mans meer naturall branches can have no place now any further then as they appear to believe Indeed the natural branches stood of right upon meer fleshly birth of believing Abraham without faith so long as that fleshly birth-priviledge lasted and could give a standing and till the time of faith and standing there by personal faith onely came and then they were broken off indeed because of unbelief yet not nationally as you say i. e. the whole body for the unbelief of some viz. the persons of the children through allages for the infidelity of the parents for its evident that as many as believed and those were not a few when the rest were rejected were then and thereupon admitted Act. 2. And as many children of them in any age as believe the unbelief of their parents shall not prejudice them but personally every individual that did not believe which the more is the pitty were for the most part both children and parents too in the primitive times save some few
the other case this is the first way whereby you profess to prove infants of believing parentt onely if you speak to your proposed purpose to have faith which how weak it is the weakest eye may discern it that is not disposed to be blind and the second is like unto it which is as followeth by two arguments of inconsequence Disputation Children of the Iews had faith Ergo children of believing parents now The Antecedent is proved thus viz. God himself did witness that the children of the Iews had faith by setting to his seal which was circumcision called by the Apostle the seal of righteousuess of faith Disproof There 's but two things to be own'd or disow'd at all in this piece of proof as also in the former viz. the Argument and the Antecedent and I 'le deny him to be a Seer that sees not good ground whereon to deny them both O fine O fine O fy these you call your Arguments of Consequence but saving that you say so I am verily perswaded the veriest implicit Simpleton that ever saluted the University or sware Allegeance to your Crown and dignity or was ever implicitly canonized into the obedience of your faith will never see them so to be when ceasing to see through your eyes he shall come once to behold things with his own for really they are the most false absurd and inconsequent that ever I saw with mine Sirs give me leave to make an answer by these ensuing Interrogatories and I 'le expect your Answer to them again had the children of the Iews faith and did God himself witness that they had it by setting Circumcision to them as his seal of it i. e. for that 's the sense in which you take the word seal to assure men that they had it and is it the consequent that the children of believing parents have it now let me then ask you First do you conclude that all the children of believing parents have it now that I think for shame you will not say sith every experience witnesses the contrary or that some believers children have it now therefore all believers children are to be baptized and if so that is as silly an inference as if you had argued thus viz. some people believe therefore all must be baptized Secondly had the Jews children faith first I wonder how they came by it sith the word saies faith comes by hearing and how can there be believing on him of whom they have not heard and how can they hear without a preacher and how can they preach except they be sent and how can they be sent to preach to infants that understand not what is said except you say as you are fain to do not for want of blindness p. 18. that infants have an hearing and the spirit works upon them miraculously and yet not extraordinarily neither but in that ordinary way as he doth on men in the conversion of whom you say the spirits working is but ordinary and yet miraculous too which Popish Bull deserves well to be baited but I le fotbear to fall upon it till I meet it in its proper place in the Review Secondly when had they it begotten in them in the womb or if after birth on what day on the 1st 2d 3d 4th 5th 6th 7th or 8th for on some of these they received it if on the 8th day they were as you say they were circumcised in token that they had it but I muse and am yet to learn on which and so are your selves too I believe for all your confidence in asserting it Thirdly was Circumcision Gods witness yea Gods seal to assure men of thus much that those children to whom it was set had faith First Risum teneat is amici did you ever read or hear that circumcision was set to infants to this end viz. to testifie to the world that they had faith was it set to Ishmael as Gods witness that Ishmael had faith was it set to Esau as Gods witness that Esau had faith when God who would not witness a ly knew that neither the one of these had it nor yet the other unless they lost it again which sure you will not say for shame leave such sorry Shuffles are you Masters in Israâ—…l and know not this that â—…ircumcision was set to the Iews children not to shew others that they did believe but as a permanent sign thereof to shew them when they should be at years to take notice of it by sight as of that transient unseen sign of sprinkling in infancy they cannot do what things they then should believe viz. Christ to come of Abraham after the flesh and circumcision of their hearts by him c. was it ever set under this notion as a seal of faith to any person in the world save to Abrahams proper person only to whom too t was a seal not so much to witness or assure men that he had faith as to honor that faith that more evidently and eminently then ordinary he had before with that famous title i. e. the Father of the faithfulâ—… therefore circumcision as given to Abraham in Rom. 4. 11. is not said to be the seal of the righteousness of faith as you corruptly rehearse the words leaving out the residue of the verse which makes them relate to Abraham only as if it had stood as a seal in such a sense to all Abrahams posterity but a seal of the righteousness of the faith i. e. that famous faith which he himself had and to this end that he might be as none of his meer fleshly seed ever were the Father of all them that believe Secondly if circumcision were Gods witness that these infants to whom it was dispensed had faith then certainly baptism which with you at least is of such Analogy and Identity with Circuâ—…cision that iâ—… hath the same subjects and significaâ—…ions must also with you be Gods witness to others that those infants to whom it is dispensed have faith also and if so then I must make bold to ask you two things First Is not this round about our coal fire to prove two things no otherwise then one by another for when you prove that children are to be circumcised or baptized which with you is all one who falsly call baptism as Paul doth not in Col. 2. 12. for he means another thing by that phrase viz. that of the heart the circumcision without hands I say when you prove that children are to be circumcised either one way or other in answer to our why you say because they have faith and thereby right to the Covenant and the seals of it but when you come to prove that children have faith which we deny you say t is clear because they have circumcision and baptism which are Gods witnesses seals or evidences to us that they have it this is not Idem per Idem the same by the same that is too effeminate a probation but t is eadem inter se or
he travelled with the Galathians till Christ was form'd in them whoâ—… also he bespeaks as Iohn also doth his converts 1 Iohn 2. 1. by the name of my little 〈◊〉 Gal 4. 19. thus far if you will I agree with you but your cause will be no gainer by this agreement that as ceremonially holy ones begat ceremonially holy ones under the law as a tipe in a way of carnall copulation so spiritually holy ones beget spiritually holy ones in a Gospel sense by their spiritual communion and communication for as Christ himself who supremely begets so true Christians as agents and instruments under him may be said to multiply and see their seed when in their endeavours to beget others to the faith the work will way and pleasure of the Lord doth succeed and prosper in their hands thâ—… holy seed therefore that answers under the Gospel to that holy seed the Jews 〈◊〉 under the law as the substance of that shadow that with all the reâ—…is 〈◊〉 â—…d away is Christ and his truely morally and spiritually holy ones onely 〈◊〉 holy seed of the law or that seed which was holy in the old Covenants 〈◊〉 were but as the leaves of an oak which though they flourish and make a shew â—…r a time yet at last are cast off and fall to the ground but the holy 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 Gospel sense i. e. the Saints and true believers not their natural seâ—… with 〈◊〉 foâ—… they are onely Semen carnis and that not of Abraham neithâ—… 〈◊〉 the Iâ—…w is who yet hath thereupon onely no part nor portion in this matter 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 Gentiles these Saints I say are the true Semen fidei children of the faith and 〈◊〉 seed of Abraham and also the very substance thereof as Isa. 6. 13 as the Prophet there speaks of the truly Godly so I say the substance of the Church of the Iews now it hath cast it leaves i. e. all its former figurative holinesse holy Priests and holy â—…eed the substance thereof is still in them For all things under the law and old Testament even the whole Covenant and Testament it self as well as every part and parcel of the â—…ame did but serve unto the example and shadow of the New Testament will and Covenant that stands ratified by the blood of the Testator as neither was the first dedicated without blood and the more holy and true heavenly things thereof yea as wâ—…ll the holy promises that were made to that holy seed as the holy precepts upon performance of which they were made and the holy seed it self also to whom the promises were made and of whom these precepts were required did exemplifie a better Testament and those better promises upon which it is established and the better and more spiritual ordinances which in order thereunto are to be observed and that better and far more holy seed that observing these ordinances shall at last inherit which all were to come in under Christ and before which all the other were to vanish viz. First a heavenly Canaan Country Kingdom inheritance substance peace prosperity plenty advancement rest immunity glory answering to all that of Israels which was but earthly Secondly the life of faith and obedience to Christs law which is more inward and spiritual Mat. 5. answering that law of commandements conteined in ordinances given by Moses which was more ad extra and carnal Thirdly that holy seed which is not of the law of Moses nor of the flesh of Abraham by generation but of Christ by regeneration the seed or successors of the faiâ—…h of Abraham and so heirs with him by that faith of all Gospel-promises answering Antipically to the other for though the promise of being heirs of the old Canaan which was but a spot of the world and pickt out as a pattern for the time was made to Abraham and his seed through the law i. e. the children of Isaac and Iacob which were counted for his seed under the law viz. the natural branches of his body for these onely were the heirs of that old earthly legall and tâ—…pical land of promise in token of which all the males were circumcised in their â—…lesh yet the promise that Abraham should be heir of the world which is the Gospel pointed at couched and exhibted tipically in the delivery of the other was not made to Abraham and that seed of his through the law quâ—…tales only unless they were as some few were by faith his seed in the other sense also but through the righteousness of faith i. e. to the branches grafted in by personal believing in Christ Rom. 4. 13 14. where the Apostle saies plainly that if they which are of the law and circumcision only meaning the fleshly seed of Abraham as such unless they also walk in the steps of that faith which Abraham had be heirs with him of the world which is the thing promised in the Gospel then faith which is made the onely term intitling to Gospel-promises is made void and the promise of just no effect at all much more may we say if the fleshly sâ—…d of your Gentile believers most of which are no believers neither be heirs of this Gospel-promise and Gospel-inheritance as so born so that they may be signed for heirs by the Gospel-ordinance of baptism upon that meer and simple account of their parents being believers without respect to faith in their own persons then the Gospell requires faith to be acted by us in order to salvation altogether in vain and to no purpose yeâ—… if goâ—…pel promises and priviledges be intailed to me upon my fathers being a believer I need no faith of mine own as to the making of me an heir thereof and if it were so as you commonly say but most horrible in considerately from Acts 2. 39. that the promise of the Gospel is not onely to the believers but also to their bodily issue as barely descending from them qua sic simpliciter and without their own personal faith which in infancy appears no more to be in them then infants of unbelievers and which if it appears as oft it doth in unbelievers children when they come to years and not in the other declares them to be heirs apparent thereof when the other are not then I say plainly that all believers children must unavoidably be saved if God be true in his promise though when they come to years thâ—… never believe and live never so prophanely the terms being still fulfilled upon which you say the promise is made to them which is this being born of believing parents for the prophanness of their lives and non-believing themselves Non est causa quo minus c. is no cause whereupon they are a whit less the seed of believers after the flesh and if so and also that that only gives a title to the promise then he that made that promise on those terms viz. being the fleshly seed of believers the terms of being so born being fulfilled by all
relation to Ishmael for not Ishmael but he and his posterity were the promised seed which should inherit the old Canaan and such is Christ in the reall spiritual Evangelical and everlasting account in relation unto Isaac himself for not Isaac and his seed as they were Abrahams seed by Sarah though they were the children of the promise of the earthly Canaà n and a promised seed in respect of Ishmael but Christ who is the true Isaac and those that believe in him among whom siâ—…h Isaac was one he will inherit here also as else he could not these are the promised seed that must inherit heaven Rom. 4. 13 Gal. 3. 16. these children of the promise i. e. these that are of Christ by faith and so his seed after the faith are accounted Abrahams seed his sons and heirs of the world with him and of the eternal inheritance A cleerer illustration of this to be the true sense and meaning of the spirit in Rom. 9. you have in Gal. 3. 7. 9. where the Apostle uses this term viz. they which are of the faith to express no other then the very same persons whom he here stiles the children of the promise know ye saith he there that they which are of the faith i. e. which believe for none else are of faith that I know of the same are the children of Abraham and blessed with faithfull Abraham he saith not they which be of Abrahams flesh for such neither are accounted his children as to the gospel promise nor simply as such are heirs thereof with him muchless doth he say or mean that those which are born of the bodies of them that be of faith are Abrahams children and such as must be signed as his sonnes and heirs by baptism in such wise as his own fleshly seed were signed by Circumcision as heirs with him of the old Canaan yet these are your common sayings who raise such a sort of seed to Abraham at second hand or third remove as will never be able to prove their pedegree or descent from him either after the slesh or after the faith either till they believe themselves whilest they breath on earth as if because Abraham is the spiritual father of all that believe and walk in his steps and they his seed and sons and heirs with him by promise of eternal life therefore he must patrizare to all their natural posterity too and be the spiritual father not of their persons onely but of their off-spring also But Sirs let me tell you he is not so much as a father to his own seed in the Gospel sense neither can they stand his children or the children of God and heirs of the heavenly blessing and kindome because they come out of his loines unless they do as he did for though his fleshly seed as a type for the time then being stood denominated the children of God and holy in an outward sense and heirs according to the earthly promise yet that account is gone now and there 's no other way whereby the Iews themselves much less any generations among the Gentiles can be stiled the children of God or Abraham so as to expect the gospel portion but believing in Christ Iesus in their own persons Gal. 3. 26. 29. Ye are all the children of God by faith in Iesus Christ if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise Another place which cleers it that Abrahams own seed in the old Covenants account are not his own in the account of the gospel so as barely thereupon to stand in any title to either the priviledges or ordinances thereof or to fellowship now in his family is Iohn 8. where Christ being cavill'd at by the Iews for promising them the priviledge of the Gospel-freedom from sin to which they were slaves servants and bondmen for all that legal freedom they did so boast of upon faith and continuance in his words discovers so plainly that a man may run and read it the discarding of the Jews from all these three things which I am now proving that for want of faith they are perished from them since the gospel First from the repute and denomination of Abrahams children any longer Secondly from any share in the glorious or spirituall blessing of the Gospel Thirdly from any right of abiding longer in the Church which they were the children of before which Church as visible now as well as then and to the end of the world since Gods conferring the fatherhood of the faithful upon him is called the house or family of Abraham First they say in a snuff two or three times ore that they are Abrahams seed v. 33. that Abraham is their father v. 39. that they are not born of fornication meaning as Ishmâ—…el the Son of the bond-woman or servant to their mother Sarah was but they had one father even God v. 41. to which Christ replies not by denial of any of all this for 't was true every tittle in that sense in which they meant it i. e. the typical sense and meaning of the old Covenant yea they were Abrahams children and this Christ confesses in plain terms verse 37. I know you are Abrahams seed yea they were also the children of God by an outward and typicall adoption of them unto himself as his peculiar ones and heirs of that typical inheritance Ezek. 16. 8. c. but by telling them that Abrahams children are accounted of otherwise now then formerly viz. not as comming out of his loines but as doing his works as being like him and allied to him not so much after the flesh as after the faith whereupon they not yet believing he denies them to be and goes about to prove them not to be Abrahams children in the true and substantial sense in this Hypothesis verse 39. if ye were Abrahams children ye would do the works of Abraham to which do but add the minor viz. but ye do not the works of Abraham and the conclusion follows thus viz. therefore ye are not the children of Abraham you see Christ asserts them to be Abrahams children in the old account so as to stand members of the old house but denieth them to be Abrahams children in the sense of the new Secondly they say they are free men and were never in bondage to any man to which Christ replies by granting it was so indeed in the outward typical sense that they were free men and true heirs of that earthly glory that was promised to Abraham in that old Canaan but denies them to be freemen as to the gosspel with that heavenly fredom of the Ierusalem which is above the mother of all true believers Gal. 4. 26. yea in those spiritual respects in which the Son makes free indeed those that know and receive the truth and gospel they were but servants verse 34. and in bondage to sin which is the greatest slavery of all as also Paul sayes Gal. 3. 25. that Ierusalem was which was
Christs also and the children of God and heirs with him of the world according to the Gospell Promise Rom. 4. 12 13. Gal. 3. 16. 1 Cor. 3. 21. 22. 23. Non datur tertium semen Abrahae two seeds of Abraham the Scripture mentions but a third fort cannot be assigned all and only those that descend from his loines as the Midianites and others by Keturah the Ishmailites by Hagar the Edomites and Israelites by Sarah which last only were the holy seed and children of promise in reference to the Hagarens in a type and sole heirs of the typical Canaan all these I say were the first sort all believers of what nation soever are the second sort but the natural seed of believers are neither of the one nor of the other As for the children of the Proselites i. e. Iews not by birth but profession which by way of exception against this may possibly pop into some of your minds I utterly deny them as so born to be any seed of Abraham at all or heirs of either inheritance unless they believed also though their parents believing might be his spiritual seed and heirs of the heavenly inheriâ—…ance and if you ask why then was every male among the infants of Proselites circumcised I answer not upon any such account as their being Abrahams seed or heirs with him of either this or that but meerly as they were Males in the house of one that was a Jew at least by devotion though a stranger as to fleshly relation that being the express command of God for thâ—… time then being and during the standing of that Covenant of circumcision the like to which if you had for infant-baptism the controversie were at an end between us that every man child in every family throughout all generations whether born in the house or bought with money of any stranger that was not of Abrahams flesh should be circumcised Gen. 17. 12 for there was but one Law and ordinance for the stranger or Proselite Iew and him that was a Iew by birth concerning circumcision and the Passeover Numb 9. 14. upon this same and no other account very many viz. forreign man-servants in every family of any Iew were by appointment to be circumcised meeâ—…ly as being males of the family though neither born of Abraham nor believing with him nor any way at all his â—…eed nor yet heirs with him of either Canaan which injunction and order of God concerning that old covenant ordinance of circumcision or the Passeover either to which the Supper answers more lively than baptism to the other if we might at all regard what was done then as a Rule for us now who so shall produce as the Pattern or infer any thing from as the instution of God according to which we are to act in the New Testament ordinances of Baptism and the Supper and yet not act according to them neither but abominably besides them both as the Priest-hood doth baptizing as not at all but rantizing so not at all after the manner of circumcision viz. not males only not on the eighth day only but any other when they may as well upon that not servants also upon the Masters faith as well as the Children upon the parents and as for the Supper denying it utterly to infants that might then eat the Passeover I avouch them to be not a little besides their natural but much more besides their spiritual intellectualls Let this then satisfy as to any conceit that any may have as that the Prosolites seed were the children of Abraham and heirs with him because circumcised viz. that though all Abrahams seed that were heirs with him were circumcised yet all that were circumcised were not thereby proved to be Abrahams seed nor heirs with him of either promise and though his fleshly seed Israel the heir especially and his spirituall seed also i. e. believing Jewes and Proselites were both thereupon to come under that dispensation and that as heirs too severally of the two severall promises viz. the typifying and typified Canaan yet many past under circumcision upon that forenamed account only of being males in the house that were neither Abrahams seed after the slesh nor after the faith as Servants and the seed of Proselite Masters Fathers not appearing yet to believe with them for even such were to be circumcised under the law though by your leave not such to be by the like reason baptized under the Gospell for as there is no command for such a matter so if there had the Servants of the Eunuch himself only turning Christian must have been as t is known they were not baptized together with him besides if baptism must be like to circumcision in its subject then not only he that is not yet apparently an heir but he also that is apparently not an heir by faith must be baptized aswell as Abrahams sonne Ishmael and his servant Eleazer and all the other males of his house were circumcised who were all well enough known to Abraham to be none of the heirs of that land of Canaan whereof circumcision was given to him and his seed in Isaac in token of their inheriting of it at that very time when he circumcised them I demand therefore yet once again what seed of Abraham your infants are in that thereupon you undertake as so to baptize them you tell us in your Review pag. 14. They are Semen fidei the children of his faith his spiritual seed I am ashamed to hear you say so which way do they come to be in that minority his spiritual seed sith believers only are so you seem to tell us they are so by believing themselves for so Zachaeus say you by believing was made the Son of Abraham as who should say Zachaeus became as infants do the spiritual seed of Abraham by believing which word believing is as much as not having only but acting faith which to act not others only but your selves who sillyly assert them to have faith do somewhat more sensibly p. 8. confess them to be uncapable Others tell us and even your selves too sometimes and in effect in that very same page that they are semen fidei or the seed of Abrahams faith upon another account viz. as their parents are believers for the promise is say you though that is no Scripture phrase at all in that place whence you quote it viz. Act 2. 39. to believers and their seed and if the adversaries say that the Ieweâ—… were Semen carnis and had right by the promise so these say you concerning the seed of believers are semen fidei and the promise is to them which words The Promise The Promise The Promise you will scrible down twenty times in one Treatise before you will sit down once and search out seriously what it is or once shew distinctly what it is you mean by it So then howbeit with Iohn baptist Maâ—… 3. with Christ Iohn 8. Luke 19. 8 9. with Paul Rom. 4. 13. 9 6
8. Gal. 3. 7. 9. there is but one way of becoming Abrahams spiritual seed or the children of his faith so as thereupon to be signed by baptism as heirs with him of the Gospel-promise and this is not by being the fleshly posterity of a believer though it should be of believing Abraham himself for even his own fleshly were not his spiritual seed but onely as they believed with him but by bringing forth fruits of repentance doing his works treading in the steps of his faith you belike have found more wayes to the wood then one whereof when ones failes you in the fight you commonly take your flight by the other and with you there 's two wayes whereby persons nay which is a greater mystery whereby the same persons even believers infants in their very infancy may and do become Abrahams spiritual sons and heirs viz. first by their own walking in the steps of Abrahams faith i. e. believing themselves which though it be the true way of becoming Abrahams spirituall seed yet infants are not capable to walk in it Secondly by being the natural progeny of believing parents which though infants are capable of it yet is none of the way whereby to be canonized according to the sense of Scripture the Spirituall seed of Abraham But it seems the terms upon which persons become heirs with Abraham of Gospel-promises and stand in true title to Gospel-ordinances are not uniform but mulâ—…form in your imagination for those on which persons in the capacity of parents are privilâ—…dged with the title of Abrahams spiritual seed and title to Gospel-ordinances and enjoyments are their own believings not anothers but those on which others i. e. all that are in the capacity of children to those parents are thus highly priviledged are the believing of their parents whether they have any faith of their own yea or no and yet some count that the childs own faith which the parent professes for him But Genus et pro avos et quae non â—…cimus ipsi vix ea nostra voco Sirs what pretty intricate blind bo-beep Divinity is this of yours do the same priviledges and promises belong to the believing parents and their children and yet though exhibited to them both alike in one and the self same phrase and form of speech for saith Peter the promise is to you and your children and to them that are farre off yea even as many meaning of you and your children and of them that are far off as the Lord shall call do they belong upon such various and different grounds viz. to the parents upon their own faith to the children upon the parents faith my father then it seems what ere his fathers were must prove his pedegree from Abraham by his doing as Abraham did or else he can be no gospel-son nor share at all in any gospel-priviledges and immunities but if he were a believer I his son may prove mine at easier rates by farr viz. by going no further then the faith and faederation of my father But Sirs will this hold a triall think you by the word is there any such manglements as these to be found there is it to be found there that now under the gospel-Covenant since that outing of the old Covenant and that fleshly seed that were heirs of it and all the tipical pertinencies thereof the faith and faederation of fathers inrights and enrouls all their fleshly seed as Heirs with them of salvation without any evidence of their believing themselves then tell me why the fleshly seed of those great believers Abraham Isaac and Iacob stand excommunâ—…cated from all Gospel-priviledges participations of ordinances promises c. even from the beginnings of the Gospel Church and first administring of baptism to this very day will you plead your own right above theirs to stand his children in the Gospel-Church by saying we had holy men and believers to our fathers but their fathers believed not the Gospel therefore worthily are they cut off with them I reply thus were not Abraham Isaac and Iacob their fleshly fathers and though remote ones yet were they not their true fathers after the flesh still as much as ever did Iohn Mat. 3. and Christ Iohn 8. and Peter Acts 2. deny them a standing in the Gospel house and admission unto baptism and membership without repentance and belief in their own persons and doing the works of Abraham did they I say put such off from all Gospel-expectations and priviledges who offered themselves thereto with this plea viz. we have Abraham to our father and dare you admit such without faith or repentance for whom you can make no higher pretence then this viz. they are the children of believers me thinks if meer birth-priviledges and fleshly descent must carry it still without faith in the seed themselves are not the Iews infants to this day higher born then any Gentiles infants in the world whose parents are believers for they verily can say no less then this we are the natural issue of the father of all the faithfull yet may they not be own'd barely upon that account to gospel-ordinances and if the natural seed and that by Isaac and Iacob of Abraham himself the grand believer which seed could of old claim a room by right of birth from Abraham in the house of Moses cannot possibly carry it so high under Christ as by the same descent onely without faith in themselves to gain a standing in his house or so much as right to be stiled their own natural fathers children as to the Gospel I am amazed to see you Gentile believers to conferre upon your meer natural seed the name of Abrahams spiritual seed and denominate your semen carnis his semen fidei Baptist. The Iews though the natural seed of Abraham yet cannot have the account of the spiritual seed nor any right to Gospel priviledges because they believe not themselves which if they did they should have right to the Gospel as well as we who believe but sith they abide in unbelief they are cut off from all share in these things Baptist. Then learn once I beseech you this lessen from your selves which you will not learn from Iohn Christ and Paul viz. that the ground of standing Abrahams spiritual seed sons and heirs and Church-members under the Gospel is not the the faith and faederation of the parents by vertue of which you plead your childrens right to baptism saying they have believers as the Jews once to Iohn pleaded theirs saying we have Abraham to our father but faith it self in the particular persons so standing for so many Jews heathens infidels children as are of the faith of Abraham i. e. not born of faithful parents but faithful themseves as he was are incorporated incovenanted inchurched as Abrahams seed and Evangelically blessed with faithful Abraham but till even believers children yea Abrahams own believe themselves the parents faith cannot now possibly ingraft them the time of faith or standing by faith
alone in the house or visible Church of God being now come in the standing by any fleshly generation what soever is done away yea Abrahams own children the naturall branches that grow out of his loynes are cut off from standing as till Chirist they did now any longer upon their own Root Abraham because of unbelief I say then that no infant in infancy of what believing parent soever is either Abrahams spiritual seed or dying in infancy is saved upon any such account as a believers seed or Abrahams seed nor whilst living an infant onely may be signed by baptism as an heir apparent of salvation for if Abraham stand not a spiritual father to his own meer fleshly seed he stands not so sure to the meer fleshly seed of any believing Gentile for that were to priviledge every ordinary believer and his natural seed above either himself or his own Nor doth this hinder or deny the salvation of the dying infants of believers or dispose them ere the sooner muchless necessarily to damnation to say they are not Abrahams spirituall seed quâ believers infants nor heirs to salvation upon any such account as that for though neither upon that nor any other account at all they may warrantably be baptized yet it s more then possible or probable either because infallible that there 's other Scripture account enough upon which when we see them die in infancy we may assert them undoubtedly not to be damned for as it is most sure and true that all that are apparently if really Abrahams spiritual seed by faith must so living so dying be saved in token and farther evidence of which to themselves more then others they are by the good wil of Christ to be baptized yet is it neither true nor necessary that all that are saved must be Abrahams spiritual seed by faith but most certain that some shall be saved that never were Abrahams seed in any sense at all witnesse not onely the faithful fore-fathers of Abraham for he was their seed and not they his but also all dying infants of what parents soever both before Abrahams time and since of whom to salvation notwithstanding those are the onely termes on which it belongs to adult ones to whom it s preacht Mark 16. 15 16. these being truly capable of neither 't is not required that they should either repent believe or be baptized I know this Iustification of dying infants without faith is uncouth and little less for all it holds forth so much salvation then damnable doctrine among you Divines that plead the contrary but I shall by the help of God make it good to the faces of you all when I come to consider the baldness of your consequence in this point as you give me good occasion to do in some places where me thinks you meddle with it somewhat clumsily as it were in mittins as if because there 's no other way revealed for the salvation of such by Christ to whom the gospel is preached who are capable to hear and do what 's required for such onely the word universally speaks of when it speaks of salvation in that way but the way of belief and actuall obedience onely therefore there 's no other way for the salvation of dying infants by Christ who can possibly neither believe in him nor obey him which as it is such shameful stuff that I cannot bear it with out inward blushing at your blindness so whether you have not as much cause to be ashamed on 't within your selves is well worth your inmost inquiry I say therefore again so far is this from excluding dying infants of believers from entrance into the kingdome of heaven to say they are neither Abrahams spiritual seed by faith nor heirs thereof upon that ground onely of being so that it rather concludes and supposes there 's some other ground that is common with them to the innocent infants of even infidels and all the world upon which these whom though they are hundreds to one yet your selves in your fierce wrath and merciless cruelty devote universally to damnation may dying in infancy universally be saved also which ground if you will yet know it is the righteousness of Christ the free imputation of which universally from the father saves not onely all that believe from both that and their actuall transgressions too but even the whole world whether they believe it or no from the the imputation of Adams transgression so that none at all ever perish upon that account in which respect he is said to be the Saviour of all men but especially of them that believe much more doth it and that without faith save all dying infants who as they believe not so have not as yet by any actual sin bard themselves or deserved exemption or become liable at all to the second death i. e. the damnation of hell which befalls not any but upon personal neglect of the light and grace of life brought in by the second Adam as the first death onely overtakes mankind for onely that sin of the first Adam Babist If all dying infants are saved then not few but many if not the maior part must be saved contrary to that of Christ Mat. 7. 13. 14. Luke 13. 23. 24. where he saith few there are that are saved Baptist. There are indeed but few inter adultos among persons that come to years of whom alone and not of Infants at all Christ there speaks and even every where else where he speaks to us of the way of life and this is plain by the reason he there gives why so few are saved which is the straitness of the gate and narrowness of the way that leads to life viz. of self-denial and suffering for Christ which men mostly being very loath to walk in it comes to pass that few of them come to life by it but infants being altogether uncapable to walk in it are are altogether dis-ingaged from walking in it till they come to capacity so to do and yet are not damn'd for not walking in it when we come to years of understanding and to apprehend the good will of God to us in providing a Saviouâ—… for us his good will concerning us in order to salvation by him is that we believe in him and obey him and apply his righteousness unto our selves Gal. 3. 27. but whilst we are yet in such minority as neither to know what God hath done for us nor to be capable of putting on the Lord Iesus our selves he himself is pleased to impute his righteousness to salvation to us so dying even as we our selves whilst our infants are new born do not onely provide but also put on what clothes we have provided in our pitty towards them for the covering of their nakedness but when they come to years of such discretion as to discern and be sensible of their own shame and capable to dress themselves with their own hands we expect when in our love we have once
reference to the Gospel Israel dwelt and domineered as the only child of the Church till Christ the true Isaac was born and then afer a while was cast out of the Church that his seed might dwell there alone for ever after Babist If it be so that believers only are that holy seed which is now to stand in the visible Church how is it that you baptize and â—…church such among you sometime's as are no true believers Baptist. We receive all that we receive by baptism into the Church under the notion of true believers only and such they are so far as we are capable to conceive by that outward profession of faith upon which only we admit them but if our charity be so mistaken as that of the Apostles themselves was in the like case that persons after either appear to be Hypocrites or prove Apostates we have warrant from the word according to which we also act to cast them out again as those that have no right at all to stand there whilest by their works they seem to be unbelievers till by some future and clearer fruits thereof we can guess them groundedly to be converted truly to the faith All then that we can say of the holiness and holy things that were under the first covenant which had then ordinances of divine service but carnal ones and a worldly sanctuary an humane infirm and imperfect High-priest-hood an earthly inheritance a fleshly seed which yet were all holy for the time then being all I say that can be now said of them is this they were Typical Ceremonial and abiding only till the the of Gospell reformation Heb. 9. 9. and are now all abrogated and out of date so that we may say as he fuit Ilium so fuit Canaan fuit urbs fuit lex fuit Templum fuit sanctum Sanctorum fuit sacerdotium fuit sacrosanctum semen there was indeed a holy â—…nd a holy City a holy Law a holy Temple a holy Priest-hood a holy seed but all these belonging to a first Covenant which was faulty and so gave place in time to a second all ornaments furniture and accomplishments of a covenant that decayed waxed old was ready to vanish and is now long since vanished before a better there were priviledges there was a freedome there was a rest there was a holiness there was a glory there was a Mosaical ministration but as it was less glorious by far then the Gospel ministration of Christ so as the shine of a Star when the Sun rises it past away and perished from before it when the other came in so that they were at a loss that then did as those are that still do dote though but in part upon it not looking stedfastly to the end of that which is now abolished and not considering that all that glory is done away and hath something remaining in its stead that is more glorious than it nor that all that which was made glorious and holy as a type for a while viz. the holy City the glorious holy mountain the holy Priesthood holy Temple holy root holy branches and what ever else was so denominated hath now no glory nor holiness at all upon it by reason of a glory that excelleth 2 Cor. 3. 9. 10 11. 13. Babist Abraham is still an holy root and his children holy branches even now under the Gospel as well as of old under the law and so are believing parents to their seed as the Iews of old were to their children for saith Paul Rom. 11. 16. if the first fruit be holy so is the lump and if the root be holy so are the branches as Mr. Blake also well observeth in his Birth-priviledge p. 7. Baptist. That the Root here is Abraham for my part I freely grant you since t is supposed you have so much advantage by it although t is sub judice among some whether by the root in that place be not meant Christ because the standing upon it is said to be by â—…aith only which is that only that ingrafts persons into Christ and as some say ingrafts them into Christ only and not any other and that by the olive-tree is meant the house or family of Abraham i. e. the visible Church and that the branches and lump that are here said to be hly are Abrahams children alâ—…o but I beseech you let it be considered that Abraham was a root two wayes or a double holy root standing respectively so to a two-fold lump or two sorts of holy branches viz natural and spiritual his children after the slesh and after the faith â—…is typically and ceremonially holy seed and his morally and really holy seed his sons by generation and heirs by promise of the the earthly 〈◊〉 i. e. the carnal Israelites and his sonnes by regeneration i. e. the Saints and believers who are 〈◊〉 by promise of the heavenly Canaan and theâ—…ue Israelites in whom is no guile under the first Covenant or old Testament Abraham stood a holy root to his natural branches born of his body by Isaac and Iacob which also in a figure and pro tempore to shadow out the holy seed to come that should inherit heaven were by bare deâ—…omination more then inward qualification a holy seed inheriting a figurative holy land but under the Gospel the substance being come in place that shadow is fled and how â—…eit Abraham is a holy root now unto the end of the world as well as befor yet not now any longer to his own fleshly seed by Isaac much less the meer carnal seed of believing Gentiles but to the other sort of seed viz. the children of his faith that walk in his steps and do his works for the natural branches of his own body are now broken off and can stand no more a holy seed and branches in reference to that holy root Abraham for the want of faith but the other i. e. all and onely such as believe of what nation or parents soever Jews or Gentiles are now counted for his seed and stand holy branches to that holy root Abraham and the holy lump to him who was as it were a certain first fruits unto God of the whole body of believers and choseâ—… of God to be a father of the faithful and a holy root for ever to all persons that in after ages should believe to which honor he was also sealed by circumcision The true visible Church then or olive-tree in which there 's fatness and fulness as David saith I shall be filled with the fatness of thy house is counâ—…ed his family to the end in which there 's now no right of admittance or continuance â—…s of old for his own fleshly seed the very Iews that were an holy seed before the time of faith came muchless for any other mans natural seed without faith but for those onely even those individual persons that do believe There 's no room by right for any else in the house of Abraham the Gospel-church whose
and their seed were altogether alienated from that further then every individual of them did cut themselves off from a right of standing therein by want of faith in their own persons for as this covenant was never made with any men and their meer fleshly seed no not with Abraham Isaac and Iacob and their natural posterity so that a bare birth of their bodies doth ipso facto make them heirs of the heavenly inheritance promised therein nor give them a right as such only to be signed as true heirs thereof but only with Abraham and his spiritual seed i. e. Christ and all believers in him so no men and all their naturall posterity are outed from it together but as both they and their posterity do stand together in unbelief upon which account faith being the only way of standing heirs under the Gospel and the Iews Children proving unbelievers in all ages as well as their parents I confess they are broken off together and not otherwise for if the Children of the Iews did appear to have faith as in infancy they cannot and when they are grown up unversally they do not their parents infidelity could in no wise prohibit their standing and since neither in infancy nor at age they appear to be in the faith their parents in case they were never so faithful can in no wise intitle them to a standing for then the natural seed of those thousands of Iews which did believe in the Primitive times have a birth-priviledge and holiness to this day whereupon they may claim admittannce unto baptism as well as any specially if those words Rom. 11. 16. if the Root be holy so are the branches were to be taken in such a sense as you put upon them but we know that though they are branches growing naturally upon that holy Root as you call it of believing parents yet they are counted unholy by your selves because they believe not in their own persons yea if we should ask how the children of those Iews that at first believed did come to be such strangers to the Gospel Church your selves would answer vs because they believed not as their parents did by which you do no less than grant what we contend for viz. that the faith of Ancestors gives no right to their posterity to stand at all in the Gospel Church and Covenant but faith in the particular persons only so standing Well then they were broken off but why not because they had not believing parents for Abraham was the fleshly Father of all of them and the primitive believing Iews were the fleshly fathers of many of them and are to this day as much as ever if bare birth priviledge could ingraft them as it did of old in the family of the Iewish Church Nor was it because they wanted title upon which they might have stood still in the Iewish Church if that Church it self had stood to this day for they were Abrahams seed and that gave them capacity enough to dwell in the house before their own unbelief notwithstanding but because they do not believe themselves because the terms of standing in the Church which before Christ were these viz. We have Abraham to our Father we are the Children of such and such parents are now quite changed so that it boots not to say such a thing as Abraham is our father Mat. 3. unless we can also say we repent and believe the Gospel The Jews were broken off by unbelief and thou and thine o believing Gentile must stand by faith yet not thine by thy faith but thou thy self by thine and they by their own faith is that in which thou standing and not thy seed thou hast right to stand in the Church and not they in which they standing and not thy self they have right to stand in the Church and thou hast none Perpetuity in personall faith gives perpetual personal right to baptism and to Church-membership but not a perpetuity of the same right to any mans whole posterity there 's now no difference made at all as to Gospel interest by being either this or that by nature but in all the world any person Jew or Gentile male or Female seed of believer or of unbeliever Barbarian Scythian bond or free is capable both to be saved and signed as an heir of salvation by baptism upon personal faith but in no wise the progeny upon the faith of the parentage And yet to put it more out of doubt that the Covenant holiness and church-right of mens fleshly seed which was of old is not continuing under the Gospel but Ceremonial and so ended in Christ in whom your selves say Iudicialia sunt Mortua Ceremonialia Mortifera I will leave two or three consequences upon the file which either answer and that not invitâ Minervâ nor stretching your Genius beyond sense and reason rather than want somewhat whereby to prove your Iudaizing to be judicious or else by silence say you cannot I leave you to consult with them as you see occasion That holiness which sanctified the Iewes Land City Temple Altar all its untensils Priest-hood and the whole body of that people and all the pertinences of the first tabernacle and old Covenant was Ceremonial only and is now abolished and not abiding among believing Gentiles But that holiness that sanctified the Iewish seed was the same and no other then that which sanctified their Land City Temple Altar and its Utensils Priest-hood and whole people and all the appertenances of that first Tabernacle and old Covenant Ergo That holiness which sanctified the Iewish seed is now abolished and not abiding at all among believing Gentiles As for the Major I would wish you not to subject your selves so much to suspicion of superstition as you will do in these daies of light by putting me to prove it as to require proof on 't since no intelligent man or religious Christian save the Pope and Dr. Featley and the rest of their several fryes and fraternities will deny it or did ever in the daies of the Gospel attribute the same holiness to outward and inanimate things viz. places Lands profits Emolluments first fruits Tithes Oblations and other obventions Temples Altars Tables Lavers Chalices Vestiments nor yet to Priests and people that all these were denominated holy by under the Law for to me by the same reason that first fruits tythes and such like are now to be called holy the first born of every creature both of man and beast is still to be called holy also for even these were sanctifyed and holy Denominativè and Dedicativè as much as any of the rest Ezod 13. 2. yea as Paul did in another case viz. appeal to the Pharisees to judge between him and the Sadduces so may I to you of the Presbyterian Priest-hood to decide this matter between me and the Seducers of the Popish and Prelatick strain whose holy sandalls copes surplices and other superfluities viz. railes high Altars holy Tapers and
comparison of others Whereupon though Christ called the Canaanites by nature dogs in reference to the Iews and their seed the children while that birth-uncleanness or holinesse stood yet unabolished Mat. 15. 12. 26. after which example Mr. Blake takes such blind boldness to himself as to imagine the new born infants of believers and unbelievers may respectively be so denominated still yet he takes upon him much more then God ever gave Peter leave to do or any man else in those dayes of the Gospel if he now call any person by meer naturall birth more holy common or unclean then other T is not now fleshly birth nor circumcision nor uncircumcision in the flesh that discriminates men as Saints or sinners children or dogs holy or unclean in Covenant with God or out fit or unfit further then non-age unfits all alike for such a thing now to be of the visible Church which is not now nationall neither as heretofore it was for under the law this only made men communicable or incommunicable one with another this was the cause why those of the circumcision cayilled with Peter till he satisfied them to the contrary because he being a Iew by nature and circumcised in the flesh went in to men uncircumcised and did eat with them Act. 11. from eating with whom he dissemblingly withdrew himself at another time fearing them of the circumcision Gal. 2. which way of discrimination of persons each from other as holy and unclean fit or unfit for Church-communion each with other by meer fleshly birth and circumcision in the flesh was but a type the Antitype whereof is not this viz that believers fleshly seed are holy Saints Gods people Church-members by birth and contrariwise unbelievers fleshly seed by nature dogs swine sinners unclean in such sort as the seed of Iews and Gentiles were under the law but this rather and indeed viz. that believers themselves spiritually born by faith in Iesus Christ circumcised in heart doing Abrahams works are now the children of Abraham a peculiar people a holy nation neer and deer unto him that must dwell in his house and be fed and refresht with that bread of which there 's abundance and vnbelievers themselves unholy ones in heart and life never new born nor become children to God and Abraham by faith in Christ but remaining uncircumcised within under the unclean lusts of the flesh are those unclean ones and sinners with whom communion is not to be held by the other in Church bodies those dogs and swine to whom the childrens bread is not to be divided nor holy things given even the holy ordinances of the Gospel nor pearls cast i. e. the precious particularities of professed believers viz. baptism and the supper thrown away upon them Moreover as God shewed Peter by that vision Act. 10. that not any man now no not a Gentile by nature may be called common or unclean any more then one that is a Jew by nature so he shews him the same ore again in a round reproof by the mouth of Paul Gal. 2. 11. to 19. where t is recorded how shamefully he separated from eating with the Gentiles for fear of offending the Jews of whose cavils with him in this kind he had had some experience before Act. 11. as if he had been opinion'd still according to the law that such meats as were then unclean and such people as were then sinners by nature in reference to the then holy seed of the Iews had been no lesse then abomination still for him or any Iew by nature to eat of or eat with and likewise how roundly he was dealt with by Paul who minded him of that which he knew well enough but was too willingly ignorant of at this time viz. That these who were but a while since by nature holy were now no holier by nature then Gentiles that were then also called sinners of the Gentiles but that as to that old account of ceremoniall uncleanness and holinesse whereby they were distinguisht from the very womb before they were now all alike by nature viz. Iews no more holy then other men and other men even Gentiles no more sinners by birth then they all that partition wall of birth holinesse and uncleanness propinquity and alienation that did once difference some men from other ab incunabilis being broken down and themselves such as must look upon themselves as dead to that law whereby they stood the children of God and Saints and all other men sinners by fleshly birth and under another law now even that of the Gospel by which there is no other way of being holy and becoming so much as relatively onely much lesse really the children of God then that of faith in the Lord Iesus for the Iews themselves more then for any other and therefore in case they now go about to build again the things that they had destroied meaning that fleshly birth holinesse which they had before disownd they should make themselves transgâ—…essors in so doing this verily is the very sum sense and scope of that Scripture viz. to cry down all the old ceremonial distinctions of men by nature and Nation to beat down all that old birth priviledge and preheminence of one person however descended above another as to Gospel participation and communion out of which yet Mr. Blake blindly takes his text where upon to build again a certain birth holinesse in one mans fleshly seed above another the very thing that Paul there declares rather to be abolished most perversly propagating to the meer carnall seed of Christians that antient tipical and now ended holinesse of Iews by nature who though the seed of believing Abraham himself yet have none of it at all now themselves nor yet whilst they had it could be admitted by Iohn to baptism and gospel priviledges upon that onely account and yet if it still remain as the thing intitling to ordinances both must have it and a right also to baptism by it specially if Mr. Blakes own tenet be true that the ground of a childs admission to baptism is not the faith of his immediate parent onely as he saies it is not p. 24. of his birth priviledge but the promise made to believing Ancestors at a great distance for as he sâ—…th there that if Iosia have no right from his father Ammon yet he is not to bâ—… shut out having right from his father Abraham so say I Abraham being not onely the remote parent of Iosia but of all the Iews that are born at this day also if the Iews have no right now from their own immediate parents that in the primitive times or more lately believed not the Gospel yet may they have right if right at all be to be had to Gospel priviledges from the parents faith at a distance from their remote fathers Abraham Isaac and Iacob whose believing of the Gospel is as well worthy to intitle all their seed to this day to the Gospel promises as the
to the ordinances under the Law and so cutting of a Moity of the Christian world from the Church which stood members of it before do streiten the Gospel and make it worse and of less extent the Law I answer first That the Meliority of the Gospel covenant spoken of in Heb. 8. 6. lies in the Meliority of the promises of it above the others which Meliority we affirm but you deny in saying the promises of both Covenants are one and the same therefore it is your selves however and not we that by your tenets make the Gospel Covenant at least no better than the Law contrarily to that of the Apostle Heb. 8. 6. and so your opinions and not ours are false and wicked by your own Argument Bvt secondly if it be in very deed to make the Gospell covenant worse than the Laws as you say it is to hold infants no capable subjects of Gospel ordinances some of which were capable subjects of the ordinances of the law I shall first disprove your charge of us togeâ—…her with your proof of it in that particular Secondly prove that if notwithstanding all that I shall say toward the clearing of our selves we must needs be held guilty of lessening the grace of God under the Gospel in comparison of what it was under the law because we deny the ordinances thereof to infants to whom the ordinances of the law were dispensed then you that judge us condemn your selves also as being in the same kind guilty of the same to this purpose le ts see what you bring in proof of your Minor in the last Syllogism and how punctually it concludes to your present purpose thus you argue Disputation Under the Law the seal of the Gospel Covenant was by Gods appointment set to little infants viz. circumcision which was the seal of the righteousnesse of faith which is the Gospell covenant and therefore is called by God an everlasting covenant and that I my self confesse it to be the seal of the Gospell Covenant and that even Ishmael onely because born in Abrahams house had right to it and received it Ergo this opinion denying the seal of the Gospell Covenant which the defenders acknowledge baptism to be to little infants makes the covenant of the Gospel worser to the spiritual seed of Abraham then it was to the carnall seed under the Lax. Disproof How often shall I adjure you the next time you write to write no more then truth at least in matter of fact if you will needs utter falsehood in matter of Doctrine do not your selves bear me witness before all the world not above two pages behind that I denyed circumcision to be a seal of the righteousness of faith to any but Abrahams person only and avouched it to be no such thing to his posterity and yet how quickly have you forgotten your selves so far as to the contradicting of your selves as well as the truth to represent it here as if I had confessed it and having began to faulter and falsifie things for your own ends how easily do you multiply misreport and run from ore shooes as the Proverb is to ore boots too for no less than a pair of pretty ones are here recorded for how be it my declared judgement then was now is and I believe ever will be for ought you can say to clear the contrary that circumcision though a seal to Abraham to honor the greatness of that faith he had and to notify him to be the father of the faithful as it is plainly exprest Rom. 4. 11. was not set as a seal in any sense at all to any other but as a bare sign and token in their flesh to mind them upon sight thereof immediately of the Covenant that then was remotely as a type as every other thing under the law did of something in the Gospel Covenant viz. circumcision of the heart and that baptism it self is no seal at all but a bare sign of the Gospel Covenant and is not so much as a sign or any thing else but a meer nullity to little infants yet the world is here belied into the belief of it that I confesse both that circumcision was a seal of the Gospel Covenant and that under such a notion as a seal of that Covenant Ishmael himself had right to it and received it for so you expresse it p. 7. and that baptism is the seal of the Gospel Covenant even to little infants themselves as well as others I do therefore in answer to this last piece of yours and in order to your better understanding of me for the future and of the truth too as it is in Jesus at present professe against two things herein First your forgeries and misrepresentations of my opinion to the world which was not so darkly declared at that time as that you must needs mistake it Secondly against the falsities and mistakes that are in your own opinion in this point viz. in stiling both circumcision as dispensd to Abrahams fleshly posterity and baptism also as dispensed not to others onely but even to infants by the name of seals of the Covenant of grace As for circumcision that it was not so though I might adde much more to what hath been before spoken in proof hereof in my animadversion of your account yet I le save my self that labor and refer you for fuller understanding what circumcision was and was not to a certain book that is extant of one Mr. Iackson once of Bidenden in Kent stiled 19. Arguments proving circumcision to be no seal of the Covenant of grace whereunto is annexed the unlawfulnesse of Infant baptism upon that ground of which book I must needs give testimony thus far to the world that it being brought to me whilst it was but a manuscript and my self a Presbyter of your high places in some confidence that I could answer it how easily I might have shufled it off had I set my self so to do I will not say but I could not answer it solidly nor salvâ consciencia and therefore I let it alone for a time till considering further of it and of other things I was stirrd up to the study of by it I was at last converted to the truth whereupon as the best answer I was capable to give I signed it in such wise as I find Luther once signed another book in the like case viz. memorandum that taking this book in hand at first to confute it I was at last convinced by it Which 19. proofs of circumcision to be no seal of the Covenant of Grace if they be weak and invalid such a multitude as you are have time enough among you to disprove them but if you yield to them be silent and say nothing As for baptism I confesse it to be truly and properly a sign and that of the Covenant of Grace remission of sins by Christ his death and resurrection which are both not onely signified but also lively represented and resembled in
manner of it different from that which is now then I wonder what pattern you can pick from that manner of administration whereby to steer your cause now and to direct your selves about the true manner of this for will any wise man in any wâ—…rk action or administration he is about to perform take his example by another work action or administration which himself confesses is quite different from it and not after the same manner as that is to be done in which he hath now in hand to do yet thus do you whilest contending that the outward administration of the covenant among the Jews was not in the same manner as the outward administration of it is to be now you yet contend to have our baptism as much as may be after the manner of their circumcision you must and you must not it seems and these both at once walk after those customes and do things now after the manner of Moses If any man then ask me this question viz. sith the Gospel covenant is everlastingly the same for substance and little children under the law received circumsion the seal as you call it of the Gospel covenant why then should not little children under the Gospel receive baptism the seal so I hear you say of the Gospel covenant and why should not this administration of the covenant in outward ordinances be after the manner of that of old I answer him out of Mr. Marshalls own mouth thus because though for substance the Gospel Covenant be ever one and the same yet the manner of external administration thereof is not the same with us as t was with them and therefore we are not to take example in our Dispensations and administrations by them nor regard to do after the manner of them the Priest-hood being changed of necessity there is a change also of the Law for the administrators are not the same with us as with them nor the administrations the same in matter not the manner of administration to them the same nor the subjects to whom these administrations belong the same for those were to all the holy Jewes though never so unholy and unbelieving but these to Jewes and Gentiles as they believe and no otherwise least of all is the subject of circumcision and baptism the same for that above all the rest was limitted to all males and those only at eight daies old this extending to males and females and those only when they professe to be believers Babist Circumcision was a more Evangelical administration then the rest as being given when the Gospel was preached to Abraham 430 years before the Law therefore we may give the more heed to that sith it is of the Fathers and more then to the other ordinances which by institution were more immediately of Moses Baptist. Though it were in being so long before Moses yet was it as directly belonging to his law as any other administration what-ever for howbeit it was before him yet it is said to be of him as all the Sacrifices also were which were of old before circumcision because he gave them all anew and plainer promulgation and was Mediator of all that old Testament service which ended in Christ and was even from the very beginning Moreover Though the Gospel Covenant was preached in a type to Abraham in Gen. 17. where circumcision was also first appointed yet that in reference to which Circumcision of the flesh was there instituted was immediately that first and old covenant of the Law which was in some parcels and pieces of it before Abraham and now was propounded a little more fully in the promise of that land to his fleshly seed and the express appointment of that one more special precept thereof i. e. Circumcision though the fulnesse of it came not till four hundred and thirty years after yea he that hath but half an eye in his head must needs see that to be the covenant viz. that which was made in a type I grant of another yet really with the seed of Abrahams body whereof that circumcision was the token which covenant and circumcision were so neer kin that Stephen calls that Acts 7. the Couenant of circumcision which also I have spoken to so sufficiently above that howbeit you here give me the occasion de novo yet I le trouble you no further with it here Review 1. These are the seed of Abraham Semen fidei Gal. 3. 7. so Zacheus by believing was made a son of Abraham nay the spiritual seed 2. The promise is to believers and their seed Act. 2. 39. 3. The Gospel is a better Covenant Heb. 8. 6. and it would be far worse if the children of believers under the Gospel should not be counted within the covenant nor have right to the seal nor be esteemeed members of the visible church as well as the Iewes children nay accorâ—…ing to the Anabaptists valued but as Turks and Pagans Re-Review Here to inforce this Argument a fresh least the front should faile you come up three a breast and leâ—… fly at us thick and threefold with a first second and third report First you tell us that these i. e. believers fleshly seed are the seed of Abraham nay the faithful seed or seed of faith and that in such manner too as Zacheus was made the son or seed of Abraham and how was that viz. by believing nay the spiritual seed quid ni they cannot chuse I warrant buâ—… ipso facto be believers i. e. born again by faith for such only are of faith yea and the spiritual seed too i. e. born of the spirit for such only are a spiritual seed and that so well as Zacheus himself if once barely born of the bodies of the flesh of such spiritual parents as do believe alias live in Christendome at least in reformed Christendome for if all papists be not a spiritual body of believers with you as they are with the Pope all protestants are taken by you so to be I mean to be such whose fleshly seed are of faith and the spiritual seed of Abraham and so to be baptized O fy Sirs O fy O fy Babist Our meaning is not that these are or are to be counted in the spirit or of the faith as Abraham was but only to be accounted under the Gospell and reckoned all to Abraham as his children in an outward sense so far as to a being in his family i. e. the visible Church Baptist. 1. Me thinks any mans own motherwit should tell him that God never appointed things to be accounted by us otherwise then they are or at least appear much less otherwise then they can be 2. Appeal and lay close siege Sirs to your own consciences search and see whether they will tell you that the place you quote viz. Gall. 3. 7. be at all for you or be not much rather against you mean which of these two waies you will For if you mean in as plain English as you speak it
persons that did then believe whose children yet for all that promise to them and their children you so talk of out of Act. the 2. 39. came all to nought through unbelief for else indeed the promise even after Christ crucified was to them as also to all others so sure in case of faith that that causelesse curse of their parents wishing the blood of Christ to be on them and their children should never have hurt any but them that wished it In further illustration of which yet I mean that personal faith onely not 〈◊〉 gives a standing in the Church now because I write to a generation of men that have more time to read then I to write I hope I may be bold to trouble my self and you with the transcription of at least a page out of a little treatise termed a confutation of infant-baptism by Thomas Lamb very plain and pregnant to this purpose and the rather because I fear you will not search the book it self soundly if I should send you to it onely by telling you t is worth your reading in this point though at your request I have all-to-be-read Dr. Featley in the 12. and 13 pages of which book of Thomas Lamb he writes as follows So then when Christ the true promised seed was come the seed in the flesh that lead to Christ ceased for the natural relation ceased at the death of Christ and not before at which time the distinction or different holinesse between Iew and Gentile ceased Act. 10. 28. Eph. 2. 13. 15. In Rom. 11. 20. it is said through unbelief they are broken off now t is manifest they were the true Church till the death of Christ and then broken off through unbelief why were not the Iews in the sin of unbelief before yes no doubt why then were they not broken off before and why then the reason is because the time of faith was come and therefore now they were broken off through unbelief the seed was come therefore the natural seed ceased Christ was come therefore the law ceased As long as the law lasted they did remain in the Church by being circumcised and observing the rites and ceremonies of the Law though they did remain in unbelief but when the time of faith was come Gal. 3. 25. then they were no longer in the Covenant and Church by observing the rites and Ceremonies of the Law which they entered into by circumcision but now they were broken off through unbelief which notes out unto us that the standing in that Church before Christ in time of the Law and the standing in this Church since Christ in time of the Gospel is upon different grounds for the standing in that Church was by being circumcised and observing the rites and ceremonies of the Law but the standing in this Church is by faith and being baptized into the same faith Act. 2. 38. 41. Joh. 4. 1. Gal. 3. 26 27. Rom 11. 20. And it is to be noted that the Iewes the same people that were circumcised and in covenant with Abraham according to the flesh and thereby members of the Iewish Church could not be the visible church according to the Gospell unless they did manifest faith and so be in covenant with Abraham according to the spirit and baptized into the same faith Whereas if the Covenant now under Christ were the same that was before Christ with Abraham and his posterity in the flesh then by the same right they possessed circumcision and the Iewish Church state they must possesse this since Christ which they could not do therefore it is not the same It is true therefore that the Covenant of God makes the Church both in time of the Law and Gospel too for the Church is nothing else but a people in covenant with God now look how the covenant differs so the Church and people differs which is made by it and which enter into it Now the Covenant whereby God took a people outwardly to be his people then was that whereby they did being circumcised participate of all those outward meanes which led to Christ which was to come Psal. 149. 19. 20. But the Covenant whereby he takes a people outwardly to be his people now whereby they are admitted to be baptized is that profession they make of faith in Christ Acts 8. 12. 37. Mat 3. 6. Whereby they have true and spirituall conjunction with God and are his people Heb. 3. 6. Indeed it is true that Christ is and ever was the Mediator and Means of salvation and also that all those that were saved were saved through faith in him both before and since his comming But yet because the outward means of making Christ known doth differently depend upon his being yet to come aâ—… upon his being come in the flesh the one being more dark the other more plain the one more carnall the other more spirituall therefore the participation of these meanes doth make the state of the participants to differ Thus far are his words and then noting certain differences to the number of seven or eight between the Old Testament and the New which is 1. Established upon better promises 2. After the power of an endless life 3. In Christ. 4. And liberty of the spirit 5. A Celestial Jerusalem 6. A State of faith He very truly concludes that such onely as are in the New Covenant in Christ in faith of the promises born from above and partakers of the spirit and the power of that endless life or of the world to come a re suitable to be admitted to Gospel Church priviledges In the time therefore before Christ saith he such as would circumcise themselves and their males and observe the Law in the rites and ceremonies therof together with their children by generation were the seed and in covenant with that Church but now since Christ only such as believe in Christ and are thereby children by regeneration are the seed and in câ—…nant with this Church and this he proves further yet First Because None of the Natural seed of Abraham are in the Covenant by vertue of any natural relation though they did remain in the Iewish Church till the death of Christ and as that Church then ceased so their being in the Church by an natural relation ceased also Act. 10. 28. Rom. 9. 8. Gal. 5. 28. 31 3. 7 8 9. 14. 16. 19. 26. 28 29. Secondly The Gentiles have no natural relation to become Abrahams seed by therefore a believers child cannot become the seed of Abraham by being the seed of a believer unless such children do believe themselves and cannot otherwise in no respect be participants in the covenant made with Abraham p. 14 15. And again p. 18. No Gentile saith he is Abrahams seed at all but by believing the righteousnesse of faith allthough he be the child of believing parents Now therefore because you tell us not only First that believers children in infancy are Abrahams children though they yet do not
the works of Abraham i. e. believe not on him that justifyes them as some of you doâ—…e they do but also Secondly that the promise of the Gospel is to believers and their seed These both are abundantly confuted by that quotation of mine which quotes more Scripture then you will ever answer so that I wonder you blush not to shoot out so boldly two such blind and unâ—…ound assertions together the second of which I shall say no more to it being virtually answered by what is more formally spoken to the first also because I have shewed so undeniably above that I know your consciences must yield to it and that from this Act. 2. 39. whence you would wrest a proof to the contrary that the promise if you take it for the profer of the Gospel Grace is to all men in the world every creature and so not to believers and their seed only but to all unbelievers and their seed also in case they shall believe for he conditionats the promise on calling for such these were whom Peter spake to whilst he was yet speaking that very word to them viz. the promise is to you and your children but if you take it for the thing promised which is not Church-membership and participation of baptism as some say whose absurdity therein I have declared but the spirit remission of sins and salvation this is made good also to the believer himself and it is mercie enough to him that it is so I think but not at all to his seed for his sake nor his faiths sake for if it be I testify his children need no faith of their own nay more God never made promise to save any of believing Abrahams natural seed without faith in themselves for Abrahams sake as neerly as he took Abraham to be his friend for even he had sin enough of his own to have â—…unck him if the same Mediator that saves any of his seed in that way of faith had not mercifully saved him the same way nor yet for Abrahams 〈◊〉 sake for that merited not salvation for them nor was it instrumental but faith only in themselves to any one of his sonnes salvation for every one must bear his own burden if Christ bear it not and the just must live by his faith and not his fathers neither did he ever promise for his faiths sake to give faith to his natural seed as his for then they must all have had it qua sic including dâ—… omni and being universale summum or God shouldly which he cannot neither could God blame them as he doth for unbelief but himself without whom say you they could not believe who had promised to make them believe and did not though yet he promised to circumcise i. e. by his spirit to sanctify the hearts of his spiritual seed as well as his own i. e. all such as believe and are in the faith with him for the promise being still sure to all the seed which it is made to they all must be blessed with faithful Abraham Now if God who made the old Covenant promise of the earthly Canaan to Abraham and his fleshly seed did not make the Gospel promise to him and his fleshly seed but onely that 〈◊〉 of his that believes with him can we think that he made that promise to the Gentile believer and his fleshly seed for his fathers sake unlesse he have faith of his own Babist No we do not say without respect to his own faith but as the believers seed shall believe so it s made to him as well as to his parents Baptist. So it s made to the unbeliever and his seed also viz. as they shall believe as well as to either of the other and by that account you may baptize all the world Again none of the Jews though the natural seed of Abraham and partakers of all the ordinances of the old testament as Abrahams children could be admittted to be baptized upon that same natural relation though they pleaded it never so stisfly Mat. 3 but only on manifestation of amendment besides that 3000 converts should not baptize their children when they were baptized themselves as Abraham by command took all his males and cirmumcised them the self same day with himself argues plainly that both the covenant and the promise as Mr. Marshal saies truly as to the manner of administration was now changed and not continued to parents and children both alike but as they both alike believed And that these were not baptized with their parents I take Mr. Cotton at his word who as I have shewed before confesses it and if he should not stand to his testimonie herein yet these words viz. as many as glady received the word were baptized which exclude infants and were an imperfect relation if he meant not onely them that received the word are so cogent that they cannot but compell him So I have escaped two of your bullets and as for the third viz. that the Gospel which is a better Covenant would be far worse if believers children be not counted in it and have not right to baptism and membership as well as the Iews children and be valued but as Turks and Pagans this is so sick of the same disease of absurdity with the rest that I fear not its doing much execution besides we have lamed it before having told you before and proved it too and now will again that the exclusion of the fleshly seed from this Covenant and administration which was taken into the first doth not lessen or straiten the grace of God under it at all not render this covenant worse then the first contrary to Heb. 8. 6. the place twice quoted by you where it s called a better for the meliority there spoken of of this covenant above that lies not so much in the extension of the grace of it to such subjects as in the meliority of its promises for this is a better covenant still then the other who ere it belongs or belongs not to forasmuch as it makes better promises then the other viz. of a heavenly Canaan and all spiritual blessings in and by Iesus through faith when that promised an earthly Canaan onely and certain temporal blessings therein on performance of those tedious services of the law T is true theirs in this sense and thus farre was a Covenant of great grace too as t was made freely to that people above other nations for he did not so to any people else concerning outward benefits and such statutes and judgements as should on their observation of them not onely continue them therein but as a shadow type and schoolmaster conduct them to this yet greater is the glory of the Gospel covenant which now is so that the other had no glory in respect of this glory that excelleth therefore the grace of God under the covenant to them that are under it is greater also Besides if you speak not onely of the intention but
of his faith and such high heirs thereby as have right to the heavenly Canaan Abrahams faith it seems doth not priviledge his own natural seed so far as to be his seed in a spiritual relation but the faith of every Gentile priviledges his natural seed so far as to be spiritually the seed of Abraham but Sirs me thinks if any fleshly descent in the world could dignify the seed so descended with the high name of the spiritual seed of Abraham and heirs with him according to the heavenly promise a fleshly descent from Abraham Isaac and Iacob should do it ye teven that meâ—…rly without more makes the seed no more then the na tural seed of Abraham and heirs with him of only the earthly promise Yea Sirs that Abrahams seed is shut out from all â—…piritual kindred to their own faithful father Abraham notwithstanding the faith of that their Father unlesse they believe also themselves and yet our seed who are but Gentiles after the flesh are so specially so spiritually a kin to Abraham by the faith of us their fathers without their own is not only to equallize our seed with Abrahams which is the utmost you pretend to but rather to reckon it as a higher race then that of Abrahams a matter which the most capacious brain pan of you all is no way capable clearly to conjecture To the fourth that circumcision was not voided by the Jewes after infidelity for t was not set on supposition they had faith neither was it after voided by their proving Reprobates for it was not set to signify them to be Gods elect they being not so at all as Jewes I mean as to eternal life but only to that earthly life in Canaan for had it been set to have supposed believers onely and elect ones then it must not have been set to Ishmael and Esau for they were not at all known to be but rather foreknown not to be the elected heirs of either Canaan viz. the typical or the true for God who foresaw how in time they would deserve it the one by scoffing the other by â—…elling both the birth-right and the blessing had to Abraham Gen. 17. 19 20 21. and to Rebecca Gen. 25. 23. either plainly or figuratively foretold their rejection from both yet both these were circumcised and that neither of them in vain sith being males in the house Gods command was fulfilled in circumcising them as well as otheâ—…s but baptism which is lawful to be set to none buâ—… taugh persons Mat. 28. professed believers in token of remission of sins Act. 2. is ever voided and abuâ—…ed when dispensed to infants not onely because there is no command for such a thing but also because there is no use of such a thing to such as those for before they are made guilty of commission of sins they neither do can nor need believe remission and when having committed sins they believe them to be râ—…mitted their infant-baptism being transient and not permanent as circumcision was doth no way become visibly evident to them it self much lâ—…ss can it be a visible evidence to them of the other Review The reâ—…son of these objections against paedobaptism is this because they understand not the nature of baptism it is Gods seal â—…e sets it they that receive it are passive in that he appoints it to be set to whomsoever he hath made the promise and with whom he hath entered into covenant A seal of an estate made to infants in their cradles is firm so is God's Now here must be a sealing on the other side for both parties must seal in a Covenant we seal when we believe John 3. 33. The Covenant is sealed on both sides when faith comes God may set to his seal as he did to many of the Iewes and the seed made void to them through unbelief The End of Gods setting it to such as he fore-saw would have no benefit of it is the same with the making of his promises and sending of his Sonne to let them know how he would have received them how sure his mercies should have been unto them but they would not Re-Review The reason of all your Objectations against our way of baptism and pleas for Pâ—…do-Rantism which you practise is this you understand not the nature of baptism it is not Gods seal which he sets which you sillily suppose for that is his spirit only as I shewed you plainly enough above but Gods sign which man seâ—…s which they that receive aright are not altogether passive in but voluntary and very active i. e. confessing their sins calling on the name of the Lord desiring to be baptized professing faith in order thereunto going down inâ—…o the water with the dispenser and there setting their senses and understandings on work upon the sign and things thereby signified submitting their bodies freely to the dispensation Neither doth God appoint it to be set to whomsoever he hath barely made the promise for in the word preached he makes it to every Creature Mark 16. 15. 16. but to such as professedly believe in that promise he hath made and visibly verily for ought we can judge have entered into covenant with him to become obedient such only so far as it is possible for us to know are those with whom he hath entred into Covenant for say you there must be a sealing on the other side and both parties must seal in a Covenant we seal when and not before we believe neither is the Covenant sealed on both sides so that it can be said these two parties are now entertained into covenant each with other till faith come and that is not in infancy but after And this your manner of speech viz. when â—…aith comes here implies to be your own opinion as well as ours though else where as p. 3. 4. 8. 9. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. you strenuously contend it yea and to say the truth t is well nigh the whole businese of your book to assert and assay to prove it that faith comes to infants in their infancy and to make it appear to us as well as you can by contradiction that infants do believe Moreover if ever men were troubled with the simples I think you are is baptism Gods seal of an estate i. e. the heavenly inheritance made over to infants in their cradels and is that seal of his firm to i. e so sure that it cannot fail then I wonder how that seal for so you still stile circumcision and baptism is made void and infirm to so many Iews and Christian people as it is for not all yea few of many do obtain that estate at last and that most lose it for all that seal you tell us by their unbelief but I had thought you had been of the mind when you wrote your 4th page that children of Iews and of believing parents did believe all without any exception for asserting it there positively that the Iews children did believe and
have declared my sense of it before so I testifie again is so clear against the standing of infants as members in the family of Abraham or Church of God now under the Gospel that he is as blind as a beetle that sees any thing in it tending to the proof of it for it seems plainly that the natural branches or seed of Abraham Isaac and Iacob themselves that stood the children of the Church before without faith upon the meer account of being their naturall branches cannot stand children of the Church now unlesse they be also spiritual branches as Abraham Isaac and Iacob were yea if being the fleshly seed of a believer could ingraft persons into the Gospel Church as it did of old into the Jewish Church without faith then the Jewes to this day being asmuch believing Abrahams natural seed as ever might by that birth stand Members as truly as any Gentile believers seed but they cannot yea the same persons that were members of that Church without faith were not admitted to passe from that Church to membership in this for want of faith but when very forraigners that had no relation to nor descent from Abraham became his children in the Gosspel sense and members of the Gospel Church by personal faith the very naturall seed of Abraham was cut off through unbelief so that the standing before was by a fleshly birth of Abraham of some believing proselited Gentile but the standing now in the Church is not by a birth natural of any parent no hot of Abraham himself unlesse there be faith in the persons themselves as Mr. Baxter believes not there is in any infants for to the confutation of the Ashford Pamphlet which pleads infant-infant-faith Mr. Baxter p. 98. Makes the very essence of faith to lie in assenting to it that Christ is King and Saviour and consenting that he be so to us and whether infants do thus both assent and consent let Mr. Ba. be judge of it if he please Because of unbelief the natural seed were broken off thence Mr. Bax. argues that infants stand still in the Church but thence I argue they cannot stand because those that stand now stand by faith ver 20. i e. personal not parental thou standest saith Paul by faith i. e thy faith not thy Fathers for then we may as well say the just shall live by his fathers faith not by fleshly descent though of Abraham Isaac and Iacob themselves as of old they did and infants cannot stand by faith unlesse they had it and therefore not at all Mr. Baxter argues it was the Jewes own Olive tree or Church they were cut off from for unbelief Therefore infants stand in it still But theâ—…ce I argue that our infants cannot stand therein for if god spared not the Naturall Branches of Abraham but broke them off their own root their own father Abraham and his family so as to be counted no longer his children their own olive tree the church so as to abide no longer in it because they believed not the terms of standing church-members being now no fleshly descent but faith then much lesse will he admit any Gentiles that are not naturall branches of Abraham to be grafted into the good olive tree without faith and therefore no infants that believe not Mr Ba. tells us that some branches only were broken off therfore not infants It is true all were not broken off and why because some believed and so abode in the family others and those the most believe not when they should others and those all infants nor believed nor yet could and therefore could not abide nor have a visible being a visible membership a visible standing in that visible church the termes of standing in which is only and alone by faith Mr. Bax. argues that Israel shall again be grafted into their own olive tree and saved even the children with the parents and therefore infant-membership in the Gospel church is not repealed I answer it is true that if they abide not still in unbelief they shall be grafted into their own olive tree the visible Church and family of Abraham that is so many as shall believe onely this infants do not but whether they believe or believe not when the Redeemer i. e. Christ Jesus shall come all Israel shall be saved and be owned and made the most glorious people upon earth and enter into a flourishing state indeed but not in this way of baptism and membership Mr. Baxter speaks of who I perceive is not a little ignorant of this mystery as yet how long blindnesse shall happen unto Israel and in what manner their calling shall be of which I also have at this time as little list as leasure to inform him Mr. Ba. argues from the samenesse of the Olive tree the Jew was broken off from and the Gentile was grafâ—…ed into that therefore as infants stood members then so they must now I answer it is true there is some kind of indentity between the Jewish and the Gospel Church but not such as concludes an indentity of membership for infants they are the same ingenere visiblis Ecclesiae they agree in the common name of Church and visible Church elected and segregated from the world but there 's little else that I know of wherin they are the same they differ in circumstantials in their accidental forms in their officers ordinances customs constitutions subjects members that being constituted of one whole nation of people or fleshly seed of Abraham taken out from all other nations this of a spiritual seed of Abraham i. e. believers scaterred here and there taken out of any nation as they happen to be called almost every nation some the ceremony of inchurching Abrahams own much more any other mans meer fleshly seed being ceased Mr. Bax. peddles on a pace and brings a company of Scripures in proof of infants Church-membership and baptism which though he stile them as indeed his whole book Plain Scripture proofs for those two yet a man that is not minded to force the Scripture into the Service of his own fancy because it does not serve it freely may look till dooms day before he see in them any plain perspicuous proof of either one of these or of the other Christ saith he Mat. 23. 37 would have gathered Ierusalem oft as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings but they would not therefore sure he would not have put them or their infants out of the Church the strength of the consequence lies here saith he he would have gathered whole Ierusalem and that into the visible Gospel Church therefore infants also Now that Christ does not speak of whole Ierusalem here as he saith he does both men and infants the circumstances of the text do fully evince to us for he speaks of the same persons he speaks to and the same persons he complains of saying ye would not the same and no other are they to whom he speaks when he saies Oh
evince that it was not so from the beginning of the Gospel Church for what effects are spoken of as falling out now newly under the seventh Trumoet are things that never were in being before Besides observe Mr. Baxter how he pleads to have Kingdomes taken in the largest sense in the former part of the verse and how angry he is if it be taken for lesser then all the whole kingdomes of the world but in the latter part where Kingdomes must needs be and is as largely to be taken for it is the Kingdomes of the world are become Christs Kingdomes i. e. dominion not Christs churches there he will needs lace it up into the narrowest acceptation that the word kingdom can possibly bear Oh therefore the grosse pieces of ignorance that are in that Argument of his for infants membership in the Church which he grounds from a Scripture that will as well prove all the world to be Gospel Church-members as believers infants if his very own false sense of it should be admitted but in truth proves not the one nor the other thus he argues viz. the Kingdoms of this world i. e. all and all in them shall become Christs kingdomes therefore infants of only believers not heathens are Church-members under the Gospel He that saies this followes any better then the Pope follows Peter in the holy chaire shall never be counted or voted mentis compos whilest I am compos voti Mr. Bax. therefore had better have found 40 shillings where he never looked for it then have looked for infant-membership in this scripture where he will never find it with his eyes open His three next Arguments viz. the ninth tenth and eleventh run all upon one strain and therefore as he need not have made more then one of them so I need not make more then one answer to them all yea I need make none at all having spoken to that point sufficiently before yet a hint of it here may do no hurt They stand all upon one bottome viz. the meliority of the times under the Gospel above the times of the Law of this new covenant above the old the summe of what he saies is this if believers in fants may not now be members of the visible Church then both Jewes and Gentiles are in a worse condition now then before Christ and Christ is come to be a destroyer and not a Saviour and to do hurt to all the world the believing Jewes and the Church yea and the very Gentiles thereby in regard of the happinesse of their children are in a worse condition then of old but this is a vile doctrine saith he for Jesus is a Mediator of a better covenant established on better promises Heb. 8. 6. where sin abounded grace much more abounded Rom. 5. 14 15. 20. and the love of Christ love hath height length depth breadth and passeth knowledge Ephes. 3. To which simple inconsequent conceits I answer by denying the consequence it followes not that the world is in worse estate under Christ then before because infants might be members of the Jewish church but not now of any visible church of the Gospel nay verily the world is in a far better condition then formerly by how much they are under more clear and plain promulgations more faâ—…re and universal tenders of salvation then in the narrow or shadowy dispensation of the Law and also under greater love richer grace better and more glorious promises unlesse they fall short of them through their own unbelief then those which were made to the natural Israelites onely all whose glory was but a type of the other for the great favor love and promises of God to them as meerly Abraham Isaac and Iacobs natural seed unlesse they also believed and then they as now all the world might be heirs with Abraham of the grace and promises of the Gospel did make them heirs of that earthly Canaan onely but the Gospel grace makes all men heirs on termes of faith and obedience to Christ of the glory of the heavenly Canaan for ever the grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men now appears and as for infants albeit no infants now be baptized into fellowship with the visible Church nor are priviledged as the Jewes infants once were with interest in the blessing of an outward earthly Canaan nor yet vouchsafed that meerly titular account of sanctifyed and peculiar people of God as in opposition to other infants as by birth accountatively sinners common and unclean which distinction of a birth holiness and uncleaness Mr. Baxter had he but half an eye in his head might clearly see Acts 10. 28. is so taken out of the world and ended in Christ that now no man however born no not a Gentile may be called in that sense as the Gentiles were of old in reference to the Jewes either common or unclean and if no man can be called by birth common or unclean in reference to other then none may be called by birth holy in reference to other for this birth holinesse and uncleannesse are such Correlatives that the one cannot be supposed to be in the world without the other albeit I say no infants have now such standings in such external happines and salvation yet they are in no les capacity to be saved then the Jews children of old so neither their parents whoever they be in any worse condition in regard of their comforts in their children whether they dy infants or live to years then the godliest Jewes were in regard of theirs for either infants dy in infancy or else do not if any mans infants dy in such nonage as in which they never committed actual transgression our Ashford Pamphlet tells us they have not deserved to be exempted from the generall state of little infants declared in Scripture viz. that of such is the Kingdome of heaven yea I wonder what should damn such dying infants as never had iniquâ—…y of their own sith God himself assures us that the son shall not dy i. e. eternally for the iniquity of his father but every soul that dyes shall dy onely for his own iniquity Ezekiel 18. and no better hopes could be harboured of the Godliest Jewes infants then this that dying infants they were not damned But if any mans children even his that is ungodly and prophane do live to years then if they believe and obey the Gospel the tender of which is to every creature they may be saved though their parents be wicked when Iewes children not doing so shall be damned for all their father Abrahams faith and their own Church-membership for a time and that with so much the greater condemnation whereas therefore Mr. Ba. tells us such a story of a meliority of being in the visible Church rather then out I tell him it is not universally true but as it may happen for besides that children may aswell be prayed for and instructed by their godly parents remaining unbaptized and non-members in
no end Therefore I le hint but a few among which this shall be the first If the standing upon the root Abraham i. e. the family or visible Church of God since Christ be by faith in the person onely so standing and not by faith in the parent as of old then infants cannot now stand therein But so t is Therefore the other The consequence is cleared by the consideration of the incapacity of infants to believe faith being assent to something propounded to us faith comming by hearing and hearing by the word Rom. 10. so that who so thinks it possible for infants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere when it is said how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard is wretchedly inconsiderate The Minor is evident out of Rom. 11. where it is said the very natural branches of Abrahams body that did on that account meerly as the fleshly seed of that father of the faithfull stand in the olive tree the visible Church before time yet now could stand no longer on that old account why were they not the seed of Abraham still that stood without faith in the old visible Church to the very end of it yes but they believed not in their own persons therefore could not stand in this house but were cast out of their own olive their own father Abrahams family i. e. the visible Church now Christ came in because of unbelief and thou saith Paul to the Gentile standest how by fleshly descent no that standing is gone from such as come of Abrahams himself therefore is not to thee nor to thine but by faith i. e. personal and not parentall A Second this If all they that are baptized into one visible body under the Gospell are made in the supper to drink into one spirit then infants who cannot drink into one spirit with the body secundum te may not be baptized into that visible body But this is true 1 Cor. 12. 13. Therefore that So Col. 2. 19. All the body is knit together and by joints and bands hath nourishment ministred and increaseth by that which every joint and member supplieth Eph. 4. 16. But infants are not capable to have Spirituall nourishment Minstired and to grow in grace as all the body ought to do at least and this in the use of the Supper If you say they are capable of spiritual nourishment I say as capable I think as of the spiritual birth for where there 's a birth there 's a growth but then me thinks they should be as capable of the supper which is the Sacrament of spirituall nourishment being capable of that as being capable of spiritual birth they are of baptism the outward Sacrament of the same But Mr. Bax. denies that page 114. 115. among other reasons for this because though capable to be washed yet not to eat bread and drink wine in their first infancy Oh strange they may have it then as they can eat and drink A third is this If no infants were baptized and added to the first Gospell visible Church then surely they had no right so to be for the Apostles would not do them that wrong as not to add them that had right But this is true Therefore that The Minor is plain out of Acts 2. where to the 120. men and women that without infants continued in fellowship Acts 1. there were added 3000. more in one day and not one infant among them but as many onely as gladly received the word nor more nor lesse for else Luke couzens us in his history and continued after their baptism in fellowship in breaking bread and prayers which no infants did and yet it is well nigh infallible that those 3000 had some infants belonging to some of them which would have been added with their parents if the promise is to you and to your children and them a far off even as many as the Lord shall call would bear the sense divines drawes it to Yea Master Cotton himself conceives that no infants were baptized at that time and when else either these or any other were neither I nor any one else ever found since they began to read Christs Testament with their eyes open Yea Peter commanded no more to be baptized but the same persons whom he speaks to also to repent which me thinks he should have done saying be baptized every one of you and baptize your children also if any such thing had been intended and Christians infants were to have been seperated out of the world and called to be saints and baptized as Mr. B. believes they are to be but not I. For what saies Paul in his Epistle to the Romans chapter 1. I suppose he wrote not to infants yet to all the called Saints to all that be in Rome called to be saints So in 1 Cor. 14. the 23. If the whole Church come together and all speak with tongues and all Prophe-y So 26. Every one of you hath a Psalm So 31. Ye may all prophecy one by ons that all may be ediâ—…yed He writes and so surely he seems to me to do all his Epistles to the whole church and speaks to the whole body yet I cannot conceive that to any infants who are uncapable to be edifyed and comforted Yea 1 Cor. 12. 25. 16. The Members of the visible body of Christ ought to have the same care one for another so that if one Member suffer all the Members suffer with it if one be honoured all rejoice with it This cannot infants do Therefore surely are not of this visible body of Christ. Another Argument which Master Baxter himself mentions and slights as simply supposing that it excludes infants from salvation is that of Mr. Tombs viz. That the onely way now appointed by Christ to make visible church Members is by teaching the persons themselves and that none else must be Members of the visible Church but those that have learnt as infants have not This Argument is of great weight and receives as trifling an answer from Mr. Bâ—…or â—…or saith he then it will much more follow that they are not or at least that we may not judge them to be of the invisible Church at all i. e. to be such as so dying shall be saved The contrary to which and inconsequence of which I have shewed above and shall shew more by and by Secondly saith he If they may argue from Matth. the 28. 20. that none but those that are taught are true Disciples and are to be baptized why may they not as well Argue from Mark the 16. chap. 16. verse who ever believeth not shall be damned that all infants are certainly damned To which I say first I am one who argues from Maâ—…h 28. that none but such as are taught are disciples and to be baptized for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is teach ye or make ye disciples by teaching or cauâ—…e to learn then which I testify to Mr. Bâ—… face that there is no other way whereby
seal to him in this special sense i. e. as a seal of the righteousness of that eminent faith which he had that he might be i. e. to that very end and purpose as to ratifie him in that royal title The father of all that believe to this purpose I then spake shewing withall that in the same sense in which the father is said to seal the sonne Iohn 6. 27. to be the giver of that meat that endures to eternall life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him hath the father sealed i. e. authorized to that business honoured with that office and as Pharoah honoured Ioseph with the sole Dispensation of all the Corn and Government of his Kingdome and as Kings under the Broad seal do seal men to i. e. honour them with and settle them in great Places Trusts and Titles c. in such a sense is God in that place said to give Circumcision to Abraham whereby to seal him up and settle him for ever in that glorious title viz. the father of all that believe in which sense Circumcision though a sign of some things in common to him with his posterity was never given to any one of Abrahams posterity at all this as it is clearly held forth in that place so was so clearly held forth to you from that place of your own naming at that very time that as I wondered you could be ignorant of it then so I much more admire that you are not ashamed to bewray such dissembling in the recording of it as you do and such wretched ignorance of it still besides I know not whether I instanc'd then in any other but I am sure as shy as you seem to be of it there were divers more promises made and priviledges made over to Abraham under the great Seal Circumcision which were neither made nor given much less confirmed by Circumcision as a seal thereof to all his posterity viz. that his seed should inherit Canaan this though it was made and made good to Abraham and that seed of his to whom it was promised yet not to the seed of all his seed for many of his posterity as Ishmael who was circumcised and his children by Keturah also and their whole race had none of all this seal'd to them by Circumcision Again that Christ should come out of his loyns that in his seed all Nations should be blessed these were made to Abraham and were as the rest also great Priviledges to the honour of which he was sealed yet though 't was signified to all his seed by Circumcision that Christ should come of him after the flesh all of them had not that priviledge by promise that Christ should come of them after the flesh by all which it undeniably appears that the same Covenant of Circumcision in every of those respects in which Circumcision was given him as a seal of it was not given to all the Iews and their children and that fore-named place speaks of Circumcision onely in reference to Abrahams person and in that sense and respect in which it was given to him only as a Seal of his faith i. e. that strong faith he acted and gave glory to God by Rom. 4. 20. for which God also gave that great glory and dignity to him viz. the father-hood of the faithfull All which notwithstanding and much to the same effect that was uttered then to shew that Circumcision had more ends and relations to Abrahams Person then to the Persons of his seed yea and though your own paper which lastly I appeal to doth testifie that I I multiplied words that is to say spake much about other ends of Circumcision to Abraham then to his seed yet you both be-lie me and give the lie to your selves so far as to say I was extreamly foundered which to say and yet to say in the very same line that I multiplied words about other ends of Circumcision the very point your selves had urg'd me to speak to if it be not at once to say and unsâ—…y then verily I know not what is for these two are contradictory to each other but perhaps you think to salve all with this that being call'd to speak punctually to that end viz. whether Circumcision were a seal of the righteousness of faith to Abrahams posterity at all or not or if not to shew it I answered nothing to that particular that carried any sense or reason in it but really Sirs I said no less to that very end but rather much more then I have said a little above which whether it have any sense or reason in 't or no yet was it both sensless and reasonless in you however to leave it wholly out and you had dealt far more ingenuously and judiciously in your own Account and in every rationall mans also had you set down what I answered and so put your Reader into a capacity of discerning whether it were to the purpose yea or no but that its like you were very loath to do least as nothing as it was to your purpose it should have been more serviceable then you desire it to be to ours As for that ingagement whereby how wisely a fool may see you bound your selves to become Anabaptists in case I made discovery of what I did abundantly discover I freely dis-engage you from that double performance and shall accept much more of your single submission to that ordinance it being no matter of rejoicing to to me to see any man translated from A-no-baptist to be an Anabaptist for that is from one extream to another Report Next you relate p. 5. that I said I did not deny but that little children might have the holy Ghost and these texts of Scripture viz. Mar. 10. 14. Mat. 19. 14. Luke 18. 16 2 Cor. 13. 5. did seem to intimate as much but that it could not be made appear that they had it to the making of them subjects of baptism Reply To this which is another 〈◊〉 falsity and connterseit resemblance I reply thus first that 〈◊〉 children might have the holy spirit if God please extraordinarily to infuse it I might then possibly not deny nor dare I yet deny but that possibly they may but it 's more then God hath manifested if they have to either us or you nor will this grant either prove the propriety of your Position who down-rightly declare they have it or warrant your baptizing them thereupon so long as still 't is unapparent to you that they have it for first à posse ad esse non valet consequentia it follows not because it may be therefore 't is yet such Country-clearing of things is seen now and then among you Countrey Clergy-men that if from may-be to must-be may not pass for good reason there must be no more given at all witness the yery last Argument us'd by the first opponent at this Ashsord Disputation whereby to prove infants to have the spirit who having urg'd the example of Iohn Baptist whose
Disputation cutting off the business by the buttocks and so sending it out naked into the wide world your THEN Sirs is a word out of joint 't was not then but a pretty while after then before the Disputation came to this full point which you have already brought us too in your Account after which you say there was no other Answer given by me nor to be expected for as I often offered fuller Answer to all you urg'd in one intire Discourse but that 't was an unseasonable motion in your Account p. 10. and in no wise so pleasing to your Priestly patience as 't was to the peoples to expect so long as to hear it so there was much more then this uttered by some of your selves though you give us not so much as the sum of it in this your sum Here 's but one particular mans influence toward the maintenance of Infant-baptism inserted here in your Account viz. onely Mr. Willcocks thiâ—… was he who when had been the prime pleader in your cause was afterward and good reason too for he was the fittest for your turn though not the truths very gravely desired by you how justly judge you to be judge in it and to determine his own Disputation and be the main moderator of what came out of his own mouth and mine too a thing never heard of in Accademicall Disputations the Rules of which you were so stiff to have us steer by this was he who if he were as not I but Report saies he was your special Pen-man in the Account as he was your special spoks-man at the Disputation seâ—…s so light it seems by every mans else as to set down no mans Arguments but his own it 's like they were not very much to the matter and indeed they were not nor his neither though his own are exprest for the most material but better or worse there were more Arguments urg'd then these one by a Scotchman who then liv'd at Kenington what he is call'd I know not so well as whether for he had a call to Dover since that from whence whether he is now call'd I know not he laid down his Argument in this form viz. to whom the Covenant belongs to them the initiall seal of it belongs but the Covenant belongs to infants c. but seeing me startle at his Anti-scripturall term of Initial seal by which he denoted baptism whether he urg'd more or what more he urg'd I remember not well but I 'm sure he was at Ne plus ultrâ in that for I durst not admit of that improper term which made his Syllogism Sophisticall and his Disputation ex falso suppositis for he took it for granted by all men that baptism as he call'd it is an initiall seal about which yet sub judice lis est it being doubted by many whether baptism be a seal at all and deny'd by some of whom I profess my self one so opinion'd who in its due place shall I doubt not give good account on 't there was likewise another Argument urg'd by Mr. Vahan who from Acts 2. would have drawn the right of baptism to believers infants and being askt whether those Peter then spake to were believers or unbelievers when he spake to them and replying that they were believers heard the contrary both clear'd by my self and confessed by his Partner Mr. Prigg my quondam friend unless I became his enemy that day because I told him the truth who convening with me in that though not in the true Consequence of it did however so contradict Mr. Vahan that he came in to his help ore the shoulders There were also two more Arguments besides these in the Account urg'd by Mr. Willcock viz. one ex particulari the other ex negativo as I took occasion to give a hint thereof above which he or whoever was the pâ—…n-man of these passages was it seems as little willing to own as his own name or his handy work it self sundry more Arguings there were and some Arglings also made by some who would have now and then a snatch and away which me thinks you might have given a transient glance at at least in A true Account for your utter silence concerning which you might justly be blamed yet I blame you not much when I consider how sensible you might easily be of liableness to more blame for the matters themselves had you shewn them such untempered morter were they then can well be conjectured by you you are now under for letting them alone altogether Report Another flat falsification and abuse of me and the world is this you misreport me and that in two places viz. at the bottom of both your sixth and seventh pages which makes you doubly guilty of that single fiction as having confessed that circumcision was the seal of the Gospel Covenant and that Ishmael who was that carnall seed of Abraham onely because born in Abrahams house had right to it and received it Reply That this is A true Account of what you then said I said I dare not deny but do deny it to be A true Account of what I said whether you understood or understood not my words I know not but I utter'd not a word to such a purpose and were you not men minded to mis-understand whâ—…n to undâ—…rstand seems never so little to make against you I make no doubt but to make your own true Account make you eat some of that you have here uttered that Ishmael who was Abrahams carnal seed even meerly because born in Abrahams house had right to Circumcision and received it as every male so born also did I confess I confessed but denied all along that Circumcision was a seal as to Ishmael of the Gospel-Covenant or that he had it under such a notion as a Seal at all I said it was a Seal to none save to Abraham and that even to him 't was a Seal of not any thing at all save of the righteousness of the faith he had which words in the sense I then expounded them are not meant of the Gospel-Covenant but of that particular personal Covenant God made with him concerning his father-hood of the faithful a peculiar privildege which God gave to him and to none in all the world besides him as for Ishmael yea and Isaac himself they neither of them had it in this sense as neither had they that Covenant or promise of a father-hood which it was a Seal of though even Ishmael himself and the lowest males in Abrahams house were all to be circumcised upon this account only if if there had been no other as he was commanded to circumcise all his males As to a fuller account of my grounds for this opinion I shall suspend it till I take my other Account of these passages in youâ—…s and take notice only here first of your sacred Sophistication in giving that out for granted which was so abundantly denied Secondly that close contradiction you here give not
be set out in such a holy manner for glory and for beauty with his Pontisicalibâ—… and most holy sumptuous superstitious attire this holinesse of the holy Priest-hood that then was and its holy pertinances that holy people and holy seed you stile very fiâ—…ly and I agree with you in the term for 't was indeed the holiness of that Covenant that then was while the first tabernacle and its worldly Sanctuary was yet standing a federall holiness nevertheless though you call it by no name but what I freely allow of yâ—…t I call it by one or two names which though they be as true and properly due to it as the other and Epâ—…thites given ordinarily by your selves to the holinesse of almost every thing else under that Covenant yet least it pluck you up by the roots as touching your opinion in this point of infant-holinesse and baptism I much fear you will hardly allow of them as to the parents and the seed if you can handsomely evade them by secundum quid or some such like cleanly distinction these are first a ceremoniall holiness the rise of which denomination and reason why given are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi ad tempus durans for a time onely its non-continuance to the end or its non-conveyance down-wards from the Church of the Jews to the times and Churches of the Gospel Secondly a typical holinesse as being but a shew shadow or figure of some more excellent holinesse to come for the law and first Convenant had but the shadow of things to come and not the very image of the things Heb. 10. 1. I say a typicall and therefore but a temporall holiness which stood and was seated onely in divers outward bodily rites sacrifices actions observations ordinances offices officers places gestures vestures ornaments meats drinks and a certain fleshly birth-right and title to certain earthly preheminences dignities priviledges liberties inheritances a kingdome and all this for the time then being onely and to point out a true more speciall reall spiritual and eternal excellency and glory under the Gospell in order to the manifestation of which all the other was but a pageant for as the Mâ—…p of that Ierusalem that then was delineates to our capacities the beauty of that earthly fabrick yet is far iâ—…ferious to the City it self therein deciphered so the old Ierusalem with all her holy things were but a shadowy representation and patern of the New Ierusalem and the true heavenly things themselves which the other is as far inferiour to in worth and real felicity as any Mapp of it upon the wall is to the City that is set out and darkly described by it Thus did their High-priests in all their holiness yea and kings too King Solomon specially in all his glory and their prophets also in all their materially holy unctions to those severall holy functions type out that one spiritually anointed one of the father our Lord Iesus though a single person to his tripple office of King Priest and Prophet over his Church so their carnally holy meats drinks and abstinencies our spiritual meat and drink which they are said to eat of in a figure And our abstinencies from fleshly lusts and morall pollutions so their holy washings the washing of Regeneration and renewâ—…ngs by the spirit their holy sacrifices blood of sprinkling which as all the rest could not make perfect as pertaining to the conscience but sanctified onely to the purifying of the flesh i. e. the delivery of them from that outward imputation of impurity and uncleanness that would else have lain upon them the blood of Christ purging the conscience from iniquities and dead works wherewith it s defiled to serve the living God in true holiness and righteousnesse all the daies of our life so Circumcision of their fleshly seed which was outward and in the flesh tipified not Baptism as is simply supposed from Col. 2. but the Circumcision of the spiritual seed i. e. believers new-born babes begotten to Christ by the word with the Circumcision made without hands i. e. sanctification and cutting of the filthy lusts of the flesh so their outwardly royall Priest-hood the spiritual royal Priest-hood i. e. the true Saints who are truly as the other ceremonially and tipically a kindome of Priests made Kings and Priests to the Lamb and shall once reign on the earth 1 Pet. 2. 9. Rev. 5. 10. So the outward holiness of their nation tipified not the same kind of outward hoâ—…esse of any one Nation taken collectively in the lump as the whole Nation of England Scotland c. and all their seed as you ignorantly imagine but the inward holinesse of the holy Nation of true believeâ—…s themselves whether parents to wicked children or children of wicked parents scattered through all Nations under â—…eaven these Peter writes to and calls the chosen generation now i. e. the Regenaration themselves not the natural generation of these also a Râ—…ll Priest-hood an holy Nation a peculiar people to God in a spiritual sense as Israel was in a certain carnal and outward sense before 1 Pet. 1. 1 2. 9. â—…o their holy land our inheritance incorruptible reserved in heaven the heavenly country which we look for with Abraham Isaac and Iacob with whom we are heirs by faith of the same promise their holy City our holy City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God Heb. 11. Rev. 12. Heb. 13. their holy Temple Gods Evangelically holy Temple where he will dwell which Temple ye aâ—…e saith Paul to the Church 1 Cor. 3. Their carnal freedome our spiritual freedom from sin which who ere commits is but a servant for all the other though born of Abraham Iohn 8. Their passeover Christ our passâ—…over that was sacrificed for us 1 Cor. 5. Their Rock our Rock of refreshment Christ their cloud Christ overshadowing by day and enlightning by night his people 1 Cor. 10. Their Manna Christ our bread that came down from heaven Iohn 6. their delivery out of Egypt the worlds Redemption by Christ and as sundry other things of which I cannot now speake particularly so lastly to draw yet a little neerer to the point in hand their holy seed issue infancy tipiâ—…ied 〈◊〉 â—…as both corruptly and carnally you conceive the â—…leshly seed of believing or iâ—…-churched Gentiles for these are in no wise the Anâ—…itype to the circumcised infancy of Israel but as I hinted before the truly and spiritual holy seed it self i. e. believers themselves or if the seed of believers not their natural seâ—…d but their seed in a spirituall sense i. e. that are begotten by them by their words unto the faith for believers as men beget men onely and no more in that way of bodily 〈◊〉 but as believers they may beget believers by way of spiritual 〈◊〉 by comunication of the gospel to their consciences thus Paul was the father of the Corinthians in Christ Iesus begetting them all by the gospel 1 Cor. 4 15. tâ—…us
your children but onely were pricked at the heart upon some measure of conviction that the person whom they had crucified was the Lord of life which thing the vâ—…ry Devils believe and tremble at for in order unto the begetting of that saving faith which yet they had not he spake these words of incouragement and exhortation to them and this to the contradiction of Mr. Vahan who dâ—…ag'd in an Argument by the head and shoulders from this place at the Ashford disputatâ—…on was ingenuously acknowledged by Mr. Prig. Nor Secondly doth Peter make the promise any otherwise to them and their children then he doth to all others in the world i.e. on condition of their comming in at Gods call tis saies he to you and to your children and to them that are far off i.e. all manner of persons even so many in all nations and generations as the Lord our God shall call i.e. as are prevailed with to come when God calls them which to be the sense of this place is further illustrated by that pararel place of Paul Heb. 9. 15. where he saies thus viz. they that are called received the promise of eternall inheritance Nor Thirdly when the parents did believe and were baptized were any of their infants baptized with them as they must have been had that promise been to their infants as well as to themselves on that single account of being their seed for recording how many were baptized at that time he concludes them under such a term as excludes the infants from that daies work while he saies thus as many meaning no more then those for else he deceives us utterly in his Relation as gladly received the word this infants could not do were then baptized which number as they are recorded to be about 3000 might in likelihood have amounted to three times 3000 if all the infants of all those had been dipped also Fourthly nor were there any more inchurched that day among the rest but such as gladly receiving the word were then and thereupon baptized for of these onely it is said and not of infants they continued together in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayers but all their infants must have bin inchurched also as well as they if equally with their parents and by vertue of the same promise the right of Church-membership had belonged to them Besides Fiftly It crosseth the current of all other Scripture to put such male-construction upon this for that the promise of old I mean the old promise of the Law which was of the earthly Canaan and but a type of this did appertain unto a fleshly holy seed I grant but that the new covenant or Gospel promise is made to any mans fleshly seed as such so that thereupon we may baptize them in token of it before they are called to profess faith in Christ is a thing which I confess I found in the common high way when I look'd not after it but since I searched narrowly for it I could never see it Sure I am the Scripture holds forth no other seed of Abraham himself to be heirs with him of the heavenly Canaan but his spiritual sead i.e. believers that do his works nor doth it own any but these to the right of membership and fellowship in his family i.e. the now visible Church for the visible Church is Abrahams family in all ages as well under the Gospel as under the Law Abrahams house i.e. the visible church as t is under the Gospel is much altered from that it was under the law yea so differently is it constituted and totally translated from its Mosaical form that it is even turned up side down and in a manner nothing remains the same it then was as the covenant is not the same with that of that of the law so neither is any thing else that appertains to it but every thing at it were divers from the other and no way answerable save as the Antitype is answerable to the Type for neither is there the the same Mediator nor the same Priest-hood nor the same Law for the Priesthood being changed there must of necessity be also a change of the Law Heb. 7. 12. That being the Law of a Carnal Commandment only in the observation of which perfection was not to the conscience for itâ—… sanctified only to purifying of the flesh i.e. from those outward fleshly not morall uncleannesses and therefore with the ordinances thereof called carnall Heb. 9. 9. this the power of an endless life i.e. available not to that temporal typical cleansing purifying and pardon only for the procuring of a Temporal life or well being in Canaan but to the obtaining of an eternal life by procuring remission of moral pollution Heb. 9. 13 24. nor is there now the same Lawgiver under God that then was that being Moses the Servant who yet was faithful to him that appointed him in all his house the fleshly Israel for a Testimony of those things which were to be spoken after this Christ the son who was worthy of more glory than Moses and is now over his own house whose house we are that believe to the end Heb. 3. 2. 3. 5. 6. Nor yet the same Promises that being of of an earthly this of an heavenly inheritance nor yet the same holy Nation holy people holy seed to which the promises are made that being the typical promised seed Isaac and his posterity this the true promised seed i.e. Christ and his seed i.e. all the Saints that are born of God by faith in him Gal. 3. 16. to Abraham and his seed were the promises made he saith not unto Seeds as of many but as of one and unto thy seed which is Christ nor the same ordinances and administrations signing the inheritance those being circumcision the Passeover these baptism in water and the Supper nor lastly the same subjects for those ordinances those being by nature Iewes or atleast by profession and their Male seed only as to the one Male and Female as to the other and that whether believing yea or no these nor Iewes nor Gentiles by nature only but all persons whether Iews or Gentiles Males or Females yet only as believing for verily so far are the natural posterity of believing Gentiles as such and as yet not professing to believe themselves from being heirs apparent with Abraham of Gospel promises and priviledges and from title to the Gospel ordinances that sign them and from being holy ones by birth as the Iew once was and as Mr. Blake contends for it that these are and from the repute of Abrahams seed in the sense of the Gospel that even Abrahams own natural seed as such only are not at all his seed in this sence at this day nor at all holy with that kind of birth holiness they once had for that is ended and abolished in Christ crucified nor entailed as heirs of that Canaan without faith and repentance in their own
persons which and no other are the terms inrighting therunto to any of these Gospel ordinances at all and all this will be seen most undoubtedly to be true by him that searches the Scripture which testifie no lesse and because this is the yery Root and Knot in the state of this controversie the unfolding and laying open of which will discover the whole mystery of your mistakes in this point all which arise originally from your erring in it for Error minimus in principio fit major in medio maximus in fine pray have me excused both in that I have been hitherto so long and in case I be yet a little longer on this matter First then let it be considered that Abrahams own seed even that seed that were heirs with him by promise of the Earthly Canaan though born of his body now by Isaac and Iacob as truely though more remotely then of old of his body I say that was the greatest believer that ever was Christ only excepted and therefore must much more then any other believer if any believer at all could by his faith confer a right to Gospel priviledges upon his seed even these are not his seed in the Gospel account noâ—… his heirs according to this Gospel promise nor as barely born of his body to be baptized and enchurched and this I shall make plain unto you from many Scriptures the first whereof is Romans 9. 6. 7. 8. In which I beseech you to observe how the Apostle there denies Abrahams own naturall children the name of Abrahams seed in the sence of the Gospel first mark how he magnifies them exceedingly and sets forth their dignity and preheminence above all other people under the name of Israelites as to whom pertained the adoption and the glory and the Covenants i. e. both Testaments the type and the antitype unto whom then pertained not only the giving of the law but also the promises for verily the several excellencies of both law and Gospel upon the several terms upon which both were established did in more special sence belong unto that people at that time then to any people under the Sun yea the first covenant and the promise thereof the Earthly Canaan and all the priviledges and ordinances signing it did pertain to them as the proper heirs therof by bare fleshly descent from Abraham Isaac and Iacob yea all that was theirs ipso facto as so born without more ado whether they were believers or not believers as to the Gospel and as for the Gospel covenant which is now belonging to them in common only with all other men in one respect it did principally pertain to them above all others till they lost their preheminence viz. not in respect of any right to it they had by birth whether they received it yea or no but in respect of the first tender therof which when it came in fuller force to be ratified to the world in the preaching of the Gospel was by special order and appointment from God in the first place to be tendered unto them nor was it carried at all to the Gentiles till these Jews had both slighted and rejected it when brought to them in the Ministery of Christ and Iohn in proof of which see in Mat. 10. 5. 6. 7. where the Disciples sent forth to preach are forbidden to go in any waie of the Gentiles or to any save the lost sheep of the house of Israel yea they were the Children whose bred this was at that time and which till they loathed it was not to be given to the Doggs excepting a few Crummes of it I mean to the Gentiles who till the Partition Wall was broken down between them and the Iews by Christ crucified were accounted Doggs Common unclean sinners by nature in a certain ceremonial sense in reference to the Jewes who then by birth were holy in a ceremonial sence now vanisht then answering as opposite to that birth uncleanness of the Gentiles Maâ—… 15. 24. 25. 26. 27. see also Mat. 22. 3. where the Iews are said to be first bidden to the wedding so Luke 24. 46. 47. where Christ commands that in their preaching the Gospel to all Nations they should first begin at Ierusalem and so we see they did after his ascension Act. 2. see also Act. 3. 25. 26. where the Jews are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 T H E Children of the Gospell Covenant in respect that unto them first God sent his son to bless them in which respect they are said Mat. 8. 12. to be T H E Children of the Kingdome i. e. the heavenly Kingdom which yet they were cast out into utter darkness from any enjoyment of for their non-acceptance of it so Act. 13. 46. where Paul saies to the Jews that 't was necessary that the word of the gospel should be first spoken to them so Acts 28. 28. 't is said the salvation of God which the Iew rejected was from henceforth sent to the Gentiles Notwithstanding all which glory and preheminence of this people Israel whose were the fathers also and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came Paul after he had shewed their high prerogatives above others comes with Alas and great sorrow of heart and much bewailing for their infidelity to exclude them even all of them save those few with whom the word of the Gospel took effect so as to gain them to believe notwithstanding the antient and legall title from the very name of Israelites and from standing Abrahams children now any longer for saith he as who should say the more is the pitty They are not all Israell that are of Israel i. e. all that are Israelites after the flesh are not the Gospel Israelites or Israelites in the Gospels account because few of them did receive it all that were Abrahams seed after the flesh and stood in his family i. e. the visible Church of old as being his seed cannot stand so now for belivers onely and such as are Christs by faith are counted for the seed that this is the meaning of those words is most evident by them that follows for saith he neither because they are the seed of Abraham i. e. his fleshly seed are they called children i. e his children thereupon as to his Gospel Covenant but in Isaac i. e. Christ in the Antitype shall thy seed be called that is saith he expounding himself and alluding to what was done Allegorically as in a figure as concerning Ishmael and Isaac in Abrahams family of old the children of the flesh these are not the children of God but the children of the promise are counted for the seed the children of the flesh by which he means those that were born of Abrahams body by Isaac who now stands in reference to Christ as Ishmael did in the house of old in reference unto him these are not the children of God but the children of the promise such was Isaac in the legal typicall ceremonial and carnal account in
of old and was in bondage with her children so he saies for all their Sonship yet in truth they are but servants and not sonnes he grants their Sonship freedom and title to the old inheritance but denies their son and heirship as to the new Thirdly they boast and bless themselves in their standing in the house or family of Abraham i. e. the Church as to the ordinances rights and priviledges whereof who but themselves had the title for this indeed was their advantage of old that to them were committed all the oracles of God to which Christ replies true they did stand in the house for a time yet but for a time and though sons and heirs in the laws typical sense yet they were were but servants in the Gospels because they believe not in him and being but servants as Moses and all his house or church the old Israel were in comparison of Christ the Son and his house or Church i. e the Saints they must anon be packing out of the house and abide in the Church i. e. Abrahams family no longer that the true Sons and heirs may come in i. e. believers who are the blessed seed to whom onely the Gospel-promises and priviledges do belong ver 35. And the servant saith he abideth not in the house for ever but the son abideth ever if therefore the son make you free and that he doth not for all your former freedome unless you believe in him and continue in his words then shall ye be free indeed even to the glory oracles and blessings of the spiritual house the Gospel-church which else you must be cut off from for ever thus Christ tells them and so indeed it came to passe within a while for not believing and repenting which are the only terms â—…at give right and admittance to the ordinances and fellowship of the Gospel these Iews though natural branches of Abraham still as much as ever if being the fleshly seed of a believer could have steaded them at all as to a standing here were yet clean broken off from the Root Abraham as he stands a Root to all the faithful because onely of unbelief Rom. 11. 20. when such as were wild olives and no kin at all to Abraham after the flesh were in their own persons but not their natural seed with them save as they believed with them own'd as his children by believing and as members of the true Church under the Gospel And this was also most directly declared by Iohn the Baptist and the rest of the first ministers of the Gospel who would not admit of the Jews as Jews though Abrahams own seed and holy by birth and members thereupon of that Church under the law to baptism and membership in the Gospel-church when they offered themselves upon the aforenamed terms without faith repentance and amendment for howbeit the Pharisees and Saduces and the whole multitude of people came forth to be baptized of Iohn Mat 3. 7. c. Luke 3. 7. c. pretending and pleading that if baptism were a Church-priviledge it must needs belong to them as who were the children of Abraham yet see how he rounds them up as having no part nor portion in that matter O generation of vipers saith he who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come as if he had said what have you to do with that remission of sinnes righteousness and redemption from wrath to come which I preach and baptize in token of being though invested with circumcision Church-membership and other legal rites and priviledges yet corrupt and crooked in conversations bring forth therefore i. e. to the end that you may be admitted baptized and inc hurched here fruits answerable to amendment of life and begin not its like that plea was in their thoughts and mouths too whereupon he puts them off from it think not to say that we have Abraham to our father we are the seed of such an eminent believer for God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham i. e. God will without being beholding to you raise a seed to Abraham rather then want them from among these stones which whether he meanes stones litterally or the Gentiles which were yet as stocks and stones in their eies I leave you further to examine but thus much we may gather hence however that even in that very time wherein the birth-priviledge and holiness of a fleshly seed stood in full force and power unrepealed as then it did so far as to give right to all ordinances of the law yet even then I say before how much more since the Abrogation thereof by faith Abrahams own seed could not much less then may the seed of believing Gentiles now it s repealed as such be admitted to baptism without repentance the Jews as impenitent and unbelieving as they were stood uncast out of the Jewish Church while that Jewish Church it self was yet standing but they could not passe per saltum out of that Church into the Gospel Church nor immediately from their right to circumcision which meer fleshly birth gave them prove their right without somewhat more to baptism yet thus they might have done if what gave right of old to one of these ordinances doth in like manner inright persons to the other And this that Abrahams own naturall seed do not now stand his seed so as thereupon onely or at all to stand in this house of Abraham i. e. the visible Church of the Gospel and in title to the promises and priviledges thereof is further and more lively figured out to our undestandings in that admirable allusion of Paul to the things transacted of old as a type hereof in the family of Abraham between the two mothers and their children viz. Hagar and Sarah Ishmael and Isaac Gal. 4. 21. to the end where to give you but a hint of the thing that you may follow it in your own thoughts at leasure having first related what is written of Abrahams having two sonnes one by his bond-maid Hagar viz. Ishmael that was born after the flesh the other by the free woman or his true wife Sarah viz. Isaac who though born of Abrahams flesh as well as the other yet because he was promised to come of Abrahams true spouse Sarah long before he did was said to be born by promise he asserts these things to be an Allegory i. e. things which though really and truly done yet were done also in a figure and as a shadow of some other things to come viz. the two Covenants and two seeds of Abraham thereunto belonging or the two several Jerusalems or Churches of the law and the Gospel with their several children viz. the fleshly seed of Abraham and the spiritual each answering respectively not only as anti-types to their several types that pointnd at them whether the maid and her son or the mistriss and hers but also inter se invicem as the two mothers and their children did each of them
unto the other for these saith he i. e. these two mothers and children the bondwoman and her son and the freewoman and her son are the two Covenants or testaments meaning in signification or in way of resemblance of them the one from mount Sinai the other from mount Sion both spoken of and to the life also pointed out one ore against the other in Heb. 12. 18. to the end that from mount Sinai or that Testament which was given in the hand of the Mediaror Moses that gendreth to bondage or enthrawles her children this is Hagar for this Hagar who brought out her son to bondage is saith he mount Sinai in Arabia or that law of Moses given on mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth to i. e. as a type points out and signifies the Ierusalem that now is i. e. the Church of the Iews before Christ which notwithstanding her childrens abode iâ—… the house of Abrâ—…ham and her Hagarlike flaunting and vaunting her self over the other for a time as if she were the onely mistriss whose seed must inherit all yet in comparison of the true mother and her seed viz. the gospel Ierusalem which was yet to come was but in bondage with her children and must when that seed once should come in be chashiered and cast quite and clean out of doors as a seed to be no more accounted on so far as to abide with the other for nevertheless i e. all her present liberty and immunity notwithstanding what saith the Scripture saies he cast out the bond woman and her son for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the Son of the free woman i. e. the seed of the old Covenant of the Earthly Ierusalem viz. the natural seed of Abraham shall not share in priviledges nor the inheritance promised in the Gosspel together with the spiritual seed viz. the believers or children of the Church under the Gospel Thus as Hagar and her son Ishmael that stood in Abrahams house a while and were proud and insolent as if they should have dwelt there for ever were at last packt out before Isaac the true son and heir by promise of the old inheritance and ordinance when he was born and before Sarah who would not indure to have Ishmael have any portion in Canaan or any room in the house with her son Isaac so also Sarah her self and her son Isaac I mean the fleshly Ierusalem and Jew that dwelt as Mistris and heir for a time in the house inheriting only some outward excellencies and enjoyments were at last being found mocking thereat cast out of the house i. e. the Church the Son-ship the glory and all before the true Mother and her children viz the Gospel Church or true Sarah and the true Isaac Christ and his Saints or seed of Believers who will not bear not brook it to have a meer fleshly seed though of Abraham himself much less of any Gentile believers to dwell with them in the family Isaac and the fleshly Israelites were by promise to inherit the old Testament priviledges and the Ishmaelites were not suffered as such to partake with them therein Christ and believers are by promise to receive the eternal inheritance nor is any mans fleshly posterity no not Abrahams own by Isaac I mean the Israelites themselves as such permitted or promised to participate therein Ishmael though as Abrahams seed after the flesh he had a portion yet had nothing to do with that of Isaac the child of promise in the type Isaac though Abrahams son not only after the flesh but by promise too as in reference to Ishmael and so in true title to a better portion then Ishmaels viz. the Earthly Canaan and that as a type for a time yet being but his fleshly seed in comparison to Christ and believers and by his bare fleshly birth save only that he was a spirituall child also by believing as inferior to them as Ishmael was to himself hath nought at all to do as the fleshly seed of Abraham with that heavenly portion that belongs to these Now then if it be so and so it will appear to him that doth not trifle but truely understand the Scriptures and this last especially which with many more viz Heb. 8. Heb. 9. speak expresly of two distinct covenants or Testaments made with two sorts of seeds of Abraham concerning two Canaans viz. an Earthly and a Heavenly whereof one all along was a type of the other for a time only and now ended contrary to all our blind Seers that confound and blindly blend both of them into one if so I say that Abrahams own sons by bodily birth are not now his own in Gospel account nor heirs as so born only of the Gospel promise and inheritance nor house dwellers in the Gospel Church for want of personal faith though Abrahams children after the flesh still as much as ever then I cannot but stand amazed at the perverseness of you the Priesthood in three things First in that meerly because you and your people do believe and I would to God you did believe for so but few for all your flourish of either you or your people do indeed therefore you count your natural seed the seed of Abraham this you express in plain terms in your Review p. 14. Secondly in that even Eâtenùs as your children only you hold them heirs of the promise of the Gospel covenant made with Abraham Thirdly in that you sign them as visibly such by Baptism as you call it and thereby admit them into membership â—…n the Gospel Church as you call it and having yet no evidence of their belief conclude them under a true title to all outward ordinances save such as upon your own heads only you keep from them if by the word they have such title to Church-fellowship as you say they have viz. the Supper of which you make them snap short as much and as groundlesâ—…ly to the full if baptism at all belong to them as we in baptism Sirs let me reason with you a little and begg some cool consideration and ingenuous answer from you concerning these particulars First which way come your natural seed you being but Gentiles in the flesh to be the seed of Abraham Secondly why do you or how can you sign them as heirs of the Gospel promise so simply upon that account only there are but two seeds of Abraham that I know of in all the world viz. 1. His seed after the flesh and such are all those that are born of his body viz. Ishmael and his Children by Keturah to whom he gave portions and those that came of him by Isaac and Jacob which only for Esau sold his birth-right were heirs with him of the Land of Canaan 2. His seed after the faith and such are those only that walk in his steps Rom. 4. 12. that do his works John 8. Who are also by that same faith which denominates them his children said to be
members are born unto it not offlesh but of faith not by being of Abraham himself but as Abraham himself was not by being of believers after the flesh but by being believers with them In the Allegory while Isaac the typical promised seed was only in the word of promise and not in actual being Ishmael dwelt in the house but soon afterhe came into the world Ishmael must abide in the house no longer so while Christthe true Isaac typified by the other to whom the Gospel promises were made was but barely in the promise the fleshly Israel vaunted it in the Church but when the fulnesse of time was come for him to be â—…ncarnate and in esse reali that fleshly holy seed much more the fleshly seed of believing Gentiles could have no right of residence in the family of Abraham nor are any saving believers allowed members thereof to this very day Babist But it seems to be the Iews themselves even the naturall seed of Abraham to which in that Rom. 11. 19. Abraham is said by Paul to stand a holy root if it be considered with reference to the verse before where he speaks plainly of them as in contradistinction to believieng Gentiles therefore Abrahams own fleshly seed are holy branches still of that holy root Baptist. In no wise as they are his natural seed onely but as they may hereafter be hoped to become his seed by faith also and be grafted again upon their root Abraham and their own olive tree i. e. the visible Church their fathers family by believing and imbracing the Gospel from which they were broken off through unbelief in which if they abide not still they shall saith he verse 23. be grafted in again but never simply as they are his natural seed onely Abraham may be said to stand a holy root to his own bodily issue two wayes first onely as they were born of his body by Isaac and Iacob with whom and whose seed that typically holy Covenant was established which being now vanisht away he is no longer such a holy root to those natural branches of his body as that they have any birth holiness now therefrom Secondly as the same persons that were his natural seed might also be his spiri-seed by faith in Christ and so he is here said to be a holy root and the Jews in reference to him holy branches viz. in respect not to their fleshly birth of him for as they are his natural branches onely and no more they are broken off but in respect to their future calling to the faith and receiving in again in time to come upon account of their owning of the Gospel the spititual branches onely are now grafted into the olive-tree and growing up upon the root the natural branches are broken off and the root as a holy root to them withered that holiness of it faded it is alive as a holy root now to none but the believer not its own natural branches muchlesse to the natural branches of believing Gentiles Babist When the Iews were broken off their naturall children were broken off with them therefore when the believing Gentiles were grafted in their stead their naturall children must in like manner be grafted in with them Babist No such matter Sirs there 's either no good Antecedent or else no good Consequence in this for first if you mean as to the Gospel Church and Covenant the children of the unbelieving Jews are not so broken off and excluded with their parents in such a sence as you imagine i. e. upon the Account of their parents unbelief onely but for want of faith in their own persons and as succeeding their fathers in unbelief for if any children of the unbelieving Jews when they come to years and children when at years are the naturall seed of their parents I hope as well as in infancy it self if being the children of such or such parents alone would either ingraft or exclude if I say unbelieving Iews children do believe the promise is so made to them that their parents unbelief cannot exclude them but if the children at years do not believe the promise is so little made to believers and their seed as that the parents belief availes no further then to the engrafting of himself and hecannot at all entitle all his natural seed by his single faith nor as heirs of the same heavenly inheritance with him inright them to the ordinance in token of it but if you mean as to the old Church and Covenant then Secondly it follows no more then if you should go about to make a way for the needle by the thred that because the Iews and their seed under the law were taken in and thrown out of Covenant altogether so the Gentiles under the Gospel and their seed must be owned and disowned thus collectively for as to that old Covenant of the law made with the fleshly Israel concerning the earthly Canaan the very promise of that was made to the whole body of that nation and people that came of Abraham Isaac and Iacobs loins in such a manner as that their infants were by very naturall descent according to the promise as tâ—…y and fully heirs of it as themselves from which consequetnly when once God took his advantage by the breach first made on their part to break it on his part also he must necessarily turn them all out together and so he did discovenanting the whole nation at once and as it is said in Zach. 11. 10. breaking the Covenant which he had made with all the people discarding and disinheriting them from all that glory in the lump but the Gospel Covenant and promise concerning the heavenly inheritance is not at all on this wise but of a different nature taking in no whole nation in the world nor any one or more mens meer natural seed no not Abrahams Isaacs and Iacobs as the other did to all generations of its continuance but rather Sigillatim such several persons out of every nation tongue kindred and people that fear God and work righteousness Rev. 5. 9. Act. 10. 34 35. even all and onely such as obey him Singulos generum credentes not genera singulorum credentium vel non If therefore you speak of the Jews standing upon the Root Abraham and in the Church before Christ upon the old Covenant account then I confess that the whole body of them were broken off altogether and that as they and their fleshly seed were all incovenanted so they were all discovenanted at once when that covenant of circumcision which God gave to Abraham and his fleshly seed Gen. 17. concerning the land of Canaan was it self abolished in Christ crucified but then the consequence will not hold from that covenant to this of the Gospel these being two distinct and different covenants the terms of standing in which are in no wise the same But if you speak of the covenant of the Gospel then your Antecedent is false for I deny utterly that the Jews
holy seed which by the Gospel-covenant and promise are and shall be heirs with Abraham of the heavenly Kingdome or Canaan together with all the priviledges liberties dignities and blessings of that eternal glorious and incorruptible inheritance reserved for him and them and to be revealed aâ—…d brought to them at the next comming of Iesus Christ in token whereof they are not only outwardly baptized in water immediately after they are thus born and become the Children of Abraham by faith but also circumcised in the heart with the circumcision made without hands i. e. inwardly saâ—…ctified by the spirit of God mortyfying crucifying cutting off and casting out the fleshlie supersluities thereof Col. 2. 11. All which as its proved abundantly in each particular thereof in several other Scriptures as Rom. 4. 13. 14. Heb. 8. 6. Rom. 9. 7. 8. Gal. 3. 7. 9. 26. 27. 28. 29. so is it verie plainly and summarily shewed in Heb. 9. 23. 10. 1. where the Law of the old Covenant is said to be with all the holy things thereof but onely patterns of things in the heavens figures of the true and to have only a shadow of the good things to come and not the verie substance of the things themselves the Covenant-holiness therefore and birth-priviledge which was then in the Jewes fleshly seed with whom that Covenant was made was as all other things then were but typicall and consequently but ceremonial and temporal I mean abiding onely till the time of the Gospel And since your selves acknowledge that what was but typicall of old is now vanished I marvel that you should so much forget your selves as to renounce the same holiness that was then in all other things and retain it still as standing in the seed and you hold it to be removed from Abrahams own fleshly seed too and subjected onely in the fleshly seed of believing Gentiles you fight against the owning of any of that kind of holinesse that of old was I mean you Priests of the Presbyterian party for the Bishops and Dr. Featley fight against it in the Pope and yet hold it themselves to be where you own it not in Temples Copes Surplices Altars Fonts Chalices and such holy Church-geer as Christs Church in London in Oxford in Cambridge in Canterbury did once superabound with but neither Christs Church in Rome till corrupted nor Christs Church in Corinth nor Ephesus nor Philippi nor any of the rest of the Churches in the primitive times ever did nor any of Christs true Churches in these latter times ever will place holiness in any more I say you are against all that relative Jewish ceremonial holiness and abide not to hear of its abiding in any thing else yet abide not to hear any otherwise but that it abides still in that onely subject i. e. the fleshly seed of enchurched parents But Sirs although in most things I must needs preferre the worst of you two P Priest-hoods of the Prelatick and Presbyterian posture yet to give the Devil his due in this one thing I cannot but commend the Pope and his Priesthood beyond you both in that since you will all needs Judaize more or lesse and regulate your Gospel service by that of the Law they Judaize more judiciously and more ingenuously than either of you two P P that pluck him to pieces for it for thou English Scottish Angel art neither hot nor cold neither gospel nor law neither wholy Romish nor rightly reformed but retaining a little of one and a little of the other and lying in a Lukewarm temper between them both for which God will spue you out of his mouth as well as them but as for the other they are not lukewarm but I bear them record they have as the Jewes also had since the Gospel came in a zeal of the Law but not according to knowledge yea they are zealous of the holyness of that Covenant more and more compleatly then either of you for they plead not only for the holiness of their fleshly seed as P. nor only a holiness in Temples Altars Fonts Vestments Vessels c. as P. but for a holiness well-nigh in all those things and more too than ever were denominated holy under the Law in which supererrogating I must needs uncommend them again as far worse then you yea they say downrightly to the people that except it be after the manner of Moses in all things almost Iudicial and Ceremoniall only Moralls they are a litle more moderate in observing and can better bear an absolute abrogation of viz. one Holy High-Priest to procure attonement aliâs fell indulgencies and pardons whose supremacy must be owned and he answerably adorned with holy Mitre and Crown Purple Scarlet fine Linnen Chaines of Gold also if there be â—…ot holy Altars Tapers Lavers holy Water Offerings first fruits fine flower Wine and Oile Salt Cream Spittle c. holy Fasts as Lent Wednesdaies Fridaies holy Feast-daies in memorial of such Saints as the Pope canonizeth which are more by far then there are daies in the year holy Pictures and Images holy Warrs holy Pilgrimages holy Clouts holy Rags holy Reliques holy Bells holy Chanteries holy Churchyards of which they say Pueri sacer est Locus extra Mejete holy persons devoted to service viz. holy Votaries holy Monks holy Friers holy Nunns sic de ceteris from the Universal Vicar to the holy singing men and pipers and the rest of that rabble which are the very vermine of Christendome yea if they observe not all the holy Statutes and ordinances which his Holiness their Lord God the Pope commands them especially if they seperate from the holy Catholike Church of his constituting they cannot be saved Thus they clean outstrip you if pleading for relative dedicative holiness and consecration of persons places and times be as proper under the Gospel as under the Law and are so zealous of that kind of holiness that in zeal thereof they will have all to be Holiness to the Lord till they come to be as wicked and prophane as the very devil himself can well desire they should be Si aliquando quare non nunc saies the Pope when you question him for his Dedicative holiness if so once why not now If under the Law why not under the Gospel the same phrase you commonly be speak us in when we demand a reason why you fancy such a birth-holiness in your fleshly seed in return to which against such time as you shall satisfy us so slenderly in this case so as to say Si aliquando quare non nunc arguing from the manner of things under Moses that thus or thus they ought to be under Christ and deriving a holiness from that of the Jews fleshly seed to the fleshly seed of believing Gentiles under the Gospel I leave this double question upon record First Si aliquid quare non quicquid If you will have any thing holy with that Ceremonial holiness now why not every thing
by birth priviledge to be baptized p. 27. which yet is more birth-priviledged then Abrahams own seed could have Mat. 3. even before their birth priviledge did perish from them such as have a large and full right to all the ordinances of God and priviledges of the Church appertaining to members as they shall be capable of their use by personall faith and good demeanor when at years and grown up and I wonder who hath not the like upon those terms even infants of infidels surely as well as they when at age and whilst infants they are no more capable of the use of any ordinance then the other He tells us these by birth are of the houshold of God of the Citizens of the Saints t is much he said not fellow Citizens in Pauls phrase Eph. 2. sure t was because he bethought himself of their uncapableness of fellowship for all their membership He tells us that these are orderly admitted i. e. by baptism then which Scripture knows no other admission for no sooner do we read of a convert saith he but we presently hear of his baptism whereas of all the converts in Christendom that sit under the ministry of the Pope Prelate and Presbyter I never knew one in all my daies baptized after their conversion of him by preaching till being converted from them to the Truth as it is in Iesus they convert and come to us and then we immediately baptize them indeed but as for them t is impossible for them so much as to preach the Gospel in all Christendome in the way and words in which Peter Ananias Philip Paul and all the first and purest preachers did while they suppose all they preach to to have been baptized in infancy for what Priest in Christendom can say to his parish repent and be baptized for remission of sinnes arise and be baptized and wash away thy sinnes he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved as they of old said Mark 16. 16. Act. 22. without gross absurdity having christn'd them all long before he ever preacht to them neither do they baptize any at all after conversion and the best baptism they dispense in token of remission of sins so long before either sins commission or the sinners conversion is at best but meer rantism neither He tells us that those have right to all the immunities of this house to all the priviledges of this City of God meaning the Church here below and have title to all Christs visible ordinances that they belong to Christ and therefore must partake of that which is of Christ and being of the houshold they must therefore have of the food of the houshold yea the stewards of the mysteries of God must be accountable in case they deny it them And yet till they are at years not any one of them may participate as themselves say of any one of those visible ordinances viz. neither praying preaching hearing nor the supper nor any thing else which is the food of the houshold after baptism by which they are barely entred in infancy and onely thrown ore the threshold into the house and then ly starving for many years together without bit or crumb of any other food at all being utterly denied to be communicants at the supper the use of which their folly will once be manifest who say they are lesse capable of in infancy then of the use of baptism for as shall appear more hereafter howbeit they are truly capable of neither they are as truly capable of both as of either yet are they deni'd a share in that service of the supper by these shewards of the mysteries of God the ministry themselves and that for no less then 16 years together at least according to the rule of the old stewards the episcopacy that have almost given up all their earthly account and I know not for how long by the will of the new stewards i. e. the Presbytery for if their rule be to practise it no oftner then they practise it indeed some of them have had no supper at all in their parishes neither for young nor old for about seven or eight years together last past and when they will no body knows and how they can with a good conscience I cannot tell nor never could while I stood among them they standing all and their people all universally unbaptized to this day for which neglect of theirs to give persons their meat in due season order and manner feeding them with a break-fast in baptism before they are fit to be fed so much as with that milk and then denying them any supper at all when they come to years though they then both pay for it and are at least as fit to feed thereon as they were in infancy to feed on baptism the Lord of that supper and of all the other holy ordinances of his which they have dispenst more after their own minds and mens tradition will and Testament then his own will call them ere long to give account of their stewardship too and let them be no longer stewards And yet a little more to trace Mr. Blake to and fro as he daunceth the hay up and down in that trifling treatise he tells us that these are a holy seed of the noblest birth yea though they be the children of loose living parents of misbelieving parents p. 4. 5. 25. 26. of apostatized parents of excommunicate parents of fornicating parents and consequently a very bastard brood which under the law that Mr. Blake himself professes to be tried by were unclean and not admitted into the congregation unto the tenth generation of papistical parents for even these are but misbelievers and Christians in name still and as himself sayes no insidels though to go round again holding such damnable errors in the faith p. 30. as shâ—…t them out from the happiness and therefore I think from the holiness too of Christians yet all this notwithstanning to go round again if the children but of believing parents that are of the Church and to go round again not true believers neither as believer is opposed to unbeliever misbeliever or Christian in name onely with all which he confesses the Church may abound but as believer is opposed onely to infidel p. 25. between which terms unbeliever and infidel which are not synonimaes it seems with him yet the Scripture makes no more difference then is between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same greek word that expresses both and is translated into latin by infidelis and Englisht by either unbeliever or infidel notwithstanding all this I say if born in England or any where else in any nations or of any parents that are but Christian in name onely or of but one such Christian parent the other being an Indian that is with him an infidel indeed they are with him a holy seed still that God ownes and challenges for his yea frrom the womb Gods heritage a seed so nobly
born as noble Nehemiah himself was not yea p. 28. the least of whom is greater then Nehemiahs better These high and Heroick Eulogies Mr. Blake bestowes upon not true believers and real Saints onely to whom yet they peculiarly belong but on meer carnall Gospellers the naturall luke warm formalists of the Antichristian more then Christian nations upon pretensive verbal professors and that not of truth neither as t is in the word but as in the word of an erroneous Priest-hood who preach truth for tith and yet not the tith of that truth they should preach neither but mostly the traditions of men upon real professors of prophanness for so many to one of them that are Christians in name onely and yet not on these only but on the meer fleshly seed oâ—… these doth he bestow such expressions as these even no less then can be said of the chiefest Saints he saies of the fleshly holy seed of all the sinners in Christendome viz. a chosen generatien a royall priesthood a holy nation a peculiar people page 8 people of God that suck in much of God whilest they suck the breast page 32. And yet for all this their so timely acquaintance with and knowledge of God as it were from the womb his heritage having the knowledge of the Scriptures if not with John Baptist full of the holy Ghost from the womb never in that condition of enstrangement from God as the Ephesians were said to be in Ephes. 2. 11. for thus extraordinarily also doth he extol that fleshly seed that is born within the precincts of the Christian nations p. 32 for all this I say to go round again and to use his own phrases and expressions of them in the quite contrary way page 28. breeding and education not answering birth and descent by which they are Gods by Covenant A people ignorant to perdition and destruction such as though dedicated to God so soon as born yet have nothing appears in their lives but that they might have been given as well to Moloâ—… such who as holy seed and people as they are are no better but somewhat worse than the Mongrel seed that spake half in the Language of Canaan and half of Ashdod out of whose mouth scarce a word can be heard for to argue that they are Christians lisping out oathes as soon as words put to learn trades and little regard had that they may learn to know Christ Iesus for even thus and no less doth Mr Blake disparage this honorable holy seed that is born in Christendome soon after he had lifted them up as it were to heaven and set them above the seed of all other people in the world in respect of this birth-holinesse and happinesse insomuch that if you read how this royal race and fleshly birth holy seed of all that are Christians but in name do sometimes ride and float upon the high waves of his windy applause and by and by are debased and denominated in no higher and better but somewhat worse and inferiour terms then the mongrel seed which God was so far from owning as his that he enjoyned their own fathers not to own them Nâ—…h 13. Ezek. 13. Iam jam tacturos sidera summa putes Iam jam tacturos tartara nigra putes Me thinks t is very much and not a little to be mused on that a seed of such holiness mercies glory honor royalty bliss promises priviledges carried up so high into the aire which words born up above all mens seed with pompous titles of high born heirs intimately interessed in God in Christ in Abraham allied to them all as their own upon no other then that bare account of being the meer fleshly seed of Christians and that in name only should yet when all is done have neither any earthly kindome inheritance or Canaan as the Jewes had while they enjoyed this birth-priviledge whereby to prove them real heirs of something more then bare ordinance which is but bondage without the inheritance not a dram more of any outward earthly felicity power glory peace plenty c. then what may befal the seed of Turks and Tartars as well as they nor yet the least measure of reall right or true and immediate title to the heavenly Canaan kindome and inheritance by any promise thereof made to them as such i e. upon the meer account of being such mens seed unless at years they become believers and obedient to the Gospel themselves upon which terms of belief and obedience when they come to age the seed of the vilest wretch under heaven may be an heir of it aswel as they for in infancy the seed of believers have not hard themselves from heaven or deserveed exemption by any actuall transgression from the generall state of little infants declared in Scripture any more then the Infants of believers so but that dying in infancy they may be saved equally with the other and when they grow to years the seed of the best believers in the world have no promise without faith to be saved ere the sooner because they are such mens seed but in the way of faith or believing themselves the seed of the worst enemies to Christ that ever breath'd have as much promise and assurance from God that they shall be saved as the other Sirs where is the blessedness you speak of where the great preheminence of believers seed under the Gospel doth now ly in respect of which they are stiled by Mr. Blake and others such great and high born heirs nor yet what inheritance it is which by that bare fleshly birth onely they are heirs to I could never yet find of my self nor learn from any of you As for the Iews by nature though they were not heirs of heaven it self upon the meer fleshly birth of Abraham without faith Rom. 4. 13. yet they were not called heirs meerly as born after the flesh in vain for there was an earthly Canaan which they were heirs of and God gave to them by promise as they were meerly the fleshly seed of Abraham which also they actually enjoy'd according to the promise whether they had any faith or moral holinesse yea or no during that time of the law but as for the fleshly seed of believing Gentiles to which Mr. Blake translates the same birth priviledge of being holy and high born heirs by nature they stand heirs by that natural birth onely of neither the earthly nor yet the heavenly Canaan Mr. Blake feeds us with an empty title of holiness by birth heirs by birth but can't possibly say we are heirs of heaven by birth of believers unless we believe our selves and believing themselves those that by fleshly birth are of unbelieving parents are by promise heirs to it as much as any nor can he say that the seed of believing Gentiles are heirs by birth as the Jews were of the land of Canaan and yet if the same birth priviledge birth holiness birth happiness they had be now
years before Christ came or the Gospel began in its last and most clear and perfect promulgation for in Heb. 11. 24. Moses is said to esteem the reproach of Christ as great riches c. So that we see the crosse of Christ was before Christ was born even so what was a part of the typical law or old Covenant was stiled Mosaical though some parcels of it were given out and in use before Moses was born yea circumcision it self which was four hundered year elder then Moses is said to be given by Moses and called the Law of Moses Moses gave you circumcision c. and ye on the Sabbath circumcise a man that the Law of Moses may not be broken Ioh. 7 22. 23. And not only circumcision and sacrifices but even the whole Law is said to come by Moses though circumcision and sacrifices which were parts of it came long before him and grace and truth to come by Christ i. e. the very things themselves of which Moses Testament was but typical and a shadow Though grace and truth were both in the world in part long before Christ came personally into it Iohn 1. 17. yea something of both Law and Gospel came into the world before either Moses or Christ yet they are denominated after them Moses Law Christs Gospel and said respectively to begin in them to come with them to be given by them as if they had been altogether unheard of before these times because when they came they gave the things a new that were before and also the fullness of the things respectively perteining to each Testament which in part were but not in their ample perfection till their times and thus the Law was said to begin at Moses Gal. 3. 17. and the Gospel to begin at Christ birth Mark 1. 1 the one 400 years the other at least two thousand years after both Covenants viz. the Law and the Gospel too began in the word of Promise to Abraham and his two seeds Isaac and Christ to whom respectively the two promises were made of two several Canaans the Earthly and the Heavenly whereof the one together with the promise it self that was made of it and the Promised seed to which it was made viz. the fleshly seed of Abraham by Isaac was a clear type of the other i. e. of the promise and promised seed that by that promâ—…se were to be heirs thereof viz. a spiritual seed of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ Gen. 17. For there the Inheritances of both Covenants were both given in the word of promise the one viz. the Heavenly Canaan more darkly through the other typing it out the other i. e. the Earthly Canaan more clearly plainly and in terminis ver 7. 8. I will give to thee and thy seed after thee meaning Isaac the onely seed and heir of that promise for Ishmael and his had not that typical covenant established on them p. 20. 21. but Isaac and his fleshly seed as also Antitypically Isaac and his fleshly seed who were sons of the bondwoman and a meer fleshly seed in reference to Christ though children of the free-woman and a promised seed in a type in reference to Ishmael had not the true or Gospell Covenant established on them meerly as born of Abrahams body but as believing and so it is established on all men but Christ and Believers I will give thee and thy seed saith he the Land of Canaan even then and there God gave out both the Covenants in the promise viz. the Gospel more implicitly and in a shadow the other 〈◊〉 e. the legal Covenant concerning Canaan in express terms together with a present grant of one of the grand Ordinances of it as a sign and token viz. Circumcision typing out the spiritual Iews or seed of Abrahams circumcision in heart that must be heirs only under the Gospel Rom. 2. Phil. 3. to which Ordinative or beginning or cardinal ordinance circumcision many more Statutes Laws Judgements and ordinances were to be added in after ages when the time of their entring their Possession should draw nigh to the observation of all which as in time God should give them out more clearly by his Servant Moses the Deliverer Minister and Mediator of that Covenant circumcision was an obligation and in these Respects that Covenant is called the Covenant of Circumcision Act. 7. 8. and Circumcision it self called an Engagement to keep the whole law i. e. binding to the performance of all things required to be done on mans part i. e. the Jewes in order to their enjoyment of Canaan under that old Testament or Covenant Gal. 5. 3. For though Circumcision as well as that promised Land whereof it was a token and that fleshly seed that were signed heirs by it and all other the Ordinances of Divine Service which the first Covenant then had and in a manner every thing else under the Law related thus far to the Gospel Covenant as that they were types and shadowes of something answerable under the Gospel i. e. Circumcision of the heart and that other seed i. e. Iews inwardly both answering to that Circumcision and those Iews which were outward only and in the flesh Rom. 2. 27. 28 29. Phillip 3. 2 3. and of the Heavenly Inheritance which these inward Iews i. e. believers or circumcised ones in heart are heirs to by promise yet both that sign Circumcision and the promise signified by it were all alike relating immediately to that Old Testament of Moses as parts thereof and were not parts but paterns only of the new nor was Circumcision any other then an ordinance of the Law of Moses and not a direct rule for us to square or steer by in our dispensing any ordinance of the Gospel for that were to disparage the Law-giver we are under even that other great Prophet Christ whom Moses pointed at saying Deut. 18. A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you him shall â—…e hear in all things c. as if he were not as faithful and punctual to the full in fitting lawes for his house the Gospel Church as Moses was for that old Israel or Church under the Law which was his Heb. 3. 1. 2. 5. 6. 7. Though therefore both Covenants were in being i. e. the Law and the Gospell before either Moses or Christ the one concerning the Earthly Canaan to a fleshly seed in a Type the other a Heavenly Canaan to a spiritual seed as the Antitype yet are they said to begin the one in Moses the other in Christ because these two were respectively the two Mediatours of these two Covenants and as it were the two several Masters and Law givers to the two seeds or the two several families of Abraham viz. the two Churches under the Law and the Gospel the fleshly Israel and the spiritual the personal comming of which two Mediators and abiding for a time in their several houses did perfect what was lacking in them before in point of
from being members of the Church maketh the covenant of the Gospel worser then that under the Law Ergo that opinion is a wicked and false opinion Disproof The Major here is most undeniably true for what opinion soever doth make the Gospel covenant worse then that under the Law contrary to Heb. 8. 6. is indeed both false and wicked But the Minor wherein you say that the denial of baptism to little infantâ—… makes the Gospel covenant worse then that under the Law contrary to Heb. 8. 6. where the Gospel is said to be a better covenant then that of the Law in this respect as it is established upon better promises this is most palpably false yea I appeal to every man who doth not wilfully shut his eies against the truth to judge between us whether our opinion or your own rather doth most clearly contradict that Scripture of your own alledging Heb. 8. 6. in order to the true discerning of which First Mark well what it is that is there asserted concerning the meliority of the Gospel covenant above that of law and you shall find it to be this viz. That the Gospel covenant whereof Christ is the Mediator is a covenant that promises better things better injoyments 〈◊〉 a better inheritance then that of the Law did whereupon it there bears the name of a better Covenant then that of which Moses was the Mediator Secondly Mark whether our denial of infant baptism do at all contradict that for what if infants be not baptized doth that make that the promises of the gospel are worse than the promises of the Law nay verily who ever is or is not baptized the promises of the Gospel are both in our opinion and our constant manifestation of it too in this particular better and as far beyond the promises of the Law as the substance is beyond the shadow the City it self beyond the map of it that is on the wall for the promises of the Gospel are of the whole world Rom. 4. 13. of a heavenly inheritance incorruptible Canaan Crown Kingdome 1. Pet. 1. 5. Iam. 2. 5. Rev. 2. 10. of eternal salvation Heb. 5. 9. and this not to the Jewes only upon obedience to Moses voice but to all men in case of obedience to the voice of Christ the Mediator of it in point of faith baptism and other things which he requites in order thereunto of those onely which are capable to perform them but the promises of the Law were but of a spot of the world of an earthly Canaan inheritance kingdome c. to the posterity of one man only viz. Abraham and not to all his fleshly posterity neither for his posterity by Hagar and Keturah were excluded and that covenant established with Isaac and his seed only and that in case of obedience to the voice of Moses the Mediator of that Testament when God should give out his mind to them by hiâ—… in that covenant more perfectly then he did in the daies of Abraham and in case of observance of the Law whereof circumcision was a part though given before and an Ingagement to them to keep the whole when it should be given and all this but as a Map and type for a time of the Gospel Covenant which was made and established on better promises with a better seed i. e. not a carnal but spiritual seed not such as are of Abrahams own much less of any inferiour mens flesh but such as are of Abrahams faith and do his works i. e. believers themselves this is our opinion which if it do not rather confirm then contradict that meliority of the Gospel-covenant and its promises above that of the Law which meliority is spoken of Heb. 8. 6. your very selves being Judges of it then surely Satan hath shut up your eyes from seeing that you see But now as for your selves who stand so much in vindication of the Gospel covenant as a better Covenant then that under the Law and that in that very respect in which it is said to be a better Covenant Heb. 8. 6. viz. established upon better promises I le shew you plainly how you are so far from making it better then the Law as that you make that of the Law at least equal to it for whereas that Scripture which you quote saies plainly that the Gospel is a better Covenant than that of the law forasmuch as it stands on better promises yet that is never the better for you in your cause whose tenet utterly denies flatly contradicts that for you say that the things promised in the word of the Law which were signed and as your phrase is not ours sealed by circumcision were the very same things that are promised in the word of the Gospel and signed and as you say sealed in baptism viz. the kingdome of heaven aâ—…d howbeit this is most manifestly false for in reality though you jumble them together into one when it seems to serve your turn so to do in such a confused way as preaches to the world your present ignorance in both the Law and the Gospel the Law and Gospel are two distinct Covenants established on two distinct kinds of promises whereof the one was typical of and so inferiour to the other the one an old oâ—…e and a first that vanished before the second and new one Gal. 4. Heb. 8. 6. 13. 9. 1 12. 18. and though all that was then promised in the Law and signed in circumcision as well as circumcision it self were types of things under the Gospel yet the things then promised upon keeping the Law and immediately signed to Abraham and all his fleshly seed by Isaac save Esau and his seed that sleighted it in that covenant of circumcision which God gave him were no other then that literal Canaan that earthly land of promise flowing with milk and honey and not the heavenly inheritance Gen. 17. 8. c. for they that were heirs of the other according to the Law are not thereupon heirs of this also according to the Gospel Rom. 4. 13. Now howbeit I say that be very false yet you asserting it that the promise under the Law and under the Gospel is the very same do therein deny the one to be a covenant of better promises then the other for to say the promise of the law is the very same that the promise of the Gospel is is to say that the one is as good as the other and so to contradict that of Hab. 8. 6. which saies the Gospell Testament and the promises thereof are better then the promises under the Law And secondly if you say the Meliority that you hold to be in the Gospel covenant consists not in the Meliority of the promises of it above the other but in the Meliority of the administration of it the Gospel ordinances belonging not to the same only but to more subjects then the ordinances of the Law in which respect we denying Gospel ordinances to infants which were admitted
that thou maiest remember it another time that Ierusalem is thus and thus scituated and then when he comes to age without any more resemblance of it to him in the map to indoctrinate him in what was done in his iafancy and bid him reflect back and call to mind what was shewn him in that map in which it was manifested to him what manner of city Ierusalem was and other such like ridiculous stuff and prate of the things so long since done that they are now flown both out of sight and mind even such and no better is it yea such piteous poor and meer painted piety is it for persons whether Priests or parents to stand prating to and ore poor ignorant infants and signing them at a Font or Bason whilest if they be not a sleep as my owâ—… silly experience teaches me they have been many a time while I have been sprinkling them in the midwives or the mothers armes yet they are at best no better then asleep because as heedless of what 's done saying to them very seriously by name as if they would have them mind what is said Thomas â—…nne c. I baptize thee in the name of the Father c. in token of remission of sins and then to sign them with the sign of the Cross in token to them still that hereafter when it is impossible they must by what is now so clearly manifested to their senses understand and remember that they must not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified c. and then when they are grown up to set them to School to the Font again and wish them to learn by what was once done to them there that this and that is signified saying you must understand that Christ was crucified dead and raised for the remission of your sins and that you are now to leave your sins to dy to them live a holy life take up your cross and follow him and all these things I now inform you in by word of mouth you must call to mind how they were most plainly manifested to you and lively evidenced to your very external senses and thereby to your internal senses in your baptism which is a visible sign to you and a most sensible demonstration therof a most lively preaching and resembling of them before your eies these things you must remember by the same token that you had once such a most not able remarkable memorable matter done unto you so long since that you cannot possibly observe perceive discover remember that ever it was done at all but as we tell you Babist This reflects with no small disparagement on the wisdome of God in appointing the sign circumcision to be set to infants even in their infancy Baptist. No such matter for God did not appoint it to be set to infants for any such end or use as to be a sign of any thing to infants themselues in their infancy but when at age Babist Nor do we set baptism to infants for any such end as to signifie any thing to them in their infancy but when they come to years Baptist. Circumcision being a permanent mark in the flesh remained Gen. 17. 13. and though set in infancie yet was a sign visible to the persons to whom it was set and to be seen by them as long as they lived but to baptism being a transient thing which vanishes soon after the dispensation without making or leaving any mark or impression upon the body whereby any one that nores it not while dispensed to him can possibly be capable to note it another time it is gone and lost and can be no sign to him any more for ever A permanent sign may be set at any time without prejudice to their use of it as a sign to whom it is set but the use of a transient sign must be made when it is set and it must be set at such times when its subject is capable to catch the meaning of it whilest it passes before the sences and upon occasion to recollect an Idea of what was done or else it perishes from being a sign to those persons from thenceforth even for ever Babist Then Circumcision might have been as well for born till the persons were of years the use being not made till then yet God who doth nothing in vain and out of season did for all that enjoin it long before why therefore may not baptism by the like reason Baptist. Besides that baptism is transient and that permanent which is enough to satisfie in this particular there was much other use and end for which circumcision was rightly dispensed to the infants of the Jews for which there 's not the like reason in baptism as namely to distinguish and sign them out to be what they were viz. heirs of the kingdome by birth Babist That is the very end on which we baptize infants and no other viz. to sign and distinguish the seed of believers from the seed of unbelievers and sign them out to be what they are by birth and what when they come to years they learne that they were made in Baptism viz. heires of the Kingdome of Heaven Baptist. When you have the same evidence of believers seed in infancy that the Jewes had of theirs viz. that they are heirs of the kingdom then I will allow you to do as they did viz. to sign and distinguish them as such but of the one of these you have evidence in nonage not so of the otherâ—… the kingdome that the Jews by very nature were heirs of according to the promise was that of the Earthly Canaan of which and that as a type they were apparent heirs by no other then very natural birth and that so soon as ere they were born and therfore full well within a while might they be signed But that which you take upon you so timely to sign persons as heirs to in baptism is the Antitype or heavenly Canaan which no creature is an apparent heir to according to the Gospel promise upon meer natural birth of any parents whether Jew or Gentile till he appear to us unless he dy before he hath deserved exemption by actual transgression and then Charity teaches us to hope as well of all as of one to be born by faith in Christ which birth if any infants were capable of it as to us none are yet because we cannot presume which have it and which not the workings of the spirit being so unknown to us that there can be no conclusion made we cannot by dispensation give right distinction but as in the type they sign'd them well nigh as soon as they were born with that natural birth of Abraham Isaac and Iacob after the flesh upon which alone they were heirs by promise of that earthly Canaan so we sign them so soon as they appear to be born with that birth of Christ by faith by which they are heirs of the true Canaan and that 's all the
it was under the Law and to bereave little children of what belongs to them Thus Mr. Marshal where by the word housholds he should understand children as well as others for his own ends he leaves them out but where by the word housholds such families are exprest as in which he knows not that there was one infant and may know if there were by the very places themselves that they were excluded yet there he winds things aboutto wind them in By all this you see how little consequence is in the Argument children were circumcised Ergo they must be baptized Yea say you Ashford disputants in the tail of your argument or else the Covenant of the Gospel is worse to the spiritual seed of Abraham then it was to the carnall seed under the law Bus Sirs to conclude this matter I say no for if by spirituall seed you mean Christians natural infants I must as before cry shame on you still for stiling them the spiritual seed of Abraham for if Abrahams own semen carnis be not qua sic his semen fidei are the semen carnis of believing Gentiles Abrahams semen fidei but if by his spiritual seed you mean such as are so indeed i. e. true believers are this spiritual seed ere the worse because a meer fleshly seed may not without faith be signed as heirs together with them how will you ever be able to make that good yet again to take your words so punctually as may be by meer denial of baptism to your carnal seed is the Gospel made worse to Abrahams spiritual seed then the same Gospel was to Abrahams carnal seed of old no such matter surely Sirs for the Gospel was preacht but darkly to the Jews of old which were Abrahams carnal seed viz. onely in types and figures and shadows and prophecies pointing out onely Christum exhibendum a saviour to come but now it s preacht not only to believers that is 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 tendered 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 thingâ—… of the little children of believers since it cannot appear in infancy that they have barred themselves c. and if so â—…hy 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 infâ—…nts 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 ptotest 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
right to baptism we seeing them certainly to professe faith as infants cannot which whether they deceive us in that profession or no is clear ground to baptize them on this I have shewed so sufficiently above that there needs no more be said of it here Determination Our Respondent hath confessed that Ishmael who was that carnall seed of Abraham yet had right to the seal of the Gospel Covenant circumcision and that the spirituall seed and their children have under the Gospel as good right to the seal thereof which is baptism Detection O rare and base what again Sirs what again I professedly denyed baptism to be a seal at all witnesse my then disavowing the Scotchmans proceedings in the dispute of baptism under the term of initial seal I also denied circumcision to be the seal of the Gospel Covenant or that it was set to Ishmael under such a notion yea you your selves are my witnesses but three pages above that I said circuncision was a seal to Abraham only and not to his posterity and yet here again as well as before you turn false witnesses against me and will needs fasten this upon me for a farewell that I grant all for truth that your selves ignorantly assert in these particulars and not content therewith a matter more monstrous tâ—…en all the rest you say I confess not only Abrahams spirituall seed themselves i. e. believers but their children also to have under the Gospel as good right â—…o baptism as the seal of it as they the direct contrary to which is the Position I stood then to evince yea which I both then did do still and ever shall till you disprove it better than you have yet done maintain against you or else wherin do we differ Sirs you should have done well to have expressed your minds in plain right down English and then the scope sum and scum of them would have risen and appeared thus viz. we the Disputers and Sâ—…ribes of the Ashford disputation having more mind that victory then verity should befal us and having first given and granted to our selves the priestly prerogative of being sole judges and determiners of that daies disputation between us and our respondent do thereupon determine and by these our letters pattents give and grant the cause and the day to be wholly ours and least it should be hardly confessed and yielded to by fair means we will have it by fowle and wrest it from our Respondent as fully granted by him though we know it was not and take it from him pro confesso by force even by forged cavillation and false accusation and therfore know all men by these presents that though it be most expresly denied by our Respondent that infants of believers have right to be baptized yet it is most expresly confessed by him that infants of believers have good right to be baptized had you said thus well indeed might the world have cryed shame on it more then now but in effect it had been but the proper paraphrase of what you have more closely and covertly presented it with in this place Wherefore Sirs I do you and the world to wit once more to prevent any ones being charmed into a misbelief of me by your juggles how little I concur with you in these things and to say no more then what I have shewed above viz. First That baptism is no seal at all of the Covenant of Grace but a sign of it onely Secondly that believers infants have no right at all to be signed with it in infancy Thirdly That circumcision was no seal of the Gospel covenant but a sign only or token between God and Israel of the old Covenant concerning the Land of Canaan and some other particular personal promises and priviledges pertaining to that people though it was a type of Circumcision in the heart wherewith Abrahams spiritual seed are circumcised and thereby inrighted to the heavenly inheritance Fourthly that it was no seal at all to any but Abrahams person and that in another sense then the word seal is accepted in with you Fiftly that it was dispensed to Ishmael under no such notion as a seal of the Gospel covenant but meerly as he was a male of Abrahams house on which account it was set to every male born in his house or bought with his money though visibly an heir to neither the earthly nor the heavenly Canaan as wicked servants were not and no doubt to his Sons by Keturah also as well as to Ishmael though both he and they before known to Abraham to be no heires of that covenant of circumcision which God gave him in Gen. 17. and told him that he would establish that with Isaac only Gen. 17. 19. 21. Determination It is further added for satifaction how children have faith viz. in Semine radice munere habitu actu primo not in fructu folio usu actu secundo in a word they have the habit and the seed not ths exercise and fruit of it Detection You asserted above p. 3. from Mat. 18. 6. that little ones do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere believe in Christ which phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. to believe to drink to eat to read to teach to hear c. do ever expresse productionem potentiae in actum not simply the habit facultie gift inclination power seed c. but the very second act the use the fruit the putting forth of these faculties into their several acts and exercises this as all well studied Schollars know so your selves cannot but acknowledge that to believe is not only to have faith but to act faith and it cannot properly be said of any that they dâ—… believe but such as quoad nos do so indeed As for such as are onely in potentiâ ad fidem though proximâ and sâ—…ch as are in capacity to believe and do not they cannot be said by wisemen to believe for then all men mâ—…y be said to believe who have facultatem munus credendi as well as intelligendi ratioâ—…andi Eligendi c. though they never do it I appeal therefore to your own consciences whether your saying that infants do believe and yet cannot act nor shew that faith by any fruit of it hath not in it plus Idiotae quam Idiomatis and be not as palpable a contradiction as can fall from mens tongues or pens Determination Their not declaring of it themselves can no more conclude against infants faith then against their reasonable soul. Detection The Reasonable soul is in them universally essentially in the highest degree necessarily and praedicable concerning them de omni per se qua sic as being de esse constiâ—…utive for Animarationalis est forma hominis quae dat esse the very essential form of mankind so that he can as easily cease to be as to be without it therefore there can be no conclusion against that in any infants
members as t is sure they may and were Act. 1. 14. 2 41. 42. 17. 12. though infants neither were nor can be till they have learned or if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be of the common gender 1 Cor. 11. 28. expressing both sexes and as well the woman as the man as those gentlemen know very well it is that shroud themselves under so thin a shrub from the storm that is now lighting on their garisons as Mr. Calvin once did and Mr. Marshal and others still do others not venturing the cause wherein the whole Clergy is so neerly concerned upon such a ticklish term as that of a tradition of the Church stand to it that there 's both precept and president for it in the Scriptures seeming to yield that if at least there be not one of them we have not warrant to meddle with it and of this sort I have met with many a one I am sure with more then one who when they have in publique disputes bin but put to assign and produce those places where that plain precept and president is contained they send us to such Scriptures where unbiassed men may sooner find the way of a serpent upon a rock then either institution or instance of infant sprinkling viz. for precept to the second commandement Exod. 20. so Dr. Channel at Petworth Ian. 1. 1651. saying that the second commandement enjoines us to observe all the institutions of God and Christ from time to time but not seeing that he was by right to have brought some other scripture first whereby to prove infants baptism to be one of those institutions which was the thing denied and not the other for we grant that all Christs institutions are to be obeyed without putting any man to carry us so far back to the second commandement to convince us of it but we deny still that its one of Christs institutions that infants should be baptized also to Mat. â—…8 19. 20 which was assigned to me both by Mr. Reading at Fowlston 1650. and also by Dr. Channel at Petworth out of which I making it appear by argument and by comparison of this with the same passage as recorded in other words Mark 16. 15. 16. that those who are bid to be baptized there are such as are also commanded first to be taught preacht to c. therefore not infants these two men that might both be worthily renowned for ought I know in respect of their worth otherwise were their parts improved as much for as they are against the truth in this point and were it not their hap to be yet beschâ—…old beside the Gospel as t is in truth replied both to one the same purpose but nothing to their own viz. that when Christ saies go teach 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 exâ—…mine 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 inâ—…ants 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 of 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 emen sidei some of you say semen sidei the spiritual seed onely i. e. as many as are of the faith and so saith the Scripture are blessed with faithfull Abraham but then semen sidei 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 aga in 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 faith 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 littterally taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crâ—…dere 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 childrend 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 learned 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 3d and 4th but of the 1000th generation and by this shift the Ishmaelus 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 â—…ot 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 im mediate 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. affiâ—…ms 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 â—…ew 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 not 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 alias 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 Christned 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 necessiâ—…y which Priests when they should by right baptize the sponsors professing their faith and repentance from dead works and desires to be baptized in that faith in those words we forsake them all all this we stedfastly believe that is our dâ—…sire 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 eâ—… 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 sced yea his
nevertheless sith he hath strengthens himself again what he can and comes up recruted and attended with a company of scambling and for the most part very unsound sentences at his heels t wil not be amisse to enter the lists a little with him and these his Auxiliaries First then Sirs whereas you come in again with that crooked consequence viz. infâ—…nts must be baptized under the Gospel because circumcisied under the law we might more pertinently set up a shout at your shameful folly in this particular then set upon the shewing of it any more it is so palpable for verily as is proved sufficiently above these two viz. the Covenant of the law and the Gospel from the Identity of which you infer an Identity in the subject of the ordinances and administrations of both and by way of analogy would evince them both to belong to the same persons I must tell you these are two Testaments or wills of God concerning men in those two different times viz. before Christ and since and these two so specifically distinct that they not onely run upon different strains and require different terms as your selves here confesse the law saying do this and live the Gospell onely believe but also stand upon different promises whereof the Gospels being of the heavenly Canaan are better then the laws which were but of an earthly one and these also pertaining to two different seeds viz. the legal to the natural children of Abraham i. e. Isaac and his posterity by generation the Evangelical to the spiritual seed of Abraham i. e. such as are of Christ by faith and regeneration and they had also different dispensations the one circumcision the other another thing viz. dipping a thing no way like it and different subjects also for those different dispensations so that if men and their ministers were not all turned Momes they could not but must manifestly perceive it the old Testament admitting to circumcision onely males and these onely on the eighth day in case they were in the house so young and all the males in the house whether sons or servants whether born in the house or bought with money of any stranger and all this without respect to either faith or repentance in the persons to whom dispenst or any prae-preaching to them by the person dispensing the new Testament taking in to baptism as no servants upon the masters faith so all persons in the world both males and females upon their own and that upon any day and not the eighth onely wherein after they have been preacht to they professe to repent and believe Mat. 3. Act 2. Act. 8. Act. 18. The proof of which real specifical diversity of these two Covenants is yet farre more evident First because the spirit denominates them so to be in Scripture calling them expressely the two Covenants Gal. 4. 24. and also very osten in plurali the Covenants the covenants of promise Secondly by that contradistinction of speech which the spirit useth when he speaks of them and those oppposite Epithets by which he diversifies them calling one the Law the other the Gospel and the law by the name of the first testament or will of Cod the Gospel the second the law the old testament the Gospel the new the law which bound to circumcision and to the observation of which in all other things circumcision bound its subjects when they came to years not of faith though faith then was too in a few and also from the beginning as to the eternal inheritance but of flesh rather and the time before faith came Gal. 3. 11. 12. 13. also a law of a carnall commandement a faulty and a blameable testament of weak and beggerly rudiments in respect of Christ who is the end of them standing in imperfect and onely flesh-purifying precepts and on meerly terrene inferiour and flesh-pleasing promises as Canaan and Ierusalem here below also the Letter in ink in 〈◊〉 of stone the ministration of death and condemnation the Covenant gendering to bondage the hatred the hand writing of ordinances that was against us yet thus farre not against but subservient to the promises as t was the similitude of heavenly things the figure and shadow of the good things to come and a schoolmaster to bring to Christ Eph. 2. 14. Col. 2. 14. The Gospel contrariwise the time of faith Gal. 3. 25. for after faith came c. the power of an endless life Heb. 7. 16. a better Testament standing in lesse painful ordinances more plain and soul purifying precepts and on better and more precious and foul saving promises a Canaan a Ierusalem from above Heb. 8. 6. Also the ministration of the spirit in fleshly tables of the heart of righteousnesse of life liberty love grace reconciliation the very Image and truth it self of which the law was but the shadow Thus you find the Scripture opposing one of these two to the other so farre is it from signifying them to be one and the self same Covenant as you frivolously fain them to be that you may build your infant-baptism thereupon Now whether we shall believe the holy spirit which stiles these two expressely two Covenants or your selves who will have them to be but one judge ye Moreover how two Covenants or testaments can be plurally pointed out and called two and opposed respectively ad se invicem by the names of the first and second the old and new the type and the truth a better and a worse c. yea and contradictorily predicated too as the law and the Gospel are of which it s said the one is of faith i. e. ever for so the Gospel ever was saying believe and live and the â—…ust must live by faith the other not of faith i. e. never for the law never was of faith but the man that doth them shall live in them was the teâ—… thereof and yet all this while be but one and the same Covenant and Testament iâ—… no lesse then a mystery to me sith t is an undeniable rule among Logicians that oppositio semper subinfert pluralitatem also that contradictio est oppositionum perfectissima pugnacissima et Eternaeâ—…d â—…unctionis opposition specially contradiction which is the greatest of oppositions doth suppose a plurality so that t is impossible that one thing should be two contradictory things at once or that contradictories should eodem tempore cadere in idem i. e. be truely spoken both of the same thing at the same time Babist The one is called the first and the old Testament meerly because it went before and is now vanisht away and alienated the other is called the second and the new one meerly because it comes after that and is now in being not because it is really another Testament another Covenant as you contend but two parts rather or periods of one and the same Covenant of grace which was from the beginning of the world Baptist. I confesse that the Gospel Covenant was in the
busie himself beyond measure in such a boundlesse prate and piece of sillogization about infant membership as it is nor be so extravagant from Mr. Bs. own advice who p. 12. tells us that we shall never be able to justifie it if we lay out but the thousandth part of our time study talk or zeal yet if he have not spent the twenteth part of his own I am must mistaken upon this question it self either for or against it as to lose a moiety of his time in replying distinctly to such a mint of impertinencies as are handled at armes end here by Mr. Ba. for my own part I am not minded to tire my self to much with tracing at large after every new hare that starts in my way nor to stand dancing the hay after Mr Ba. into every corner of that laborinth of Logick into which he leads me and yet leaves me after view and Review as little ground for infant baptism as if he had said nothing at all nor shall I bury my self up from better imployment in the bottomlesse pit of those absurdities which this part of his book also is fully fraught with partly because I find that most that he saies there is in effect answered already in the book called Anti-babism where the genuine sense of the main Scriptures he rests into his own use is given out viz. Rom. 11. 1 Cor. 7. Mar. 9. 36. Rom. 4. 11. Mal. 2. 15. partly also because I perceive a vain of particular contest with Mr. T. to run thorow the whole which Mr. T. according to the particular interest he hath therein hath already taken notice of in Print so far as its worth an answer partly also because I am not so happy as to have the patience of many scarce of any of the churches of Christ whose servant I am suffering me hitherto without such frequent avocations of me from this to services of another nature abroad as are inconsistent with my writing of much more at home Neverthelesse besides some animadversion of as much of its absurdity as may be with conveniency I shall take the sting out so clearly that it shall not hurt and that by both a clear though general disproof of it all and as clear though generall and brief demonstration of the contrary Take notice therefore of the most cardinal argument upon which he grounds infant church-membership under the Gospel It was so once that infants were of the church and it is not repealed therefore it is so now To which I answer by granting t was so from Abrahams time and downward to Christ for before that time all the pairs he takes doth not and all the braines he hath in his head cannot produce the least sollid proof of such a thing for all that Church and the materials of it were a ceremony and a type and never the viler for that as Mr. Ba. foolishly fancies p. 59. of the church under Christ t was so in that outward typicall covenant that God made concerning an earthly Canaan with the natural feed of Abraham in the loines of Isaac and Iacob not Ismael Gen. 17. 20. 21. nor any of his seed by Keturah Gen. 25. 1. 6. upon the performance of certain carnal ordinances as circumcision and the rest of the ordinances of Divine service pertaining to that covenant which circumcision bound them to till the time of reformation Heb. 9. but that therefore t is so now in the church under the Gospel-covenant that was typified by the other I utterly deny whose heavenly inheritance and spirituall seed of Abraham i. e. believers born of God by faith in Christ answer as the Anti-type to that earthly Canaan and fleshly seed of Abraham and before which the type is fled away for all the ceremonialls of that law are vanisht among which this admitting of fleshly babes was one and what it pointed at is shewed abundantly in Anti-babism which may serve as an answer also to his fourteenth argument for their present membership where if the law of infant-Church-membership were ceremonial he bids us shew what it tipified the membership therefore of infants which belonged onely to that particular Church of the Jewes which was also the whole universal visible Church that God then had upon earth unlesse we shall dream with Mr. Baxter of more particular visible Churches then that of the Jewes during its standing different from it in form order and constitution which together with that made up some one universal visible of which infants were members first as he dotes and then secondarily of that particular which conceit of his concerning such a universal visible is a meer invisible chimaera for who ever saw any visible Church or people whom God visibly inchurched and gave his oracles to besides Israel of whom it is said God dealt in that particular as he did not with any other Nations suffering all others to walk after their own waies Act. 14. 16. nor can there be now any universall visible Church but what is made up of the particular visible Churches so that a person must first be a member of some particular Congregation before he can be of that universal the Membership I say of infants that belonged to that Church onely which was to be National and tipical of that true holy nation i. e. all the saints where ever scattered is now repealed nor can any of that Mr. Ba. syllogizes to us evince the contrary He tells us that if it be repealed then either in justice or mercy to infants but it is in neither saith he p. 38. Ergo. he falls a proving the Minor but with his leave I shall make bold to deny the Major it was neither better nor worse as to the whole species of infants it was severity to unbelieving Jewes goodnesse to believing Gentiles but t was not done with any such special respect to infants in their â—…onage as that if it had stood the whole species of infants through the world would have been much the better for such a meer titular thing as membership in the Church unlesse that membership would Ipso facto have more intitled them to heaven nor now it s taken away are sucking infants ere the worse for saving the great dignity that you deem to ly in the bare title of being a member of the visible Church whether they dy before your admission of them or just after if in infancy their salvation is for that neither more nor lesse and if they live to years as they are then are no longer infants and no neerer heaven for their being baptized when they were infants unlesse they repent and believe the Gospell so repenting and believing it they are as capable then of heaven though they were not as if they had been baptized and in bare church-member ship from the womb this therefore is petty reasoning indeed as Mr. T. calls it see Mr. Ba. 40. His second third fourth fifth six Arguments are all out of Rom. 11. which place as I
supposed to be members of the visible Church a priori before they can be warrantably supposed to be of the invisible i. e. to be such as shall be saved for if a person be of the invisible Church he must be thought to be of the visible much more for the visible containes the invisible in it saith he p. 72. and ordinarily we may not judge any to be of the invisible Church he means in real state of salvation who are not meaning first of the visible p. 72. But now I say and suppose the clean contrary viz. that persons must be first supposed to be of the invisible Church a priori before they can be warrantably supposed to be of yea or so much as to have right to be of the visible who backs Mr. Ba. in his sinister supposition I weigâ—… not let him chuse his second if he will I le chuse Mr. Bax. himself to back me and to be witnesse to the truth of mine whose words are altogether the same with mine p 73. viz. if we were fully certain by his own externall discourses that any man were not of the invisible Church that man should not be taken to be of the visible In order of time therefore persons were to seem to be members of the invisible church and were visibly in a state of salvation first before they could have any right at all so much as to be baptized which with Mr. Ba. himself was the first entrance into membership in the visible church but with me is not so much as an immediate entrance into it but that which is necessarily to go before it therefore persons may be seemingly in a state of salvation and not yet in present right to membership in the visible Church much lesse actually and visibly in it And now concerning infants of whom Mr. Ba. asserts that they must be members of the visible Church or else cannot be seemingly or visibly in a state of salvation upon such slender grounds as these he concludes it to be clear viz. First because it is the body that Christ is the Saviour of and his people that he redeemeth from their sins and his sheep to whom he gives eternal life and those that sleep in Iesus that God will bring with him and the dead in Christ that shall rise to salvation and those that die in the Lord that rest from their labours and the Church that Christ will present pure and unspoâ—…ed all which places I appeal to Mr. Bas. conscience whether they speak not of the misticall body and invisible church of Christ to which all and onely they square and are adaequate and not to the visible Church which he was to speak to or else speaks nothing to the purpose to all which visible church and to onely which these things agree not for neither all those that are of the visible churchare saved nor onely those of the visible Church saved witnesse many infants of believers whom Mr. Ba. dares not say are damned some never living to enter the visible Church so farre as to baptism and some once alive coming dead out of the womb which he is blind that ever saw to be in the visible church so that he sits here beside the saâ—…dle Secondly and Thirdly because there is no divine revelation for the salvation of any without the visible Church that yields good ground of Christian faith or hope that any such shall be saved as notwithstanding he saies there â—…s not yet I shall shew there is by and by Fourthly because it is said Acts the 2. 47. that God added to the visible church dayly such as should be saved which though he did yet t was not all nor onely such but onely such men and women not such infants as should be saved Concerning infants in proof of the proposition above viz. that some infants may be in visible State of salvation and yet not be in nor yet in present right to membership in the visible Church I argue thus downrightly First if all infants are in infancy in a visible state of salvation and no infants are members or in any right to be members in their infancy of the visible church under the Gospel then some infants may in infancy be in a visible state of salvation and yet not be in nor yet in present right to membership in the visible church But all infants c. and no infants c. Ergo some infants ut supra The first proposition is most undeniably clear the Minor hath two parts which I shall prove successively one ofter another and then I have done with this argument of Mr. Ba. I le prove the last first and the first last and here I dare-say I might easily muster up scores if not a century of solid arguments toward the fuller clearing of it that no babes now but the new born babes spoken of 1 Pet. 2. 2. 3. 4. 5. i. e. at least in appearance spiritually born babes such as those 1 Iohn 1. 1 Cor. 3. 1. Heb. 5. 13. are to be baptized and built upon the foundation i. e. doctrine of Christ and the Apostles a spiritual house a holy templâ—… i. e. visible church unto Iesus Christ now in these daies of the Gospelâ—… and that no mans fleshly seed or natural posterity no not Abrahams own barely on such an account as being his bodily seed much lesse any believing Gentiles who hath not mâ—…re priviledge then his seed I think but onely the at least seeming spiritual seed of Abraham i. e. those that are children of God and Abrahams too by faith in Christ Gal. 3. 26. 28. as no infant is have right to dwell in this family the babes the seed of Abraham circumcised in heart the children of the heavenly promise pointed at and typed out by the Iews babes and that circumcised seed of Isaac and those children of that earthly promise of the old Canaan these are the true sons of the free woman the Gospel visible church before whom the bond woman and her son i. e. Abrahams meer fleshly seed though by Isaac are cast out that they may dwell alone in the house as Hagar and her son were cast out of Abrahams house of old before Isaac and his seed that they might dwell alone for look how Ishmael and his seed stood in reference to Isaac and his that were the children by promise of the earthly Canaan viz. but servants that must not abide the house longer when the other came in to stand so Isaac the type and his seed themselves in reference to Christ the true Isaac and his seed i. e. believers viz. as servants that must be packing when he comes in and not abide in the house together with him see Iohn 8. Galatians 4. ult But that were to begin the work again which I have finisht above where I have given a touch of these things and but a touch in comparison of what might be said And of multiplying Arguments and making many books there is
Priesthoods divine kind of Doctrine does damn them I mean any of them so dying any more then one of them First as for sin which onely damnes I know none they have of their own and to say that any infant dyes eternally for theiniquity of his father only makes the word of God which is truth it self no better then a flat falsehood to me who read in Ieremy 31. 29. 30. Ezek. 18. 3. 4. 19. 20. Deut. 24. 16. 2 Kings 14. 16. that the waies of God who requires it strictly of man not to put the children to death for the sins of the father but every man only for his own sin are so equal for all the false accusation of him by the wicked Jewes that seeing he both saies and also swears it that men shall never have occasion to say the childs teeth are edged by the grapes the father only hath eaten and in way of complaint for injustice doth not the son bear the iniquity of the Father but that every soul that dies shall dy for his own iniquity onely and that individual soul onely that sinneth shall dy i. e. eternally for temporally t is true we all dy in Adam as far as a to temporal death God may and often doth visit the sins of the Father on the children to the third and fourth generation of such as hate him not onely when children inherit so as to imitate their fathers hatred of God in which case only t is a punishment to those children but also on infants so as to take them out of the world with the fathers as in the case of ' Dathan and Abiram Amaleck Hittites Amorites c. yea Sodom and Gomorrah and the old world on which for ensamples sake to them that in after times should live ungodly the flood and the fire fell not onely temporal but eternal to the adult ones that gave themselves over to fornication and followed strange flesh though but temporal only to infants who neither lived ungodly nor gave themselves over to fornication as the other did and therefore though passing hence with the rest to a temporal death by that fire yet are not set forth as an ensample with the rest to all that should live ungodly by suffering the vengeance of eternal fire 2 Pet. 2. 6. Iude 7. But the same temporal death that may be in fury to one as t is a passage to worse may be a mercy to another and so to those infants a passage from worse to better as good Iosiah was slain in battell as well as wicked Ahab and that for going on his own head to war as well he yet was it in respect of that eternall state that followed as well for him as ill for Ahab Sith therefore it s said so plainly the son shall not die for the iniquity of the father and yet temporally they may be taken away with the father it must needs be meant that eternally none die nor lye for ever under wrath for no more then meerly the fathers fault whereupon all dying infants having no trangression of their own cannot be damned for their own nor yet for their father Adams transgression and so are all as well as those of believers in a visible state of salvation and while they live infants unlesse hereafter they reject it as Esau did the land of Canaan in visible right to so dying to the heavenly Canaan Yea many thanks to my Ashford opposites for that clause of their pamphlet which is assistant to me almost at all assaies Christian charity it self which doth presumere unumquemque bonum nisi constet de malo constrains us to hope all things believe all things concerning the salvation of dying infants and of all infants as well as some specially since these more then those i. e. the infants of unbelievers more then of believers have not committed any actual sin wherby to deserve to be exempted from the general state of little infants declared in Scripture viz. that of such is the Kingdome of heaven Secondly as for righteousnesse there 's enough in Christ to take away it being imputed what ever unrighteousnesse is imputed for Adams sin and why that righteousnesse should not be imputed if the Scripture had not said it so plainly as it does Rom. 5. 2 Cor. 5. 19. 21. 1 Cor. 15. 22. to all poor dying innocent infants as well as some I cannot imagine unlesse you say not God the fathers love to all but man the fathers faith is that thing that must save some of those infants of believers that are savd by interessing that fruit of his body in the righteousnesse of Christ as well as himself for the taking away the sin of his soul which faith a father wanting the child shall perish for ever in default out and yet be in no fault in the world about it Alas poor infants indeed that descend from such parents as believe not if it be so that that the fathers faith onely does interest the infant in Christ their forefather the first Adam by his sin unawares to them damned them say they and say I if it did there 's righteousnesse enough in the heavenly father and the second Adam to save them but because not they themselves for they have no more ability so to do then a new born infant hath to dresse its naked body but their fathers put it not on by faith for themselves and theirs which if the dying infants might live to years as Christ said of Sodom they happily would do therefore millions of these poor innocents must perish so then belike it is thus and this is the covenant of the Gospel the fathers faith saves him and all his dying infants and the fathers sin of unbelief damnes for ever not himself onely but all his dying infants also All infants that are damned then are damned through the fault of two unhappy fathers a remote father for sinning and and immediate father for not believing between which two the love of the heavenly father cannot come at them a wise man may spend all he hath with looking but never find such as this in all the Scripture earthly inheritances are oft stated and removed to and from posterity for fathers faith and faults as all Abrahams posterity by Isaac and Iacob did enjoy Canaan and Esaus lost it but the eternal inheritance is neither won nor lost by the children through the faith or unbelief of the parents and besides if Adams sin though a remote parent doth so damnifie all infants that the righteousnesse of Christ cannot save them without the fathers faith me thinks he being their great grand father Adams faith should recover him and all his at least from that guilt his sin brought upon them by interessing them in Christs righteousnesse as well as his single unbelief at first destroyed them if any fathers saith shall entitle his infants to salvation or else God seems not to be so prone to mercy as severity yea indeed he that
faith of any believing Gentiles onely I cannot therefore but stand amazed in my mind to consider how miserably Mr. Blake mistakes himself in taking that text from which to prove a present birth holinesse in the infants of believing Gentiles which if there were no other to compare it with doth sufficiently clear it of it self alone how much more if compared with those forecited out of Act. 10. Act. 11 that there is now no such holinesse and uncleannesse as was once between Iews by nature and such as were then called sinners of the Gentiles yea if that distinction of Iews by nature and sinners of the Gentiles spoken of Gal. 2. 15. were now in being remaining unabolished it would be so farre from establishing that indeed it would utterly overthrow what Mr. Blake pleads for from it and instead of advancing the naturall seed of believing Gentiles so high in holinesse as he would have them to be by birth debase them rather into a worse condition then I dare say any unbelieving Gentiles seed is in by birth as to such a kind of uncleanness as they once were denominated by in all the world specially if it be so as he himself saies p. 10. of his birth priviledge viz. That the seed of believing Gentiles are now under one of those two heads in the text For if that distinction be not now destroyed and all men by birth come under one of those two denominations now under which of them I trow will Mr. Blake rank the infants of believing Gentiles he will not render himself so ridiculous sure as to say they are Iewes by nature and therefore unless the distinction be totally taken away he must say they are by nature sinners of the Gentiles which in the sense of the Law is as if he should say Doggs unholy common and unclean and more then we our selves dare say of any now new-born infants under heaven as in contra-distinction to other If he say they are neither sinners of the Gentiles nor Iews by nature neither then either he must say they are some third thing which if he do Mr. Blake himself will contradict Mr. Blake in that for he asserts pag. 10. of his Birth priviledge that the seed of believing parents under the Gospel must be lookt upon under one member of this division in this text and that the Apostles distinction and distribution is so full and compleat that a third cannot be assigned or else he must grant that this distinction is now wholly ceased under the Gospel which because t is the giving up of his whole cause he will be very loath to do and therefore rather than do so then which yet if he well understood what is best for him he could not do a better thing of the two he choses to the utter contradiction of himself to rank them under a third head to assert them to be some third thing namely a sort of carnal holy seed of his own and the Clergies coining a Relative holy seed of their own consecrating a faederall holy seed of their own feigning a holy seed hatcht in their own heads which are neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring nor sinners of the Gentiles nor Iews by nature nor Iews besides nature neither i. e. by personal faith as all true Christians are but quartum quoddam a certain fourth thing called Christians from their mothers womb or ever they are so much as christen'd into the name or discipled into the nature and yet for all this a seed set forth in such a transcendent manner as if all other were in comparison of them by very descent p. 13. unclean sinners unholy dogs and filthy swine 'T were enough to make a wise man wonder to see how superlatively Mr. Blake magnifies this seed of believing Gentiles above the seed of all other men in the world even above the fleshly seed of Abraham Isaac and Iacob themselves who only at least mainly had the promise of this priviledge of transmitting a Covenant holiness to their issue and this but typically and for a time neither even till that seed should come i. e. Christ and believers in him to whom all and only the Gospel promises were made He calls them Children of God and Saints by very nature Little ones of Sion in reference to infants of Infidells which with him are little ones of Babylon and yet to go round again this Babilon in his own opinion is not the Infidells but Rome a Church of Christians in name at least as well as the Protestant nations and consequently to go round again in his own opinion such see pag. 26. as transmit a covenant-holiness into their seed so far as in his own sense to make them little ones of Sion as well as the other and yet for all this too to go round again though it be execration with him to hurt the little ones of Sion i. e. in his sense the infants of such as are not infidels but Christians in name yet to go round again it is an happy thing to dash the little ones of Babylon i. e. in his sense infants of Papists who yet are Christians nomine tenus and not infidels and consequently secundum se the Lords heritage and such as have Christs name upon them and such as for a Turk to persecute were to be guilty with Saul of persecuting the Lord Jesus p. 30. against the walls p. 29. which little ones of both Syon and Babylon he is yet much mistaken in when all is done in taking either of them for fleshly babes of what parents soever Syons little ones in the true spiritual or gospel sense being the Saints themselves onely and not their fleshly babes as such even the little ones Christ Paul Peter and Iohn speak of Mat. 10. 42. Gal. 4. 19. 1 Pet. 2. 2. 1 Iohn 2. 1. 12 13. And Babylons babes being no other then the C C Clergies adult disciples or A A Antichristian C C Christian creatures And to take notice a little more yet of Mr. Blakes high expressions of the birth holinesse birth happinesse birth mercy birth dignity of meer nominal Christians fleshly seed as they lie scattered up and down in p. 28. 30. 31. 32. 33. and other pages of his book he calls them a seed in relation to God as well as their parents and so indeed they may soon be if he mean of such meer outside Christians as he doth the inheritance of God the Saints and Servants of God a holy seed having a royall transcendency above all others as onely worthy the name of a people injoying the light nigh unto God a people of hope and expectation children that have blisse as if they were actually and inalterably already stated in it and possest of it and all other infants and people as inalterably designd and devoted universally to cursing and damnation as having no Gospel at all belonging to them no not that Gospel which is to be preached to every creature a seed
extension of the grace of God in this Covenant and in the administration of it too it goes beyond the other for not only is the Gospel a clearer promulgation of the eternal covenant then that typical covenant was whereby the glory of it may be seen more plainly and with open face then when it was seen onely in the type as a thing to come for we preach Christum exhibitum Christ crucified a sacrifice already offered and baptize and break bread in token hereof but they and that in much dimnesse too Christum exhibendum a Messiah to come he was veiled though seen through the veil in the old but revealed in this new dispensation but also it is of larger extent in respect of the subject to which it belongs for the revelation of it by preaching and real proferring of the grate of it in the name of God who is not willing that any should perish and fail of his grace unlesse they will is to all people in the world the old administration of circumcision and other pertinances of that covenant which was the type of this was limitted and narrowed into a little corner the land of Israel the people of the Iews yea more the very new covenant administration that we are now under as preaching baptizing c. while the old covenant did continue as it did for two or three year after the beginning of this by Iohn till Christ crucified was streitned exceedingly above what it is among us for saith Christ then go not into any way of the Gentiles but now since Christ crucified its extended freely to every nation and every person in it of capacity of years to receive it and till then dying before they shall never be damned for rejecting it without any exception as they believe for go saith he into all the world c. Mark 16 Mat. 28. then circumcision was limitted to males among the Iews but Christ and baptism is to Jew and Gentile male and female wâ—…thout difference as they believe so that the grace israther lengthned in the administration of baptism by taking in the females that were not circumcised then straitned by the denial of it to infants in their infancy onely for even those also may be baptized too if they will when they come to years the grace of the new covenant therefore is even thus as well as otherwise better then the old in respect of the extent of it and its administration also to more subjects for the Jews onely were the subjects of that grace and heirs by promise of the earth ly Canaan but all the world are heirs of heaven by promise according as they repent and believe the Gospel Besides if you think that ever God took the whole body of that nation Israel that belonged all to the typical salvation of the old covenant into the covenant of everlasting salvation by Câ—…rist in relation to their fathers faith without their own and thence conclude that the whole body of believers seed must be by faith of their parents admitted into that same Covenant of the Gospel this is a meer Chimaera of your own brain for no such grace of God as this though some priests of the Iews dreamed of it as well as you for which they were pretty well curried by Christ and Iohn Mat. 3. Iohn 8. ever was now is or ever shall be As for our valuing believers infants as Turks and Pagans I tell you we raâ—…e them higher then your selves for we set them not so low as Turks and Pagans that are at years and wicked for they though not without many possibilities of life by Christ yet dying impaenitents will be demned as well as many of you that abuse more light nor yet so low as the infants of Turks and Pagans for though they dying in infancy are by your own doctrine all alike i. e. none deserving exemption by actual sin from salvation yet living these have in likelihoood more advantages for life then those of Pagans but you though you set by a few more then the rest in your account and yet in some partes of your Account too you make them equal yet no lesse then 20 to one are valued little higher then the Divels for your speech p. 7. supposes that the divels may be saved as soon as the dying infants of Turks and Pagans Review If they object children cannot be taught nor made to understand the sacraments no more could they at circumcision If further that they shed tears at their baptism as unwilling to receive it so they did at circumcision If they say they were semen carnis and had right by the promise so these are semen fidei the promise is unto them If they say the seal is often voided by their infidelity afterwards because many baptized so young become reprobates so it was among the Iewes witnesse Ishmael and Esau and those of whom the Apostle saith that they entered not in through unbelief Re-Review Here you drive on four deep and against a fourfold assault make a four fold repulse pelting us amain but with pellets of brown paper To the â—…irst I reply no more need they be taught at circumcision but the baptized are commandâ—…d to be taught first untill they believe Mat. 28. 19 20. Mark 16. 15. 16. and also immediately after which is so plain that though here you answer by denying all possibility of childrens being taught before circumcision yet else where viz. p. 10. and 18. you fence this off with such prety contrary quiddy stuff as this viz. that as to baptism infants have a teaching a hearing and a learning for the spirit say you opens their ears quo magiâ—…ro quam cito discitur quod docet he doth it in them and in adultis too or else for all their hearing they l not believe but that we shal have more to say to when we come to it To the second that as unwilling as infants were to receive circumcision and as tedious as it was to them or servants either that received it yâ—…t by express command if they were Males in Abrahams house he was to dispense it to them whether they were willing or no but you have no such flat command to disease your little infants â—…o far as to dip them in water for so you should if you baptizd them indeed whether they will or no. To the third O wonderful that Abrahams own fleshly seed even by Isaâ—…c himself by bare descent from their bodies unlesse they also believed as Abraham did could become and be counted no more then bare semen carnis the children of Abrahams flâ—…sh have right by promise qua sic of no more then the earthly Canaan For Ishmael though born of Abraham and circumcised also as a male of his house was not heir by promise of so much as that Gen. 17. 19. 20 21. and yet that the fleshly seed of believing Gentiles should become and be accounted no less then Abrahams semen fides the children