than with your manly or rather unmanly pride envy uncharitableness roughness and presumption whereout it is that you so despise and offend the little ones withholding them from their due of Baprism rail and revilethe Churches of God and the Ministers of Jesus Christ These things I tell you grieve the good and mild Spirit of God and send it away sad from such hearts and at last if presevered in will quench its holy fervours And I wonder very much that any people should run after you as they do who leave their Infants and Children under no better a condition or denomination than of Infidels and unbelievers for so you tell them that their condition by nature and their seed is the same which Pagan-Gentiles and till they know God and believe in him open and professed enemies of God whereas upon their and our nature that is natural Generation or Procreation of Seed there is the Covenant of Grace established and set up which you see at large Ephes 2.3 and 4 c. That we were by Nature the Children of wrath as well as others when out of Covenant You profess much Scripture Learn to speak in that Holy Language and to call Children of Christians Christians by Nature and not sinners of the Gentiles or Pagans for so Saint Paul speaketh Gal. 2.15 We who are Jews by Nature and not sinners of the Gentiles How Jewer by Nature because they were the Children of the Prophets and of the Covenant born under it Act. 3.25 So are our Children Christians by Nature how not sinners of the Gentiles because born Jewes had not their sins imputed to them though born in original sin as the Gentiles the Covenant being a remedy appointed against it and a means to bring them into Gods favour again and so are our Children not sinners of the Gentiles You that are Parents and are carefull enough to keep sure your inheritances and joyntures of earthly things to you and your Children suffer not your Children to be wrangled out of their birth-right and joynt inheritance they have with your selves in the Covenant of Grace under the name and notion of unbelievers when as the Scriptures never calleth them so but a holy Seed and God hath made you and you Children joynt-partakers of the Covenant and the Seals thereof I have been the longer in this for that I would lay therein some ground-work for something to follow I will be very short in your next Quaere Section II. Of Baptism making Christians and how YOu ask whether Baptism maketh a man or woman a Christian without Faith and following of Christ in all his Commands and Steps left upon Record for our imitation This is a short Quaere and therefore shall be soon answered as not seeing to what purpose it is for you or against me I shall therefore briefly answer something to it out of Rom. 2.28 and 29. distinguishing of the sorts of Christians and the parts of Baprism as he doth of the sorts of Jews and parts of Circumcision As Circumcision which was outward in the flesh made though I do not here approve of this your word and therefore I will use another shewed or declared the Jew outwardly or the outward Jew so Baptism which is outward in the flesh sheweth or declareth the Christian outwardly or the outward Christian And both may be without Faith and following of Christ in all his Commands c. as in Esau and Simon Magus the one Circumcised the other Baptized Again As Circumcision which is of the heart in the Spirit not in the Letter made for here your word may go a Jew inwardly or the inward Jew So Baptism which is of the heart in the Spirit not in the water onely maketh a Christian inwardly or the inward Christian neither of these can be without Faith which parifieth the heart or the fruits of Faith in following of Christ c. Now as the Apostle saith surther He is not a Jew and that is not Circumcision so may I He is not a Christian and that is not Baptism namely approved of God and avaylable to Salvation which are outward onely and literal and therefore every true Jew or Christian must indevour after Faith and Following Christ to speak as you do and to find and get the inward and spiritual substance and nature of these Sacraments which is to worship God in Spirit to believe and rejoyce in Christ Jesus having no confidence in the flesh Phil. 3.3 to put off the sinsull body of the flesh Col. 2.11 That we may draw neer with a true heart in full affurance of Faith having our hearts sprinckled from an evill Conscience and our bodies washed in pure water Heb. 10.22 and may have the washing of Regeneration and the Sprinkling of the Blood of our Lord Jesus within us as Tit. 3.5 and 1 Pet. 1.2 Again There are Made Christians and there are Born Christians or a Proselytical or Parental Christianity As for such who are of the Pagan and Heathen world by Nature They can no otherwise be made Christians or Members of the Church but by a lawful Baptism upon their accession unto the Church and expression of their Faith so the Proselvtes of old were and did whom Baptism made Christians and outward members of the visible Church upon their Confession of Faith like as their Faith if true made them Saints and inward members of the Invisible Church But for them Infants who are in the Church and within the Covenant descended of Parents and in Covenant these are Born Christians and Church-members visible I mean not as born of Christian Parents but as born in and under the Christian Covenant so that their Baptism doth not so much make them to be Christians but only shew and declare them to be such as I said and seal them as Covenanters And howsoever a Positive expression of Faith explicitely be necessary unto a Heathen Born for his Admission unto his Christianity or Church-membership yet it is not so unto a Christian Born for their Christanity or Church-membership is their Birth-Privilege and Baptism is but their Instalment or inrolment and is but as the Inauguration or unction unto a Prince Born Faith I confess and I mean saving and justifying Faith and so must you seeing you joyn thereto the following of Christ in all his Commands and Steps left upon Record for our Imitation is absolutely requisite unto Born Christians as a Condition to their partaking and enjoyment of the Benefits and Fruits of Baptism but not absolutely required as the condition to their comming and engaging to the Covenant to the which they have a good Title and Right without present actual Faith unless you will affirm that all the Jewes who came to Circumcision had the like and all the whole Congregation of Israel man woman and child who Deut. 29. entred into Covenant with God had a saving and a justifying Faith In a word Baptism without Faith may declare a visible Christian but incompleatly
you say nothing seeing there is a Christian World or a World of Christians even all that professe the Gospel and embrace Jesus Christ for if you mean by Church the elect true beleevers and by the World the Reprobate and false Beleevers within the same neither our Infant-baptism nor your baptism of beleevers as you call it confessing Faith when grown in years can make such a distinction for as amongst our Infants so amongst the grown Beleevers baptised there may be and are undoubtedly many Reprobates Hypocrites and Falsehearted Professors such of both sorts come to Baptism without any distinguishing by us and go from baptism without any distinction of such by it And therefore 4. Is a pittiful reason you add and I pitty you for it that Infant-baptism doth not distinguish the true Church from the World because all are admitted in by it True all of the Church are admitted in by it What need a distinction in the Seal where there is a conjunction in the Covenant and this very admitting all of the Church professing Christ or born of those that professe Christ upon both which termes the Covenant runneth doth evidently prove that we hold strictly and uphold strongly the distnction of the Church from the World of Pagans and Heathens whom we exclude-and keep off from baptism untill they learn and beleeve the Gospel and make profession And now 5. Consider that your Non-baptism of your Infants until they be grown to great years able to profess faith c doth overthrow the end of bapttism and a chief one the distinguishing of the true Church from the World for that none of them are admitted into the true visible Church by it for tell me what 's the distinction and difference betwixo the World-Infants I mean the Infants of Pagans and Heathens and the Church-Infants the Infants of Christians and Professors but this onely of baptism admitting these into the visible participacion of the Covenant and Communion with the Church of God for want of which the others are kept out as aliens and strangers until they by faith and confession come to claim the same Seal of admittance I say again consider this and lay it closely and seriously to your heart that during the years you detain uyour Infants and Children from baptism which is their birth-privilege and their Covenant-Seal and their distinction-mark you leave them in a Heathenish and Gentile state as Aliens and strangers from the XCommom wealth of ChrisTians and Covenants of Promise Them I say you leave without Hope as being without the Seal of the Promise and your selves in doubt about them The revealed things belong to you and your Children The Promise and the Promise to be sealed belongs to you and your Children to your Children upon their birth as their Privilege and due Let them have it and leave the secret things to God to whom they belong their Salvation by Election for he that elected them to such an end hath elected them to the means And thus you have been thrice overthrowing of Infant Baptism yet have you not given is any fall For though in words you seem to make is the great overthrower as if it overthrew the Covenant and Gospel the visible Church the ends of true baptism yet Infant-baptism and all these stand ver well together each upholding the other and though you would indeed seem as the great Goliah and overth over to little David and so have given these three retches and girds at Infan shaptism it s rather to your own overthrow and of vour own baptism and yet I perceive you have another stroke to come in the 21 of Ezekiel 27. God said of Jerusalem purposeing to destroy it I will overturn overturn overturn and it shall be no more but in your design for the ruine of Infant-baptism you exceed the wrath and indignation and have gon beyond that threefold Ingemination saying I will overthrow overthrow overthrow overthrow the doctrine of Infant-baptism But as curst Cowes have short horns so strong words have most an end weak hands you have done but little yet by your three highly and strongly conceited considerations and I beleeve the fourth will be like the sormer Which because there are so many In and outs and round abouts in it I will reduce it to a short form The baptising of Beleevers or Deciples is onely expresly commanded in Scripture as in Matthew 28.19 Mark 16 15. John 4.12 Acts 2.38 and 41. Acts 8.37 and 38. But Infants baptism overthroweth and prevents that babtism which is onely expressly commanded in Scripture Therefore what you infer nothing lest it should be a Syllogism a Limm of the profane University human Learning but I know your meaning onely mend in your copy at home Deciples and Babtism as you write here and make it Disciples and Baptism lest your friends think you call the baptism of beleevers onely a babism and derive your Disciples from Deciples decipients or deceivers You must pardon me for not turning to your Texts some of them I have already handled shewed they were nothing to your purpose and others I shall meet within in a fitter place I know them without book that none of them all do expresly command the baptising beleevers onely Which they must do if you cite them for your purpose For who ever denyed the baptising of beleevers as I have formerly written Again as these Texts do command some of them expresly the baptising of beleevers as Acts 2.38 So some other doth but condition for and propound Faith unto baptism of grown persons as Acts 8.37 And another mentions faith and baptism as a joynt requisit to Salvation as Mark 16.16 And another hath nothing at all in it either of faith or baptism or command as John 4 12. And for the last place in your paper the first look back where it s largely handled and you shall see you might have seen it in the Text it self there is no expresse command for baptism of beleevers but of Disciples and therefore you did well to add to beleevers or Deciples and are not Children of beleeving Parents Disciples too if not beleevers you shall find if upon your first reading you did not Them also to be commanded there under the Notion of Disciples or a discipled Nation of which they are a portion to be baptised and much more to that purpose And lastly your Texts that do speak of Baptism of Believers mean it of Believers being grown persons and Heathens converted newly not of Believers born and living within the Precincts of the Church But how I pray doth the Baptism of Infants within the Church overthrow the Baptism of believing Heathens and Pagans grown persons they stood up together both in Apostles General and National Commission by which the children of believing and baptized Heathens were to be also baptized and in Apostles domestical and special Dispensation when they baptized whole Housholds of believing Parents and their children It is true
in force and vigor and by a pious recordation thereof the Penitent may confirm his Faith as Peter did and by vertue of the same once established Covenant God receiveth such to mercy and grace otherwise the infidelity and impiety of man would frustrate the goodnesse and good will of God the matter testified in baptism which it cannot because it is constant and changeth not and therefore it is a horrible prophanation of it to reiterate baptism In a word Second baptism was ever abhorred in the Orthodox Church as a kind of incestuous Birth and if you iterate it and baptise your beleevers again upon their profession of faith you must be able to make their former baptism void and no baptism which you can never do as having all things therein which God requireth unto Infant baptism Though Faith a positive and actual Faith as you call for should not be there which is not required of God and therefore is denyed of us to be a necessary condition requisite to be found manifest in every one that is to be baptised indeed in an Aethiopian Eunuch an elder Gentile it is and therefore when he said see here is water what doth hinder me to be baptised Philip answered If thou beleevest with all thine heart thou maist who answering I beleeve that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and so Philip baptised him Acts 8 36 37. The onely Argument the Anabaptists triumph in I shall here give a short answer to Infants of Gentiles are not of Abrahams seed either according to the flesh because not Iowes or according to the promise because not beleevers therefore not to be baptised whilest Infants or if they be to be baptised again when beleevere But I answer First The consequent is denyed for Simon Magus and thousands more even of them that you baptise are neither 2. Nor is it true that onely Iewes are Abrahams seed according to the flesh for that part of the Gentile Galatians who pleaded for Justification by the works of the Law and thereby lay under the bondage and curse of the Law are called the children of Hagar and said to be born of the Bond-woman Sinai and Hierusalem upon earth as it is to be seen Gal. 3. 4. The Apostle applying that part of the distinction to them like as the other part the Children of Sarah to those Gentile Galathians who were justified by faith Nor 3. Is it true that onely beleevers actually beleevers as you speak are the Children of the promise for thus they do not onely at this one blow beat down all Christian infante from all interest in Christ and title to heaven and make them like as the Heathens and Pagans who yet are not wont to strike so hard yea and which is more all Jewish Infants Isaack Iacob and Ioseph these must not be with them nor were by this reason Children of the promise in their Childhood but only according to the flesh untill they did actually believe and so became Children of the promise And more absurdity yet doth follow hence that those Patriarks whom I named Abraham is to be here excepted by their infant-circumcision had no promise of grace sealed unto them but were under a Covenant of works and until the years of discretion and actual fiath were incapable of any interest in the Covenant of grace If onely true beleevers and the Elect persons be under the covenant of grace have right to the Sacraments why is the same Covenant of grace inthe outward administration thereof both in preaching the promises and applying the Seales of the Sacraments to be propounded by Gods appointment to all the outward visible members of the Church And why was Simon Magus baptised as I said 'T is true the inward saving grace of the Covenant in both Administrations is by the Holy Ghost conferred onely upon the invisible members of Christs mysticall body which are the true beleevers and elect But we not able to discern of these give the outward baptism to all those I mean all outward members of the visible Chruch You must do so for the Text before alleged out of the Acts sheweth that all they who have any degrees of Faith may and ought to be baptised But Sir will you stand to your own Tackling The baptising of beleevers hereby you think and intend to exclude Infants of Christians What then will you make of them Infidels or Beleevers can you shew any Text of Scripture old or new where any Infant of Iew or Gentile in Covenant with God is so stiled or can you give any reason of it That which makes an Unbeliever must be a positive habit of unbeleef to justifie this in an Infant will be a task too hard for you and to say that Infants do not beleeve in act or have not the habit of faith onely negatively will not in the Language of the Scripture denominate an Unbeleever Indeed those that are made Christians of heathens they must give some positive and actual expressions of their faith before they be baptised so Philip required of the Eunuch and not till then are they to be accounted beleevers but for such as are born Christians of Christians as our infants are being entred into and under a gratuitall Covenant with God we admit them unto the Initial Seal of that Covenant which is baptism without any such Testimonial Act of Fath as you require for they are not Infidels or Unbeleevers but beleevers and within the compasse of your words though not your sense the baptism of beleevers Seeing you can produce no scripture against their Faith I will see what I can do for their Faith Matth. 18.5 6. Turn to the Chapter and Verses and read them and look to your Neck in that Verse it is a Neck verse Whose shall offend one of these little ones which beleeve on me it were better for him that a Mistone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Lord what shall become of those that offend all thy little ones by dobarring and excluding them from their birth-privilege and their Right-baptism But that I aim at as to you Sir is that you would take notice that our Saviour Christ who best knew knowing the very secrets of the heart pronounceth of some little ones little Children such as he took out one of them set down in the midst of the Apostles for a pattern of Humility and Harmlesseness That they did beleeve in him its apparent that howsoever sometimes and elsewhere spirituall Children are meant by little Children such as are of a meek spirit little in their own eyes here and at this time very natural Children in age and little in growth or statute are spoken of as the very context and Antithesis do shew They who do so interpret this place do make this not the same story with that which followeth in Matth. 19.13 Where little Children are said tob e brought to Christ it may be in their
leave them destitute of the ordinary way and means or shew from Scripture some other of their Righteousness and Salvation Yea if Infants be saved without Faith they must then be saved without Christ for as there is none other name or person under Heaven given amongst â—â—en whereby we must be saved than the Lord Jesus Act. 4.12 So there is none other means or grace under Heaven given amongst men whereby we may apprehend the Lord Jesus save Faith Matth. 3.16 and Heb. 11.6 Remember your own words nothing but Faith answereth the Promise If Infants have no Faith to answer the promise nor works to answer the precept how shall they do for the answer of a good conscience towards God or a saving Baptism 1 Pet. 3.21 Or what shall they do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall they answer him Job 31.14 If he will contend with them they cannot answer him one of a thousand Job 9.3 unless in Christ by Faith they be and then all is answered I could wish some others of a more vigorous body and brain would prosecute these and many other Scriptures to the proof of Faith in Infants Elect and saved the which as I take it would best stop the mouthes of the gainsayers of Infant-Baptism who now not satisfied with their being in Covenant with God also or his giving of spiritual grace to them never leave calling for Faith Faith in Infants so would it set opener and wider the way of Infants to their Baptism even in the opinion of the adversaries thereof If you question how such could believe in Christ Christ who tells you so gave them to do so and so may give to others Is thine eye evill because he is good may he not do with his own as him pleaseth Take that thine is and go thy way it may be he will give unto this least even as to thee Though Intants want the outward Means of Faith which they are not capable of as the Hearing of the Word by which Faith ordinarily is gotten yet there are other besides what you will say extraordinary and so you will fly now your self to extraordinaries who have taxed us of extraordinaries no such matter for besides the ordinary outward Menas of Faith in the Church which an Infant wanteth and is not capable of there are ordinary inward Means of the same Faith which it may find and of which it is capable namely Christ the Author of Faith and the Spirit of Faith both these are internal but ordinary Means of Faith in the Church and avaylable when the outward are wanting and the outward unavay leable where those inward are wanting But you can discern no such matter of Faith in Infants these shew no such thing as Faith what then what evidence of expression do you see or they shew of a reasonable soul in them by this reason you may conclude them unreasonable as well as unbelievers Even Childrens souls are equal and like as yours and mine are in the essentials which are as large and ample to all intents and purposes though pent up for want of room as our souls are and are capable of Grace They are Rational Creatures Seminally and in the inward Principle of human Nature which is a reasonable Nature though through defect of age they are not Rational Productively and in the fruits or external proceedings or operations of reason and so they may be Believers as to the Root and Fountain of Faith the Spirit of God in the first act though they may want the second act thereof which is the increase of it in themselves and the deriving the knowledge of it to others So then Infants in the Church may have Faith and all the Elect of them have fot it is called the Faith of Gods Elect Tit. 1.1 and you as you cannot descry it in them so you cannot decry it Therefore by your own Tenet and Rule they going for Believers and Elect may be Baptized yea all ought to go so out of a charitable perswasion and opinion that ought to be in us and you howsoever it goeth with them as to the Truth and Reality and therefore all should be Baptized for by the same reason you Baptize any of those you call Believers we Baptize all Infants of Believers and unless it were so none at all were to be Baptized Those that come to you one by one in a profession of Faith you have but a good and charitable opinion of his Faith and Election you can have no sure and certain knowledge of the same For this and that Person may be an Hypocrite and Reprobate yet you Baptize him and him Now therefore may not we do the like there comes presented to us this and that Child one and another in the evidence of Gods Covenant engraven as it were upon them by their birth of Parents in Covenant we have also a charitable perswasion of their Faith and Election and can have no more for there are also Infants born in the Church that are Reprobates and so we Baptize them But if onely the true Beleevers and Elect were to be Baptized then you and we must have a certain knowledge of every Infants and every mans Faith and Election as the ground of our and your Baptizing them the which because neither we nor you can have in any ordinary way neither of us by this Rule must Baptize any at all You hope the best of all and so do we your old Limitation may do well here so far as man can judge which in this case is just nothing and that 's all can be said on both sides but still I must prompt you that it is not knowledge of the Infants being in Election and the signs of it or being in the Faith and the prosession of it but the being in the Covenant and a relation to it that is and ought to be the ground of Baptism in the Church of God now because we find and know all Infants born of Christian Parents within this Covenant Relation know not which of them is Elect or not for if we knew who were Reprobates we neither would nor ought to Baptize them we do therefore Baptize all of them lest otherwise we should and might deny the Seal of the Covenant to some of the Elect Children of God Me thinks you who assume so much of the Spirit to your selves Take heed you do not presume too much of your selves therein there be they who separate themselves having not the Spirit Jude 19. should not be so Covetous or Envious and it may be refistous and then it is blasphemous as to deny some degrees of the Spirit and the graces thereof to Infants when as the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and thou canst not tell whither it goeth when as also the Dove-like Spirit of God hath a neer compliance with and a great complacency in Child-like meekness mildness humility patience of which graces he is pleased to stile himself the Spirit more
partakers of the Covenant that other way by obedience to the Law if it could it should have been done that way Adam though made perfectly Righteous and able did not answer it and if God had tryed Adam the second time he would not have answered in obedience to it but would have broken it again and so should we Therefore it must needs be by Faith embracing the promises and so amswering them that the Covenant of Grace must be made sure unto us which otherwise could never have been done But all this maketh nothing against the exposition of the Text above of Infants being in Covenant with their faithfull Parents and included yea they are expressed in the promise for God looked upon the Faith of Abraham when he entred into Covenant with him and his Children and made the promise to be the God of him and his seed and hereupon himself was Circumcised and his seed And where God pleaseth and when he pleaseth as he doth give sanctity the Spirit and other Graces to Infants as to the Innocents Jeremy John the Bap. so the habit of Faith infused it being the Condition on mans part yet wrought in every Elect Infant by God whereby they answer the promise as to the good and benefit of the Covenant if they dye before or soon after the Sealing thereof by Baptism besides that Infants being born of Parents in Covenant and themselves also in Covenant with God and others as sureties and sponsors in the name of the Infants answering for their Faith and promising for their education in the Faith and the Churches charitable opinion or judging them to have Faith are sufficient to answer the promise as for the outward visible seal which is Baptism to be conferred upon them But you make an answer to an objection which will make also an answer to the promise If any will say say you that the Parents may believe for their Children and so their Faith will answer the promise I answer 1. That the Text doth not say the promise is made to you in the behalf of your Children but to you and to your Children and therefore you must believe for your selves and they for themselves or else neither you nor they do answer the promise Somewhat of this before Sir whilest you are about this promise I wish you would observe the precept of using no vain repetitions as here you do so that I must either wholly omit or repeat vainly with you 1. Though the Text saith not so much in so many words yet it meaneth so much The Promise is made to you in the behalf of your Children also that word added it is the same with The Promise is made to you and your Children both together and joyntly the one being in promise as well and as soon as the other and thus the Text neither saith or denyeth your objection nor your answer For the promise may be truly made and is to believing Parents and their Children whether the Parents do believe for their Children also or the Children for themselves 2. Whereas you say Parents must believe for themselves and children for themselves or neither answer the promise it is truly meant according to the inward and spiritual part thereof so as to partake of Remission of sin Justification and Salvation But yet the Faith of Parents in Covenant may be and is so far beneficial to their born Children that thereby they are declared to be also in Covenant with themselves and to have a Right and Title unto the Seal of the Promise and the external Ordinances and outward Privileges of the Church and in respect of these may be said to answer the promise For the promise is the whole Covenant and the dispensations of it in outward Ordinances as well as saving Graces and it s your constant errour and mistake never to speak distinctly of this promise but usually and onely strictly of the saving Graces thereof belonging to the Elect whereas there is an answering of this promise also by visible profession and external Church-membership and privileges which is done both by the Parents and Children whether the inward Graces thereof be known or not Concerning Infants Faith and their inward Graces whereby you will have them also and they may be answerable to the inward promise I refer you to what I have said before 3. You Sir must own the Child above and it must be laid at your doors I mean the objection there made That Parents may believe for their Children and so answer the Promise I do not believe you can find out a Father for it nor did I ever reade the words as I remember it is true as I have related before that Parents did answer for the Faith of their Children presented to Baptism when the Child was asked dost thou believe the Parent in the Name and place of his Child answered I believe but this is far off from your Parents believing for their Children for it was onely Parents professing of their Childrens Faith or the Childrens professing their Faith by or in the mouth of their Parents as I have largely shewed And as for those Divines who though contesting for Infant-Baptism because they could not be perswaded of Infants-Faith made their refuge to Parents-Faith yet they did it not in such words as Parents believing for their Children nor to such purpose that their Faith might answer the promise but to shew that the Parents Faith gave unto their Children a proof of being born under the Christian Covenant and a Plea for the Seal of Baptism notwithstanding the supposed privation of Faith in Children Though therefore Infants as to their inward state before God of Justification and Salvation are not relieved and helped forward either by profession of Sponsors and Parents or by the acts and habits of their Faith because as I said the just shall live by his Faith and as you say the Parents must believe for themselves and as the Errors and Heresies of the Parents do not hurt the Children no more do their Faith and Truth help them as giving nothing from themselves unto their inward and eternal condition Yet are they beneficial to their Children otherwayes 1. It s from their Faith that the Children are brought out to Christ and offered and dedicated to him in Baptism Psal 206.37 whereas the Infidels offered their Sons and Daughters unto Devils 2. And as in their dedication so by their supplication the Faith of the Parent is helpful towards the obtaining of their Childrens regeneration and many graces of the Spirit God being ready to hear and do accordingly 3. If original sin did hurt Infants which without any fault of theirs they drew according to the flesh from their Parents why may not the Faith of the Parents profit the Children so as that sin be not imputed to them for Christs sake to whom they are offered and dedicated purposely and willingly by their Parents seeing grace is more abundant than Condemnation and the
you follow this better But some others whose opinion I rather think you follow than they yours they drive it on to another design as thus Because the Infants of the Jews did eat the Passeover as well as they were circumcised Therefore the Infants of Christians should eat and drink the Lords Supper as well as be baptized This structure is soon pulled down standing upon a false foundation even as the house fell built upon the slippery sand and therefore I shall but touch it and it sinks or slides Because the Infants of the Jews did not eat the Passeover but were onely circumcised Therefore the Infants of Christians are not to eat and drink the Lords Supper but onely be baptized So taking off the Argument against Infant-Baptism from its false and ruinous foundation of the Jewish children eating the Paschal Lamb you were best set it upon its own proper Basis and build Baptism upon the Lords Supper thus or rather pulâ— it down by the Lords Supper thus If Infants of Christians may be partakers of Baptism then also they may be partakers of the Lords Supper for why of one Seal of the Covenant more than another and if Infants may not be partakers of the Lords Supper why then not of Baptism no more of one Seal than the other besides they are capable of the spiritual part of the one Sacrament as well as the other So I have made the Argument as strong for you as I can if you can for t fie it yet more do it quickly for I am in haste to answer as desirous to make an end of these wearisom skirmishes as to my self and tedious discourses as to the Reader What! will you become of Antipaedobaptists now Propaedocoenists and grant Infants sometimes and sometimes deny them in Argument the Lords Supper that you may deprive the of the Lords Baptism You shall never do it by such ambidextrous inconsequences to which the Answer and Reason is very obviouâ— 1. Your own Reason and Answer will do it that from the one Seal ordered and appointed for Infants to another Seal not enjoyned or instituted for Infants the Consequence is vain and invalid the former I have largely proved and disproved the latter clearly let but the Argument rest till can can disquiet or disturbe it and I desire no more 2. From Baptism which is the Seal Initial and of Admission due to Infants to infer the Lords Supper which is the Seal Progressional and of nourishment to be also due in present and partaked of in infancy like as the other is as inconsequent an absurdity as to infer time to come from present or perfection from beginning or a man from a child and to joyn them in one moment state and age Can a man enter into his mothers womb and be born a babe again or as soon as he is born a babe can he run over the ages and become a man presently When I a child saith the Apostle I spake as a child and understood as a child I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things I mean Infants may be initiated by the Seal of Baptism into the Church and are fitted to have the Graces and Benefies of the Covenant sealed unto them but that they are presently perfitted to have the nourishment and growth of the same Graces sealed and confirmed unto them by the Lords Supper passeth mine and your as much as their capacity It is true that both Baptism and the Lords Supper do seal the same and the whole Covenant and the Graces of the same but both in their place order and time so as the prime and main use of Baptism is to be the Seal of Initiation and Reception into Covenant and the Lords Supper is the Seal of Augmentation and Confirmation of the same as to the main and prime use of it so as that Baptism seals the Infants entrance and admission thereinto which the Lords Supper doth not properly and principally but onely by way of supposition and testification of a spiritual life and entrance such doth the spiritual food of the Lords Supper imply and require aforehand So also as that the Lords Supper seals the growth and nourishment of the same Graces of the Covenant which Baptism doth not properly and primarily but onely by way of infusion of a seed or laying a foundation of such growth and nourishment such doth the spiritual life of Baptism tend and proceed to afterwards Lastly Though Infanrs may and ought to be partakers of Baptism yet may they not nor ought to be partakers of the Lords Supper in their infancy because the Lords Supper belongs onely to such as can spiritually examine themselves and discern the Lords Body as the Apostle expresly and directly saith 1 Cor. 11.27 28 29. whereas Baptism belongs unto Infants of Christians by right of their being in the holy Covenant of God and birth of baptized Parents for more is required to the Lords Supper than unto Baptism of Church-members by nature and birth whereas of Aliens and Strangers more is required of them unto Baptism than of Church-members unto the Lords Supper a publick profession of faith is necessary for the admitting of a Heathen into the visible Catholick Church by Baptism and his entring into the Gospel-Covenant for himself and his Seed and he may presently after be partaker of the Lords Supper upon the examination of his faith for the confirmation of the same But Infants being in Church-Covenant by birth have a just Title and Right to all the external Privileges in the Church as being free-born to them all in due time and order as to Baptism in their infancy because born members of the Church so to the Lords Supper when by reason of full age and use they have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil and this their Covenant-right remains until it be forfeited by a renunciation of Baptism on their part or by excommunication from the other the Lords Supper by the Churches power when they are either wilfull violaters of the Conditions of the Covenant or hate to be reformed by wholsom Censures If any farther reply He must be a better replyer than you That the Infant baptized can no more discern the Lords Body and Blood in Baptism than in the Supper nor the sign it self in the act of Administration of either Sacrament and therefore Baptism is as vainly given it as the Lords Supper I re-joyn That our Infants can and do as well discern the Sacramental Sign and the thing signified in Baptism as well as the Jewish Infants did discern the same in Circumcision So that if our Baptism be in vain to ours their Circumcision was also in vain to their Children and the Replyer doth but open his mouth against Heaven and chargeth God himself with vanity and folly for appointing Circumcision of Infants and also Baptism of Infants whereas the Axiom is God and Nature doth nothing in vain or foolishly As
Gentiles that are in Covenant with God and enjoy the Ordinances of his grace and mercy do also by vertue of Gods Promise I will be thy God and the God of thy seed convey to their issue and posterity a state and privilege and so rather it is the joynt Covenant made by God with both together the Parent and his issue and posterity to be reputed of a holy and clean society and Congregation before God from the other Pagan and heathenish world and so the child or children born of such Parents in Covenant to be truly holy like as the Parent because of the Covenant Not that insants have any real personal qualitative holiness in them which is and must be in all true believers whither Parents or children to make them acceptable to God as to justification and Salvation whom I confess though born within the Church and of believing Parents to be born in sin naturally and be unclean children of wrath by nature as well as others the children of Pagans without the Church But I say they have a federal and parental so it may be called by a savory mouth and relative or imputative holiness put upon them by the Covenant of God and brought forth or executed on them by or at their birth of believing Parents which is sufficient and enough to make them passe in the eyes of God and in the face of the visible Church for clean and holy or if not their professions of the faith of Christ for you will not deny them to be professors of Christ and members of the Church in part and in kinde at leastwise by the mouth of their Sureties presenting them and speaking for them this will bear them out to be holy likewise And what if I should tell you in your ear that Christian infants in Covenant with God are holy too by an inward holiness also are not all inward sanctifying graces effects of Gods Covenant and who knoweth when God as where he effects them you perhaps would stop that ear cry out Then grace which onely maketh holy cometh successively and is derived by nature and Parents shall be the authors and conveighers of grace and holiness to their children No such matter Sir For the children are primitively holy with the Parents by the Covenant as co-partners and confederates with them therein I will be thy God and the God of thy seed not derivatively holy from the Parents as solely or first partners and prefederates without these Christian Parents and children are both joynt confederates I say and do both draw and derive together their holiness as other privileges from the Covenant and Tenour of grace therein and not successively from one another children from Parents derivatively as you fondly fansie to your self and erroniously imagine The which truth may also serve much to clear off those cloudy difficulties so much pressed by the Anabaptistical party from the Jesuitical side about infants being Baptized sanctified saved by the faith of their Parents as they use to blate and bâ—â—e abroad You like enough before you will believe any holiness in them would have them shew some such thing either in words before they can speak and whilest they are infants that is nonfants or indeed before they have any idoneity of instruments and ability to act Have patience a while and you may hear them speak the words and see them do some acts of holiness What! are you so sensual all for sense and so altogether lead by sense that nothing but a sensative or sensible manifestation of holiness in children will be believed by you I had thought you had walked by faith and not by sight you believe a holiness in other things in Faith in the Word in the Sacraments in the Church of God and in all things which the holy Scriptures the oracles of holiness have pronounced holy though you have not a visible and sensible demonstration of holiness in them you walk by faith there and not by fight and why cannot you believe a holiness in children of Christian Parents in Covernant with God though they shew forth no sensible effects of such holiness seeing also the same holy Scripture doth call them holy and not unclean and so supplying their defect of speech and action giveth you what you ask even a sensible manifestation of their holiness and speaks them holy unto your ears not declares them holy to your eyes so you may now walk by sight and hear say not by faith and hope limping and halting therein for except you shall see in their hands and tongues the prints of holiness in works and words and perhaps thrust your fingers into their fides to feel the holiness of their hearts too in affections and thoughts you will not believe What and if our Saviour Christ should now as once take one of our little children in Covenant with him and set it before you and say whosoever humbleth himself as a little child the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven would it not be strange for you to tell him you see no such yet you hear of such humility lowliness meakness mildness innocency in children and is it not a like to tell him you see no such holiness here when you hear of it from the mouth of Christ his and this Apostle Paul here saying They are holy But that I have said it before and already I would say that even children shew themselves more bumble lowly meek mild and innocent and so more holy than a great many of your grown Professors and grand Pretenders unto holiness and all those graces let their holiness and other graces rest but a while as seed hidden up in their hearts or wrapped up in Gods Covenant with them and see if afterwards they do not shew it and their holiness break not forth as the light at noon day that was within the cloud or as the seed in harvest that was within the clod and in the mean time shew me thy faith by thy works and thy holiness by thy words and learn to speak better of childrens holiness and to do better with children for their holiness even so well as to let them be Baptized But besides this in hand there are two eminent Texts that hold out infants of Christians their holiness by Covenant the one is Rom. 11.16 If the first fruit be holy the lump also is holy and if the root be holy so are the branches I know the stream of our Divine Advocates for Infant-Baptism run altogether and out of this Text upon a derivative holiness from the Parents or Ancestors to their children which notwithstanding they call and make a federal holiness I am not willing in my old and infirm daies to strive or swim against a stream onely I will be bold to venture and wade so far as to hint again and mention unto those akilful steersmen now especially that the waters of strife about Infant-Baptism are risen high
OF BAPTISME Your Quaeres about Baptism are three and these 1. What warrant you have from the words of Christ for your baptising of Infants before they do actually believe 2. Whether Baptism maketh a Man or Woman a Christian without Faith and following of Christ in all his Commands and steps left upon Record for our Imitation 3. Whether the baptising of Beleevers is not the Command of Christ practised by the Apostles yea or no and left upon Record for us to follow and Imitate till his second comming I Will begin with this your Last Quaere For I perceive that the baptising of Beleevers doth keep such a buzzing in your ears that till it be granted you nothing will be heard Sir for quietnesse and brevity sake I grant it and this is all my answer to this your Quaere Yea I granted as much to you in the beginning if you remember and so thus also briefly and quietly I have answered almost a side of your second sheet wherein are four Considerations brought to prove the lawfulnesse the usefulnesse the necessity of this practise of Baptising Beleevers with these solemn words at the end of every consideration four times repeated Judge ye and Judge Righteous Judgement for God will Section I. Of Baptisme of Infants I hope you will think me to judge Righteous Judgement if I Judge according to your Judgement That the Word of God doth allow and authorize baptising of Beleevers but then I must differ from your judgement in another That the Baptising of Beleevers doth not disallow or exauthorate the Baptising the Infants of Beleevers and that the one leadeth in the other as it were by the Hand if you had no more to say and dispute against the Baptising of Infants of beleeving Parents than against the baptising of beleevers the difference betwixt us had never begun If I speak Parables unto you it is because you know not the Scriptures not the very Scriptures your self doth here quote Matth 28.19 Acts 238. Acts 8.38 Acts 10 47. Acts 22.16 c. What do they all import but that Those Jewes or Heathens who were grown persons aliens from the Covenant had embraced the Gospel and became beleevers were presently baptised or became baptiseable And now that this is no barr or contradiction to the Baptising of Infants appears for that the Infants of those beleevers baptised and entred into Covenant if they had any had likewise a right unto baptisme being in the same Covenant with their beleeving Parents and either were in present baptised or were of right baptiseable So that the baptisme of beleevers makes way and gives ground for the baptisme of their Infants whence in other texts such and such beleevers were baptised they and all their House which is according to the Tenor of the Cov nane in which God is the God of the beleever and his seed so that the one hath as good right to the Seal thereof as the other by vertue of the Covenant God having Covenanted with both together I have formerly suggested unto you the only word that must help you here to make the baptisme of beleevers strong against the baptisme of Infants and it is the Word only for if there were such a precept or practice to be found in Scripture of Baptising Beleevers only then you would write something near the matter but yet should not so carry it away to the overthrowing of the baptising of the Infants of beleevers the Scripture no where calling them unbeleevers But none of the Scriptures you cite none of your considerations you mention do so much as mention much lesse infer the baptising of Beleevers onely Therefore now Judge you but Judge Righteous Judgement even as Good doth you see in your own Texts Or do you mean another matter as I ghesse it That Infants of beleevers born within the Church and Covenant and baptised in their minority when afterwards they attain to some ripenesse of knowledge and profession of faith of Christ should then as beleevers themselves be baptised again Then I must tell you that which you call the first and great Ordinance of the New Testament is neither great nor first nor Ordinance namely such Baptising of Beleevers Nay then I must tell you such baptising of beleevers is not only to be neglected and omitted but slighted and rejected yea preached against and confuted as now in present it shal be For what is this your baptising of beleevers but a rebaptising of them who were baptised before rightly and for any thing you know beleevers also For first God having given the Infants of beleeving Parents Right unto the Sacrament of Baptisme by speciall priviledge of their Birth within the bosome of the holy Church and the Minister having administred the Sacrament of Baptisme unto such in the true Element of Water with the Evangelical words In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost according to Christs institution Containing in them the matter form and so the very essence of outward baptism such baptism is good sufficient effectual and avayleable to Gods Children and they ought not to be rebaptised especially there being the devout invocation made to God for his blessing also a serious application of both the Element and Word unto the party who receiveth both and that secret reference which this action hath to life and remision of sins by vertue of Christs own compact made solemnly with his Church there is not any thing more required to the mysticall perfection of baptisme outwardly within the Church of God constituted and planted Now that such Baptisme is not to be reiterated that Infants thus baptised are not to be rebaptised I shall prove unto you both by the Word of God and some reasons thence deduced Eph. 4.5 There is one Lord one Faith one Baptisme one Baptisme not onely 1. Because it hath every where one and the same substance consisting in one and the same matter one and the same form for we are not to use any other Elemental matter but Water if it may be had nor any other verbal form but this I baptise thee in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost not onely 2. Because it offreth unto all men one and the same grace even one saith of one Lord into which we are baptised but One also for that it ought not to be received of any one man above once even as we serve that Lord which is but one because no other can be joyned with him imbrace that faithwhich is but one because it admiteth no inovation so we receive haptism which is but one because it cannot and must not be received often Thus all the Pious Learned and Primitive Professors have interpreted this Text and conceived of this matter the Iteration of Baptisme once given to be a manifest contempt and violation of this Apostolical axiom and Aphorisme insomuch that though the baptising minister were a Scismatick or Heretick or a
Mothers armes and so might be lesser Children than these But the word in the original for little Children is the same in both Chapters the like also in Marke 10.13 and its acknow ledged by all that both in Mathew 19. and Marke 10. Little Children in age and stature are meant and besides such little Children in age and stature were fittest to be examples of Humility and Innocency the thing intended to the Apostles than either greater Children or grown men who many times are stubborn and harmfull And though in Verse 6. where they are said To beleeve in me little ones be mentioned without little Children it is to me an exegesis or further explication of the word Children that they were little ones and small oner though such as could come to Christ upon his calling of them which maketh no difference in point of the one or the others beleeving in him Lastly when Christ saith Who so shall receives one such little Child in my name receiveth me But who so shall offend one of these little ones c. The very Antithesis or opposition sheweth that he speaketh not of divers sorts of little Children but one and the same And so forewarneth in this 18th Chapter his Disciples that they should not be as he foresaw they would be in the 19th Chapter offensive unto suchdd little Children who were so notwithstanding But if this be not a Text evident enough for their Faith as I will not be contentious but subject my Spirit to the Spirit of the Prophets let another witnesse speak Acts 18.8 Crispus beleeved on the Lord with all his house If there was any Infant there or youngling as most likely it is said to beleeve Yet our Saviour Christs singling out of Children to be examples of Humility and Innocency his accepting of savor shewed to them as done to himself his prohibiting any offence to be done to them all in this 18th of Saint Matthew together with his checking and rebuking of his Disciples for forbidding them to be brought to him or to come to him his taking them up in his Armes laying his hands upon theâ— and blessing them Do not all these shew a great deal of Complacency that Christ had and took in them and that these little Children pleased him very well and therefore sure were not unbeleevers For without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Besides that he pronounceth that of such also little Infants in age and stature is the Kingdom of God but the Kingdom of God is not of unbeleevers Sure some of these little Children nay more some of our little Infants dying before they are baptised are saved and received of God into his Kingdom whither no unbeleever nor unclean can come or enter Lastly I read of two Examples one in the old Testament of Jeremy 1.5 Of whom the Lord saith Before thou camest out of the VVomb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet Another in the new of John the Baptist who being but a Babe in the Womb of Elizabeth leaped for joy of the approach of Christ then also in the Womb of the Virgin which joy thereof was an act of the Spirit in him Add hereto Jacobs holding of Esau by the heel which the Prophet Hos 12.3 interpreteth to be a kind of striving with him for the Grace and Blessing We cannot think these in the Womb were in Christ and so sanctified one way and when they came to years of understanding by another way If Chidlren of Beleevers may thus have the Spirit of Grace and Faith and that before the Seal of the Covenant then they are not unbeleevers but beleevers Howsoever there are some things extraordinary in these two examples yet I have shewed that the Spirit of God is an internal ordinary Agent and means in the Church of God and as to the Infantile nature and condition which from the two former examples appears to be capable of it doth where it pleaseth infuse Faith and other Graces as before Humility Meeknesse Innocency Patience whereof little Chnildren were also set for examples by our Saviour Christ I do not say that any Infants now have the Spirit and Graces of the same in so ample and large a measure as those above named as who were sanctified and consecrated in a more speciall degree for a more speciall work nor do I say that all Infants now under Covenant have the Spirit and this Grace of Faith and other but that they who are the Elect of God and ordained to eternal life of which there are many have Faith and the Spirit so far forth as is sufficient for their Salvation Acts 13.48 But I will fall upon this poynt more closely and if as I have in part already out of the Texts all ged I can evince this of Infants-Faith I mean and so must you of Infants in speciality or in kind some of them such as he purposeth to save and not of Infants individually and in particular every one Infants Baptism must needs be also evinced As Paul saith to Agrippa about the Resurrection of the dead so may I to you Why should it be thought a thing Incredulous with you that God should give Faith unto Christian Infants They have knowledge and other Faculties of the Mind and the Soul and why may not they have supernatural Grace and so some seeds of the habit of Faith according to their modell and measure for the apprehending of Christ and so Faith it self in a kind and in a like kind unto that is in grown persons Faith wheresoever is alike and but one in kind the which how small soever sufficeth to Salvation What doth the weakness of the Organ of Body or Soul make it impossible for God to work supernaturally even in the little Children at least so much illumination of the Mind more than is ordinary for that age as may be fit to receive the Grace of Christ I shall tell you more Sir than I beleeve you know and I know you will beleeve Such Infants whom deceasing God taketh up into heaven for of such also is the Kingdom of Heaven as Christ said he filleth in a moment and at an instant with an inundation of knowledge and understanding of Christ for they come to sight and vision of him more than you and I have nay more than all the Prophets and Apostles had whilest they lived upon earth And now cannot the same God immediatly before sprinkle their Souls with one jot of the knowledge of Christ or one grain of Faith though but as Mustard-seed and make them to touch Christ though but with the Tip or Fingers and of that hand of the soul which is Faith whom they shall immediately have the full fruition of like as many as touched the Hem of his Garment were made perfectly whole But I remember me you must have plain direct Scriptures for this point one you have had and so you shall have more Scriptures out of which it may be
as without Faith Faith without Baptism may make an invisible Christian but incompleatly as without Baptism Faith and Baptism together both make a Christian compleatly and that both Visible and Invisible Are not Children of the Heathens born Heathens and why then are not Children of Christians born Christians I mean it is theiri Birthright to be so esteemed or they are to be esteemed such by their Birth-right to be reputed within the Covenant of Grace or members of the visible Church Is the condition of a Christians Child worse now under the Gospel than a Jewes Child was under the Law the Children of the Jewes were born Jewes and it was their Birth-right to be Israelites visible members of the Church of Israel whereupon the Apostle calleth them Jews by Nature Gal. 5.15 As before I have said and Rom. 11.24 He calls the whole Nation of the Jewes the Natural branches of the Olive-tree in that they were the vifible Church of God so the 1 Cor. 7. Those that are born of holy Parents are called holy yet sinners but in divers respects by Nature and as generated of their Parents so sinners for Parents do not generate by Grace but Nature but by Grace and as received by God into Covenant so Holy for God said I will be thy God and the God of thy seed and if the root be holy then are the brancher no repugnancy here like as the Circumcised generateth an Infant with a fore-skin and as wheat dressed and clean bringeth forh wheat with chaffe upon it so a Christian bringeth forth one that is not a Christian who is therefore Baptized that he may be made Christian which is when he is Ingrafted into the body of Christ And whereas the Apostle saith Eph. 2.3 That we were by Nature the Children of wrath as well as others it doth not contradict we may be such and yet born Christians too and Holy in an externall Covenant being born of believing Parents if you would but remember the ordinary distinctions that are given they would disperse this mist before your eyes and cleer them matter to you I will give them you as thus as there is a Jew so there is a Christian without and in open view of the Church and as Jew so a Christian within and in secret before the face of God as none were born Jewes so none are born Christians in this second and later senss thus we must be made Christians neither could or can we claim it by Birth-right but in the first sens which is that whereof the Assertion is we may even all that have a visible Birth and standing under the Covenant of Grace are Christians and Holy in the face of the visible Church though perhaps not so in the face of God but many for all this may be Children of wrath Your mind as your words runneth onely upon the Internal part of the Covenant which are inward saving graces which belong only to the Elect and because we know not what these Infants are born with we say not that thus they are born Christians where you should take notice of an external part of the Covenant which is a true visible membership and Birth-Holiness which known to us and appearing to all we call them born Christians as who from their Birth are to be accounted and reputed visible members and patts of the Church For the Covenant of Grace is largely to be understood and Taken for the whole dispensation of it in-outward Ordinances and under the Notion of its external Privileges as well as in inward Graces and under the notion of its internal powers You most an end and in this Quaere especially use the Covenant as Hanun did the servants of David sent to comfort Hanun and to honour his deceased Father who shaved off the one half of their Beards and cut off the half of their Garments and so sent them away 2 Sam. 10.4 So do you and yours you leave out in your writing and discourses the one half of the Covenant and still restrain it to the inward and spiritual part thereof whereas it was sent whole and entire of God with an outward and external part also for the further Honour and Comfort of the believing Parents and their Children But I come to the last your first Queare of the three about Baptism as you propound them but my last of the three as I handle your matters and this it is Sect. III. Of Baptizing of Infants WHat warrant you have from the words of Christ for your Baptizing of Infants before they do actually believe What warrant I thank you for this word a gentle and general word I looked for no less than what command or precept have you such a severe and special word as a command to be demanded of me Did you keep such a blustring in seven whole Quaeres together about the commands and precepts of Christ his Apostles and their examples which I took as your preparative and Preface unto this your particular Quaere of Infant-Baptism and doth the wind go down in this soft and still voyce What warrant have you for it After all your former Thundrings out the Commands of God against us as if we of the Church of England had broken them all and had pieced them up with our Human Inventions and additions as Infant-Baptism and the rest is this your only Thunderbolt you have to strike us down with what warrant have you for it out of the word Your friends and fellowes lowes will give you no thanks for this word if it were not they that gave it you word and work and all who as the Jewes cryed The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord so they go up and down and cry a Precept of the word a Precept of the word for your Infant-Baptism and do you come after them and behind and so softly speak for fear they should hear you a Warrant out of the word a Warrant out of the word for the same This made me look back over your other Quaeres about our Ministery our maintenance and I find upon such Review that this word Warrant is used and prefixed before them all and not a word of a Precept or Command I see I have been much mistaken who when I might have put off you and all your Quaeres with a Warrant according to your demand have put my self to such trouble as to search the Scriptures and send you Precepts and Commands out of the same for every particular You are beholding to me for I have gratified you herein in giving you more than you required and in spending more upon you than you desired I will not say deserved I hope you will make good use of my Indulgence herein and not expect for time to come that I shall do the like still No you will now give me Leave to take and make my advantage of the word which I have lost hitherto and you have gained hereby For I take it there
their being in Covenant must needs be the ground of Gods commanding the Seal of Circumision It is acknowledged there was a special Commandement for circumcising in the time of Infancy but do not you blame God for his such Command by the same reason you blame us for our practice Infants of Jewes were as much in the state of Nature as ignorance blindness and under the same defects that Infants of Christians are and why do ye not charge the wisdom of God with folly for Commanding the Infants of Jewes to be circumcised or excuse us who being under the same Covenant do Baptize the Infants of Christians In imitation of God Commanding Circumcision and also in obedience of God and that Command which was in part also Evangelical For That Commandement was for the Circumcising of such Infants in their Infancy whose Parents were under Gods seal but there is no such command for Infants whose Parents were not for these Profession of Faith was needful Abraham in whom the Church of the Jews began therefore had Faith before hee took the Seal but no such thing was afterward required of Abrahams Seed but the contraty Commanded namely that their Seed should be circumcised in their Infancy And so I deny not but God Commanded Circumcision but this that by vertue of Gods Commandement onely they were Circumcised I deny for it was also and chiefly because of the foregoing Covenant in the 7. and 8. verses to which the words refer saying Thou shalt keep my Covenant Therefore what Covenant vers 10. Circumcision is so named He doth not barely Command it but with an Inference or reference therefore to shew that they being in Covenant were therefore to have the Seal thereof Circumcision which did but put the Covenant under Seal in which Covenant those Children were before by Birth being born of Parents with whom God had stricken Covenant But I shall go neer to make use of it anon for the Baptizing of our Children like as they and you do now for the circumcising of the Jewes Chrildren Though the Truth is that was nothing but Gods word of Institution whose incommunicable property it is to appoint Sacramental Signs The Covenant then especially was the ground of Circumcising the Seed of the Jewes and the same is the ground of Baptizing the Infants of Christians and so Christian Parents being in Covenant their infants are in Covenant with God and therefore Baptizable for Gods Covenant written upon Children of Parents in Covenant is no Blank to seal too but a just Title or writ as I may so say for the Seal and a very Commission given out by the Holy Spirit for the Baptizing Infants of Christians in their lofarcy and so these things appearing to the Churches of God That Infants of Christians are entred in Covenant with God They ought to put the same under the Seal of Baptism as the Infants Due and the Churches Duty More briefly and Syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it All persons within and under the Covenant of Gods Grace are Commanded of God to have the Seal of Covenant put upon them which in the Gospel-administration thereof is Baptism But all Infants of Christians are within the Covenant of Gods grace Therefore all Infants of Christians are Commanded of God to have the Seal of the Covenant put upon them which in the Gospel-Administration thereof is Baptism The first Proposition is clear from Gen. 17. and God Commanding all Jews in Covenant to be Circumcised and from Matth. 28. and Christ Commanding all Gentiles or Nations in Covenant to be Baptized The second Proposition is the very Tenour of the Covenant I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed and so I have reasoned the Baptism of Infants and Terms into a Command of God before I intended it A third Warrant is this Reason If the Infants of Jewish Parents were capable of Circumcision the initial Seal of the Covenant which was Circumcision and were Circumcised though they could shew no Right they had unto it but their Birth of Parents in Covenant Then also may and must the Infants of Christian Parents be Baptized and receive Baptism the initial Seal though they can shew no other Right to it but their Birth of Parents in Covenant This Warrant is Reasoned out or this Reason is warranted out of Heb. 13.9 Jesus Christ the same yesterday to day and for ever Jesus Christ ministred is the Covenant which is as I said the same for ever in sabstance and in relation to theeternal welfare of souls Though the ministrations of him be different of him as to be exhibited and to come unto the Jewes and of him as come and exhibited unto Christians And though some Ceremonial and Circumstantial matters be changed yet the substantial and that which was purely a Covenantall or Sacramental Part abides as being an everlasting Covenant made with Abrahams Seed all true beleevers they differ not the Two Sacraments in any substantial thing or in any spiritual effect necessary to salvation or in any use to confirm the Covenant of Grace and further a man in the way to Heaven and so as an Initial Seal of the Covenant they differ not nor as a Sacrament of entrance into the Church and so Circumcision was a Seal of the same Righteousness by Faith as Baptism is to us Rom. 4.11 and Circumcision signified the mortification of the flesh and the renewing of the mind and did bind over the Jewes unto the obedience of Gods will Rom. 2.28 c. Gal. 3.21 and so doth Baptism the same to us now as Rom. 6.3 and 11. 1 Pet. 3.21 Insomuch that Baptized Christians are called circumcised Christians and Baptism is called by the name of Circumcision Col. 2 11. and 14 4. Though we Christians are not to follow the Jews in things peculiar to his own dispensation which was Legal and Ceremonial yet those actions that were done by them upon such grounds that are of moral perpetual and common concernment to one person as well as another in one Church as well as another for one age as well as another none can deny such actions to be binding and obligatory to all as a standing Rule for after Generations by which may be answered that which is usually objected by those that except to our Analogy of Baptism with Circumcision as why do ye not plead a Baptism of Males onely and that particular of the eight day and so carry on the whole Analogy together and in order why because these were but circumstantial things the two Sacraments may be one in substance for all these besides they were not of common but peculiar use to the Jews that Church those ages as for the eighth day it was both a Ceremonial and Physical reason as to life and health of the infant that thefore skin was not cut off till then and for the Females not Circumcised it is enough against you and your opinion if the proportion betwixt Circumcision and Baptism
to the washing the Leprofie of original sin and as the Waters of Bethesda to the healing of other diseases whatsoever even their actual sins also when afterwards committed It is true that your Children dying without Baptism may be saved by the Coverant and Promise of God and his Grace many are so all are so that are of the Number of Gods Elect Yea I confesse the hope of salvation doth no lie so much in the Seal as in the Covenant and Promise to which the Seal is annexed Indeed the Lord having made a promse to you beleeving Parents concerning your Children born in original sin That he will be your God and the God of your seed in this case you must beleeve this his Word and Promise But where he hath ordained a Seal for the confirmation of your Faith you must take heed how you neglect to apply it you must not as more than too many do in these days think it a superfluous and idle figure and some also hold it a superftitious and Idol-service That which I may and do plead with you for is this that you would so account of it as it is that there is a necessity lying upon you to baptise your Children born in original sin I mean a necessity not absolute but conditional in case your Children be prevented of Baptism by death you may well hope of the salvation of them by the Promise and Covenant onely as I said of God and his Grace and if after Baptism they be taken away from you by death you may better hope of their salvation from both Covenant and Seal also But if you be carelesse and negligent and do also it may be purposely and prophanely omit your duty to put your Children in Covenant with your selfs under the initial Seal thereof you will very hardly answer such your course either to God himself or his Church yea or to your Children and I think at laft to your own Consciences But in the mean time what blindnesse and presumption is this in you Parents to tempt God and to cast your Children onely upon the hands of his Spirit when he hath also appointed Water for their Washing and Regenerating this is as if you should throw up your Children unto the top of the Pinnacle of the Temple when as you have a Ladder standing and reaching up thither to carry them up by or upon upon this glosie God shall give his Angels charge over them so his Spirit order over them and in their hands shall they bear them up and on his finger shall he hold them lest at any time they perish and come to destruction bodily or ghostly What Prophanesse and impiety is this in you Parents to slight and refuse the outward ordinary means of your Childrens spiritual and eternal good as it may be the freeing of them from the Guilt Dominion and Condemnation of original pollution c. and to refer them over wholly to the inward ordinary means Christ Jesus and his Spirit when as these have appointed and dedicated the former to be used and applyed also What carelesnesse yea cruelty is this in you Parents to leave and let your Children lie in the pit and under the bondage of original and natural pollution into the which your selves have been accessary to their falling and not to suffer a hand of Gods ordinance to be reached out unto them which is Baptism for their raising up unto newness of Birth and Life And whereas God hath made a Covenant with you for your selves and your Children yea a joynt Covenant with you both to be your God and the God of your seed what ingratitude is this and ungodsiness to God what inhumanity or apparent imparentnesse is this to with-hold your Children from the Seal of that Covenant and so in a manner to disinherit them as much as in you lieth of their just and due Joynture and inheritance spiritual and eternal Well be it so your infants dying without Baptism may be saved and I pray God they may be saved through the Riches of his Grace but you have not delivered your own souls because you gave no warning to have them baptised as you ought to do seeing the evil come and more a coming upon them But suppose you with-holding them from their means of Baptism blow no Trumpet give no warning to have them baptised God should also with-hold his Spirit of Grace from your Children which God forbid and your Children be taken away in their infancy and minority They shall die in their iniquity or original sin But their-blood will he require at your hands for your negligence contempt you have broken his Covenant Gen. 17.14 Ezek. 33. A fifth warrant or reason is this If Baptism now under the Gospel doth succeed Circumcision under the Law Then are the Infants of covenanted beleeving Parents to be baptised like as Infants of the covenanted professing Jewes were circumcised this warrant is reasoned out or this reason warranted out of Collossians 2.11 and 12. Where the Apostle plainly sheweth that there is no need of their being circumcised who were baptised Jews or Gentiles because such baptised ones had received the Circumcision made without hands namely Baptism the better and great Circumcision as the Antients call it If you deny this you must affirm that the Churches of the Gospel and all the Gentiles converted to the faith of Christ of whom especially they consist are left without a Sacrament of Inititiaon or admission thereinto for their infants and so without one Seal of the Covenant of Grace which ought not to be nor is indeed For the Condition of Christians and their Infants is better at leastwise as good under the New Testament as the Old the Grace of God by the cōing of Christ into the world is more ample and clear as ample clear at leastwise to us living under the Gospel as to the Jewes living under the Law To deny these things were to cast foul dirt into the bright Sun and to shoot Arrows of Contumely Reproach into heaven against our Lord Jesus Christ by whom came Truth and Grace 1 John 17. as the Law was given by Moses and to grant these things is to yeeld Infant Baptism under the New Testament And whereas it is or may be replyed that in that Text above and others where Biptism is conjoyned to Circumcision as its substitute and successor there also are conjoyned with Baptism Mortification of the Flesh Newness of Life Faith and other Graces mentioned it s easily taken off though one of your most difficult Replies as thus 1. They are no more conjoyned with Baptism than Circumcision and therefore as their Infants were commanded to be circumcised So ours are commanded to be baptised notwithstanding their iuoability and incapacity of doing such acts or having such Graces which is equal and alike in both 2. In such Conjunctions if the Texts speak of Actual Faith Actual indeavoring after Mortification c. And require
natural hunger and infirmity But if you regard not your Children do you look to your selves and your ends and benefits and amongst these your Honor first Is it not a great honour to you to have a Child counted to some great house and of the Houshould and under the Protection of some Noble-man and is it not a great deal more honour to have a Child counted to the House of God the Church and of the Family and under the safegard of Jesus Christ why then baptise your Child If you stand not so much upon your Honor or theirs yet I am sure you are willing to have comfort of your Child and good hope here is not substance and evidence enough for Faith of its well being whilest it liveth spiritually and after death eternally the way is enter him into the Church of God by Baptism So you hope your Child is preferred and made for ever as you speak when once you had gotten him into some great House and noble Family which are but Cottages to the Church and ignoble to the Family of God Whereas if you with-hold him from Baptism you do leave him to have his visible actual standing abode in the House of darknesse and continue him in an outward case and condition as an alien from the Covenant and a stranger from the Common wealth of Christians what in you lyeth which must needs be both dishonorble and uncomfortable to you the while True indeed you may have comfort from the Covenant only if by some invincible and unvoydable act of Providence intervening your child be prevented and deprived of the Seal thereof which is Baptism full against your will and purpose but if through your default and wilfull detaining of him and Contempt of this Ordinance it so fall out that your Child dye unbaptized He may be saved without the Seal of the Covenant I believe but I dare not promise you herein Salvation or Comfort without Repentance of this your fault and sin against God in his Ordinance And so this shall be my last reason to you Parents for the bringing of your Children to Baptism for that thereby you shall not onely get honour to your selves as I said but give honour to God by your submission unto the Seal also for them to God I say who took order for your Childrens honouring you yea honoured you both by entring into Covenant with both and annexing the Seal of Baptism thereto for your further Comfort and Confirmation When our Saviour offered himself to be Baptized John forbade him saying I have need to be baptised of thee and comest thou to me but Christ took him off saying suffer it to be so now for thus it becommeth us to fulfill all Righteousness Matt. 3.13 14 15. as John the Baptist thought Christ above the Ordinance of Baptism by reason of his great perfection and there be also others as say they are above ordinances in a high conceipt of themselves So some of you Anabaptists think Infants of Christians below the ordinance of Baptism by reason of their great Imperfections Me things our Saviour Christ in this place answereth and resuteth both them and you them by his example who being the Highest in perfection yet stooped down and condescended to the Ordinance of Baptism Therefore none sure not the highest and perfectest amongst men in the Church upon earth are above Ordinances and you by his Doctrine and Exhortation suffer it to be so now for thus it becommeth you to fulfill all Righteousness a part and act whereof is the Seal of the Righteousness of Faith which Baptism is now under the Gospel as Circumcision was under the Law Rom. 4.11 and therefore as the Jewish Parents were diligent to fulfill that Righteousness by putting their Children in Covenant under that Seal of Righteousness Circumcision so ought ye Christian Parents to be carefull to fulfill this Righteonsness ousness and to put your Children in Covenant also under this Seal of Righteousness Baptism Suffer it to be so now suffer little Children to come unto Christ and forbid them not for they have need to come to him and now in his absence to his Ministers to be Baptized For thus it becommeth you as them to fulfill all Righteousness Make not a Nullity of the Seal of Righteousness lest you come at length to make Righteousness it self a Nullity too and now that I am fallen upon this matter of Righteousness I shall turn to you again Sir my Quaerist and ask you if you do not deny Baptism to Infants upon this ground that you think the efficacy of Baptism is seated and founded upon the practical Righteousness of a Professour or Member of the Church manifested in words and deeds Confession and Conversation which if you do as indeed you do and all that stand out against Infant Baptism it is a groundless ground For the Text I just now cited sheweth that it is not so grounded but only upon Covenantal Righteousness and the free grace of God in Christ for so Rom. 4.11 He received the sign of Circumcision à Seal of the Righteousness of Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised that he might be the father of all them that believe c. that Righteousness might be imputed unto them also where you see it or hear it in the very Terms Righteousness of Faith not Life or Works Imputed-Righteousness not inherent or practised which both Abraham had and his Children must have Now though our Christian Infants have no inherent Righteousness or practical manifested unto us by their words or deeds as you require in those you Baptize and therefore put off your Christian Infants untill years of discretion to profess true Faith and years of action to practice good works yet we present and dedicate them in their Infancy by Baptism to Gods mercy and fatherly love in Christ their and our Ruighteousness and Atonement for that we know God hath Righteousness to be imputed unto them by vertue of his Covenant of Grace I come to my seventh and last Warrant which I foresse will bring you to no Justice yet I will serve this also upon you for though now and then in your letter you let fall such a word as Primitive Practice and the good old way yet I know you cannot in your heart abide Antiquity and the Primitive practices of the Church of old for that they are point blank against your blank point of Baptizing onely such believers as can and do make Profession of their Faith in Christ which is but a novel New Light of those Blazings Comets and Meteors that sprung out in Germany some while ago but yesterday in comparison of the Baptisin of the Infants of believers which hath brightly shined out throughout all the Churches in good and full Lustre Sun-like untill the Man in the Moon Muncer his Lunaticks or Moon-Sirs interposed and made some Eclipse thereof in the Churches This therefore is my sixth and last Reason If it hath been an ancient practice
and constant custom of the Primitive and the succeeding Churches throughout the several ages to Baptize the Children of believing Parents in their Infancy then it ought to be so still continued accustomed and practised This Warrant may be Reasoned out of the word or the Reason warranted out of Matth. 19.4.9 where Christ in case of a point of difference about divorce himself argueth and reasoneth from the Ancient times and the beginning of the Church of God So out of 1 Cor. 11.16 if any man seem to be Contentious we have no such Custom neither the Churches of God Where you and I may see the case there and here to be much alike The Corinthians had got up a fashion of their mens praying covered in their long Hair and their women praying uncovered in their shorn Hair you likewise have taken up a practice of baptizing onely believers when grown persons they make profession and have shut out Infants from their right to the Seal of Baptism being Covenanters with their Parents Saint Paul refuteth that their fashion by divers arguments drawn from the headship of man over the woman from the dishonouring of the head from the shamesulness and the uncomeliness of it from the Presence of the Angels from the light of nature five good and sound arguments and when he perceived for all those that they were contentious and quarrelsome with him about and for their fashion He clappeth upon them as his last argument this taken from the Churches of God that have been before us In like manner I have refelled your Practice by sundry Warrants and Reasons raysed out of the word from such Infants some of them having the spirit and faith in some degrees from their being in the same Holy Covenant of Grace with their Parents from the proportion and succession of Baptism unto Circumcision from Baptisme's being a remedy against Original sin especially from Infants capableness of the ends effects and benefits of Baptism five good and warrantable reasons out of the word and supposing for all this you will not be conquered though overcome but will still strive and contend contrary to 2 Tim. 2.24 Now I urge upon you in the last place this Reason which is the Custom of the Church both Modern we have such a Custom of Baptizing Infants of Believing Patents and we have no Custom approved or General of Baptizing onely Grown Believers As also Ancient Neither the Churches of God have had any such For so though Saint Paul argue N gatively onely the Reason is of as much force and weight affirmatively and the Custom of the Ancient and Modern Church's is good and pleadable both against the New Lights of late scismatical Innovators as also for the old Light of former and present Orthodex Professours As for the Negative the Not or No Custom Primitive and practice Apostolieal of Baptizing again at their growth upon Confession of Faith such as had been Baptized before in their Infancy I do reserve it for at other Place your Dipping Pond of which I shall speak at last onely here I shall bring in the Affirmative That the Ancient Prinritive Churchès succeeding the Apostles what the Apostles themselve did do and practied shall hereafter soon follow did hold and practice the Baptizing of Infants And though I think it will but disturb your Brain and cause you to stop your Nostrils and Mouth who small no sweet Savour or Odour of Antiquity as being one of the New Sent or unsent rather yet notwichstanding I shall and relate the Dictates of some of the Ancient Apostles succeeding Pastors and Fathers of the Church of old and I will do it for others sake who are Lovers of Antiquity but I will do it in English for your sake whom I am Instructing who are no lover of Languages more than you can speak I know you will not take this General Custom and Practice of the Church upon my bare word and present Assertion nor do I desire you should Therefore Remember the dayes of old consider the years of many Generations ask thy Father and he will shew thee thy Elders and they will tell thee ask now of the dayes that are past which were before wheâ—â—er there hath been any such thing as the Baptizing of Infants of Believers You shall readily find the same attested by the Reverend Fathers of the Church the Bishops and Doctors of the dayes of old and years of former Generations to have been so to be the Custom and Practice In a matter of Fact or Practice one Good and Creditable witness is sufficient and that I am sure I have Saint Augustine I mean not onely for the General Practice of Infant Baptism in his dayes and those present tim 's wherein he lived as might easily be shewed our of his Books of Original Sin Chap. 40. Third Book of the Merit of Sin and Remission Chap. 9. Third Book against Julian fourth Book of Baprism against the Donatists c. But also for the former and praeceding Churches up to the Primitive dayes For so Augustine who lived in the year after the Nativity of Christ 39â— and was Presbyter first and after Bishop of Hippo saith thus in his third Epistle to Volusian The Custom of the Mother Church in Baptizing little ones is in no wise to be despised not to be thought needless and were not to be believed but that it was as Apostolicall Tradition This is a very full and clear evidence of an Ecclesiastical Custom an Apostolical Tradition whether written or unwritten that infringeth it not according to that of the Apostle 2 Thest 2.15 hold the Traditons which ye have been taught whether by word or Epistle not to be despised but believed Nor did Augustine utter this suddenly but advisedly and therefore upon second thoughts saith it over again and the more Resolutely in his 15. Sermon of the words of the Apostle Let no man saith he buz or whisper into our eares any Doctrine to the Contrary This Practice of Baptizing Ghildren The Church alwayes had this it hath this it alwayes held this it hath received from the Faith or fidelity of our Ancestors and this it keeps Constantly to the end Therefore doth the same Father so often and so much press this Argument The Churches Practice of Baptizing-Infants upon Pelagius and his followers who were Contemporary with Augustine holding Infants were not taken or tainted with original Corruption and Sin by propagation but only contracted the same by Imitation as in his 150 Epistle unto Sixtus in his second Book of Marriage and Concup 18. Chap. in his first Book against Crescon the Grammarian cap 30. in his fourth Book against the Donat. c. 23. in his sixth Book against Julian one of Pelagius his Schollars or his opinions Now if this had not been truly and undeniably The Custom and Practice of the Church even up to the first and Primitive times as Augustine affitmed Pelagius and his Disciples would soon have fallen foul upon
the Church of God which the family of Christ chiefly was in the Apostles times at the beginning of their preaching the Gospel to and throughout the world was much after the manner of the Family of Abraham which was then the onely Church representative As therefore Abraham in his family had both adult and Infants himself being circumcised at 100. years old Ishmael at 14. years the Proselytes at other several ages Isaac at 8. dayes and so taught Ishmael and the Proselytes of his house of this covenant and the Sacrament thereof before he circumcised them but forthwith baptised Isaac before without any foregoing instruction just so doth our Saviour Christ appoint to be done in his family the Church which was now to be raised in the greater part and gathered out of the Nations So as the adult Heathens aliens from the Covenant void knowledge were first to be taught before they were baptised but the Children of such taught and baptised Heathens were forthwith to be initiated by the Sacrament of Baptism before they were taught in the heads of Religion Now the condition of our Churches is a constituted and planted Church already formed and therefore according to the intention of this Text the baptising of Infants is to precede and the teaching them to follow when by reason of years and capacity they can hear the word 4. Christ indeed gave Command that whom his Disciples had taught they should be baptised but that none should be baptised but suchf as were first taught that is your Addition or Tradition wherein you resemble the old Separates of the Jewes the Pharisees as I have told you the name of a Pharisee is in English a Separate For as they transgressed the Commandements of God by their Traditions of the Elders Matthew 15. So do you corrupt this Commandement of Christ by your Additions and the inventions of your Youngsters But in vain did they worship God Teaching for doctrines the Commandements of men and in vain do you worry us bringing in for proofes the glosses and expositions of Children But look again upon the Text in Matthew and see if Teaching do not also follow close after Baptising and Baptising so goeth before Teaching thus with your own Argument retorted I have slain you as Goliah with his own Sword But sure our Saviour Christ being the God of Order and the Wisdom of God did not thus place the words and order them up and down to no purpose Yea I conceive that in so doing he purposed to give a full and universal Precept or Command for Baptism both to the Apostles and others the Pastors of the Church unto the worlds end that so when they ceased committing their converted Churches unto these succeeding them these might proceed where they left to build upon their foundations To Baptise and Teach where they had taught and Baptised And thus the words are very orderly placed and ranked the first file as I may so speak being of Teaching and Baptising where the Apostles wâ—â—â— as Ambâ—ssidours in Extraordinary Teaching the Cown Men and Women of the Nations and Pagans the Gratuital Covenant of God and baptising them or giving them the initial Seal thereof The next file or order is of Baptising and Teaching where went either they also as Pastors in Ordinary or other Ordinary Pastors Baptising the Children and Infants of such converted Nations and Pagans being in Covenant with their Parents and teaching them afterwards to observe whatsoever Christ commanded c. So that here seemes to be Christs Commandement in this Text both for Adult-Baptism and also Infant-Baptism or if you will for Parental-Baptism upon their being taught the Covenant and their embracing and professing Christ and also for Filial Baptism upon their being in Covenant as being Children of baptised Professors after which is to follow teaching and instructing of them as they are able which is punctually observed by us who do or should having baptised them by order Catechise them afterwards that so they may be fitted in due time for that other Sacrament the Lords Supper according to that of Hebrews 6 2. Where the Apostle speaks of Baptisms The Baptisms I mentioned which are plural or Two in respect of the subjects capable the grown men of the Nations converted and their Infants or Children but yet but one and the same Baptism as formerly I have shewed Baptisms I say and imposition of hands and alludeth to the practice then and since in use with the Church That such Children as were baptised in their Infancy should afterwards openly in their own persons and with their own mouth own the Covenant confirm an ratifie the promise and condition make Profession of their Faith and so be by imposition of Hands farther confirmed and admitted to the Lords Supper Now you Sir quite contrary to the order of these prinicples of the doctrine of Christ as they are called in the 1. verse of Heb. 6. You begin at imposition or laying on of Hands before Baptism or the laying on of Water and so do but impose upon us as the Children Impostor-like requiring first Confession of Faith from them before they have from you Administration of Baptism as if your Children born Christians had no more privilege were in no better condition than the Pagans and Nations Christ sent his Apostles unto 5. I shall tell you that the word translated Teach all Nations in which lyeth all the force of your arguing against Childrens Baptism it signifieth see your want of skill in and your folly in declaming and clamoring against University and human learning in the divine languages for so are the original ones signifieth in the original not onely to Teach but to make Disciples of the Nations to admit them to be Scholars to be taught This is the end wherefore the Apostles were sent out namely to make Disciples and the Actions whereby they were to attain this end were Baptising and Teaching and if it were not thus there would be found a Tautology in Christs words and you must read them thus Go teach all Nations baptising them Teaching them Such an Exposition as this would put you to your shifts Go ye make Disciples to me out of all Nations by Baptising and Teaching and such a one may do well enough very well against you who when you come to this or any Text do but shift up and down for your self but sift not at all for the sense And therefore to puzzle you a little for there is no farther hopes of any of you I fear I will tell somewhat more that our Divines have added to justifie this Exposition Christ saith not go make Disciples and baptise them but make disciples baptising them implying that by baptising them they made them Disciples Like as it is said that John did baptise in the Wildernesse and preach as though he did baptise first and then preach So all Israel is said to be baptised into Moses not as already taught but to be taught by
such were baptised and all their housholds such a one and All his by the Apostles is your imagination so strong and wide as to shut out the children first out of doors of those housholds that so next you may exclude them from the Apostles Baptism You must do so if there were any within doors or tell us that the Apostles passed by them in their baptisings or you must shew us that all the Women in those housholds were barren not a Mother of a Child or a young one amongst them all For though there should not have been in them Infants or Sucklings yet if but a youngling and a Child of some years all would have been but as one as to their Understanding and confessing Or you must thus divide the housholds as you are good at dividing houses and households setting the Husband against the Wife and alienating the Children from Father Mother which is a very bad practice and say that not all the Houshold was baptised whereas the Text saith expresly He and all his houshold were baptised but some major part or the most considerable part of the house and when it is said the house of Israel was circumcised its meant not of a part either major or most considerable but of the whole house as to the Parents and Children and Servants also or Proselytes under their education and instruction I do not wonder you cannot abide our University Arts and Sciences These cannot abide you and such reasonings and interpretations the Apostles baptised such and all their housholds that is the greater part the people of Growth for though sometimes such a word may be so taken where all are not capable of the thing done or spoken of you must prove it to be so here meant in all the places where the Apostles baptised such and all their housholds which you can never doe the express Letter which you are so for is expresly against you such and all their housholds of which many times also children are not onely some of all and a part of the whole but in your Tearms one of them at least the major part I say not the most considerable but I say a capable part too but if in all or any of these housholds there was but one infant or any one young stripling you are gone as to the Apostles practice who baptised the beleever and all his houshold and incapacity here is none to hinder either our interpretation or the Apostles ministration for if there had been any in the houshold uncapable The Apostle would not have baptised the whole houshold or the beleever and all his houshold and I have abundantly shewed before from the Apostle that Infants of Beleevers are capable of baptism Verse 32. Now if be said that the Apostle preached and spake the word to the Gaoler All that were in the Gaolers house so all might beleeve and be baptised it is true the Apostle did so speak the word to all capable of it but yet at the 31. Verse he speaks of the salvation of all the house upon the tearms of the Gaolers beleeving for that the promise and Covenant being so made at first held still to beleevers parents and their children and here also servants because it is said he and all his were baptised in the 33. verse So it appears to me that the Gaoler himself onely beleeved and had an inward work of Faith wrought in the heart upon some special evidence he received of Christ come in the flesh whereupon he and his of whom the other Pagans of his family there is nothing said as to their faith whether servants of growth or children under age the whole houshold were baptized immediately in relation to the Fathers and Masters undertaking and engaging for themselves and their housholds And indeed to keep to my particular if such in these or our housholds as did or do actually beleeve and professe were and are to be baptised onely why was the houshold as of the Gaoler before who onely there beleeved as I have shewed so the houshold of Lydia of whom onely it is said that the Lord opened her heart to beleeve in Christ baptised Surely the Apostles would not bring in a different Administration now in the housholds of beleeving Christians whether out of Jewes or Pagans from that which ever was in use and practice amongst the housholds of beleeving Jewes at first and therefore went here according the common custom formerly used in time of circumcision and where they baptised any beleeving Father of a Family there they did baptise or others for them the children of the same houshold or might have done Otherwise how could they the Apostes when they preached the Gospel to all Nations and so to their housholds how could they bring the blessing of Abraham into all Nations and their housholds according to the prophecy and promise thereof by God if they did not apply the Covenant and the Seal generally to them and theirs in the same manner as it was to him and his so that the children of beleevers might now be baptised as formerly they were circumcised And lastly I may add this That when men in those dayes were converted from Judaism or Pagainism they did probably at their admittance into the Church by baptism make an open and solemn League and Covenant with God before some people present to professe the Faith of Christ they and their housholds which Saint Paul may seem to put some of them in mind of Ephesians 6.4 Fathers bring up your Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord And therefore when the Apostles did baptise housholds of beleevers they did it in relation on to the Parents or others in their stead undertaking and ingaging for themselves and the children therein And thus now at last and at length too as all other point I have asserted unto you this Point also of Apostolical Practice and Examples for the baptizing of the children and Infants of believing Parents I have answered all your Quaeres and I hope have informed and setled your judgement better by my answers than you could do it by our Quaeres for I cannot yet forget how that at the end of them you say these your Quaeres are your judgement I proceed now to what you have more in your Letter of two sheets but do not mean to proceed as I have begun either to transcribe all your words of the second sheet all have done your words of the first or to bestow twenty and five sheets closely written in answering of your second sheet but loosely written as I have done upon your first sheet for I have dispatched hitherto but the one first sheet of your Letter and there is good reason for it For the first sheet for the most part put Quaeres to me in your number twenty one and they contained in them some material and substantial things to be answered of a large extent and great depth and therefore I thought
good to give unto them a full and proportionable answer what pains and time soever it should cost me But that which you propound in your second sheet to me is nothing but certain Considerations of your own against baptism of Infants and about some Texts of Scripture the very froth and barmings of your own head the which if I should let alone unreplied to as once I was resolved would of themselves sink disperse and fall to nothing But lost you should swell and be puffed up in any conceipt of these your considerations as the Bladder is with its own winde I will as briefly as I can with my short breath by reason of my old age blow away your froth and let out your winde that so the hollowness and shallowness of them may appear to the Reader The Title you set over your first Consideration is this More particularly about the Doctrine of Babtism Baptism consider these Arguments proved by clear and plain Scripture Sir this is a false Title to your Tractate for if you would have done here more particularly it should have been and you should have said about the Doctrine of Infant-Baptism for if you bring not Arguments not onely about Baptism as you say but against Infant baptism and these proved by clear and plain Scripture I shall not consider them neither have you considered well of our difference 1. You bid me Consider that the Doctrine of Infants Babtism overthrows the nature of the Covenant of grace and the whoe whole Gospel of Christ why so because the Covenant of grace and Gospel of Christ stands upon the account of faith actual in there one heir own persons as uppears in John 3.36 and John 5.24 But Infants Babtism stand upon the account of the faith in there their Parents or Surtie Sureties although they have none for themselves and so makes faith void and unnesesery unnecessary to the perticipation participation of the Covenant Rom. 4.13 Gal. 3.17 8. But what do I did I not say I would not transcribe your words of your second sheet but I see I must do it for there is so much false-written English in them that I must of necessity do it lest if inscribed to my Answer that may be thought mine But to the matter Baptism of Infants of Believers doth not overthrow but establish the Covenant and Gospel of Grace because it sealeth and executeth it Neither doth the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel stand upon the account of actual Faith in all mens own persons but onely such as being grown in years are converted from Paganism these must make profession of faith before they can come into the Covenant and be sealed But actual faith is not a Condition required as to the Covenant or Seal in Infants Your Text therefore of John 3.36 is not to the purpose as which onely sets everlasting life upon to use your phrase the account of actual faith which I grant and so doth the next Text John 5.24 as appears for that he begins with and speaks of such as do hear the Word of God and beleeve in Christ which is not appliable to Infants but grown men And as to your Inference The baptism of Infants stands upon the account of their being in Covenant together with their Parents and not upon the account of the Faith in their Parents or Sureties but only so far as the Faith of the Parents serves to shew them a seed of the faithful and the Faith of the Sureties undertakes for their education in and profession of Faith afterwards How strangely also do you pervert that Text Romans 4.13 For it is there said the promise was made to Abraham that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham and his seed through the Law but through the Righteousnesse of Faith Which he had yet being uncircumcised to whom God upon this account of this faith made the Promise both to himself and his Seed you would have the faith there spoken of to be the faith of the Seed or Infant as holding it necessary to the participation of the Covenant and so falsifie both Covenant and Text which both together with your last Gal. 3.17 do quite overthrow your first overthrowing Consideration for Argumentation here is none More of this you shall have hereafter Your second Consideration because it hath a Narration yea a repetition of what you set down in your first Page about the nature of the state so you speak whereas rather you should say the state of the Nature of Christs true visible Church under the Gospel to the shewing of which you here onely describe Christs true invisible Church and therefore cite the Texts you did before and add some more that speak onely of invisible Members such as you call Saints made so by the immortal Seed new Creatures by the benefit of Regeneration I shall therefore say nothing to that here but refer you and especially the Reader to what I have largely before discoursed about the state and nature for I will correct my self too of the Church both visible and invisible for though you may perhaps have no such care of me I must and will be carefull that I dead not the Reader by any tedious and vain repetitions and Tautologies Yet this I say in anser to it That Infant-Baptism in the Church is so far from overthrowing as you argue the nature and state of Christs true visible Church that it is rather much confirmed and established increased and enlarged thereby because thereby more are admitted in present members visible and are engaged to be for the future visible professors and confessors of Christ yea and the invisible Church also is not overthrown but upheld and augmented by our Baptism of Infants as whereby many Infants are not onely dedicated and consecrated unto Christ but are also by Baptism as a Seal and Means as I have shewed regenerated and so fitted and prepared the better for Heaven and happiness And whereas you add That Infants Baptism is grounded upon the Relation they have to the Church by generation onely or by the meer pro ession of faith and repentance in the Parents and Sureties I see you are corrupted in your Principles and grounds of Divinity Once more I tell you I pray learn it now for I will teach you it no more for the Readers sake that Infants Baptism is grounded and foundationed upon the Covenant of God made with the believing Parents for himself and Infants and that which you call Generation doth but raise up the ground and foundation-Covenant to bring it into some act of visibility in relation to the Church for the Seal thereof And so also Infants have not their relation unto the Church by generation rather by this they have relation to the world nor by the meer faith and repentance of the Parents and Sureties but by the Covenant and the Seal thereof in both which Infants are interessed together with their Parents have they their relation
unto the Church For which you may see Acts 2.39 41. because you give me no Text here which I wonder at of which I have your consideration in particular to peruse anon Onely I shall add a word or two about Sureties in the Baptism of Infants because I do not remember that hitherto before now you have made any mention of them and for that I see you are here in an errour about them and you would put a slur upon us and a kinde of slander upon our Church as if Infant-Baptism stood upon account of faith in the Parents and Sureties although say you they have none for themselves I will adde somewhat although they have more than your self I may say the one as well as you say the other Know then Sir that the costom of having Sureties at the baptizing of Infants hath been very ancient in the Church when Truth was in its prime light and Primitive purity though thereupon it is the less liked because the more unlike to the new upstart and out-staring novelisms of these later Ages and last declining times and their office was as to bear witness of the birth of Infants of Christian Parents and therefore were called Attesters or Witnesses as at this day so to answer for the faith and take upon them the education of the baptized Infants and for this they were called Sponsors or Susceptors Hereupon the Infant to be baptized although he did not profess himself to be Believer with his own mouth nor could yet being asked and interrogated as the manner was Doest thou believe he answered in the mouth and tongue of his Sponsors or Sureties or the very Parents or they which is all one answered in stead and place of the Infant I believe And without such profession of faith Infants publickly were not baptized in the Church Thus in and by the judgment of charity the Ancients held and judged the Infant to believe and that if it could speak with its mouth it would answer that it believed and because it could not they appointed as before Sponsors and Sureties in the name and place of the Infant to answer I believe And in this sense also besides others I have given were Infants of Christians called of old Believers because they did in some manner profess faith in and by the mouth and words of their Sponsors Sureties and Parents True its uncertain and unknown to the Church or man whether the Infant doth believe or not but unless the Church had so judged by the judgement of charity which saith the Apostle believeth all things hopeth all things the Infant to believe she would not have appointed Sureties and Sponsors in the name and place of the Infant so to asnwer and unless the Infant it self had so answered in the words and mouth of its Sponsors and Sureties she i.e. the Church would have forbid it to be baptized Thus I have told you of the ancient manner of the Primitive Baptisms with Sureties and Sponsors you must not now here call upon me for proof hereof out of the plain and direct Scripture for I acknowledge this ancient Custom and many a one in use amongst the first Christian Churches is not expresly prescribed in Scripture for then it might be concluded absolutely necessary for all ages and persons to follow so neither is it forbidden explicitly in Scripture and therefore not utterly to be rejected as unlawfull to be used as which was for the good of the Infant and hurs of none as having neither impiety nor iniquity in it so also it was for the provision and better education of the Infant the edification of the Church and the demonstration and exercise of Charity to and charitable judging of others Insomuch that as those venerable Names and Lights of the Ancient Church Tertullian and Auguâ—tine have related and delivered that Custom of baptizing with Sureties and Sponsors so other Reverend Names and Lights of these Modern reformed Churches as Luther Zanchy Beza have allowed approved and commended the aforesaid Custom as fit to be retained still From all which it now appears that you Sir are much out when as you talk and tattle of the Churches baptizing Infants upon account of faith in the Sureties although they have none of their own for you see it was not upon the account of the faith of the Sureties which the Sureties had of their own that Infants ever were baptized but upon the account of the faith of the Infant which the Infant had of its own testified and professed in their name by the Sureties appointed by the Church which judged charitably of the Infant to beleive that the Infant was baptized But now before I proceed to the next I will call upon you to consider That your Doctrine of baptizing actual Believers onely and thereupon not baptizing the Infants of Believers until they have actual faith and can and do make confession of it doth rather overthrow as much as in you lieth the nature of the Covenant of Grace and the whole Gospel of Christ at leastwise to the Seal thereof all the while from their birth that such Infants are kept by you from the same Seal of Baptism for you cannot keep them from their Covenant though you do shamefully ingratefully ungraciously yea and unnaturally keep them from the Seal The thing is evident enough if you do but remember this is the nature of the Covenant and Gospel of Christ the Promise of God to be the God of the believing Parent and his Seed joyntly therefore also of his child as soon as it s born yea before when it is his Seed and soon after its birth Gods will is declared to have this Covenant executed and confirmed by an initial Seal of Circumcision upon Infants in the Old and of Baptism upon Infants in the New Testament now who overthroweth this Covenant we who put our Infants under the Seal of the Covenant soon after their birth it being their birth-right or you that with-hold it from your Infants until they come to be of years to make profession let God himself be judge and that his Word Genesis 17.14 He hath broken my Covenant who the child whose flesh of his fore-skin is not circumcised so also he whose flesh is not washed with the water of Baptism which latter if not done or ordered to be done by you who are Parents to the Child the breach and overthrowing the Covenant lieth upon you and not upon the child to answer for You have broken the Lords Covenant and the Lord may break in upon you as he did upon Moses for neglect of circumcising his Seed Exodus 4.24 Consider of it it s the Lords mercy you are not broken and consumed let the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering lead you to repentance the Covenant Gospell Christ being the same under both Administrations God will look and justly may and must that his Covenanters or covenanted with even Instants shall be now partakers of
Baptism in a proportionable time if there be no intercoming excusable impediment like as the same were of Circumcision And now also before I set upon your next Consideration consider with your self whether your Doctrine of baptizing Believers onely and thereupon your not baptizing of Infants of Believers until they come to have actual Faith and to a confession of it doth not rather overthrow the state and nature of Christs visible Church under the Gospel I have largely proved before and that out of Texts you here cite to the contrary Romans 1.7 1 Cor. 1.2 c. That Christs visible Church under the Gospel consisteth and is made up of visible and outward members and professors some of which though unknown unto us are members also of the invisible Church under the Gospel and I have also clearly shewed you that Baptism is a means of entrance and admission into the visible Church whereby Infants who by vertue of Gods Covenant may also belong to the invisible Church as members are reckoned enrolled even made members of the visible Church Nâ—w then whether of us do overthrow the State and Nature of Christs visible Church under the Gospel we who help to uphold and increase it by our ad nitting and initiating of our Infants to be visible members thereof through our baptising of them in their Infancy or you who by your not baptising of them for the space of 15. or 16. years and more and sometimes as much more do all that while with-hold visible members from the Church yea and do all that while leave them to a visible standing and being under the kingdom of darkness though invisibly it may be otherwise which is most opposite to the Church of Christ Let the next Reader judge for you are neither fit nor able to judge herein as who are already prejudiced prejudicated and prepossessed with a Spirit of delusion as to the Nature and State of Christs visible Church under the Gospel 3 You bid me Consider That Infants babtism it overthrows the end for which true babtism was appointed For the Chief one of Christs true babtism of beleevers was to distinguish the true Church from the World Col. 2.12 Compared with Verse 20 Gal. 3.26 and 27 Act. 2.41 But Infant baptism overthroweth this distinction because all are admitted in by it and no distinction made Sir I not think of it until just now or else I should have asked you a Quaere Why you alwayes write it Bahatism when as you are so great an enemy to Babe-baptism I shall be bold to answer it thus because you do so babble about baptism For is not this in present as there hath been much of it before profane and vain babling which the Apostle bids you shun to talk of The end for which baptism is appointed and then to call it a Chief one And then to instance in the distinguishing of the true Church from the world as a chief one which is the inferiour one and lastly to cite holy Scriptures which are too no such purpose is not this prophane and vain babling But I answer to the matter 1. It is an unsound and lame assertion or proposition to say that Infants baptism is to be rejected for ever as you conclude your Considerations with and therefore mean so in every one if it should overthrow one chief end for which true baptism was appointed when as in the mean it upholds five other ends as chief if not chiefer which I have reckoned up to you in my fift warrantable Reason for baptism to which I refer you 2. How will you prove Infants baptism to overthrow the end why true baptism was appointed because it overthroweth the chief one which was to distinguish the true Church from this but how if there be the ends as well as the end why true baptism was appointed how if amongst the ends there be chiefer ones than that chief one you mention how if Infants-baptism do not overthrow those five chiefer ones though supposed onely it should overthrow one chief one Here be now some Quaeres for you But now how prove you also The chief one end of true baptism to be to distinguish the true Church from the world you cite Col. 2 12. and 20. There is mention made of baptism and the world and a spiritual end and effect of baptism that therein the Colossians were buried in Christ and risen with him alluding to the ancient manner of baptising by immersion and emersion to signifie them both they were freed from the Rudiments and Ordinances of the World that is of the Legal oeconomy of the Jewes and what 's all this to the purpose of baptisms being a chief end to distinguish the true Church from the Heathen World which is also but an external end And though the Text speak of grown persons and Heathens converted yet it is true also of all elect and regenerate Infant of which there are many you cannot deny it that they are buried with Christ in baptism and risen with him c. So that you get nothing by this Text against Infants-baptism They rather gain by you hence for their baptism But ther 's nothing at all gained for the distinguishing the true Church from the World by baptism as the chief end thereof So that other Text Galathians 3.26 Is nothing to your purpose yea against your purpose for it speaks onely of the inward and spiritual effects of Baptism and of baptism into Christ that thereby the Galathians had put on Christ and were so incorporated as they were one in Christ so that there was neither Jew nor Gentile bond or free So far is this Text from shewing the distinction of the true Church from the World to be the chief end of baptism that it rather and onely shews the spiritual Union of true Christians with Christ to be one end and a chief one which also all Infants regenerate and baptised into Christ do attain unto as well as these grown Galathians and converted Heathens I professe I never read in all my life time Texts of Scripture more impertinently cited and I had once thought to have let your Citations of the word alone and onely have replyed to your words But that I honor the word and you do dishonor it by citing it for that which is not in it even as Christ said he honored the Father but the Jewes dishonored him by saying he came not from the Father Your last place though it comes some what neerer that the former as to an external addition of the 3000. Souls unto the Church by baptism yet it as far from mentioning any distinction of the true Church from the world and making it the chief end of baptism as the other before 3. Infant baptism doth not overthrow but support that end the distinguishing of the true Church from the World that is from the World out of the Church which is the Pagan and Heathenish World you must mean this or else
Judaism But no doubt Peter here aimed and even pointed at that grand and fundamental Covenant of Grace made to Abraham In thy seed shall all families of the Earth be blessed Such a Promise as this of Grace and the free remission of their sins by that blood of Christ though shed by some of them sealed in the Sacrament of Baptism comes seasonably to them to pacifie their troubled consciences and cheer up their drooping spirits whereas the other Promise of receiving the Gifts of the Spirit that is the extraordinary ones of speaking divers Languages c. would nothing so properly and effectually have done it as that was the thing then in hand to be done And besides the Promise here spoken of being a Gospel Promise was to extend to all also that were afar off as many as the Lord shall call and so it did pass on in the general Tenders Privileges and Effects to the Believers of the Gentiles and their children from that time and so shall unto the end of the World But you will not say I dare say That according to this Promise the believers of the Gentiles and their Children have received and shall receive those Gifts of speaking divers and strange Languages throughout all Ages and Generations Such a Promise was never made and ought not to be challenged of God But it may be the Promise made to Abraham was but a personal and peculiar one to him and his seed to be taken Into Covenant and to become a visible Church I will be thy God and the God of thy seed i.e. Isaac Jacob and their children No it extended we see to the Proselytes of other Nations also and to all followers of Abraham's faith both Jews and Gentiles and therefore the same Promise was frequently renewed in Scripture many hundred years after those Patriarchs deceased both to Jews and Gentiles as Isa 30.6 Isa 44.2 3. and so shall continue unto the end of the World Isa 59.21 to as many as the Lord our God shall call until the very last calling in of the Jews it being as I said a Gospel-Promise Yea say you it is granted when any of the Children of Believers come to be called and do believe this Promise shall be made good to them But thus saying you make the Promise to hold forth no more comfort or benefit to the children of Believers than the children of Pagans and thus even Isaac and Jacob should have no external privilege by this Promise until they actually believed yea thus all the Jews but such as were Elect and truly faithfull were cut off as well as the Gentiles from having any visible communion in external privileges thereof The Call here is either inward or outward if inward can none partake of the outward privileges as Baptism but such as have that We know those are common to the Elect and Reprobate If of an outward Call why the Infants of Believers enjoy this Call with their Parents and so partake of the Promise And what if Peter here required repentance of such as were in Covenant before baptism are therefore Infants not to be baptized so Ahraham was in Covenant and an actual Believer and justified in Uncircumcision and received Circumcift on as a seal of righteousness of Faith and Proselytes turned to the Jews were first to make profession of faith were therefore none but such to be circumcised But if being under the Covenant besufficient to give a proper right to the seals of it and the privileges of it as I said why-doth Peter keep such a do with these Jess being already in Covenant to repent and believe before they were baptised and why were none of them being in Covenant baptized but such as gladly received the Word and believed It is no where so said that none but such were baptized amongst the three thousand souls And as for the Jews who receiving the Word gladly were baptised you must know they were not now before it in Covenant so as to acknowledge Jesus Christ the Son of Mary to be the Messias and Saviour of the World as who denied that holy One and killed the Prince of life True they were born Jews under the Covenant in the first Ministration of it and were circumcised and had the seal of their faith in Christ to come But this being now antiqunted and out of date by the coming of Christ in the flesh and these Jews having renounced Christ and deposed themselves and their children from the Title they had to Christ as Matthew 27.25 they so renounced the Covenant they had Title to by birth and were now in a condition little better than Pagans Christians to be made and therefore they were not to have the new appointed seals of entrance which was Baptism to assure them that Jesus was Lord and Christ until they embraced him by faith confessing that he was come and that Jesus was he and repented of their crucifying him And thus having cleared the interpretation of the Text I will give you a Consideration of mine upon it before I come to your Considerations without any interpretation given of you My Consideration upon it is this That here is a good warrant for me and for Infant Baptism against you and so as Solomon said of Adonijah 1 Kings 2.33 That be had spoken a word against his own life I may say you have brought in this Word and Text against your self and the life of your Cause said I a warrant yea a very Command The words Be baptized every one of you you will not deny I suppose to be a word of command from Peter in Christs stead and so from Christ by Peter But the Command is To baptiae Father and Child I prove thus Because the Promise is to the Father and Child The Promise is made to you and your Children and therefore the Command is Be baptized every one of you and your Children For if the Children of Believers have a right to be baptized by the word of Promise they must have a right to be baptized by the word of Command and so the other way also these two being convertible Terms the word of Promise and the word of Command having mutual relation each to other So it s in the general nature of Covenants there must be a convertibility betwixt the two parts that do contract as the mutual Indentures shew and so also it must be in the Sacramental Covenant betwixt God and man and betwixt the word of Promise which is Gods part and the word of Command that contains the duty of man in the Sacramental Action And so particularly it was in Circumcision in which Institution there was a mutual neer relation and convertibility between the word of Promise I will be thy God and the God of thy seed and the word of Command Every man-child among you shall be circumcised so that as many of them that had a right to be circumcised by the word of Promise had a right to be circumcised
by the word of Command and so also the other way turn it and it s as true Sir my hand is now in and I will give you another Syllogism Whosoever are expressed in the Promise Verse 39. are contained in the Precept before Verse 38. Be baptized every one of you But believing Parents and their Children are expressed in the Promise Verse 39. The Promise is made to you and your Children Therefore believing Parents and their Children are contained in the Precept and so both are commanded to be baptized There is no difficulty but in the first Proposition and in it there is none by reason of the mutual relation and reciprocal convertibility that is betwixt a Promise and a Precept in Covenantal and Sacramental matters as hath been shewed And whereas it may be said That a Promise may be without a seal and this here doth not infer Baptism It is true but when men have once put their seal then there needs must be a correspondence and relation between that Seal and the Covenant So here though it was not absolutely necessary the word of Promise or Covenant of Grace should be set forth by outward seals appearing to the senses yet God having once anpointed them to signifie the inward grace it is now necessary there should be such a mutual relation between the word of Promise and the word of Command and the Seal also But I come now to your Consideration upon the Text of Acts 2. verse 39. Consider that such a being in the Covenant as maketh Faith void is no true being But that being in the Covenant which is concluded from the Faith of the Parents is such a being as maketh Faith void therefore no true being That this is so I prove That Title whereby any person hath once a being in the Covenant by the same he may remain in it for ever now then if any one hath such a Title as to be within the Covenant by being the seed of the faithfull he may remain in it for ever and so needs no faith of his own and so by the same reason one may all may and seeing all be the children of Abraham or Noah which were faithfull all are in the Covenant and so Faith needless in the wordl 2. Consider that such on Expositionas overthroweth the Promise that cannot be a true Exposition of the Text but such as expound a being in the Covenant from faithfull Parents overthrow the Promise Therefore this Exposition is no true Exposition for the Promise is upon account of faith in our own persons and not in our Parents as appears in Hab. 2.4 compared with John 3.36 And that it doth overthrow the Promise I farther prove because nothing answereth the Promise but faith and if faith be needless then the Promise is needless Sir I can write no farther being sorry I writ out so much of your needless stuff for to what purpose is all this are these Considerations upon Acts 2.39 they might have been upon any other Text as well which makes any mention of Promise Faith Children And what is it but such an Exposition as overthroweth the Promise Why did you not set it down the Exposition at first and then consider upon it you alwaiet love to shuffle with shadows and fight with fancies and strange Chymaera's Your purpose is to except to the children of Believers being in Covenant with their Parents for so I must still be working upon your earth which is without form and void and darkness upon the face of it like a Chaos and you say it is a false being as concluded from the faith of Parents and so maketh faith void First I must tell you that the being of children in the Covenant of Grace with their Parents was concluded by God jointly and together in that Promise I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed both were in the Promises and concluded together not one from another both in the Promise and confederate together not one from another Your expressions are uncouth unheard in the Church yet we may conclude thus That if the Parent be in Covenant with God then also his seed and children are in Covenant not so much from as for the faith of the Parents God accepting of it so as to Covenant with them and their Seed But grant your Conclusion in your own terms what then Such a being in Covenant as is concluded from the faith of the Parents maketh Faith voyd say you and say I what Faith or whose Faith do you mean Not the Faith of the Parents I suppose for the Baptizing of the Child or the being of it in Covenant from the Faith of the Parents as you speak doth rather confirm establish and bring it into effect than make it void nor can you mean the Faith of the Children for you holding them to have no Faith of their own as here you expresly say how can you say it is here made void any way which was or is no where extant at all nor is Faith required of them as to any manifestation of it for their being in Covenant or taking the Seal though these do require it of them afterwards But the Proof that you bring it being of I know not what nothing asserted before of you or denyed of me deserveth to be answered in its kind that is by a Reproof for thus you prove That Title wherby a person hath once a being in the Covenant by the same he may remain in it for ever I must cast in a grain of Salt here without which it is too fresh yea unsavoury that is so long as he lives and renounce not before whether he be one of our Infants or one of your grown Baptized ones Now then if any one hath such a Title as to be within the Covenant by being the seed of the faithful he may remain in it for ever and so needs no Faith of his own Here 's a rope of Sand for my grain of Salt I grant he may with the former limitation and he that hath such a Title as to be within the Covenant by being converted from Paganism may do so too and as one so all may And he needs no Faith of his own I hope you remember your self no Actuall Faith expressed as elsewhere you write it as to this purpose to give him Title unto the Covenant or Seal which his being the seed of the faithfull doth yet he needs Faith to give him Title to the benefits of the Covenant Justification and Salvation and he must be also a faithful seed himself And so by the same reason one may all may and seeing all be the Children of Abraham and Noah which were faithfull all are in the Govenant and so Faith needles in the world Sir you rise apace but to no preferment of a Proof before it was but He needs no Faith of his own and now it should but have been they need no Faith of their own because by the same reason one may
I tell you the Evangelist John is against the the Anabaptist John even herein in that very thing for which you cited him as I have shewed you but if for Truth sake out of love to the Truth you would have compared Habakkuk with Paul in any of the three Texts the Margent directed you to yea the whole Books and Epistles to the Romans and Galathians they would have given you a cleer Elucidation if you would lay aside your own Spectacles and look with theirs that your Justification and everlasting life is there in the Prophet set upon the account of Faith in your own person applying to your self the Righteousness of Jesus Christ which contains rather the Execution of the Promise But what 's all this to the Promise it self here mentioned and of old made to the believing Parents and their Children in their Infancy Sure when you were a Child you spake as a Child you understood as a Child you thought or reasoned as a Child you reckoned and accounted as a Child I pray now give me some account because you make an instance in your self passing by the Faith in your Parents of the Faith was in your own person when you was a Child and went to Baptism by which you lived or instance now again in the Children of faithful Parents amongst the Jews what account of their Faith did any of them make in their own persons when they were Circumcised in their Child-hood or here in the 2. of Acts which you have taken upon you to expound what word or syllable or the least intimation is there of any account of faith to be made of Children in their own persons And yet the Promise and Covenant is both here said to belong to the Children and the Children before and so likewise to your self Sir all the while before you could or did give an account of Faith in your own person you would be loth to be accounted all that while to be without Christ and an alien or stranger from the Covenants of Promise having no hope and without God in the world and if you should think or say so of your self yet I will not so account of you and you would be very ungrateful unto God Covenanting and Promising and ungracious to your Parents bringing you into the world and to Baptism in so thinking or saying It is as cleer as the light at noon day that Feter to perswade those enemies and Crucifiers of Christ to Repent Believe and so to be Baptized and to come under the New administration of the Covenant of Christ exhibited in the Gospel whom they had renounced useth this as a main argument the Benefit also that should redound to their Children that they should also be accepted into Covenant and be made partakers of the external Privileges of the Church as to be Baptized and Counted Gods people like as before they were Circumcised and so reckoned which he proveth for the Promise is made to you and your Children as to them and their Children to you indeed upon account of your actual Faith in your own persons but unto them upon account as I have given before of their being taken of God into the same Covenant with you their believing Parents But for all this Though Children without account of Faith in their own persons by their Birth of believing Parents in Covenant and Promise have Right and Title to Baptism by vertue of the Promise and Covenant made to them both Thy God and thy Seed yet Children when they come to enjoy the Benefits of the Covenant in their Justification and Salvation they must have these upon the account of Faith in their own persons or some grace of the Spirit answerable applying Jesus Christ and his Righteousness unto them Your other Reason is Because nothing answereth the Promise but Faith and if Faith be needless then the Promise is needless You did well to add no Text here having abused enough already but let us look upward and see what it s you prove And that it doth overthrow the Promise what is it the Exposition of the Text Act 2.39 of Childrens being in Govenant from Faithfull Parents that it overthroweth the promise I prove farther because nothing answereth the promise but Faith thus then it must be reasoned if nothing answer the promise but Faith then Childrens being in Covenant from Faithfull Parents overthroweth this promise I am sure This is a needless consequence because the promise stands up still and is of so ce notwithwanding though there were no Faith in some to uphold it and much more though no Faith in some to answer it I will give you a Text here though you give me none Rom. 3.3 and 4. What if some did not believe shall their urbelief make the Faith of God the Faith made and given of God i.e. this promise without effect God forbid yea let God be true and every man a lyar Let Gods promise stand though some mens faith fall yea though none in the world had believed yet God would have fulfilled his promise in sending and exhibiting the Messias a Christ and therefore much less is the promise overthrown because there may want Faith in some for some while to answer it If indeed there were no Faith at all extant or to come any where to answer the Covenant and promise this might seem to endanger the overthrowing of it as to the taking effect and benefit in men and then your reason would be of some seeming consequence or your consequence carry some shew of Reason But it is not so here for here is Faith in the faithfull Parents as you acknowledge embracing and holding up the promise and here are Children in Covenant upholding also and enjoying the promise by birth of Faithfull Parents by grace and indulgence of God and for any thing you know by Faith or other influence of the Spirit Look again into the Text of Act. 2.39 See if the promise there be not standing fast and firm to the believing Parents and their Children though there is no mention made of Faith to answer the promises but only called for of those grown men that were to be and were Converted But which way do you mean Faith answereth the Promise For one thing may be said to answer another many wayes as the Antitype doth the Type the thing signified the Sign a thing regulated the Rule the consideration a bargain performance a contract or a Condition a Covenant I suppose it is this later way that Faith answereth the Promise For as the old Covenant with Adam stood all in Preceps Do this Live and so works as the Condition were to answer that Precept so the new Covenant stood all in Promiser I will be thy God if thou wilt trust to me and Faith as the Condition is to answer the promise else no proportion or agreement betwixt them For nothing but Faith it is that answers the promise it being impossible to have made the Sons of men
baptized or unbaptized is saved she hath no judgement of certainty but only of charity and this may have though there should be none of those particulars saved 4. That inward saving grace doth not alwayes attend the Covenant largely and comprehensively taken of which before nor the Seal but only in such as belong to the election of grace Yet the Church may in charity think so as to particulars in Covenant and under Seal till the contrary appear though she have no certain knowledge of it 5. Elect Infants Baptized and dying in their Infancy have no outward means of Salvation but their Baptism the Seal of the Covenant but there is an inward invisible grace which the Holy Spirit before in at or by Baptism doth truly really and actually impute or impart to them applying Christ in his Justifying and Sanctifying vertue unto the souls of such Infants This the Church holdeth not only as of Charity but as of certainty 6. Such Elect Infants Baptized and so dying are capable of and do attain to such saving inward graces not by the usual and ordinary way of Believing upon hearing and conceiving for such actual Faith is not of absolute nececessity to all Gods Elect but only to those to whom God affords the means of it it is the application of Christs Righteousness that justifieth them which is done to them either by some habits of Faith infused of God into their hearts or by Gods Spirit in a secret and unknown way to us supplying all defects in them and doing all things on their parts and this he holdeth most in charity with some though not full of certainty because it is secret 7. Such Elect Infants Baptized and living to the Use of Reason and Understanding the seeds of Grace and Faith infused before or in Baptism do grow up by the ordinanry means unto an actual apprehension of Christ and his Righteousness yea areall possession and comfortable fruition of Christ and all his benefits which were in Baptism truly and effectually sealed before unto them whensoever they should be capable to make use of them and this she affirmeth both out of certainty and charity 8. Because the Church and all this while I speak of the Church of old England hath no certain knowledge of particulars who are Elect Infants and who not but only a charitable opinion of this and that and so every particular one born in the bosome of the Church for that she not only charitably holdeth but certainly knoweth that all Infants born of Christian Parents are also inexternal and professional Covenant of God together with their Christian Parents Therefore she is carefull as she ought that all such in convenient time and with the soonest may be Baptized and receive the Initial Seal of the Covenant so as none as much as may be depart out of this life without Baptism not as if she certainly thought Infants having been true partakers of Baptism must needs without doubt be saved but because she will not be wanting in her charity and duty to God and such Infants which being once baptized and dying soon after she thinks them saved in her judgement of charity in which she thinketh the inward grace may accompany the outward Ministration but for any judgement of certainty and verity herein she disclaimeth and referreth the same to the God Omniscient Now to what end you add these last words Jesus saith Ye do erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God Mat. 22.29 I am the God of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Verse 32. unless it be to shew a kinde of fatality of errour falling upon you and following you wheresoever you go not knowing but pretending ever the Scriptures which still you cite as heretofore and speak words against your own life the life of your Cause and cut your own throat with your own knife or run your self thorow with your own Sword even the Sword of the Spirit the Texts of Scripture as you cite and apply them as here For by virtue of Abraham's saith which God so well accepted of did not God enter into and make a Covenant both with Abraham and his Seed Isaac and Jacob and all other both Jews and Gentiles who should be followers of Abraham's faith and God being the God not of the dead but of the living Abraham liveth still in the children of Abraham who are of the same saith with him and so the Covenant made with Abraham lives still in all believing Parents for themselves and their children In that saidest thou truly John 4.18 And for your last words hereabouts Consider these things with a single eye aiming at Gods glory and thy Neighbours good and answer these Considerations by plain and direct Scriptures if you can or eise leave off wresting the Scriptures to your own ends if not your destruction I have done it you see considered your Considerations which I wish you had better considered of that so they might have been truly Considerations and that not onely with a single eye as you speak but with a twofold eye so I must if aiming at both Gods glory and my Neighbours good even your good also as well as Parents and their children whereas your Considerations did neither but rahter obscured Gods glory in his Covenant and diminishing your Neighbours good the good of Infants especially which God hath enlarged to them And God hath enabled me for I can do nothing of myself to answer your Considerations by plain and direct Scriptures and Reasons drawn from them yea and such Scriptures as you have wrung wrested and wronged I have vindcaged by explaining them and directing of them to their right end and construction And so I shall not need to leave off that I never began But truly it is time for you to give over that which you have practised all along your Letter to me the wresting of Scriptures and that to your own ends if not destruction yea I must tell you though you may wrest the Scriptures to your own destruction unless you see your errour and repent you do not wrest them to your own ends I am sure for they do not come up or attain either to your own end the destruction of our Infant-Baptism or to your other end for both these are your own ends the justification of your Adult Baptism of persons before baptized I will not be my own judge herein but refer it to the indifferent Reader if any shall peruse this my Answer I proceed to that which followeth of yours An Exposition according to the minde of the Holy Ghost in that Scripture 1 Cor. 7.14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband else were your children unclean but now they are holly holy or clean which is opposite to uncleanness What a Mountebank are you alwaies thus to mount up your low bank and to elevate
Birth-holiness and lawful marriage to be the unbelieving Parent his sanctification Thus usual it is with God to confound the opposers of his truth so as to contradict their own Tenets for as they heard only that he which persecuted the Church in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed Paul by name Gal. 1.15 So we may see now that he which revileth the Church in times present now destroyeth the errours his own errours which once he preached and wrote but I will not name him and as they glorified God in Paul so we may glorifie God in this and say Great is Truth and will prevall vile is errour and will fall 2. If it come from the faith of the Parrents Parents or at least from the faith of one of them thenn then I pray tell me why Cayne Cain Esau Absolon and others were not saved seeing their Parents ware were all faithful and belevers believers and why was Rahab the Harlot saved seeing her parents ware Heathens or unbelevers neither ware the Parents of all those who were converted at the first preaching of the Gospel belevers Here it the same song again of the sanctification of holiness in children only to another tune the former was to the tune of the lawful marriage of their Parents and this is to the tune of faith of the Parents or at least one of them I have found or put the first song out of tune and I believe I shall do so to the second song especially in reference to the consort or consequence thereof Sanctification of holiness in children cometh not from the saith of Parents neither of them by way of conveyance causality or application as I have said before that is the faith of the Parent apprehending Christ and his righteousnes and holiness doth not cause convey or apply the same unto his or their child thereby to justifie and sanctifie it so it must if you will argue from it the faith of the Parents or one of them to the salvation of their child and therefore all that follows even your consquences are thus blasted and blown away But yet there is a sanctification of holiness in children that comes from the faith of the Parent or either of them by way of declaration relation or impetration that is the faith of the parents Covenanted with God and baptized into Christ doth relatively and declaratively sanctifie their child even unto the same holy seal of the Covenant with themselves and may impetrate holiness and salvation for him though not impart or derive the same to it unless it be in a foederal way which is a way also to salvation like as if the root be holy so are the branches But all this may be but without any necessary or infallible consequence of salvation hereupon though it is in the way and a way thereto as I said I must here tell you again of the same fault as I did before that our Discourse and Dispute is about childrens sanctification of holiness and you still run out to childrens salvation of happiness whereas this doth not alwaies or necessarily either Logically or Theologically follow upon that There needs no more or farther Consideration of this Paragraph but only of this that instead of proceeding in Dispute like an Academick and Scholar you conclude here like an Epidemick and vulgar Taking away the subject of the question the holiness of children from the faith of the Parents for you give instances of Rahab a Heathen whose Parents were Infidels she was saved from the Grace of God what is that to her being sanctified from the faith of Parents the like is to be thought and said of those first converts Besides you are out of the text you undertook to expound according to the minde of the Holy Ghost for here the Corinthians second Quaere and the Apostles second answer which you are upon is about the living children of believers at least one of them and their childrens holiness you instance in Rahab a grown person as were also these first converts whose Parents were unbelievers it is likely both of them as to Rahab and you tell me of their happiness and salvation being now dead Well Sir if you were a young man or youth I would perswade you to go to one of the Universities for all this But I go to another even the last now of your Considerations and glad I am that I am come to the last end of your Considerations that so having gone through them I may return again to my Considerations of my latter and last end Deut. 32.29 and make ready to answer my last Enemy and Adversary which is Death 1 Cor. 15. 3. If it be a foederal holiness that the Apostle here speaketh of as Mr. Weinell afirmeth affirmeth and others likewise I would desire to know whether ever any of the seed of Abraham or David did enjoy any priveledg privilege of the Church upon any such account without or before they had a command for it ware were they Circumcised or did they eate the paskall paschal before they had a commaund for it And I pray shew me if you can any commaund in the Gospel for the Parrents Parents to admit any of there their children to any Ordinance of the Gospel without faith in there own persons or any commaund in the Gospel for any Minister of the Gospel to admit persons to any priveledg of the Church without faith in there owne persons or at least so far as the Ministers of the Gospel can judge Sir I thank you for your four last lines which being nothing but what you have Quaered before and I have answered before as you self or any Reader may see if you will review or remember I may save so much labour and passe by them with silence or only bid them farewell I see you begin to be weary as well as my self or to want new matter which makes you now here retrace and retract the old to requaere and require what formerly you have done I look upon them as a piece of Recapitulation as its usual at the period of a Discourse and I shall need to look no farther after them having made a long look before upon the matter of them As for the three first lines you are come now indeed to the Point your former its or suppositions were but circumferences or round-abouts It is now the second time you have named Mr. Weynell but not a Sentence or Argument of his do you mention much lâ—sse Argue against from first to last of this your Consideration upon 1 Cor. 7. The shortest and sweetest the finest and prettiest way of answering and confuting you have gotten that ever I met withal in any man I would you could or would teach it me I am not too old yet to learn any good thing of you your words in the beginning would have put upon him a false opinion even your own about the Matrimonial holiness of the unbeliever as if that were
more so the Reader cannot know the particular here of them until he take the Bible and look farther so ready I am not to blazen abroad but rather to go backward and cover your nakedness as Cham. But What have I done I thought indeed I had done and replyed to all your Letter But I perceive that it is undone as who have omitted one of your Texts which is in your last line of all John 14.15 and in these words of Christ Jesut If you love me keep my Commandements What a bad-sighted man am I that I should take no sooner notice of these last words of your last Text in your last line words like Apples of Gold with pictures of Silver as spoken in season a Text like a bundle of Mirth worthy to be laid betwixt the breasts A line Sir I speak seriously worth all your Letter besides and had it not been for this last line it had been so far from being any Love-Letter or Message of Jonathans to David that rather it would have been as Davids Letter against Vriah or a Johnathan's Maranatha Letter writing bitter things as Marah and breathing out not onely excommunication but even damnation whose mouth I have stopped notwithstanding If you love me keep my Commandements John 14.15 saith Christ to his Disciples This is a text to purpose which few or none of the former were brcathing love at last the best thing to end a Letter with and to make some recompence for all your hateful horrid hellish and malicious calumniations of your Mother and Brethren in the beginning thereof Above all things and so in the beginning and after things and so in the end Put on love which is the Bond of perfectnesse The Law maketh nothing perfect but love doth for the end and so the perfection and fulfilling of the Commandement is Love out of a pure heart and a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned at leastwise Christ Jesus whom we love as who loved us first is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth if Christ Jesus be the end of the Law and the Commandement and love the end of the Law and Commandement Then the love which is of Christ sure or Christ who is love for God is love must needs be the end of the Law and Commandement and therefore is ye love me keep my Commandements saith Christ John 14.15 a Text worthy to be thrice mentioned and repeated This is the one onely Text that you and I shall not differ in I hope and which you have rightly applyed and both my self and all of us do take to belong unto us to love the Lord Jesus Christ and to keep his Commandements yea I adde if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ Let him be Anathema Maranatha 1 Cor. 16.22 And in testimony of our love we walk in obedience of his Commandements but I will say to you asit is Jam. 2.8 9 If ye fulfill the royall Law according to the Scripture That shalt love thy neighbour as thy self ye do well but if ye have respect to persons ye commit sin and are convincedof sin as transgressors For he that said If y love me keep my commandements said also Thou shalt love thy neighbour or Brother and keep that Commandement also of his amongst others and this Commandement have we from him that he who loveth God loveth his brother also 1 John 4.21 If a man say as it proceedeth vers 20. If a man say I love God and Jesus Christ and hateth his brother he is a liar whosoever the man be for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen And again Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore love is the fulfilling of the law also Rom. 13.10 I confess I could now much refresh my self in this sweet rosie Discourse of this point of our love of Christ and our Brethren after my wearisome travelling through other sharp and thorny Disputes but I resolve this Page now in hand shall be the last and determine both Onely I shall minde you that amongst these your Neighbors and Brethren we the Ministers of Jesus Christ are to be accounted and taken in by your leave Sir for by his leave Sir we are so accepted of to be his Neighbours and Brethren his Neighbours as whom the Lord hath brought nigh unto himselfe to do the service of the Tabernacle and Temple Number 16.9 and also his Brethren For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one for which cause he is not ashamed tocall them brethren Hebrews 2.11 whether sanctified by Grace from him or by Office under him and if he called and owned the Hearers and Doers of his Word his Brethren sure he owneth for such also the Preachers and Doers of the same Yea see how Christ Jesus not onely owneth them for such but oneth them also as himself if I may so speak saying He that heareth you heareth me he that receiveth you receiveth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me Matthew 10.4 Luke 10.17 And truly I must tell you that when our People were let alone and left to themselves and our Ministers and before they were befooled and bewitched by you separation from us as the Galathians were by creepers in amongst them they did as the same Galathians Paul receive their learned pious and industrious Ministers as Angels of God even as Christ Jesus Galath 4.14 And will do so again I believe or hope by that time they have had a little more trial and experience of your courses and seen the difference betwixt the new light or flashings of your blazing Comets and the old light and lustre of their own fixed Stars But I give over proving against you or reproving seeing you have given over accusing of us and reviling and are fallen upon love in your last line love I say and that of Christ Jesus the most lovely Object for a fair conclusion from those foul Principles of malice in your former lines malice I say and that against the Church of England and her Ministers the least deserving hatred from you because serving you by love shewed if not saving you by faith Preached to you My advice I know will seem strange and irrational to you in the form of my words and expression Forsake your Principles and leave them hold fast your conclusion and keep it but it is good and religious in the matter of sense and my intention which is this Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice Ephes 4.31 this was your Original sin and bad Principles And again Be kindly affectioned one to another in brotherly love love as Brethren be pitifull courteous of one minde having compassion putting on the bowels of mercies Rom. 12.19 1 Peter 3.8 Goloss 3.12 And thus your latter end hath been better than your beginning and your conclusion
3. The case of necessity in state of Person I scarce understand unless it be this When as he or she earnestly desireth and imploreth for the same whether by its speech or its need and there is no Minister to give it Baptism here the Lord will have mercy and not sacrifice and men are not to stand upon this ordination but the persons salvation Let but your Brother or your self stay and expect such cases of necessity before you or he dip any more or baptize again and then though you be not nor he set a part for the administring that Ordinance but are meer Lay men you shall hear nothing from me against the same I assure you But if in a well ordered and already planted and constituted Church and that when there are no such cases or states of necessity but that lawfully ordained Ministers may easily be procured you and your Brethren will go on still to dip and baptize and that publiquely being no better ordered or set a part then you have related I shall say though again Ye take too much upon you ye sons of Gad for I shall not hold you of the Tribe of Levi Num. 16.7 or Issachar rather couching down between two burthens Genes 49.14 your Laical and Ministerial Callings And it shall come to pass as Zacharias saith Zach. 13.4 5. that such Prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision which he hath prophesied and every one of his Division that he hath made and set a partition yea of his Dipping also that he hath ministred and Baptisin and he shall say and confess at last I am no Prophet I am an Husbandman for man taught me to keep cattel from my youth God never ordained me to dip Christians from my birth Distinctly Take this a Presbyter or Priest in respect of his Ministerial Character and Order I mean onely a sacerdotal gift power and commission is primarily and principlally the publick and ordinary minister of Baptism A Deacon may baptize also and that publikely so it be at the appointment of the Bishop or Priest but a Priest by his own right may baptize ex officio as we say by vertue of his sacerdotal office even in the presence of a Bishop But a Layman may not baptize publickely but onely privately neither privately in the presence of a Priest or Deacon but onely in their absence neither alwayes in their absence but onely in case of necessity Then it hath been permitted according to the good old way and new way also of true Churches some such times to Laymen to baptize so he intend to do that which the Catholick Church doth in that kind of administration The second Catechistical Quaere is concerning the Persons Dipped Quaere 2. What warrant of precept or example have you from the Sacred Word or Prim tive Antiquity for your Dipping and Anabapâ—izâ—ng Christians washed before or members of the visible Church baptized once in their Infancy by lawful Ministers so as the two Women and Sisters were whom your Brother Dipped Ask now of the days that are past which were before since the day that God created man and woman upon Earth and commanded circumcision in the eldest Chruch of the Jews and appointed Baptism in the younger Church of the Gentiles ask from the beginning to the end of both whether there hath been any such thing as this that a person circumcised or baptized in their infancy were ever recircumcised or rebaptized at growth or yeras after when they could render a Reason or make confession of their Faith c. Instance in one if you can and be instant upon it as you will and is not then your dipping the formerly dipped a new business As for that example of Joshua upon Gods command Circumcise again the children of Israel the second time Jos 5.2 This doth not intimate any Repetition or Reiteration of that Sacrament in or to the same particular Israelitish person circumcised as if he should be now circumcised again but onely relates the Restauration and Renovation of that Sacrament unto the people of Israel in general amongst whom Circumcision was a long while intermitted and discontinued by reason of their frequeut yea continual journals and removings up and down as the 4 5 6 Verses do evidence the same As for that Acts 19.5 of St. Pauls practise the example of the Ephesian Disciples in the Acts it is abundantly answered in my Instruction of your Scribe to which I refer you and I add this for a plainer and shorter Resolution for you 1. That it maketh nothing for your Re-dipping and Re-baptizing 1. Because St. John's Baptism being there spoken of and you or your Sect being Popish in your opinion of Re-baptizing and so holding from hence that the Baptism of John and Christ are two different Baptisms and that in the substance and not onely in the Degree of their signification and efficacy Here was no iterat on of one and the same but the ministration of a diverse Baptism and so is not to your or my purpose 2 For that there is no Baptism of water spoken of much less there laid to be reiterated that the Ephesian Disciples had long before received from some of Johns Disciples but onely the Baptism of Fire i.e. of the Spirit and the miraculous gifts of the same is there mentioned which they confess they had not so much as heard of namely that they unsually as then accompanied the other Baptism of water And so that the former was that they were baptized with and was poured upon them there in the Name of Jesus namely the gifts of the holy Spirit which were miraculous If you shall produce as somewhat you must say for your selves the example of Saul Cornelius and the Eunuch baptized in their elder years upon their conversion to and cofession of Christ and the commands of God to Ananias Peter and Philip c. to baptize them thereupon All this and as much more which you might have alledged of the same sort brings no advantage to your practice no age to your new business of Rebaptising the second time for that the mentioned above were their first and onely baptizings they being some of them Pagans born others aliens from the Covenant of Christ adverse and opposite to ignorant at leastwise of the Christian Faith were then frist of all baptized upon their embracing of it and never after baptized again No not the Black Aethiopian amongst them was ever dipped the second time And what is all this to your Redipping of two Women baptized before in their infancy as being born Christians and within the Covenant of Grace and Christ Yea more if the Pope of Rome should come over into England and turn Protestant or become one of your Sect a separate nor we would nor should you of right baptize him again having been baptized before rightly as to the Element and Words of Institution Therefore the Ancient Orthodox Church never Re-baptized Hereticks themselves upon their
or testified by others to Asperse or sprinkle In the Name of the Father of the Son and of the holy Ghost a little water upon the face fore-head of your child in the bed gently washing therewith by the moving of his hands with prayer and supplication before and after Thus doing both dangers may be prevented and this was that I with the Ancients even now called Baptismus Clinicorum How long halt ye betwixt two opinions and thoughts if the sprinkling or aspersion be baptism follow it but if dipping and immersion then follow it And the people with their Dipper answered me not a word I will but add one Testimony more and that is of Walafridus Strabo de rebus Ecl. cap 26. Notandum non solùm mergendo sed etià m de super fundendo multos baptizato fuisse adhuc pâ—sse baptizari It is a thing to be noted as it is notable that many have bin formerly and may still be baptized not onely bydipping and immerging but also by sprinkling and pouring water upon them and so he also maketh mention of the baptizing of St. Laurence out of a Pitcher or Pot of water which was by aspersion or perfusion and 〈◊〉 was often as he saith when as the bigness of the bodies of grown persons converted would not suffer them to be immerged and dipped in the Vessel their Baptisteries and Fonts being too little for them And so I have done my Task which was to be a Task-master unto some of the Egyptians who have bin and would be still Task-masters over the Israel and churches of God and give out their commands for the dipping and immerging of our children in Ponds or Rivers when and then onely they shall be of years of discretion and confession as to their faith and I have drawn up this my censure of it as an Ark you will presently say I know of Bulrushes and therefore I say so in present myself afore-hand to prevent you The which how weak and mean a thing soever you may think it through Gods providence may be a means to preserve a Moses and more children of Israel from your immergings and plun gings of them for the time little else then drownings especially the Ark being daubed with slime and pitch cemented and closed together with Scriptures Reasons and Antiquity moreover More plainly I have passed my censure upon your late dipping and immerging in my Parish for a new business as I called it once and ever shall and if I could stand so long about it and the Reader would stay the while as to gather them up together or take a review of the evidences I have brought in against it for a new business I do think there would be a full Jury and a grand Jury of them the which propounded and given up to any indifferent Judge besides your self he would not onely passe a censure of novelty upon it as I hove done but might crie once and again Novitas novitatum omnia novitas Yea and he would give out a Sentence of vanity also upon the same and say vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas The Person dipping and baptizing an ordinary man no ordained Minister the Persons dipped and baptized Christians born and baptized before The manner the dipping and baptizing them in their cloathes the circumstances or ceremonies I omitted because they were not onely new and vain but foolish and immodest and the action of dipping the whole body over head and ears in the cloathes and lastly the place a common Horse-pond and weyr Novelty of novelties all is novelty yea Vanity of vanities all is vanity I will say no more of it though more might be said of it then that it was a new and a vain busines yea a taking of the Name of God Father Son and holy Ghost in vain I will now onely add a Corollary or two touching the whole business betwixt us and so I shall give a Vale or Fare-well to it and to your Letter and my answer or censure rather for so I must call it to the end who so stiled it in the beginning Coroll 1. §. 1 Immersion and dipping in baptism especially thrice as also Aspersion and sprinkling or rather perfusion and pouring on of water though but once were both the good old way in the manner as they were done and administred by the primitive Doctors and ancient Fathers of the Church And to do the cause and the truth right their immersion was the older way I say not the better way and is some years older then their aspersion as many years as Tertullian lived before Cyprian which by computation is not above two or three and fifty years difference or distance betwixt their times Yea but I will recal that Verdict and do reverse that saying as whereby I do immersion and dipping too much right and aspersion and sprinkling too much wrong as to their Births Right and Originals for I do remember a testimony before cited by me out of Tertullian lib de poenit cap. 6. in these words which may be repeated here again without any Tautollogy being to several and different purposes and proofs Neque ego renuo divinum beneficium i. e. abolitionem peccatorum inituris aquam omnimodo salvum esse sed ut eò pervenire contingat elaborandum est Quis enim tibi tam infidae poenitentiae viro asperginem unam cujuslibet aquae commodabit where you read and see in plain and evident words that aspersion of the adult and grown persons was in Tertullians dayes also and I might also now passe the Verdict the other way and say that immersion and dipping is the yonger way some years yonger then aspersion and sprinkling as many years as Cyprian is yonger then Tertullian about fifty two or three The truth then is They were both of them as twins as Esau and Jacob in the womb of Rebecca Gen. 25.24 as two manners of baptizing in the Church of God born much about the same time and as also Esau and Jacob did they lived and walked together a while and sometimes lived apart and assunder and the one was used in one place and the other practised in another place according to the diversities of the Churches and difference of the ages and variety of customs in and amongst them and so it continued for an eight or nine hundred years But what and if as it may be immersion like Esau being indeed the more hairy rougher and harder manner and way of baptizing might get out first and come forth into the Churches practise it was but a very little while before for aspersion like Jacob being indeed the plainer and smoother and easier way and manner of baptizing soon followed after and at the heels Yea as Jacobs hand took hold on Esâus heel and after supplanted him of the blessing of his Birth-right so aspersion if behind overtook immersion and wholy supplanted it of its primogeniture and so got away the blessing from it to be the onely
some used the one in their Dioceses some the other manner of baptizing in their Divisions and both sorts with an opinion of indifferences of the thing in it self and with liberty of practise left each unto other as the affairs and the occasions of the Church required of changing and altering Who can justly challenge or rebuke our Church of England and the guides thereof for holding and retaining either the one or the other or both as she doth in some way and case but betaking her chiefly and most usually to aspersion and pouring on-water and that but once so leaving both the Ancient Fathers of old some of them and the younger Fathers of Rome all of them in the number of the Trin or thrice for that the Trinity is sufficiently enough set out in the very form of our baptizing In the name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost why should any impose upon us or require of us either the Trine immersion at all or immersion at all constantly and continually considering we are not of the Eastern Churches where the Clymate being hot parties to be baptized might the better undergo the waters and be dipt but we are of the Church Western and our Church of the more Northerly side were the air waters clymate being cold the tenderer bodies of our infants cannot be immerged or dipt without evident danger to their healths and lives Have we not power to lay down and old custom as well as Gregory and Augustine and Cyprian or I onely and Barnabas the Ministers of the Church of England have we not power to forbear dipping and immerging especially where it may be sodangerous prejudicial What though some ancient Churches had such a custom of old we have no such custom neither the Churches of God now a dayes 1 Cor. 11.16 and when they had it it was but for a time Temporary it was but for an use upon an occasion Arbitrary it was not under a necessity for but with a liberty to other Churches It is a part of the former Gregory his words in the same Epistle worthy notice taking In eadem fide nihil officit sanctae Ecclesiae consuetudo diversa where there is the same faith and an unity in it a different custom in things indifferent nothing burteth or prejudiceth the Church of God as which hath power and authority to enact and to abrogate such things to be observed or omitted to all her Church children and members And therefore Sir I have not nor do censure and condemn you absolutely for the one and simple immersion nor for immersion simply and onely but for your immersion your simple one an immersion that hath almost nothing of Antiquity being such as is every way distant and different from the ancient immersion in all things but in this that your dipping was but once and simple and also for that it was a rash and presumptuous undertaking of a few private Plebeians and vulgar people without any Law or Licence or order of Church or State so far is it from any precept or prescript or President of the Word and Scripture I will be briefer in the next Corrollary for it is time to have done about this matter Coroll 3. §. 3 The nature of baptism is but this the cleansing and washing away the guilt and filth of sin by the application of waters according to the appointment of Christ signifying and exhibiting the blood of Christ that purgeth and purifieth that way and all the outward Sacramental actions thereof are but onely to represent and set out more lively the inward grace of baptism which is still but the ablution of sin This indeed ablution and washing of sin is necessary as being of the nature as I said and Essence of Baptism for this is called therefore the very washing of regeneration by which we are saved through the mercy of God Tit. 3.5 and so the washing of water by the Word with which Christ doth sanctifie and cleanse his Church Ephes 5.26 and so St. Paul tells the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6.11 Such were some of you soul sinners but ye are washed but ye are sanctified c. in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God But the manner and way of washing and ablution of sin either that way by dipping and immerging the whole body into and under the water or by aspersion or perfusion or rather superfusion of water upon some part of the body this is not necessary but as I said Indifferent and Adiaphorous and Arbitrary and so not of the essence and form but of the accidence and formality rather or solemnity of Baptism so then if the ablution of sin washing off the guilt and filth thereof may be as well if not better represented by aspersion and sprinkling and pouring on of water upon some part of the body and gently rubbing on the same by the moving of the hand thereupon as by the dipping immerging and plunging of the whole body into and under the waters and holding it some while thereunder as it must be I add also if it the aforesaid aspersion or perfusion be as effectual to the good spiritual ends and purposes of baptism as the aforesaid immersion I see no reason to the contrary but that both the ancient and modern or present aspersion and perfusion or superfusion of water is as warrantable and allowable in baptism if not still more as the somewhat ancienter immersion dipping and diving in and under water for as for any such modern or present immersion dipping or diving under water as yours is I acknowledge it not we have no such custom nor the Churches of God as I said but now It is true the body must be washed and wetted with water in baptism either one way or another and that 's enough for the truth and nature of baptism now this may be and is done when we baptize with sprinkling and pouring water upon it or part of it and gently rubbing the flesh therewith as well as by dipping and immerging And therefore we do not speak falsly when but sprinkling and pouring on water we say we do baptize and do not dip that 's your false speech for though we dip not into the water we lay on water and wash and therefore do baptize Oh but were it not far better more agreable to Antiquity and the benefit from baptism more ample and large if the whole body were dipt and immerged then onely some part thereof the face forehead or head aspersed and washed This is answered already that our way of superfusion or aspersion with water is as significant as effectual as the other and as ancient within a sew years if any as the other way yea was in force and life amongst the Ancients when the other was dead and gone and besides we are freed from it where we will plead our freedom because we live out of the Hot Countreys where it was bred and born and was to be
say they have converted you and so say some others I am sure and done you much good to your souâ— which you have said you would commit to them and trust them with a very foolish almost blasphemous speech if you said it And God faith here they shall not profit you at all and therefore do you no good either in soul and body as to Conversion and Salvation whom shall I believe God or you whom do you believe God or your self Gods true prediction or your own false suggestion Come come Sir Let God be true and every man a lyer Rom. 3.4 as it is written also for so your self and every other man that saith he hath profited in soul unto Salvation or Conversion by these unsent and unordained Preachers of the separation when as God saith such shall not profit the people at all by their Anabaptistical Doctrines and Preachings Mistake me not I am not against the profit that may come even from them to you or others by mutual and fraternal conferences exhortations admonitions supplications so long as their words be seasoned with the falt of Truth and Grace and be good to the use of edifying and your selves have your senses exercised to discern both good and evil and be able to try and prove all things and hold to that which is good for so God hath allowed and approved of it and profit may come upon it Col. 3.16 1 Thes 5.11 But this from Gods Word I hold That an usurped publick taking upon them the cure of souls without Commission as teaching Anabaptists do in a manner yea upon the matter of the fraternity and sorority within their limits and also their dispensing and dividing the mysteries of the Word and Seals of the Sacraments without a lawful sending ordination and separation thereto and that in a rightly constituted and planted Church where there is a power of order and degrees and a settled or fixed Ministery will be of no profit and benefit to you or the people as to Faith and Conversion that wait and attend onely upon such a service or Ministery if I may so call it For now lift up your eyes and look on the fields are they white unto the Harvest since people left praying that God would send Husbandmen into his work and Laborers into his Vineyard and since people have left coming to and attending upon their own painful preaching Ministers and have betaken themselves to the hearing of self-intruding peakers which were none of Gods calling or sending are they not rather smutched and smitten with blasting and mildew with pride haughtiness malice variance rancour envy fraudulency covetousness lying defamation hypocrisies impuâ—ities more then ever they were and compassed about of late with such a dark cloud of Satans witnesses and his Emissaries every where transforming themselves into Angels of New light no better then darkness Besides the Schisms in the Churches of God and destractions of mens minds the contempts of Gods Ordinances the broaching of Errors and Heresies the Rapines Sacriledges and Massacres that have been committed the slighting of Laws and Civil Magistrates the uprising of bloody Wars and throwing down of Order and Proprieties Insurrection and Rebellion And now Sir I return to you again to whom I have a sixth thing to acquaint you with and then I shall take my leave and subscribe a friendly farewel to you § Sixthly What shall I say more to you of these men for that indeed a notable change and alteration hath been wrought in you is manifest to all them that dwell here abouts and we cannot deny it my self as I have said rejoyce at it yea and the Angels in Heaven rejoyce over one sinner that repenteth and converteth truly and sincerely This therefore I will say even the same still that you do That the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth But I ask as St. Paul doth Gal. 2.3 This onely would I hear and know of you Received you the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of the Faith so received you this Grace or your Conversion of being pluckt out of yoru evil wayes to the knowledge of the Truth from the Word preached by your Brethren of the separation or from the Word preached by my self or other ordained Ministers I have proved before that unsent Teachers and Preachers shall not and cannot profit you with their Doctrines especially being not of God and his Word and therefore they have not wrought any such thing in you by their Doctrines and that you could not cannot attain and therefore have not attained to Faith but by hearing of a sent and ordained Preacher and the Word of God by him Again received you this Grace of God or your Conversion and plucking out of your evil wayes from the Spirit of God in and by your last Dippism or your first Baptism not in and by your last dipping at Laver for this requireth Conversion and Faith and Profession of it before you can be partaker of it you must bring these with you already wrought to your dipping your dipping doth not work them at that time but presupposeth them so I cannot call your dipping a Laver of Regeneration but a Generation of I know not what at Laver or a degeneration Besides I have shewed this your dipping which is but a Re-baptizing at the best to be a humane device yea Heretical practise so esteemed and for such condemned of the Churches of God throughout all Ages and therefore it can be no means or instrument of God and his Grace to pluck you from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth Whither now Sir will you go as Hos 2.7 so is yur case She shall follow after her Lovers but she shall not overtake them and she shall seek them but shall not finde them then shall she say I will go and return to my first Husband for then was it better with me then now Follow not therefore after those your Suitors and Solicitors rather your inveiglers and beguilers that rather have tempted your spiritual chastity and attempted also somewhat upon your body but come and return to your first Husband Christ Jesus and your first Covenant of Grace sealed unto you in your first Baptism from which as from the Fountain hath issued out all other Grace of God appearing to you sithence and even that plucking you out from your wicked wayes and bringing you to the knowledge of the Truth through his dispensing his word and your hearing the same of Gods Ministers sent to that purpose and through the operation of his Spirit stirring up the Grace of God in you and the Grace of the same sanctifying your afflictions and last sickness and fears and other things that have befallen you She did not know that her first Husband gave her Corn and Wine and Oyl and multiplyed her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal Hos 2.8 or as in the
margent wherewith they made Baal And so you do not or did not know that Gods first Covenant of Grace in Christ I will be thy God and the God of thy seed sealed unto you in your Infant-baptism your first Infant-baptism sealing unto you the Covenant of the Grace of God in Christ gave you your knowledge of the Truth your Conversion from your evil wayes your Repentance your Faith and increased these and other Graces in you which you and they prepare for and ascribe to their and your Anabaptism and wherewith they and you would make Anabaptism leaping upon the Altar that they have made and dousing in the Ponds that you go to crying O Baal hear us or Great is Diana of the Ephesians the dipping of the Anabaptists Why halt ye or how long O ye people halt ye between two opinions or two Baptisms 1 Kings 18.21 if your first Infant-baptism be the Seal of Gods Covenant of Grace to you follow it but if the Anabaptists second Dippism be the Seal then follow it Therefore I say farther to them the people and you not I even I onely but we even we also thousands of us remain the Ministers of the Lord and your Prophets are a great many more for every one that will with you may consecrate himself and be a Prophet we as we do will still bring our children and Infants of believing Parents unto Baptism in our Churches pouring on or sprinkling water In the name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost with invocation or calling on the Name of the Lord and do you as you use go out with your grown but born Christians men and women whom you have with-held from their Baptism in their Infancy or with other grown persons formerly baptized whom you have seduced into your by-wayes and carry them to your dippings and diving them over head and ears body cloathes in your Ponds of the field the Baptism or washing that answereth by fire I mean the Spirit 1 Kings 18.24 and spiritual Graces bringing after to Repentance from evil wayes and unto the knowledge of the Truth let that be the right washing and Baptism indeed All the people I know will and yur selves also must needs answer The word is good and it is well spoken Now then I propose and it s my major proposition most true That washing with water or Baptism which answereth by fire cavil not at the phrase God in or by Baptism I mean and hath the Graces of Gods Spirit Faith Repentance Conversion answerable and following thereupon is that and that onely which is mentioned in the Scriptures as of Gods Institution so conjunction Mat. 3.11 Mark 1.8 Acts 2.38 John 3.6 and in a great many other places which formerly I have brought shewing the correspondence or accompanying the one of or to and after the other the Baptism and the Spirit But I assume and it is my minor proposition yet no less true That neither of your two dippings I call them two in respect of the Subjects which are of two sorts some formerly baptized and some not are to be found in any part of Scripture throughout the whole Bible either instituted of God or conjoyned with fire or the Spirit as my whole Book and this annexed Treatise or Censure hath cleared demonstrated And therefore I may conclude Negatively against your diping by Anabaptists that it answereth not by fire and so you have received from them and it nothing but water no fire no Spirit no Grace no Regeneration no Conversion no plucking out of your evil wayes into the knowledge of the Truth What you have of these Goods or Graces in present you have and received as sparks at your first Baptism in your Infancy which being according to the Scriptures and to Gods Ordinance and Institution answereth by Fire in all Gods elect children as who are inwardly also baptized of the Spirit whch is the fire I mean and speak of which answering also by fire in them afterwards sheweth their Baptism in Infancy to have been according to the Scripture Gods Ordinance and Institution To come up yet closer to you If you Sir be one of those that belong unto the Election and Covenant of Grace as I in charity judged of you as I ought to do when I baptized you and gave you Baptism as the seal of the Covenant then were you baptized with fire i. e. the Spirit as well as water the inward Grace being united to the outward Sign unto such and the Spirit as truly and really and actualy applying the merits and blood of Christ in the justifying and sanctifying vertue unto your soul as I did the water to your body or bodily part of your face or forehead and the invisible Grace of the Sacrament was conveyed to you by such visible means so that if you had dyed in your Infancy this your Baptism had been to you supposing you still an Elect Infant as a seal of the Righteousness of Christ extraordinarily applied by the holy Ghost to your Justification and Salvation God hath now suffered you to live to years of discretion I must therefore put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift or Grace of God which is in you as Paul speaketh to Timothy 2 Tim. 1.6 I cannot say by the putting on of my hands but I may by the pouring on of that water with my hands The word in the original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stir up that fire of the Spirit I spake of and to quicken up the grace of Baptism that hath lien under the ashes throughout your youthful and sinful dayes of ignorance that so now it may kindle and burn brighter in you You are now to bestir your self in reading the Word and hearing it preached by such Ministers as God sendeth into the Church and amongst them him especially who baptized you at first that so you may come to Faith by such means and by Faith now actually lay hold on the promises of the Covenant of Grace touching Justification Remission and Adoption and enjoy them to your use and comfort which were but made and sealed in your Baptism as to every Elect Childe of God and estated upon you on Gods part as to your Right and Title I do not say that your Baptism properly did give you or primarily the Right and Interest you have unto God and Christ Gods free Covenant and promise did it but it sealed up onely and mainly confirmeth that Right and Interest which you had already even then in Gods Govenant and Promise Gods Word is as good as his Bond and his Promise as effectual as his Seal your Baptism as the other Sacrament was not for the strengthning or effectualizing of Gods Covenant but to the confirming and supporting your faith in apprehending it I would make this very plain to you hoping it may be for some good to you Suppose an Estate made over unto you in your Infancy by a Will and Testament under Seal you
return and reversion to the Faith who were before baptized nor the children of Professors though baptized by Hereticks or heretical Ministers if rightly according to the Ordinance but rather condemned it and pronounced it a Heresie to hold it or to practise so a Rebaptization For the Sacrament of the Eucharist there is a Quotiescunque it should be received as oft of the same Person as may be conveniently for that our growth and augmentation in grace ought to be daily and continually whereof the Eucharist is the Sacrament But I never read of above a semel of the Sacrament of Baptism that it should be received above once of the same person because our Spiritual Birth and incision into Christ is but once whereof Baptism is the Sacrament The thing is acted but once and therefore is signified but once I acknowledge indeed that it is no where expresly written that baptism should not be irerated and received the second time so it s no where said there are three Persons of the Deity though the word of persons is no in sacred Writ yet the will of God about the things signified by the Word is revealed and expressed in the same So the Will of God that baptism should not be iterated and once baptized should not be re-baptized or baptized the second time appears partly out of what I have alledged 1. That Circumision was never iterated none ever circumcised twice and Baptism succeeds Circumcision 2. That there is mention made of an Iteration or often Receiving the Lords Supper but not a syllable of Intimation there or elsewhere of the like of Baptism 3. That in the very Place and Scripture where Christ instituted Baptism which yet had been the very proper place for it there is no order at all for re-baptizing or iterating baptism 4. That among all the many examples of persons baptized There is not one recorded to have been re-baptized no not Simon the Sorcerer nor Demas the Revolter not one of the Cormthians nor of the Galathians relapsed but onely were called upon to Return to the Grace of the Covenant sealed in their first Baptism by Repentance and Faith I suppose the grand reason of your re-dipping and re-baptizing in elder age is this for that you hold your first dipping and baptizing to be vain Invalide frustrate which was transacted in your infancy for so one of your Sect told me the other day that when he was a Child he was Christened but he was then also but cozened As I warned him so I wish you to take heed unto your wayes that you offend not in your tongue or thought so as in either of them to reproach the Living God or blaspheme his holy and effectual Baptism by thinking and calling this a Cozenage and him a Mocker Did God cozen the whole Church and People of Israel when he appointed and commanded their children even but of eitht days old to be circumcised how then doth he cozen the Church and people of the Gentils in our Infants baptized seeing baptism is the Circumcision made without hands Col. 2.11 Nay seeing both Circumcision and Baptism are the signs and seals of that one and the same Everlasting Covenant of Grace they neither are nor can be any cozenage or frustrate things to the right Partakers of them until they be frustrated by themselves the Partakers as by Esau was his birth-right and also his circumcision and them God is rather mocked and cozened then a Mocker and Cozener but they are valide and of force to the spiritual good ends and purposes of either and therefore being rightly once imprinted are of vigour and vertue of frait and efficacy during life and so long as the Covenant lasteth which is everlasting as I said and so need not to be repeated and reiterated but are often to be revolved and revived in our mindes memories and meditation and the Tenor of the Covenant daily to be studied and practised and the Conditions thereof on our part to be observed and performed accordingly Rather your self Sir and your two Sisters were cozeded and cheated and never so much in all your lives as when you renounced that your first Christian Infant baptism and received this your second novel youthful Dippism Nor can that be any good reason of your re-dipping or rebaptizing your defect of Faith in the time of your Infancy or sithence days of age your Eccess of sins such as have vacated the gracious Covenant and vitiated a good Conscience For you must consider that the Covenant is sealed in Baptism or Baptism is added to the Covenant on Gods part as well as mans God promising there Grace and Eternal life and man stipulating for Faith and new Obedience Though therefore you might or did fly from the performance of your Promise by Hypocrisie or Apostasie and upon such default on your part lost your right and claim of eternal life God notwithstanding stood and standeth still firm to his Promise on his part as who never breaketh Covenant with any nor ever loseth his right to any party baptized by any default made on his side These things if they be true as they are most true God being not as man that be should change and alter to what purpose was it that you should or did entâ—r anew into a Covenant with God and reiterate the seal thereof Baptism and so be rebaptized and re-dipped which was but will-worship of yours fruitless and a tradit on of men needless no where commanded you of God no where exemplified to you by the men of God the Saints This rather you should have done as that one and onely necessary thing you should have repented of your evil ways and works and so have returned unto God in Covenant already and still with you sealed in your Infant-Baptism though forfeited on your part yet not released on Gods part This you should have earnestly pleaded with God confessing your sins and by Faith firmly embracing it through Christ your Advocate and Mediatour Thus you would have set your former Baptism on work and your self too in performing the conditions thereof and so you should have recovered and received all the fruits and benefits of the Covenant of Grace sealed to you by Baptism in your Infancy This every where in Scripture do the Prophets call upon Covenant-breakers on their part and his revolting and relapsed people to repent and to return to their first Covenant with God sealed in their Circumcision not to any re-circumcision as you may see Jeremy 3.1 12. Hos 2.7 and 6.1 And so the Apostle cals to the Corinthians and the Galathians who were far gone from God yea fain from Grace not to put off their old baptism and to put on a new but to put off the old man and to put on the new to Repent of sin and to return to the Grace of the Covenant to perform the condition of their baptism and to grow up in the fruits of the Spirit minding them